Notes from a Melody

Something reliable

2012-01-12T14:42:00.003-05:00

Yes, I realize I didn't write a single blog entry in December, and this is my first in January. Just haven't been able to work up the necessary momentum. It has become harder and harder to make myself do anything I don't have to do -- possibly as the result of depression -- on top of which my feelings about my blog have always been nebulous at best. Is keeping it up a total waste of time? Is anybody out there reading it? Admittedly, I do have statistics that show people are reading it, but I get virtually no feedback these days, to any of my posts, which makes me wonder if people show up once, take a look, are not particularly impressed, and never come back. And I sometimes feel I am just part of the current national obsession with exhibitionism. I have always tried to make my blog postings more than what-I-ate-today, or this-is-my-opinion-about-that, but basically they are about what I do/observe/think/feel. And, well, who cares?

However, something just happened that has inspired me to write. The postman showed up. No big deal, right? Only we're in the midst of a major snow storm, 6-10 inches predicted, probably three inches on the ground now, and the roads, especially the back streets, still minimally plowed. Nearly everything closed for the day, including my little library (director's discretion), but here comes the mail truck. As I laughingly said to the fellow when I went to the door to relieve him of my mail, before he stuck it in the box: "Neither rain, nor snow, nor..." "That's right," he laughed, "nor anything else the world decides to throw at us."

And isn't that great?! Isn't it wonderful that this tradition lives on? My power could go out any minute -- no more computer access -- people have trouble with their telephones all the time -- but the mail, that old-fashioned mode of communication, always goes through.

But the poor old post office is in dire financial straits, as it has been for years, they're closing rural and big-city branch offices right and left -- some of them, as has been pointed out, the hub of their small communities -- they're talking about eliminating Saturday service altogether...

And yes, it's a shame. A shame that such a truly noble institution seems to have outlived its usefulness, as more and more people turn to doing business online, rather than through the mail, communicating on a personal level via email or text-messaging rather than with letters, as services like FedEx and UPS usurp the package-delivery end of things (they, too, make a point of getting their packages through, and as quickly as possible). But for now, anyway, I can be appreciative of my local letter carrier, since "neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

I was surprised to learn, by the way, that this famous "motto" is not the official motto of the Post Office -- which doesn't have one -- although it is inscribed on the James Farley Post Office in New York City (a huge, great P.O. building). It's derived from a quote from Herodotus' Histories (Book 8, Ch. 98), referring to the courier service of the ancient Persian Empire, (which shows you that, yes, there's nothing new under the sun):

It is said that as many days as there are in the whole journey, so many are the men and horses that stand along the road, each horse and man at the interval of a day’s journey; and these are stayed neither by snow nor rain nor heat nor darkness from accomplishing their appointed course with all speed.

And by the way, The Farley Post Office once held the distinction of being the only Post Office in New York City open to the public 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Now that's service. But in 2009, due to the economic downturn, its windows began to close at 10:00 p.m.

Winter in no uncertain terms

2011-11-23T11:00:00.003-05:00

Well, it must be winter: had to break out the warm, fake-leopard-skin robe this morning. The pretty, pale aqua one that was a Christmas present from friend Meaghan a few years back has served faithfully since about May, but this morning it was 28 degrees out (and snowing, about which more in a moment), and it was cold in my little house. Even turning the heat up didn't do the trick, so I dug around in the bottom of my portable closet (my little house comes with only one real closet), where I stack extra blankets, and I pulled out the folded-up, warm winter robe.

As to the snow, 6-12 inches are predicted. Although we had a freak snowstorm at the end of October -- which made newspaper headlines across the country, since it was only the fourth time since the Civil War that snow had fallen in New York City in October -- and many areas in New England got close to two feet of snow, here in the Augusta area we had only maybe four or five inches. So this is our first real snowstorm. And naturally it arrives on the day before Thanksgiving, when the whole world has a plane to catch -- or a couple of hours on the road to drive -- in order to get to Grandma's house. Fortunately I don't have to go anywhere, not even to work, since I made the executive decision, after digging out the winter robe, and standing at my front window for a few minutes looking out at the gently-falling snow (and the six inches that were already on the ground) not to open the library. Didn't even agonize over the decision, as I have so often in the past (see Note of Jan. 12, 2011). Although I have to admit I vacillated a little bit. I decided that if the snow had let up by this afternoon, we'd open at 2. My reason for this is that we are definitely and absolutely closed for the Thanksgiving holiday both tomorrow and Friday and, as I discussed in the note of Jan. 12th, I know some of our patrons depend on the library for reading (or viewing) matter to get them through such things as holidays, weekends, and snowed-in days. To be closed three days in a row is a bit much.

So I call the staff member who normally opens on Wednesdays, to tell her answering machine (Sue never answers the phone directly) that we are closed until maybe two o'clock; I call our answering machine at the library and change its message to say the same thing ("Please give us a call after that time to see if we are open), I call our snow-removal guy to let him know he doesn't have to worry about getting our walks cleared until this afternoon, and I prepare to enjoy an extra day off.

But nothing is ever simple. In my life these days nothing is ever simple. About an hour later I remember that this is ILL delivery day. Some libraries have two or three deliveries a week; our little library has only one, so if we miss it -- because, say, we're closed due to a storm -- then our patrons have to wait an additional week for their interlibrary loan books, and the libraries we are lending books to have to wait an additional week for their books.

So, sigh, I call the delivery service, to ask if they think the delivery guy will make it through, like the P.O., just maybe late. The woman I talk to says he may run late, because of the state of the roads, or he may actually run early, because so many libraries will have closed. So ultimately we agree that someone will be at the library to receive our delivery at two o'clock, unless I hear otherwise from her. And then I have to call Sue back to convey this information to her, so that she can plan on definitely being there then (Sue lives within walking distance of the library, so her getting there is not the ordeal it is for me when it snows.)

Now I just have to hope my neighborhood doesn't lose power...and that some strapping young boys will come around at some point and offer to do my shoveling for me (wait, do I have any money in the house? Hmm...)

All we need is love

2011-11-18T20:44:00.002-05:00

Have you heard about the lady from India (named Sudhamani, when she was born in a small village in India, but now known as Amma), who offers a hug to anyone who wants one? And about the thousands of people who lined up to receive one of her hugs at Alexandra Palace (now a kind of convention center) in North London? All kinds of people, different countries of origin (plenty of native Brits!), different religions, young and old.

Amma had to leave school at the age of nine to take care of her family, and began hugging people way back then, anyone who seemed to need it. According to her web site she was sometimes punished by her family for hugging inappropriately -- especially members of the Untouchable class, and older men (!) -- but she felt this expression of love towards people who were, in her eyes, suffering, was important enough to continue.

It's amazing to me that this woman goes around the world holding these hug fests, that she decided this was a good thing to do, and by George she was going to do it (and by the way, people do not pay for their hugs, so she does not make money from this aspect of these events, though perhaps she does from the sale of souvenirs, or the like.) And what's even more amazing to me is that in a land of physically inhibited people, like England, she draws these huge crowds, who just want a kindly, compassionate hug. What does that say about the state of our culture? People are hungry for someone to wrap them in a mother's embrace and reassure them, if only for a moment, that they are loved.

I've checked out Amma's web site (http://www.amma.org/humanitarian-activities/social/index.html), and find that her organization does have several what sound like very worthwhile projects, e.g., an orphanage for Untouchable children in Kerala, her native state, which is along the west coast of India, near its southern tip. And I love the quotation that appears on one page of her site: "A one word solution to all the problems the world is facing is compassion." I actually agree with that. I think if the leaders throughout the world felt real compassion, not only for their own people, but for the people of the other countries of the world, as well (remember that shot of the earth from space -- we are one small planet); if instead of competition and one-upmanship there was a spirit of helpful cooperation, springing from that compassion...well, a heluva lot of our problems would indeed go away.

David Sillito, the BBC newsman who was reporting on Amma's appearance in London, interviewed several people both before and after their hugs: "What do you expect from this?" "No idea whatsoever." "How was it?" "Unexplainable, you just cannot describe how you feel;" "I'm sorry, I'm speechless; I haven't come back to the real world yet;" "That was..."(expulsion of breath)..."something else." "Ah...It was a very nice hug.")

The reporter finally announced that the only way to really know what it was like, was to do it, so we saw him on his knees in front of this chubby little woman (who was seated), getting hugged. Then she laughed, handed him an apple, and sprinkled him with flower petals. As he stepped away and faced the camera you could tell that he was actually moved, to his surprise and somewhat to his chagrin -- undoubtedly as much of a cynic as the next reporter. In his report that appeared online, Sillito said that what that hug reminded him of was his mother, and what he did after he left Alexandra Palace was call his mother.

I can't imagine myself getting in line behind hundreds of people, to kneel, and have this total stranger embrace me in a hug of several moments. But I have to admit, I could use a hug.

Just imagine...

2011-11-11T21:34:00.003-05:00

Well, it really is a shame about Mr. Cain. The accusations of sexual harassment are coming fast and furious now. The analysts on shows like PBS's Washington Week and Inside Washington have been saying for some time that he doesn't have the money, or the organization, to go all the way in the presidential race (and what kind of democracy is it in which having plenty of money is a primary requirement for running for president?)...not to mention the fact that his 9-9-9 tax proposal has come in for lots of criticism, being pronounced too simplistic by most economists. (Its simplicity is of course what appeals to people, since people prefer simple answers and solutions, even when the problems they seek to address are complex).

And now we have these accusations, which certainly won't help him, though apparently many people are still giving the man the benefit of the doubt, because they like him so much.

But here's what really makes it all such a shame. I was really enjoying the idea of two black men being the ultimate candidates for president. Who would doubt we had made progress in the area of racial relations then? Of course, those Republicans who dislike Obama at least partly because he's black wouldn't be thrilled to have a black man as their party's candidate, but if they still voted for Cain -- I'll take this black man over that black man -- that would surely represent progress! And that would mean two black presidents in a row! I don't agree with most of Cain's policy stands -- of course, since I'm a good Democrat and he's a good Republican -- but I would at least derive satisfaction from that historical precedent being set, were he elected.

The "experts" are still saying Mitt Romney is the most likely Republican candidate to go up against President Obama. It really will be interesting to see what develops over the next couple of months.

Winter comes early as the witches fly

2011-10-30T18:11:00.008-04:00

We had our first snowfall last night. Here in the Augusta area we got about two inches, so definitely more than a dusting. To my mind, early; last year the first snowfall was a whole month later (Nov. 26). The year before we had what I called a mini-snowstorm on Nov. 6th (See Note of Nov. 9, 2009), and I declared I wasn't ready then. So needless to say I'm not ready on Oct. 30th to wake up to snow on my lawn, my car, the back deck railing. But of course Mother Nature (don't you think it's interesting that humankind made God male, but Nature female?) couldn't care less who's ready and who's not. Just as she doesn't care how many people are living in paper houses above a fault line, or on the hillsides below a volcano.

What's really strange is that, since there were still leaves on the trees, and the snowfall was accompanied by wind, my snow-covered lawn is also pockmarked with yellow-brown leaves. It looks almost like a white quilt, with a leaf pattern.

Yesterday we had what has become our annual Kids' Halloween Party at the library. One of those events I HATE putting together. Librarian as Social Director; as we all know by now, my least favorite role as a public librarian. Thank God I have had a Program Coordinator for the past year and a half (we hired him when I went to reduced hours), who takes care of most of the details for most of our programs now. But this party required a lot of input from me. Ideas -- e.g., we've had Pin the Wart on the Witch for three years running now, what other, similar game could we have [answer: Pin the Tail on the Cat, with the tails proving to be much easier for the little kids to handle than the oversized warts were) -- running to the store for this, that and the other thing, mainly prizes for the various games, as well as for Most Beautiful, Cutest, Scariest and Most Original costume, which I also had to decide on. I performed this last task by wandering through the Halloween Spirit store that magically appears every year at this time, and the Dollar Tree, and Reny's Department store (the wonderful throw-back to a different era that can be found in several Maine towns -- it's actually more like an upscale Woolworth's than a Macy's, with, often, some really good bargains) hoping something would leap out at me. And things did, slowly but surely.

I also had to come up with clues for the Build a Skeleton Scavenger Hunt. I tried to delegate this task, but the only staff person who got into it produced a lot of clever clues that would have been a challenge for adults. So I had to do a lot of refining, then type the final product up and run off on appropriately orange paper with an appropriate skeleton on it. (And yesterday, as people were starting to arrive for the party, I was still running around tucking plastic skulls under dictionaries and plastic backbones under sofa cushions.)

During the party I was busy making sure things were going smoothly at all the various venues: besides the Pin the Tail on the Cat area, where two members of our Friends organization were writing names on construction paper tails and turning blindfolded kids around so that they would end up attaching their tails to the cat's legs, there was the dunking-for-apples spot, with the newest member of our Board of Trustees nobly providing guidance and towels to the eager young dunkers, the Mystery Box, where the president of our Board, who had also volunteered her services, oversaw children trying to guess what items were in the box by touch only, including such things as a pumpkin, a witch's hat ('wizard's hat' would also do), and a severed hand (all they had to guess was 'hand'). Kids who guessed everything got a festive badge that declared "I Guessed Everything in the Mystery Box," while those who were less successful got one that said "I Guessed Almost Everything in the Mystery Box."

There was the crafts table in the Children's Room which enjoyed a steady business in kids making bats and decorating construction paper jack-o-lanterns. Stacie, my intrepid helper every Wednesday when I do the Children's Story & Craft, was stuck there practically the entire length of the party, because the demand was so much greater than we'd expected, and she kept having to churn out pumpkins and bat wings and bodies. In the main reading room, beside a sign that said Make a Spooky Halloween Picture for our Wall, we also had black and orange paper, with sidewalk chalk for the former and colored markers for the latter, and this area did a brisk business as well. The lady from the Friends who was minding the nearby refreshments table would help the kids tape their pictures to the wall when they'd finished.

There was also a Ghost Walk, which I found myself having to oversee whenever I had a free moment, because there was no one else to do so. This game was another clever idea of Stacie's. Stacie is an absolute whizz at coming up with ideas for craft activities -- which I sometimes have to modify, to be within the capabilities of 2-3 year olds, but still -- and she's even more of a whizz at producing the prototype we always make so the kids will know what to aim for. Anyway, it was her idea to blow up a balloon, draw a ghost on it, put the "ghost" on a paper plate, and have the kids walk a certain course without the ghost flying away. Turned out to be a very popular activity, and whenever I would see a child looking at loose ends I would say, "Have you done the Ghost Walk yet?"

The Grand Finale was my "spooky story," the beginning of which I'd made up in my head while having lunch, before leaving for the library (the party started at 2 p.m.) I told the kids gathered around me that at different points in the story they would have to help me, by providing the next thing that would happen, when I pointed to them. So I had the bored twins, Troy and Tracy, who couldn't go Trick-or-Treating on Halloween night because it was too windy and rainy, deciding to go explore that big old empty house next door instead (they hadn't done this before, because they'd just moved into the neighborhood the week before). When they finally get the front door open, and Troy shines his dad's flashlight inside what should they see but (point, pause while surprised child thinks, then) "a ghost!" Yes! A great big ghost, hovering there in the dark. Tracy screamed. Troy screamed and dropped the flashlight...

And on we went. It was fun, and afterwards all the grownups who had gathered to listened as well were saying 'that was a great story!' and 'you're a born story-teller!', and I was thinking, yes, yes, I have all sort of talents you have no idea about because what you see me do is this job, which has almost nothing to do with any of my real talents.

But ah, well. Everyone seemed to have a good time, and now IT'S OVER FOR ANOTHER YEAR.

The good and the bad of remembering

2011-10-22T18:02:00.004-04:00

I was lying in bed a little while ago recuperating from breakfast (which I nearly always have to do, because breakfast nearly always upsets my stomach), and got to thinking about memory. About how, while it serves the very useful purpose of providing us with our sense of identity, also serves a very negative function, that of making us feel sad.

Whenever someone dies people send sympathy cards that say, in effect, 'May happy memories of your loved one bring you comfort.' But it's been my experience that happy memories of loved ones just make me feel sad that those times are gone forever. And other memories of the departed loved one make me feel sad because they point up where I could have/should have done better.

It's painful to remember the last few of years of both my parents, and of my stepmother. My father and stepmother in particular suffered from very poor health; my father suffered numerous strokes and spent the last two years of his life bedridden in a nursing home, while my stepmother hung on in the assisted living facility they had had to be all but forcibly moved to, when they simply could not take care of themselves or their home any longer. I know many people my age have experienced similar situations with their parents in the last few years. Whatever positive memories we may have about our parents from when they were in their prime, robust, full of energy and opinions, are darkened by the memory of what their lives became, the indignities heaped upon them by a combination of old age and limited funds. And for the vast majority of us there are memories of our reluctance to go see our parents in their depressing (however nice) nursing homes/assisted living facilities. I myself lived only a 2 1/2 hour drive from my father and stepmother, during the last two years of my father's life (instead of on the other side of the country, which had been the case for most of my adult life), and yet I was rarely able to make myself make that drive more often than once a month. I hated seeing my once-proud father having to be dressed by some attendant, fed through a tube in his stomach because he found it all but impossible to swallow. I hated the ordeal of getting him into and out of the car to take him to see my stepmother, which he was always so eager to do...and then to have my stepmother essentially ignore him while he was there (she, the most loving and generous-spirited of women throughout her life, became quite irascible towards the end). My heart would be breaking for Daddy, while I tried to act cheerful and pleasant. THESE ARE NOT GOOD MEMORIES.

Nor are too many of my memories of my husband's last months, when I was stressed out with worry about money (dealing with the insurance was a NIGHTMARE), on top of the fact that my husband was dying of cancer. I remember once getting angry with him because he had washed a load of clothes while I was at work, and dried everything in the dryer, including some cotton turtle-necks of mine that I never dried in that way because they shrank. A truly petty thing to get angry about, considering the fact that 1) he'd made the effort to help out and 2) he was dying of cancer. I was trying to make his last months as comfortable and stress-free as possible, but one memory after another shows how frequently I failed.

So, somebody out there is undoubtedly saying, just don't entertain those bad memories. Concentrate on the good ones. But, as I said, the good ones can lead to sadness, too. I find that the only good memories that it is not painful to revisit, are those in which I have no particular emotional investment. A very successful costume party I threw in the spring of 1983, in Boston (Carolyn W. was a Hershey's Kiss, I was a Jane Austen book, Large Print Edition, Jim H. didn't wear a costume but brought a bunch of his hats that he would periodically change). Micheal and I walking through the eerily silent, traffic-free streets of Somerville, MA following the blizzard of '78. A visit I made to my brother in Santa Fe, the Christmas of 1987...one pleasant memory after another there. Waking up my first morning in San Francisco, Nov. 1966, and going to the window of my room at the YWCA -- which charmed me by being the kind that opens out, rather than pushing up, and by not having any screens -- and seeing my first S.F. fog, to the accompanying clang of the nearby cable car.

In fact, many of my happy memories that carry no ties to unhappy thoughts spring from my travels over the years, but that in itself makes me sad, as I am scarcely able to travel these days. Am I just determined to be sad? Or would I just be better of without any memory at all?

Ah, but then I would be lost.

An outing in the sunshine

2011-10-14T20:57:00.001-04:00

Last Sunday I and one of my staff made a trek out to the country to visit a farm and its "cheesery." (I'm wondering if there is even such a word.) It was the annual Open Creamery Day, when Maine creameries welcome visitors in to taste their cheeses and yogurts, see their livestock and bucolic surroundings. The Kennebec Cheesery at Koons Farm in the town of Sidney was the closest, so that's where we went.

The owners are Mainer Peter Koons and wife Jean who is from New Zealand. Peter spent 25 years living in New Zealand, and then family matters brought him back to the old homestead. I asked Jean if she missed New Zealand -- which certainly qualifies as a stupid question, for of course she would -- and she admitted that she did, but, she said, when they were in New Zealand they missed Maine, so it was a tradeoff. She is from the South Island, where they've been having all the bad earthquakes, and still has family there (including a 90-year-old mother), so I'm sure it must be worrisome for her. It was hard enough on me, worrying about my parents who were only 1700 miles away, rather than literally half a world away.

Jean is the cheese maker, and makes her cheese primarily from goat's milk, though she does get fresh cow's milk from a neighboring farm for one of her cheeses. We spent a very pleasant hour soaking up the country quiet, the pretty views -- the farm looks down a wooded slope to Messalonskee Lake -- and gawking at the goats, including two cute babies, who really did make that ehh-ehhh-ehhh goat sound. The adults were for the most part silent, although a lone billy goat, tethered off by himself ("because, quite frankly, he stinks," Peter said. "Female goats don't smell, but billy goats tend to be really rank." Now how many of you knew that?) did keep up a steady protest at being tethered off by himself.

We also went into the little building where they make the cheese, and where Jean's assistant gave us an explanation of how the various cheeses are made. Actually sounded relatively simple, but time-consuming. Do the milking in the morning, pour it into the big stainless steel vat and heat it to a certain temperature ("a kind of pasteurization"), let it set for a while, then pour off the curd that has risen to the top, putting it into little pyramid-shaped molds, or round ones. The molds have holes through which the whey drains. Then the cheese is salted, put into the refrigerator for a period of time (during which a "small amount" of whey continues to drain away). Finally, it's combined with olive oil and a variety of herbs, or rolled in other herbs, and it's ready to sell.

And we both bought some cheese. Jean had several kinds to sample. I really liked the basil-in-olive-oil chevre (which literally means 'goat', but also refers to goat cheese), but then I tasted the ball of cheese that had been rolled in dill and that was so delicious I had to get that one. (Starving Librarians cannot afford two cheeses at once.) I was disappointed to learn that all the places where Jean regularly sells her cheeses are in towns that, like Sidney, lie north of Augusta -- Waterville, Skowhegan, Oakland. However, she does frequent the Augusta Farmer's Market, so if I can make myself get over there on Tuesdays, I can get some more of her tasty cheese, and feel good about supporting a local farmer in the bargain.

Doesn't look or feel like fall

2011-10-08T15:57:00.001-04:00

Well, it looks like we're not going to have a fall this year. Although we've had four or five scattered days of pleasantly autumn-like weather, mainly it's been unseasonably warm and dry. Today, here in the Augusta area, it's gotten up to 77 degrees; tomorrow it's supposed to reach 80! And this is Maine, second weekend in October.

The result of all this warm, dry weather is that the trees have not been undergoing their usual dramatic transformation. The leaves are just drying up and turning pale brown or, at best, pale yellow. There is a huge tree behind my house (neighbor's back yard) that is always a joy to behold every autumn, because the leaves turn a vivid orange. But not this year. Many of the leaves have simply dried up and fallen off already -- we've had a number of windy days that contributed to that -- but those that remain are an unprepossessing pale brown.

This same phenomenon occurred two years ago (see Note of Sept. 19 2009), and my friend Fae and I speculated about its being the result of global warming, that perhaps the chemical processes the trees usually underwent were being inhibited by the warm temperatures, especially at night. This year the warm, dry weather has gone on even longer and the lack of color is even more striking. I feel sorry for any tourists who have driven up this weekend to look at the "gorgeous fall foliage," because they're going to feel cheated. Gorgeous it ain't.

Surprise! It's Me!

2011-09-27T20:59:00.008-04:00

Well, Melody, who has fallen into such a deep rut or never going anywhere or doing anything, went somewhere and did something. On Sunday I drove down to the southwestern corner of Connecticut to visit my brother Bob and his family. Hadn't seen them since May of 2009, when I stopped by their house on my way back from watching my god-daughter graduate from Bucknell University in Pennsylvania. Two years of not seeing each other, when we live a 5 1/2 hour drive apart. Seems incredible, until you examine our busy lives (theirs especially, with their two very active sons), the fact that I hate driving through Connecticut (very heavy, fast-moving traffic), and the fact that none of us ever has any money!

One Sunday a month Bob and Gwen throw a Vegan Artists' Brunch at their house. I'm neither vegan nor an artist (not in the visual arts sense, which most of their artist friends are), but I decided it would be the perfect occasion to show up unannounced. It was not easy, forcing myself to make the effort to do this thing I wanted to do, but Sunday morning actually found me on the road, my small cooler on the seat beside me full of the necessary snacks to get me through 5 1/2 hours of driving, the large cooler containing two bottles of champagne on ice. I went online to get some recommendations for decent champagne that was not wildly expensive. Two sites recommended Barefoot Bubbly Brut Cuvee, and several recommended Roederer Estate Brut. My local supermarket had the former (in Maine we do not have liquor stores; you buy your liquor at the grocery store), but not the latter; so I did something I've long wanted to do: stop at the New Hampshire State Liquor Store that is right at the border with Massachusetts. NH liquor stores are very popular with residents of Maine, Vermont and Mass., because NH has no sales tax on liquor, whereas said tax is quite high in the other states. I personally have no objection to being soundly taxed for my consumption of alcohol (I think things like candy bars, cookies and ice cream should also be taxed, instead of being treated as food), but I've just been curious about that big red barn of a place beside the highway where, presumably, they should have a decent selection of champagne.

Which they did, and that's where I got the Roederer. When I got to Bob's and Gwen's I tried some of each, and actually preferred the less-expensive Barefoot Bubbly. As the reviews I had read said it's lighter and "less complex," but has lots of bubbles. It's surprisingly dry, which I prefer to sweet, whether we're talking champagne, or any other kind of wine. The Roederer was, indeed, more "full-bodied," which I think could also be interpreted as "heavy." Had a good flavor, but was heavy, that's how I would describe it.

Getting to drink champagne was one of the perks of this trip for me. You simply cannot buy a bottle of champagne for one person. Wine will keep for a while, can be consumed over a period of time, but not champagne. You open it, you drink it, and I'm never up to consuming a whole bottle of champagne by myself, in one sitting.

Bob and Gwen were both properly amazed (and delighted) to see me on their doorstep, and it was good to spend some time with them and their boys, who came home later in the day. I also spent some time chatting with various artist types. I'm sure I was the most conventional person, and quite possibly, in many ways, the most conservative person there, which didn't bother me at all. I ate lots of healthy, mysterious food, and got to see a real live fox trotting around their back yard the next morning (Brookfield, where they live, is very rural).

I could only stay the one night, as I had a dentist appointment Not-To-Be-Missed on Tuesday morning, but that was o.k. I had actually made myself do something I'd been wanting to do for some time, and it proved pleasurable for all concerned.

I had gone down the most direct way, which involved traveling on three "hairy" highways: Route 495, from the Mass./NH line to Worcester, MA (in about the middle of the state), then the Mass. Turnpike, which is always incredibly busy, and always involves a drastic slow-down at some point, during which you're creeping along at 25 miles an hour for 10 minutes or so...and you never see a reason for the slowdown, just all of a sudden the traffic whips back up to 75 miles an hour. And then there was Highway 84, which cuts diagonally down through Connecticut, taking you through the capital, Hartford. None of this is fun driving.

So on my drive back I decided to take the "scenic route," going up Route 8 from Waterbury (about halfway between Hartford and Brookfield), in an effort to avoid having to go around or through Hartford. At first this seemed to be a really good idea because up until the small town of Winsted it's this excellent four-lane highway with beautiful scenery all around -- showing just how lovely parts of Connec-ticut are, with all the tree-covered hills -- and so little traffic (especially when compared with Highway 84!) that one is actually able to enjoy the scenery. Even after Winsted it wasn't bad, though it was now a 2-lane highway, and at one point I had to wend my way through the middle of a town (which may, in fact, have been Winsted). I turned off 8 just over the Massachusetts line, onto Route 57, which would take me due east to get to Highway 202, which in turn would take me a short distance north to connect me to the Mass. Pike.

On 57 I was in the depths of the Berkshire Moun-tains of western Mass., up and down steep hills along a very narrow, rough country road, passing through little hamlets with just a few big old houses and the requisite little white New England church, wondering where on earth these people did their shopping! Finally reached 202 and turned north toward the Mass. Pike, and that's when it got ugly. 202 proved to be a heavily commercialized, heavily traveled street, with lights, road repair, confusing signs -- I managed to take a wrong turn at the Westfield town center, which is all torn up with construction, and had to stop in a shopping center and ask a passer-by for directions, losing about 15 minutes in the process. I was very relieved to finally reach 90, and decided this was definitely not a viable alternative route for traveling between my house and the southwest corner of CT. But I'm glad I saw the scenery I saw, before the going got unpleasant. So much of travel by car is strictly functional, getting to wherever you're going by the fastest route, having to concentrate on the inevitable concomitant traffic to get there safely.

Once on the Mass. Pike it was smooth sailing, though I did manage to lose my turnpike ticket, so had to pay a dollar more than I should have, when it was time to exit. I found the ticket on the floor when I unpacked the car, which points up one of the many disadvantages of traveling alone: no way you can frantically search for a dropped turnpike ticket and drive, too.

In the end my trip back was an hour and a quarter longer than my trip down, and I was very tired when I got home. But...mission accomplished. And now I know a good, cheap champagne to get whenever the occasion calls for champagne!

Little things

2011-09-18T20:24:00.007-04:00

People are always saying it's the little things that matter. I don't really buy that. If the big things in your life are out of whack, all the terrific little things can't really make up for that. The biggest big thing that can be wrong, or bad, is your health, and when that's bad, you may appreciate a beautiful flower blooming in your garden, or getting a real, live letter through the mail, or devouring a delicious, ripe peach. But your appreciation lasts only a few moments, and the big, bad thing is always there, hovering in the back-ground, coloring your whole life.

Not having a job, or having a job that you hate, or one that doesn't pay nearly enough, so that living is a constant, stressful struggle to make ends meet... these are also big things that pretty much negate all the beautiful sunsets or pleasurable walks through the neighborhood. Having a seriously disabled child, whose care drains you, would be another.

However, I'm here to talk about a couple of little things. They don't make up for the big bad things in my life, but they have given me pleasure many times over the years.

The first is a sewing basket. It is very old-fashioned looking: not very big, oval-shaped, covered all over, including on the handle that arches over the top, with a black tufted fabric that is printed with two types of flowers -- pink roses with green leaves, and little bouquets of pink/yellow/blue... phlox? That's what they look like, though I don't know that I've ever seen yellow phlox. There's a white satin bow at each end of the handle, where it meets the basket, and another on the front edge of the lid. Inside, the basket is lined with black fake-satin.

Mind you, I'm not this big seamstress. In fact, unlike every other female in my family, I'm no seamstress at all. What this basket gets used for is the sewing back on of the occasional button, or the reinstate-ment of a section of hem that I've pulled out with the heel of my shoe, or a section of seam that too big a reach has pulled loose. I also keep iron-on patches in there.

No, it's not that this basket is an indispensible item in my life, it's that I love its sweet, old-fashioned prettiness. And it gives me pleasure to remember that my Aunt Carleen gave it to me. We were in a drugstore together once, years ago, and she was saying how she wanted to get me something for my birthday (I think it was my birthday!), and I saw this little display of sewing baskets and said, "This is it, this is what I'd like!" She was very surprised, no doubt at least partly because I was not famous in the family for my sewing. But it didn't cost much -- think they may have been on sale -- so she bought it for me. And it's gone with me in all my many, many moves since then. And always sits, looking fetching, on my white dresser.

Then there's the little travel clock I bought when visiting my English friends in High Wycombe several years ago. I had left my travel alarm somewhere or other, which was a drag, since sometimes catching the necessary train requires rising at some ungodly hour. Ann, John and I had done a little tour of the town, and stopped at a kind of flower/gift shop. I saw this very little clock, saw that it was an alarm clock, saw that it didn't cost much at all, and bought it on the spot. And not only has that clock served me faithfully on my travels ever since, it has served me in my home. Indeed, except for the digital clocks on the microwave and the electric range that are always going on the blink when we have a power outage, it's the only clock I have. It's piping little alarm is what wakes me, on those mornings when I can't just sleep until I awake naturally, and it's quiet, steady tick has proved a comforting sound, when I've been lying in my bed. And I am endlessly amazed that such an inexpensive little thing has proved so durable, and reliable (I think I've had to change the batteries only once!)

With both of these "little things" the fact that I acquired them in the company of, and indeed be-cause of, people I care for adds to the pleasure I take in them. And they are much less fleeting than a sunset.

The importance of things

2011-09-11T19:30:00.005-04:00

Well, I just accidentally watched a PBS program having to do with 9/11. I don't normally watch T.V. during the daytime -- makes me feel guilty, as in: you should be getting things accomplished -- but I switched on the television when the tedious task of putting photos in an album began to pall. The program that was just starting was called Objects and Memory, and it turned out to be not so much about the terrible events of that day, as the importance of objects, things in connecting people to those who died.

I cried several times during the program. As for example when the woman was talking about how a newsman had gone to Ground Zero, and saw some of the thousands of pieces of paper that filled the air that day, adhering to the grill of an emergency vehicle. He gathered a few of them up. One of them was the personnel review of the woman's husband, who had worked in one of the Twin Towers. The newsman tracked the woman down, and gave her that piece of paper that had her husband's signature on it, that he had held, touched. And it meant the world to her.

I understood exactly how she felt, how the others felt who spoke along similar lines, when similar "miracles" brought them some little something connected to their lost loved one, months, in one case even a couple of years, after 9/11. I said this a long time ago in one of my newsletters, when I was waxing rapturous about some ancient stone wall or other that I'd encountered in my travels: things make the past real to us. And it doesn't really matter what the item is, how insignificant. What is important is that it was there. As they said on this program, physical things forge a bridge between us and the past, a bridge that is stronger than just our memory of the past; indeed, they reinforce our memories.

I still have a couple of old shirts of my husband Micheal's, a Japanese-style robe I gave him at some point, one of his old hats, the velvet drawing of a dragon that a friend had given him for his last birthday, that he was busy coloring with colored pencils up until the day of his death (and which I finished after he died)...all of these things have meaning for me because they were his, touched him, were touched by him. They connect me to him.

The one time I felt a real pang during the massive "garage" sale (it actually ended up being a whole house sale) that I had four months after Micheal's death, was when I saw someone carrying the little drop-front desk he had had since he was a boy, out of the house to the "cashier" (my mother) on the front lawn. The desk had been cheaply made, and was not in very good shape, but I knew it had meant a lot to Micheal, because it connected him to his past, his youth. So in a way I was saying good-by to two connections to the past: mine to Micheal, and Micheal's to his youth. There were good, practical reasons for including the desk with all the other things being sold, but I still feel a small regret that I did not hang onto it, as I did to the hat, the shirts, the robe.

There was another aspect of the importance of things examined by the PBS program (which was really very well-done). Everywhere that New Yorkers set up impromptu memorials to the fallen, in the days following 9/11, people brought things and left them. Flowers, flags, teddy bears, poems, pictures drawn by children. The same thing happened following the Oklahoma City terrorist attack in 1995: people spontaneously brought things to leave for the people who had died. They did the same thing when Princess Diana died. In such cases the things are not serving as a link between separated loved ones, but as an acknowl-edgment that the missing were here. The message that is being sent: "I may not have known you personally, but I honor the fact of your life with this token." And people feel compelled to do this! This to me is both wonderful, and fascinating. We want, we need, a physical manifestation of how we feel about the death of someone, a physical affirmation that someone cares.

I don't want to go there

2011-09-09T19:55:00.004-04:00

O.K., for the past few days everything has been about 9/11, and about how we are approaching the 10th anniversary of same. The television, newspapers, news magazines, the Internet, everywhere you turn, that's the major news. People who lost loved ones at the World Trade Center being interviewed. New Yorkers who were trauma-tized by the events of the day, but ultimately decided to stick it out in New York, rather than fleeing elsewhere, being interviewed. Interviews of American Muslims who feel America has become much more suspicious of them since 9/11 (not surprisingly!), and who wish those suspicious Americans would understand that they (the Muslims) are as appalled by what happened as the rest of America, who wish Americans better understood what Islam is really about.

Am I the only person who would prefer not to be reminded of that terrible day, who would prefer we not have this revisiting and rehashing? Who thinks it would have been wiser to have quiet memorial services, without a lot of leading-up-to brouhaha? Now we're hearing that there is a serious possibility that there will be some kind of terrorist attack, on or around the 11th. Surprise, surprise! What could be a more perfect time to stage another attack, than the 10th anniversary of the original attack? Especially when there are all these big memorial services planned.

I certainly don't need to be reminded of anything I saw that day. I actually came to the events of the day late -- like one in the afternoon, when I was leaving for work at the Gray Public Library here in Maine. Hadn't had the radio or T.V. on during the morning, when I was getting ready for work, so knew nothing until I started the car. The radio came on automatically and a newsman was saying that all commercial flights had been grounded. What?! I listened for a couple of minutes, trying to understand what was hap-pening, then went back inside and turned on the T.V. A picture (that they had undoubtedly been replaying incessantly since 9 o'clock that morning) of a plane flying into one of the World Trade Center buildings was on the screen, and across the bottom was a wide red stripe with the words in white: American under attack. For a couple of minutes I really couldn't take it in, couldn't believe this was real. I was truly befuddled that I was watching an airplane seemingly fly into a building, but I didn't see it fly out. And then I yelled, "Micheal, Micheal, come quick; something terrible's happened!" Micheal worked nights at the time, and was probably in the third stage of sleep by then, but he came stumbling out of the bedroom, stark naked, brought by the urgency in my voice. We both sat on the couch, staring at the television, unable to believe what we were seeing and hearing. And when they showed the South Tower beginning to fall, I was as upset as the ladies on the sidewalk a few blocks away who were watching it happen right before them -- you could hear them crying out Oh, my God, Oh, my God. And that is just what I was thinking.

I finally realized I was going to be late for work, and went to the phone to call the library. I didn't at that time know that all of this had happened over four hours before, so thought I was relaying breaking news. I went on in to work, and worked my regular shift, but that was the beginning of days of seeing those same images over and over again on the T.V. I don't want to see them anymore.

All right, some news, such as it is

2011-09-03T20:40:00.006-04:00

O.K., I acknowledge it's a lousy hostess who invites a bunch of people to her blog, and then has nothing to serve them for over a month. What can I say? I haven't done a damn thing of interest in ages. I did live through the dregs of Hurricane Irene, which by the time it reached this neck of the woods was just a "tropical storm." While Vermont got pounded, because the storm had turned inland, here in central Maine we had some heavy rain in the morning of Sunday, Aug. 28th, then the wind arrived at 1:30 in the afternoon, continuing for several hours with no accom-panying rain. At 2 p.m. here in Gardiner the power went off, and for most of us remained off until the next morning. That was the biggest impact the storm had on this area.

I had made ice for my two coolers, as I planned to put food from the refrigerator in them if the power went off (and it always does). I left stuff in the refrigerator for about three hours -- hoping against hope that the power would come on soon -- then moved it to the coolers. I spent the afternoon taping photos into a photo album -- getting my pictures into albums is a long-term project I've been working on for some time -- as that was something I could do at the front window, where the light remained fair until about 6 p.m. (everywhere else in the house it was depressingly dim, since of course it was overcast out). I have an old waist-high chest there on which I keep framed photos of family and friends; I cleared off those pictures so I could spread out the photo album and work away.

My getting bored with the task at hand and the fading of the light occurred at about the same time. I was now sure we wouldn't be getting power back until the wee small hours, if then. I called one of my staff who lives in Hallowell, to see if she had power. And of course she did. Hallowell never loses power. I don't understand the difference; we're something like three miles apart. I've asked myself: whom are they paying what in Hallowell, to insure that their electric service is maintained, come what may?

At any rate, I decided to take my food to the refrigerator at the library. I did not want to be losing a lot of food, as I did the last time we had an extended power outage. While I was talking to Barb she invited me to dinner, which was welcome since I had no way of cooking. She mentioned that she had only two meatballs (giant ones), and funnily enough, I just happened to have a leftover turkey meatball in the refrigerator (or rather, in the cooler). So I took that as my contribution to the meal, packed up the car in the warm wind, and took off for Hallowell.

When I got home it was only 9:30 but I went to bed. Read-ing by candlelight is not easy, besides which I find sitting in candlelight by myself to be depressing. Because what it mainly is is dark, with only this bit of flickering light to keep you company. It has occurred to me that the purchase of an oil lantern might not be amiss, though I don't know how much that would help.

Still had no power when I left for work the next morning at 10 a.m., but when I got home at 2:30 that afternoon, the blinking clock on the electric range told me (after I'd done a little adding and subtracting), that the power had been restored a little after 10:30 a.m. Eighteen and a half hours. But of course there were people without power days later, so yes, I have to count my blessings. I'm better off than they, the folks who live in Hallowell are better off than I. There's always someone better off, someone worse.

But whenever this sort of thing happens I wonder: how on earth did they manage back in the bad old, pre-electricity days? How did they keep food from spoiling? I know they drank milk at cow temperature, I know they smoked and otherwise cured meat. But how did they keep leftovers? Or did they just never have leftovers, or feed 'em all to the hogs? I would have made such a terrible pioneer.

Rip-offs, and misnomers

2011-08-05T19:40:00.004-04:00

One of my favorite very short pieces of music has, in my opinion, a completely inappropriate title. The piece is from Handel's oratorio Solomon, and is entitled The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba. Now, wouldn't you expect that music announcing the arrival of a queen would be rather grand and stately? But this music is light and lively; it conjurs up, for me, a bevy of fairies, with gossamer wings, flitting from lily pad to lily pad down the length of a pond. It's light-hearted running, or in-and-out flight; it is not the arrival of the Queen of Sheba. I never have any luck embedding links, but I'm going to try again, with the Youtube link. Hope you are able to listen!

Ha! I did it! Can't believe it. Anyway, as to the rip-off part of this missive: I recently ordered season 2 of the British T.V. drama series Blue Murder, which ran 2003-2009 in England. I had been given Season 1 by a friend, and really enjoyed it, 'though comprehending the Manchester accents (one of the interesting things about this show is it is not set in London) can be a real challenge. Another interesting thing about it is that the Chief Inspector, in charge of finding all those murderers, is not only a woman, but a single mother-of-four (she caught her husband in bed with the nanny when she came home with the happy news of her promotion). And not only that, but she's overweight! Hardly obese, but she could definitely stand to lose a few pounds. So here is this frazzled woman dealing with a small son afraid of bullying at school, a teenaged son getting in with the wrong crowd and doing some bullying himself, a daughter who is mortified by what her mother is wearing whenever she makes a televised press statement, but also hates it when her mother puts on perfume and eye makeup when a man comes over, and a new baby (she was pregnant when she was promoted/caught her husband in flagrante)along with ever-changing nannys...while at the same time running hither and yon solving crime. She's a smart, funny, unusual heroine, played by Caroline Quentin, an actress known more for her comedic roles. And there's a very cute, sexy actor, Ian Kelsey, playing her second in command.

So there you have Blue Murder, which I ordered the second set of, my little once a month splurge on something that is not rent/food/gas/electic bills/sewer bills/water bills/oil bills/medical bills...and there are only four episodes on the two discs! There were three discs, six episodes in Set 1. Why two fewer? I've already watched the four! What a rip-off!

An unexpected pleasure

2011-07-26T21:21:00.003-04:00

A few months ago, after a couple of people had asked me if the library had a book club, and I had had to reply in the negative, I decided to survey our public, to see if there might be additional interest in starting one. I had done this several years ago, and got all of two positive responses, so that was the end of that. But this time, eight people indicated an interest. So I then went through the process of trying to determine when all or most of those people could get together, both in terms of time of day -- days? evenings? -- and day of the week. Phone calling, emailing. Finally determined that the third Tuesday of the month, at 6 p.m. would work best for everybody. So I scheduled the first meeting, and suggested that for that first meeting, everyone come prepared to talk about a book they'd read recently that they really liked.

Mind you, I had no interest in being part of a book club. But this points up one of the curses of my upbringing: my mother instilled in all five of her children the...not idea...imperative...that when doing a job you not only did whatever had to be done, but what should be done. And always to the best of your ability, it goes without saying. So seeing that there was a demand among the library's patrons for a book club, I knew I had to give them a book club. I had a vague hope that after a meeting or two it would be possible to slide the running of the club onto someone else's shoulders. One of my staff was actually interested in participating, so the possibility of her taking over existed, and even if not, she could at least serve as the library's "presence," letting me off the hook.

To my surprise, I found the first meeting quite enjoyable, as I have the two subsequent ones. I find I love talking about books with others who also love talking about books. And the selections agreed on by the group have "forced" me to read books I doubtless would never have read otherwise -- my reading for some time now has been, to a shocking degree, limited to mysteries -- but which have proved to be, at the very least very well-written (and, indeed, have made me despair of ever being able to write so well); and in two cases have turned out to be books I loved. It is truly one of the supreme pleasures of life to discover an artist -- whether a writer, a painter, an actor, a singer or musician -- whose work leaves one moved and impressed.

Our first group choice was Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout, a best seller that I found so depressing I didn't even finish reading it. (I have happily reached that point in life where I no longer feel compelled to finish a book just because I've started it.) But even that book, with its very unlikable main character, is wonderfully written. As I commented to the group, you could see every person she described, every scene, and she managed this without a lot of description! A sample scene: (characters: sweet, hen-pecked Henry, his too-often bitch of a wife, Olive, and their son Christopher)

A Saturday at home: Lunch was crabmeat sandwiches, grilled with cheese. Christopher was putting one into his mouth, but the phone rang, and Olive went to answer it. Christopher, without being asked, waited, the sandwich held in his hand. Henry's mind seemed to take a picture of that moment, his son's instinctive deference at the very same time they heard Olive's voice in the next room. "Oh you poor child," she said, in a voice Henry would always remember -- filled with such dismay that all her outer Olive-ness seemed stripped away. "You poor, poor child." [It was the young woman who worked at Henry's pharmacy, calling to tell him that her husband had just been killed in a hunting accident.]

The thing is, there are endless bad things like this that happen, endless everyday occurrences that demonstrate how disappointing and downright bleak life ends up being for so many people As one of the members of our club said, "It's too real." The characters are small-town folk in Maine, but they could be anywhere, leading their lives of quiet desperation.

So I came away from reading this book thinking that Elizabeth Strout is a really excellent writer -- and maybe I should give another of her books a chance -- but this one is a well-written downer.

I'll tell you about our other reads later, but in the mean-time, if you like reading, and talking about what you read...find a book club.

Where's the payoff?

2011-07-23T16:14:00.004-04:00

I am feeling very discouraged because, after three full weeks of avoiding all those simple carbohydrates that promptly turn into sugar in the body -- which gives the ol' blood sugar level an energizing push, which is then followed by a debilitating slump -- I am still dragging around like somebody recovering from a three-day drunk. I can tell that my body is healthier -- I feel lighter, less bloated, don't pepper the landscape with huge, indelicate farts -- but I still have very little energy.

Not only did I give up sugar, I gave up caffeine. It was my understanding that caffeine can make you feel hungry, which I thought might be contributing to the fact that I seemed to be eating all the time. However, I am still hungry, and must eat, every 2 1/2-3 hours, caffeine or no. And while I have successfully kept my beloved Diet Dr. Pepper out of my diet, in the last week I have let coffee slip back in, because otherwise I simply would not have been able to do anything. This has been at work, where I am constantly (and I do mean constantly -- there seems to be a rule at my library that there can never be a calm, business-as-usual day) problem-solving, which means I have to be mentally acute and physically vigorous. A few sips of coffee helps me to be that. But what this says to me is that my just eating healthily is not going to take care of my energy problem.

Perhaps it's hormonal. A year and a half ago, when I was fighting with my physician's assistant about going off estrogen -- which I'd been taking for 20 years, to his horror -- I told him one of the reasons I wanted to continue taking it was that, for a couple of months, a few years before, I had gone off it, and not only did I immediately start having the dreaded Hot Flashes (and what's with hot flashes anyway? Where did Nature come up with that stupid idea?), but my body just seemed not to function as well, and I felt very tired. He insisted that "we," meaning I, should give it another try, and if after a few months I was still suffering symptoms we'd revisit the question of estrogen replace-ment. He suggested two natural solutions for the hot flashes (although really it was one of the female real physicians at the clinic who recommended them) -- fish oil capsules and Vitamin B6 -- and those have, for the most part, taken care of that problem. But I ain't got no energy!!! I think it's time for another visit to the physician's assistant.

The little country on the fault line

2011-07-19T22:08:00.009-04:00

First off I have to say that I, for one, am glad the Japanese women's soccer team won the World Cup, rather than the U.S. team. That is one country that really needed some-thing to feel happy and proud about.

I've mentioned before how much I enjoy having access to television news programs from other countries [see Note of Mar. 31, 2011]. I feel I'm learning a lot about Japan and the Japanese people, thanks to NHK World. For one thing, they still bow to one another! The news program will show some government official walking up to the lectern, to make some announcement to the Diet (parliament), and he'll bow first to whoever is on the dais, then give a little bob of his head and shoulders to the people he will be addressing. Various government officials have been visiting the emergency shelters that are still housing so many people, and they will bow, the people receiving them will bow.

Even in a segment showing how one businessman whose business had been wiped out by the disaster was making overtures to a cooperative in another prefecture, in hopes of being able to market his expertise to them, the gentlemen bowed slightly as they exchanged business cards. It was actually a fairly informal situation, everyone was in shirt sleeves, not suits, but they bowed.

This is a real cultural difference, the sort of thing that makes travel so interesting, that makes the world so interesting.

The Japanese also nod their heads a lot when they speak, but they do not wave their hands around, the way we Americans do. They generally speak softly to the camera. An amusing exception was actually a matter of a voice being recorded, rather than someone being interviewed before the camera. The prime minister, Naoto Kan, was heard castigating representatives of Tokyo Power Company (TEPCO), the company that is responsible for the Fukishima Daiichi Power Plant. This angry assault was a far cry from the super polite public utterings you generally hear from everyone, more like what you'd hear from the furious Japanese general in an old World War II movie.

And speaking of Kan, well, talk about beleaguered world leaders. He had to promise to step down as soon as the nuclear crisis was well in hand, which it is still far from being. As last reported by NHK, his approval rating was at 16%. President Obama is in great shape, compared to him. The Japanese were having economic problems like every-body else, and then this staggering natural disaster strikes, followed by the crisis at Fukishima. People are feeling the government has been too slow in its reconstruction efforts, and too secretive about what has really been happening at the power plant. So naturally the head honcho has to take it on the chin.

And on a lighter note: the sport NHK regularly reports on is...sumo wrestling! They show clips of matches. A round, or bout, or whatever it's called, is incredibly short, just the few seconds it takes for one of the chubby gentlemen to maneuver his opponent out of the small circle they are wrestling in. The crowds are wildly enthusiastic. The referees wear traditional garb. I find it delightful.

There is an excellent article on NHK World at http://cima.ned.org/japan-disaster-coverage-measured-not-breathless (as usual I cannot get the link to work). The things the article says about the station -- no melodrama, just the facts, ma'm, no star anchors -- are the very things I like about it. And again, I thank Maine Public Broadcasting, for making it possible for me to view this part of the world.

Drowning in paper

2011-07-15T00:25:00.006-04:00

Well, I guess we all are, but when you're someone who writes, and who does genealogical research, and who insists on printing copies of almost every email she sends or receives (I even find it frustrating that you can't also print Facebook chat conversa-tions, as I've had several good ones of those, now lost for all eternity) -- not to mention having all the usual bills, pleas for funds from various worthy causes, Statements of Benefits from ones health insurance company, grocery lists, grocery shopping receipts, scraps of paper on which are scribbled email addresses, telephone numbers, notes to myself to Do This or Do That, or names of musical pieces I've heard on the radio that I'd like to add to my collection (that may not be a typical source of clutter)...well, it can be truly overwhelming. And I haven't even mentioned all the Library Journals and New York Review of Books that I bring home from work, with the intention of reading the book reviews, to help me decide on what to order for the library.

I keep trying to get the situation under control, but the major stumbling block is that I do have to make a decision about every single piece of paper. The decision is: what do I do with this? I know there's a pearl of wisdom that says never handle a piece of paper twice -- in other words, take care of whatever it is now, and get the damn thing tossed or filed or passed along to someone else to take care of (not an option at home, rarely an option at work). But sometimes I just don't have the time to make the decision; too often I'm unable to make a decision quick like a bunny.

You might say, what kind of decision do you have to make about a grocery store receipt? Just toss the damn thing. But no, if I paid in cash the receipt must be set aside for at least a few days, in case something I purchased has to be returned (and I have, more than once, had to return bad meat, so this is not as utterly ridiculous as it may sound). If I've paid with my debit card, the receipt has to go on the stack that is supposed to be entered in a timely fashion into my check book...a task which, alas, I have been neglecting sorely over the past few months because it's both tedious and depressing, depressing both because it reveals how little money I have, and because I can never get the damn thing to balance...with the result that there is now quite a stack littering my dining table (and why does everyone put papers on the dining table? Most of us have desks, but they don't seem to be used for what is surely one of their major purposes...)

And then there are the begging letters. By rights I should just toss them in the trash, without even opening them, since I know I don't have the money to donate, however good the cause. But sometimes I'll think, well, maybe, in a paycheck or two I can send them something... And then I never do (or almost never, my two alma maters and Maine Public Broadcasting being the only likely exceptions), so the begging letters just lie around making me feel bad because I can't respond to them the way I'd like to.

I have this same problem at work, just stacks and stacks of paper that every now and then I make a stab at making the necessary decisions about. I'll get three or four sheets of paper taken care of, and then something will come up to distract me, and I won't get back to the stack for a week or two, by which time it has been buried by another stack.

I've even tried bringing some of those stacks home to get them organized where I'll have the time to concentrate on them without endless interruptions -- write little notes on stickies saying what to do with them when I take them back to work. But the same thing happens: I'll follow the instructions scribbled on the stickies for two or three pieces of paper -- get distracted -- and the rest of the papers in the folder will sit around for another week or two, until I stumble on them again, and try to clear them away again.

All I can say is: achhh!!!

The joys of librarianship

2011-07-08T14:13:00.008-04:00

On Wednesday, even though I was officially on vacation, I went in for an hour and a half (which ended up being two hours), in order to put on the show that is our weekly Children's Hour. Any time over the past year I could have just left this to my assistant, who can certainly read a simple story and oversee a simple craft for two or three, or even four children. Which is how many kids we've been getting for the past year. Demographics were at play here: all the little kids who had been coming regularly suddenly graduated to pre-school or kindergarten, and there was not a new batch of children of the right age to replace them.

However, week before last we were inundated with children! Not two or three or four, but sixteen! It was like the old days. Which was nice, but we weren't prepared. We didn't have enough of the needed supplies for the craft we had planned. So Stacie and I had to do some quick thinking, to come up with an alternative. And, clever ladies that we are, we did.

We had to assume we would be getting about the same number of children this week, and I knew Stacie could not handle sixteen children by herself, however simple we made the craft. So I made the decision to go in, just for that time period. What the heck, it wasn't like I would be interrupting my Bermuda cruise. I would just be driving the 15 minutes from my house in Gardiner to the library in Hallowell, reading a story, getting however many kids showed up through a craft, and then splitting for my air-conditioned home once more.

However. We had been thinking: decorate rocks if it rains, paint on the long roll of white paper taped to the wall outside if it's dry. It was dry, and also very warm. The library was very warm. Painting really seemed the best option. But before the children could paint, Stacie and I had to attach a big piece of plastic to the wall outside, then tape the paper onto that. The wall is made of large, rough blocks of granite, not the best surface to be painting on, which was why the plastic needed to go on first.

But what a trial getting that plastic onto the wall proved to be! We did this one time before, a few years ago, and it surely was not so difficult then. The roll of clear "packing" tape I'd taken out would not stick to the wall. Stacie had brought out the almost defunct roll of masking tape, which worked better, but Stacie's hands shake even more than mine do (for a different reason), so she had trouble peeling the tape from the roll, then tearing it off (she'd forgotten to bring out scissors), then attaching it smoothly and securely to the plastic. My impatience couldn't tolerate her fumbling long -- keep in mind that we were not able to do this in a leisurely fashion, because Stacie only arrives at the library about 20 minutes before story time -- so I took over the taping, while Stacie held first the plastic, then the paper in place. There was also a fairly good breeze, which complicated matters. And I kept fuming, "I don't even have a book yet."

I'd actually spent some of the time before Stacie arrived looking for/trying to think of a good book to read. Normally I have this done by the day before, but of course I hadn't been in on Monday or Tuesday. I did go in for 3 1/2 hours on Sunday, partly to get some things done that needed to be done, partly to insure that my paycheck this pay period wouldn't be too pathetically paltry (since I went on reduced hours last year I am paid by the hour, rather than having a fixed salary as I did before). But on Sunday I was thinking 'decorated rocks', rather than painting, so what little time I spent looking for a book was spent looking for something having to do with rocks (and finding nothing). We try to connect the story to our craft, though that isn't always possible.

Selecting a book is always something of a challenge anyway. Our usual audience is made up of 2-4 year olds, and you can't challenge their limited attention span with too long, too complicated, or too abstract, a story. They want something to happen, and in a fairly short amount of time. And there have to be good illustrations to show them.

The situation is complicated still further when you have older children as well, which we now did. Part of our new influx of children included a private day care center (containing only six children, thank god) with ages ranging from 3 to 8. So what to read, what to read.

When I got back inside, hot and harried, it was 10:45, the time I usually sat down with a book and started to read. No time to find a book now. So what the heck, I'd tell them a story. Which I did. Not really hard at all for me...I am, after all, a writer! And as I've mentioned in these Notes before, I used to entertain my siblings with stories when the family would travel. I very cleverly included the children gathered around me in the story -- whenever I pointed at them they were to say their names. Thus I could begin my story, "Once upon a time there was a brother and sister named..." (point) "Sam!" "and..."(point) "Lily" (said very shyly, but said). I had Sam and Lily walking through a big forest that got darker and scarier as they walked, and they were starting to get a little nervous when all of a sudden they met... (point) "Corrina." And on we went, looking for the Ice Cream House, where they had such good ice cream, and meeting lots of children along the way.

So once again the human brain problem-solved in a pinch. And then we went out and painted.

Temptation, get thee behind me

2011-07-06T21:09:00.003-04:00

We've all heard of taking a mental health day. This week I'm taking a physical health week. As I mentioned in a recent Note (May 14, 2011), for some time now I have been badly abusing my body with various "poisons" -- heavy doses of sugar (which, as a hypoglycemic, I'm not supposed to eat at all), caffeine (I've been consuming more and more diet soda, and coffee, which I didn't drink at all for 63 years, finally entered my diet about a year ago, when I discovered it worked better than anything else at keeping me alert when I began to drag...but it disagrees with my insides), lots of carbs, lots of greasy fast food. I was eating poorly because I was tired of the effort involved in eating well, and I needed all the poisons to keep me going.

I decided it was time for a change when I realized I had just had half a cup of coffee, and a slew of cookies, and I still felt like putting my head down and going to sleep, still lacked the energy to do what I needed to do. So o.k., if the poisons weren't going to work, maybe it was time to eliminate them altogether, try to get back on the straight and narrow of good eating habits. But I knew that would require a chunk of time when I could put my head down and go to sleep, whenever I felt the pull of an unhealthy pick-me-up. In other words, a chunk of time when I didn't have to go to work.

So here I am, at day five of my Great Experiment -- which actually seems to be taking the form of the Great With-drawal. No sweets, no coffee or diet Dr. Pepper, no McDonald's burgers, no bagels with cream cheese, no corn chips, not even any proper bread, but rather, a gluten-free, wheat-free loaf made out of various forms of rice and tapioca...which actually isn't too bad, if you toast it. Haven't really missed the coffee, miss the Dr. Pepper a lot. Day before yesterday I felt lousy, yesterday I felt terrible, today is actually a little better, though I still have no energy. The hope is that ultimately this jetisoning of all those things that taste good but are bad for you, in one way or another, is going to help me feel noticeably better, so that I can work up some enthusiasm for life again.

It's also great, not having to go to work (although as a matter of fact I did go in this morning for my regular Children's Hour, which is the subject of my next missive). I am so ready to be retired.

Weird, & irritating

2011-07-01T22:37:00.005-04:00

I've mentioned that the young couple with the noisy trucks who used to live next door disappeared for essentially a year, with only the occasional drop-in to demonstrate they had not fled the country, and then moved out bag and baggage because (I learned from the male half of the couple) the in-laws had given them some land on which they were going to build a house (see Note of April 11, 2010). A For Sale sign went up out front, and then, after a few weeks, a group of men moved in, apparently in something approaching a fraternity house set-up (though these are not young men). They all have their own rooms -- with one of them being ensconced in the dining room -- and the kitchen is a common area.

Although this assortment of men also come equipped with trucks, these are not ferociously loud ones, and they are not left to idle for as long as 15 minutes, at twelve o'clock at night, as was the case with Patty and Matt (not their real names). So I'm not complaining about the trucks.

But here's the weird of my title. One of the fellows sits out there in his truck for hours at a time, both day and night. He turns the truck around in the driveway, so it is facing the street, and he sits. The window on the driver's side is right next to where I park my car, so sometimes in the late morning when I'm getting ready to leave for work, we'll exchange brief pleasantries. I kiddingly asked him one time if they'd thrown him out of the house, and he said no, he was just waiting for the postman to come "with his check," and then he could go cash it. That may have been the explanation for that particular time, but what about all the other times? He added at that time that he "liked to watch the traffic." Now, we do not live on a street that sees a lot of traffic, one of the things I like about it. He might see two or three cars go by in a half hour. So what's he looking at all the rest of the time? He's staring out his windshield at the wooded area that lies directly across the street from our two houses. He doesn't listen to the radio, he isn't sitting there reading the newspaper, I don't think he even smokes. Am I alone in finding this behavior odd?

Now for the irritating part. There has been some trouble with...oh, no...music from next door. Along with vehicles purposely made louder than they have to be, music played too loud, particularly the bass from rock music, is the bane of my existence. It isn't just that I don't like it; it's that it's a terrible irritant to my nerves. So here some rock musicians have moved in next door. Somebody plays the drums, and will practice for an hour or two at various times. Every now and then there seems to be a jam session, with people who don't live in the house coming over and joining in. So far none of these instances has been that loud, or late at night, or gone on for too long, so that I have not complained, and have tried not to mind too much. After all, I tell myself, musicians have to live somewhere ('though part of me is thinking, "Not in this quiet neighborhood!"), and obviously they have to practice.

However, the other night there was the unmistakable sound of an electric guitar coming at me for a good three hours. At 9:30 I went over and said to the man who answered my knock -- he of the truck-sitting -- that apparently someone was playing music? He looked blank, shrugged and said "I don't hear anything." "Well, if you were standing in my house you would hear it. Could you please tell whoever it is to turn it down? It's getting late, and he's already been practicing for several hours." "If I hear anything I'll tell him," the guys says, which tells me nothing is going to happen. And nothing does. So then I call the police and ask what time it has to be for one to be able to place a noise complaint (by this time it's about 9:45). The dispatcher tells me she can take a noise complaint, so I tell her the situation. "It's not like they're blasting their music all over the neighborhood," I say. "But I can hear it in my house, and it will make it impossible for me to get to sleep."

So in maybe ten minutes here come two police cars. Obviously a slow night for the Gardiner Police Dept. The two young officers stand in my front yard and can't hear anything, so I have them come into the house -- into my bedroom -- but of course just at that particular time the guitarist drops into one of his lengthy pauses (the music was very erratic, not constant).

Well, the police did, finally, hear the music, standing out in the narrow side yard that separates my house from the back end of my neighbors'. You could tell they didn't think it was that bad -- and it wasn't terrible, but why should I, or anyone, have to listen to somebody else's music inside their own home, for several hours, until late at night? Why should we have our peace disturbed in this way? So they knocked on the door, and asked the guy that answered (different guy, apparently the father of the young man who was doing the playing) to please stop with the music. What he ended up doing was promising it would be turned down...which, however, it wasn't, or not so you could tell. So eventually I had to go back, and knock on the door again, and blah, blah, blah.

This is actually something that really makes my heart sink, because the quietness of where I live has been one of its huge benefits, for me. I have had to deal with noise where I was living for most of my adult life, so not having to deal with it has been such a relief. And now it looks like I'm going to have to engage in that battle again.

Damn.

Life's little mysteries

2011-06-27T21:10:00.002-04:00

O.K., here's a physics problem for you. I have a small coffee percolator that my mother bought once when she came to visit and discovered I did not have a coffee pot (this was during the time when Micheal and I were separated, since Micheal was as heavy a coffee drinker as my mother, and when we were together there was always a coffee pot in the house). Anyway, I've kept it over the years, even though I didn't drink coffee, for any visitors who might.

In the past year I have become a coffee drinker, despite the fact that I fear it doesn't really agree with my insides. I discovered it worked better than anything else, including my old standbys, a diet coke and a candy bar, at making me wake up when all I want to do is put my head down and go to sleep. So sometimes I buy coffee at the Dunkin Donuts on the way to work, or sometimes I'll stop at Slates Bakery, around the corner from the library in Hallowell, and get a cup there. And when I'm feeling frugal and can make myself do it, I make a pot at home.

Which takes me to the problem, although it isn't really a problem. More a minor annoyance, and a mystery. I put the five cups of water in the thing, the five tablespoons of coffee in the filter, set it on the stove, turn on the heat...and in a minute or two the whole thing is rattling like we're in the middle of an earthquake. I have to hold onto the handle for about five minutes, until just before it starts perking, or the shaking and rattling will drive me crazy. A short time before it starts perking, it stops shaking.

So why does it do this? I don't remember ever seeing another percolator heating up on top of a stove do this. I've thought, maybe it's that the cold bottom of the pot meets the heated burner, and until the former heats up to match the latter, it shakes. But that still doesn't tell me why. And besides, one puts cold sauce pans onto burners that are initially hotter than they are all the time, and the pans do not shake, rattle and roll. I would very much appreciate an explanation! Thanks.

From a member of the Camp tribe

2011-06-19T17:32:00.006-04:00

I watched a few minutes of Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s PBS show, Faces of America, in which the family trees of various famous people -- e.g. Meryl Streep, Mike Nichols, Yo-Yo Ma -- are examined. As I already knew from being a librarian who has helped many people with their genealogical research, listening to other peoples' family history can be a bore. A detail or two that's interesting, maybe, but for the most part people marrying so and so, moving to so and so, having these children, one of whom died young, etc.

But even if one finds other people's family history boring, that of one's own family tends to fascinate, or at the very least, raise some curiosity (anybody famous? Anybody notorious? Any scandals?) And why is that? Indeed, this very question was asked...actually don't remember if it was on Faces of America or some other recently-seen PBS pro-gram...and the woman who responded said she thought it was because people wanted to connect. To find out who they are, where they belong. And they very much want to belong to something. And as she was speaking the thought that sprang to my mind was, "Our tribe. We want to know what tribe we belong to, and we want to know what it was like." (We know what it's like now, at least that part of it represented by our immediate extended family, with all the hopeless siblings, black-sheep cousins and weird uncles.)

Tribalism does indeed run deep in the human species. That is quite apparent in places like Yemen, where the various tribes are currently vying for power, as indeed they have been doing for some time. Our own Indian tribes cling to their heritage, and one of the problems the white man encountered, in trying to get Indians to assimilate into the white culture, was that most Indian tribes do not hold with the kind of individual competiveness encouraged by the white culture; they do not want to differentiate themselves from the other members of their tribe. (This is not true in sports, but there it is a matter of our-tribe-against-your tribe, more than an individual shining.)

I mused some time ago [Note of Nov. 6, 2010] about the mystery of fan hysteria over sports teams, the extreme identification with ones local team, even if it isn't made up of local folk. I even suggested then that it might be a form of tribalism, and I am more and more inclined to think it is. We need groups to identify with, to which we feel we belong. For most of us our immediate families are our basic tribe, even if we can't stand our relatives. As Ally McGraw's character said in Love Story, "Home is where when you go there, they have to let you in." Then come alma maters, school and local sports teams. For some people their state is a larger tribe to which they belong, Texans being the example par excellence of this mind-set. In England the multitude of private clubs served the tribal instinct well. And for most Americans, their country is their ultimate tribe, the one you sure as heck had better be loyal to. I confess that, as un-nationalistic as I tend to be, I feel very harshly toward Bradley Manning, and do feel he betrayed his country in leaking all the confidential information he (allegedly) leaked to Wikileaks. Public protests are one thing, putting people in danger is quite another.

But to get back to family trees. Most of the people who are very serious about genealogy are getting on in years (go on, Melody, say elderly). And why is this? When you are young you have lots of tribes to belong to, as suggested by the above list. But as you get older your children, if you have any, grow up, move away, are less a part of your life than they used to be. Friends die, as do parents, siblings. School and sports allegiances fade. If you have retired, you are no longer a part of whatever occupational tribe you once be-longed to, and identified with. So who are you? Well, you are the end product of all those marriages, all those off-spring, all those moves farther and farther west. And not only are those dead ancestors members of your tribe, but so, too, are all the third cousins once removed you discover who are researching another branch of your family.

You are a part of something bigger than your lowly, lonely self.

How do we make this more fair, and why should we?

2011-06-12T19:44:00.003-04:00

Yes, I'm back, to talk about fairness. The concept of. I was lying in bed resting my eyes after squirting them with fake tears (my latest physical malady is excessively dry eyes which has me "abrading" the cornea just by opening my eyelids in the morning), and I got to thinking about the recent complaint of my friend who was diagnosed with a form of leukemia last fall about how unfair it was that here she had this fatal disease and there weren't some compensating joys in her life (at that particular moment) to offset this very negative fact. Of course, as we all know (as, indeed, Pat knows) life is not fair. In fact, it is so unfair that I can't help wondering how humans ever came up with the concept of fairness in the first place.

Fatalists don't expect fairness from life or the world in general. What will be will be. In countries where life has been extremely hard for most of the people for many generations, fatalism runs deep. This was even more so the case in the past. But even in such places, and times, there tends to be a strong tradition of revenge for wrongs committed against one by ones fellow man. You kill a member of my family, I kill a member of yours. This to them is justice, and what is justice, but fairness?

Citizens of the industrialized nations in general, and America in particular, expect to be able to change the world to suit them -- because they've seen it happen -- so fatalism has less of a hold. And in these places the idea that there should be fairness in human exchange is very strong. Even as people acknowledge that the happenings of the world -- natural catastrophes, the myriad illness that can befall humans, wars, economic crashes -- can fall upon people in an apparently random and indifferent fashion, they insist that to the extent that we have control over things there should be fairness.

I think about the two major political parties here in the U.S. Since presumably we all share this sense that things should be fair, it seems like the definition of what's fair is the issue. For Republicans what's fair is both individuals and corporate entities being able to keep most of the money they earn -- in other words, to be as free as possible from onerous taxation. Likewise from even more onerous regulation, since that fetters the freedom to run their lives or their businesses as they see fit, a concept that is even more sacrosanct to Republicans than that of fairness.

Whereas for the typical Democrat what's fair is that 1) everyone should contribute to the common weal, because we are all in this together, and that 2) everyone should contribute according to what they have. You make less money, you pay lower taxes; you make a huge amount of money, you pay higher taxes. And as for regulation: history has shown that people (and even more than individual people, businesses) will often not do what they should do unless forced to by law, because usually doing what they should do involves a reduction in profit, e.g., shorter work days for employees, a minimum wage, having to make the workplace safe. The Democrat tends to think that being able to do whatever you damn well please -- to hell with the environment, or those who are less advantaged, through no fault of their own -- is not the fairest way for society to be run. And yes, I know, I sound biased, and of course I am.

Interestingly, right now Americans of both persuasions, Republican and Democrat, are feeling very angry indeed because of the unfairness of so many rich corporations paying no federal income tax at all, while we lowly common folk struggle to pay our taxes. On top of the fact that a number of the large corporations that contributed to the economic downturn, that has cost so many people their jobs and their savings, have been making huge profits over the past year, and their people are getting the same kind of big bonuses as before. Uh, uh, we're all thinking; this is not fair.

Where did we get this idea?

And now for a little whining

2011-05-14T01:09:00.007-04:00

O.K., things are serious here. First of all, I'm not eating properly. I'm so sick of eating, period, of having to eat every three hours, of having to endlessly think of things to eat -- of not being able to think of anything new that I want to go to the trouble of preparing, so endlessly eating the same hamburger-patty-rice-green-vegetable, or pork-chop-rice-green vegetable, or baked-fish-rice-green-vegetable, or soup-with-turkey-sandwich meal -- endlessly going to the grocery store, cooking, cleaning up. So I've all but stopped doing it. Pretty much living on McDonald's double quarter pounders with-cheese-but-without-onions these days, with the occasional sausage and pepperoni pizza thrown in. I do like hamburgers and pizza, but obviously these are not good as a steady diet. Expensive, for one thing, add to the growing weight problem for another (also not good for your health, but I'm less concerned with that). Also consuming large amounts of cookies, bagels, candy, corn chips, and coffee, to keep my energy level up. For someone with hypoglycemia (actually, for anybody), not good.

Then there's my wrist, which has been hurting for over four months, without getting any better. I was also having problems with pain in my neck/right shoulder/arm, but the chiropractor I've been seeing for about two months has helped considerably with those areas. However, her "adjustments" and "therapies" haven't touched the painful wrist, except, possibly, to make it worse. I am apparently suffering from a fairly severe case of carpal tunnel syn-drome. For someone who spends as much time as I do at a computer, both at work and at home, this is a real drag.

I finally called my doctor -- who isn't a doctor at all, but a physician's assistant, because the two previous doctors I had at the health center where I go left, to be replaced by... not another doctor...a physician's assistant. (I tried to get switched to one of the two doctors remaining at the center, but both had too many patients already. Definitely a doctor shortage in beautiful, rural Maine.) -- anyway, I finally called my "primary health care provider," and asked for a referral to a physical therapist, for the wrist. That was a couple of weeks ago. When I went in this past Monday to have some blood work done I learned that nothing at all had been done about my request, which really ticked me off. The referrals lady was properly embarrassed by this negligence on their part, and scam-pered to make the necessary calls, so now I do at least have an appointment for next week, though first I have to have a test to deter-mine if I really do have carpal tunnel syndrome (having all the usual symptoms doesn't seem to suffice).

Dealing with constant pain, as all of you out there who have had to do so know, completely colors your outlook. It's distracting, when you're trying to do the things you need/ want to do -- indeed, it can prevent you from doing those things -- and trying to ignore it and "get on with your life" is physically and psychically draining.

And I have virtually no energy, to a large extent, no doubt, because of my current terrible eating habits, and I'm finding it difficult to force myself to do all those mundane things we all have to do -- like get up in the morning, cook, wash dishes, wash clothes, do my checkbook, get my snow tires removed (no, still haven't done that)...and write postings for my blog. My heart just isn't in it. My heart doesn't seem to be "in" much of anything just now, so to spare my readers endless negativity, I think I may take a little break from blogging for a while. Until "things" look up some.

Bad guys and tarnished heroes

2011-05-08T18:24:00.009-04:00

So, two men in the news lately. The Evil One, Osama bin Laden, whose death caused dancing in the streets here in the U.S., vows of revenge by the fanatical Muslims who, like him, believe the only good American is a dead Amer-ican. We have to be thankful to al-Qeada, though, for independently confirming his death.

I myself did not jump up and down with joy at the news of his death. The expression "grim satisfaction" comes more to mind. Being jubilant about anyone's death seems inappro-priate. The man deserved to die, and at American hands -- simple justice -- and that has been accomplished. But I feel the same way I feel when an American serial killer is put to death (and I am the rare liberal who is in favor of the death penalty, for such cases); I am glad he has received his just reward; I am not "happy."

Besides which, I'm skeptical that his death will make all that much difference in our never-ending War on Terrorism. Still lots of bad guys out there, who think there's nothing wrong with killing innocent people. Someone else will certainly step up to the leadership plate, no doubt someone who does not have to hide out in his bedroom for years on end.

And then there's Greg Mortenson. This is one of the two men I listed as "people who inspire me," on my Facebook page (the other being Gandhi). Even put a link to the organization he founded, Central Asia Institute (CAI), here on my blog, since I thought its mission of building schools in northern Pakistan and Afghanistan was a good one, worthy of support. Like so many other people I was deeply impressed with Mortenson's book Three Cups of Tea, that told the story of how building schools in these undeveloped areas came to be his "life's work."

But now, thanks to 60 Minutes, and a strangely vehement John Krakauer, we learn that a number of incidents related in that book were either exaggerated, or simply not true. Likewise some of the claims made by the CAI -- such as the number of schools that it has built and continues to support -- are apparently untrue. And the accounting practices of the organization have been called into question.

I still believe Mortenson has done a lot of good -- even his apparent greatest enemy, Krakauer (who at one time was a big contributor to the CAI) admits that -- but the fact that he has tweaked the truth in a non-fiction book is a dark mark against him. He wrote Three Cups of Tea with a professional writer -- which he was not -- and I wouldn't be surprised if he was encouraged to alter the absolute facts in the interest of "drama." But if this was the case, it was foolish of him to consent. In the reply he made in writing to the questions 60 Minutes had for him (which can be read on CAI's web site), he said that some of the information "was a compressed version of events." My goodness, what does that mean? A non-fiction book needs to be what we librarians tell kids they are: true stories.

The fact that he would not respond to the inquiries of 60 Minutes, until virtually forced to, by the airing of the damning segment, is another black mark. The clip on that program that showed him being approached by represen-tatives of the show, at one of his book signings (because, they said, he had failed to return their calls, and this seemed to be the only way to make contact with him) did not put him in a good light at all. Instead of saying, "OK, gentlemen, I'm in the middle of a book-signing here; if you'll wait a few minutes I'll be glad to meet with you"...and then doing that, he had Security called, to boot them out of the place, cancelled his afternoon talk, and left the hotel. Pretty darn suspicious behavior, if he had nothing to hide.

I am less concerned about the supposed financial impro-prieties. Mortensen did not start building schools to get rich, and as the CAI web site points out, in its response to questions from 60 Minutes, he has donated large sums to the Institute, and he worked for several years for no pay at all. I had thought it was strange that Mortenson should have a separate web site from the Institute's. His site concentrates on his speaking engagement calendar. Now it turns out that all the money from his speaking tours and book sales goes to him, not to the Institute. The Institute, in his defense, has said that these speaking tours, his books, directly help the cause by producing donations from the public. I'm sure that's true, but I hope the current bruhaha encourages them to change this particular way of doing business. A portion of the income from speaking engagements and book sales should automatically go to the Institute, not just what Mortenson chooses to donate.

And here the man is in poor health, with a hole in his heart, major surgery impending. It never rains but it pours. I personally want to give him the benefit of the doubt, because I still support his cause. A friend of mine has called into question the wisdom of educating children in these areas, believing that they are indoctrinated from birth in a belief in Mohammed's Koran which commands them to "break the cross and kill the infidels." He thinks a modern education would only make them more dangerous. But I don't buy that all Muslim children in that part of the world are inculcated from birth with a burning hatred of America and Americans. The families in these communities where the schools are being built just want to live their lives in peace and security, like most families everywhere. And having schools (which they want) built with the help of Americans, can only improve their attitude toward us.

On the CAI's web site a lot of people have made statements disputing some of the material presented on 60 Minutes, and supporting Mortenson and his charity. Let's hope they prove to be more right than his accusers. I'd hate to be reduced to only one person who has inspired me.

The silver lining

2011-05-02T00:23:00.005-04:00

I just returned from a pleasant walk through my lovely neighborhood. I mentioned in my last posting that, as of last Monday, April 21st, spring still had not really arrived in Maine. However, by the time I returned home Wednesday evening -- or more precisely, by the next morning, when I looked out my window -- the grass had turned a deep emerald green, trees and shrubbery were budding, some flowering bushes were even in bloom. And this weekend we at last had warm, sunny days, and now the smiling, sunny faces of daffodils are appearing in many flower beds. At last, at last.

So, some of the positive aspects of my trip to New York. Breakfast the next morning, which just about made up for the disappointing dinner the night before. Especially since it was free. This was because the young people who had checked me in, besides misleading me about the caliber of the cafe, had convinced me to sign up for the Priority Club. "It doesn't cost anything," they said, "and you get all these neat coupons." One of those coupons was for a free breakfast. So I had an excellent breakfast "skillet" -- diced potatoes, green peppers, onions, sausage and bacon bits, topped with scrambled eggs -- along with a pot of hot tea, for nothing. And because there was so much left over, I had the waitress box it up for me; and into my travel cooler it went. That tasty mixture livened up my scrambled eggs next morning, when I made my own breakfast at my friends' house where I had stayed the night, and again on the morning after I returned home. Not bad, for no cost.

Then there was the pleasant, sunny drive from Oneonta to the little town of Gilbertsville, fifteen miles away, where I would again be doing genealogical research at the tiny, adorable stone library there. [See Note of July 16 2010 for my experiences at this library on my last trip.] I was reminded as I drove how much I love this part of the country. I love my Maine, love living there, but bucolic Otsego County, New York has second place in my heart. The tree-covered hills, the little valleys with their fields, the handsome, well-kept farms, the pretty little towns with the big old trees and the big old houses. It never ceases to amaze me that my great-great grandfather, William Cole, left this place, and his family, which was apparently quite close, to live in steamy hot south Texas.

And my research turned up some fascinating new infor-mation about William. I spent most of my time reading through the diary of William's mother, which I discovered last trip. This time what I found was that William (called Willie by his mother) was there, in Gilbertsville -- or more accurately on his parents' farm, out in the country -- May-Sept. 1871. Well, his daughter, my great-grandmother, Ann Willie Cole, was born in April of that year! And not in New York, but in Refugio Co., TX. So it would seem there were problems in the relationship of the young married couple. They had been married for only two years, and there William is, back at home. He returned to Texas in Sept., after he had "packed the big trunk," and gone to pay a goodbye visit to all his married sisters. His mother reports, on Sept. 13: "R [her husband] took Willie to the stage this morning. O how hard to part with him again." And that was the last time she saw him; the following March she received a letter from "Willie's wife" that he had died. He was only 25. Everyone's life is a story.

A big positive of the trip was being able to spend the evening visiting with my friends, Kathy and Bona, an hour up the road from Gilbertsville in Binghamton. Kathy was one of my three roommates in college, and we have remained in touch over the years. I always feel so comfortable at their house -- which i refer to as the K&B Bed & Breakfast -- and it is such a pleasure to be able to enjoy interesting, stimulating conversation with like-minded people, who don't necessarily share all of your opinions, but are able to disagree with civility and good humor. This was one of the things I badly needed, in getting away. The absence of friends in my day-to-day life has become a real drag on my spirits. We all need somebody.

The trip cost more than I expected it to, and was terribly short, and tiring, but I was glad I made it. I needed it.

On the road again

2011-04-30T19:23:00.005-04:00

[Note that the following was actually written on Thursday, Apr. 28; just didn't manage to get it online before now.]

Well me and my little 15-year-old Toyota which, according to the first mechanic I took it to for its annual inspection, needed $700 worth of work done before it would pass inspection (happily, a second opinion garnered me a 'pass,' and all I had to pay was the $12 fee...but, you know, the car probably does need work)...the two of us just returned from another whirlwind trip to upstate New York. Seven and a quarter hours there, on Monday, six and a quarter hours returning, on Wednesday. Wasn't kidding about the whirlwind.

It took me longer going because I decided to vary my route from the usual down-to-Massachusetts-across the state-via-the-Mass Turnpike-around-Albany-then-straight-out-Route-88-to-Oneonta. I needed this trip partly because I needed a break from my routine, and going the same way I always go didn't seem like enough of a break-with-routine. So I went the scenic route, across New Hampshire and Vermont, then around Albany from the north, rather than the south, and out Route 88.

I knew it would take longer, and suspected I would have to exercise a lot of patience, because of all the winding roads that make passing poky drivers impossible, but I didn't count on how tired I would soon feel, and how interminable the stretch from the Vermont border down to Albany would seem. What really made it kind of a waste was that New Hampshire and Vermont on Monday were as much in very early spring mode as Maine -- no leaves on the trees, no flowering trees or shrubs, not much in the way of green grass. And it was overcast, cool, sporadically raining all day. So I wasn't experiencing New England at its best, in the middle of summer lushness, or autumn splendor, or as a glittering winter wonderland. Just a countryside trying to shake off winter, and not quite there yet.

I announced to my little hand-held tape recorder that I always take with me when I travel that New Hampshire and Vermont were not places you should drive through, to get from A to B, but rather places you should visit, when you have plenty of time, can stop whenever you see something that attracts your eye, like some of the antique stores that are practically cheek by jowl along Route 4 in NH, but are much in evidence everywhere

When I finally reached Oneonta I drove past a depressed-looking Budget Inn and Super 8 Motel, and checked into the more presentable Holiday Inn. My room cost me about $60 more than I'd hoped to spend, but whaterya gonna do. The room was fine, very clean, the bed very comfortable, but I noticed after I'd gotten settled in that the little refrigerator, when running, made a very loud hum. I knew I should call the front desk about it, but I suspected their solution would be to have me move to another room, which I really didn't want to have to do. I was tired and hungry, needed to get some dinner so I could get to bed, so I decided I could live with the hum. However, after I'd had that dinner -- about which more in a moment -- had sat propped up in bed to watch my latest police drama enthusiasm (The Chicago Code) and then settled down under the covers to go to sleep, I discovered I couldn't live with the hum, or at least couldn't get to sleep with it. Which meant I would have to unplug it, but it had several perishable snack items in it, necessary for this girl who has to eat every time she turns around.

So, heaving a large sigh, I got up, got the plastic ice bucket, walked down the hall (in my nightgown which I hoped anyone seeing me would think was a lounging outfit) to the vending and ice machine alcove, filled the bucket with ice which I then transferred to my little travel cooler, transferred the food to the cooler, made another trip to the ice machine so I could put my Dr. Pepper and bottled water in it to keep them cold, and finally settled in to sleep. And then a rip-roaring thunder storm arrived...

The dinner in the hotel's "cafe" -- where I went because the young people who had checked me in at the front desk said it was "awesome" -- was unfortunate. I ordered the trout, as I like to have fish when I dine out, because I have it so rarely at home. But when it came (finally), and I started in on it, it was warm only, not hot, and after a few bites I decided it wasn't fully cooked. But once again I hesitated to send it back, because I didn't want the bother, or the delay. But when the waitress -- who had been unavailable anyway, since she'd delivered my dinner to me, as she'd been out at the maitre d's desk, chatting with some fellow -- finally put in another appearance, when she ushered a woman and her daughter to a table (and note that we were the only ones in the place), I did bring the situation to her attention. She insisted on taking it back, assuring me that it wouldn't take long for the chef to produce another one. And sure enough, after a shorter wait than the one that had resulted in my undercooked fish, I got a perfectly cooked fish.

But here's the corker. Even cooked sufficiently it wasn't all that good. The seasoning combination was not a success. I would have to say that garlic does not work well with trout. And the crowning glory to the evening was that I felt compelled to eat as much of the second fish as I could, since I'd asked for it; but since I'd already consumed probably a third of the first fish, as well as a cup of (really quite delicious) corn chowder, and two (really quite delicious) small, warm rolls, I was uncomfortably stuffed when I got up from the table. Ah, well.

I'll tell you about some of the positives of the trip tomorrow.

I do believe I'll win, I do believe I'll win, I do I do I do believe I'll win

2011-04-18T20:58:00.006-04:00

When I was at the convenience store earlier I impulsively bought two lottery tickets, one for the Powerball game, and the other a Megabucks ticket. This is something I do very, very rarely, mainly because I know it to be a waste of my money, but also because I feel awkward doing it, as a result of almost never doing it! I don't know the proper terminology, or even (until recently) the proper procedure. And you know me and hating to appear foolish.

But there was no one else in the store at the moment but me and "Rusty," the (female) cashier, and I wasn't worried about appearing foolish to her. I was just going to buy one ticket, but when she asked "Do you want the Powerball or Megabucks (which is the first time I knew the two were not the same), I thought, what the heck, in for a penny, in for a pound.

So do I really expect to win? Well, no. I do know that the odds of my winning are absurdly small (more likely to get struck by lightning, isn't that how it goes?); besides which I am too much the eternal pessimist. But I'd like to be some-one who expected to win. Isn't that what all those self-help gurus say, "You've got to envision what you want to happen, and it will," and “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change,” (that one is a direct quote from PBS's irritating Dr Wayne Dyer). Well, I have lots of times envisioned myself winning the lottery -- know exactly what I'd do with all that money, in what order -- but obviously I must take the additional step and occasionally play, in order to win.

What it all comes down to, I think, is faith. I simply am not a person of faith. And to get through this life with anything approaching equanimity, it seems to me that one really does need to have faith in something. If not in a loving, merciful god who will take care of you, than in yourself, or in the various forces at work in the universe ("It'll all work out in the end," "Things have a way of working out," etc.) That's what those people who play the lottery for literally years, and finally win, have. Faith that eventually God will answer their prayers, or that that mysterious thing called Luck will finally look their way.

It's the same kind of faith that people have who keep sending out manuscripts they've written, even though they get rejected time after time. They believe that eventually someone will like what they've written, and help them to publish it. I have never had that faith, and so have tended to give up after a few tries -- then maybe I'll try again a few times, after a few years have passed -- then give up again in discouragement. Never get published that way, never win the lottery.

I'm inclined to think that the ability to have faith -- which produces hope -- is the most important characteristic one can have in life. Even more than compassion, which I think is extremely important, even more than energy, which is necessary to get anything accomplished, one must have faith, or one is likely to be saddled with a negative outlook on life.

But it has to be real; you can't fake faith. Aye, there's the rub.

Desperate times call for desperate measures

2011-04-06T21:55:00.003-04:00

Is anybody else wondering why the Japanese don't just bury the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant? A physicist from City University of New York, Michio Kaku, was recommending that on CNN (which I don't get, but I saw it on YouTube). I have been watching NHK, the Japanese news station, for the past couple of weeks, and they keep reporting that the radiation in the sea water beside the plant is "280,000 times the legal limits set by the government" -- on Saturday, April 3rd, it was 7.5 million times the legal limit! -- but the government keeps insisting there is no "direct danger to human health." What about all those fishermen who make their living from the sea? The Japanese eat huge quantities of fish, and other seafood. And now South Korea is getting concerned about the higher levels of radiation reaching their waters.

Then there are the higher levels of radiation found in the soil in the area of Fukushima, and various foodstuffs (spinach, milk). Things just don't seem to be getting any better -- every time you turn around there's a new crisis, a new complication -- and this has been going on for a month! Kaku was saying in his interview that it was time for the "Chernobyl Option" -- burying the plant in a mound of concrete, sand and boron. When the interviewer asked why the Japanese government wasn't ordering that this be done, Kaku said the government was "out of touch with reality." It's beginning to look like that is indeed the case. I feel so bad for the Japanese people. It isn't enough to be devastated by a giant earthquake and tsunami -- to lose everything you own, and quite possibly a number of loved ones -- but then to have the very air you breath, the soil under your feet, the water all around you, made unsafe for who knows how long, while 50 exhausted power plant workers are giving up their lives for what is obviously a lost cause (it is extremely unlikely the plant can be salvaged to generate power again)...well, I'd say it was time for all those brave, stoic people to stop being so stoic, and get a little angry. Bury the damn power plant.

Walking in the other guy's moccasins

2011-03-31T23:26:00.004-04:00

One thing I really like about my local PBS television station is that I'm able to get not only BBC World News, but Deutsche-Welle News (in English), and just recently they've started running an English-language news program from Japan (with incredibly detailed descriptions of the various problems at the stricken power plant). I like hearing about what's happening in the world from a perspective other than American. For that matter, I like hearing about what's happening in the rest of the world! Except for disasters like major earthquakes and tsunamis, we hear very little about the rest of the world on our network news.

For example, I've been learning a lot about the German economy during the recent economic crisis. They're doing much better than we are, in terms of recovery, mainly because their economy still depends so much on exports, and the things they export -- especially cars -- have continued to sell. On the other hand, I have become familiar with how desparate the economic situation is in Spain, in Portugal, and in Ireland.

And I've been learning about German politics. Of course I knew before that Angela Merkel was Chancellor (well, actually no. I knew she headed the government, but I think I thought she was, maybe, the Prime Minister. Which she essentially is, but in Germany the position is called the Chancellor); but I doubt I would ever have known that her very popular Defense Minister, Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg, was forced to resign when it came out that he had plagiarized much of his doctoral thesis. I was somewhat surprised, but pleased, to see that so many people thought that was important enough to merit his leaving office. ("It calls into doubt his integrity," one person said). I couldn't help wondering if the same thing would happen in this country. Would people think it was that important?

The one thing I continue to have trouble with, though, is the German language. When German speakers start talking their voices are quickly muted to make way for the English translator's voice, but you still hear a few snippets. And I'm sorry, but that is just the most incredibly ugly language. Here are all these reasonable, well-meaning people espousing perfectly reasonable ideas and opinions, and they all sound like angry Nazis.

It was interesting, seeing how all the various political leaders took a real bashing from their own people as the result of the economic crisis; 'twern't just Mr. Obama. In England they actually got rid of the head guy (Gordon Brown), people have been very unhappy with Sarcozy in France, especially after his government raised the retirement age, to save money; and in Germany, Merkel's popularity has steadily slipped. People have to have someone to blame, and it's easier to zero in on the country's very visible political leaders, than on the invisible people who really caused the problems.

So anyway, I'm having my horizons expanded. Thank you, public television.

Where's it coming from?

2011-03-27T16:05:00.003-04:00

The winds have been raging for three days now. I was just lying on my sofa, resting the aching neck and shoulder that are apparently never going to stop hurting, and watching out my front window the great tall trees across the street bending and swaying in the wind. An impressive show of force (as if we needed any more displays of Nature's strength, after the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan); but the wind wreaks havoc with my T.V. (could hardly watch Fringe on Friday evening, the cuts in and out were so bad), and makes it feel much colder than the mid-30s temps we've been having. This is nobody's idea of spring, and Mainers are reading for some spring.

There's also the fact that the wind is blowing around all that sand left over from snowy days when the public works guys would be out making the roads safer. Now they're safe, but dirty; driving through the airborne sheets of dirt you feel like you're in a sand storm out west.

Still, the Kennebec is a river once more, rather than a snow-covered sheet of ice. We did not have an ice jam like we did last year (see Note of Jan. 31, 2010); I guess the melting was more gradual all up and down the river this year. They've pulled in the smelt-fishing huts that line the river across the way in Randolph all winter. They appear as soon as the river is frozen enough to do ice-fishing, disap-pear when the ice ceases to be safe.

There are still patches of dirty snow on the ground here and there -- indeed, we had a dusting of snow last week -- but we cling to the hope that, as every year, it will get warm, and beautiful, soon.

Something I hate

2011-03-19T20:11:00.004-04:00

The way products are forever being "discontinued." My first experience of this happened way back in the early 70s, when "Seven Winds," the cologne I had been using since about 1965, was discontinued by its maker, Dubarry. That stuff was so in sympatico with my body's chemistry that strangers on the street would compliment me on how nice I smelled. Then the same thing happened with the fragrance I replaced "Seven Winds" with, whose name now escapes me. More recently in the fragrance department the scent I've been using for many years -- "Youth Dew" by Estee Lauder -- has not been discontinued ('though the space it takes up at the Estee Lauder counter has gotten smaller and smaller, as they've introduced other fragrances), but the perfume has been, including the lovely little cameo-topped boxes in which it came, in solid form, at Christmas. Perfume is much longer lasting than cologne, but I am reduced to the latter (which is housed in a much tackier-looking bottle than the perfume was), and the dusting powder.

Then there's Diet Cherry Dr. Pepper. I love this soda, and have just learned from one of the two places in the area where I've been able to get it, that it has been discon-tinued. What?! They also discontinued Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper, which I liked even more. And Coco Cola discontinued the diet versions of Coke with Lemon and Cherry Coke, both of which I liked.

And my stockings! For many years I've been buying No nonsense pantyhose at the drugstore or supermarket. Durable, reasonably pleasant to the touch (especially important back in the days when there were people touching my legs), and very cheap, they were perfect for me. If I got a run or (more likely) a hole, it was no big deal because they were so cheap. But over the last year or so I've noticed that fewer and fewer of them -- sizes, colors, just number of packages -- are available at Rite Aid or Hannaford's. They seem to be fading away, which certainly suggests that they, too, are being discontinued.

These are just a few small examples (have you got one?) Presumably such discontinuations mean that not enough people were buying these products to make it worth the producers' investment, but it is certainly no comfort to know that I have such refined tastes few other people share them. What it means for me is that I have to keep search-ing for substitutes, which is time-consuming, and can be expensive, and is generally discouraging. When I've found a good thing I want to keep it, in perpetuity, but that does not seem to be the way our world is set up.

On the other hand...

2011-03-14T22:41:00.003-04:00

In my last posting I was urging people who hadn't read it to read Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. However, I do have to mention some of the bad news the book conveys. It seems especially relevant given last Friday's earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Coming on the heals of the earthquakes in Haiti and Chili last year, as well as the eruptions of two of Indonesia's active volcanoes (Mount Karangetang erupted again a few hours after the earthquake/tsunami in Japan)...well, there's just no question that the earth beneath our feet is in turmoil. And we can't do a damn thing about it.

There are two unsettling scenarios Bryson discusses in his book. The one has to do with the "hot spot" located beneath Yellowstone National Park. That hot spot is what produces all those spouting geysers and bubbling mud cauldrons that so fascinate visitors. Alas, what it basically is is a volcano, waiting to erupt big time. In fact, it's considered a supervolcano, because the magma chamber deep below the surface is huge, about 45 miles across, or pretty much the size of the park. The park, in other words, visited by thousands of people every year, is the caldera of an active volcano.

There are other "superplumes" on earth -- about thirty -- but the one beneath Yellowstone is the only one that does not lie below the sea (a number of volcanically active, and inhabited, islands -- Hawaii, Iceland, the Azores, the Canary Islands -- do sit atop such superplumes). So when it blows, which it has done about every 600,000 years, it affects a huge area of land. And that land now has lots of people living on it, unlike 630,000 years ago, which is yes, the last time it erupted. In other words, Yellowstone is overdue.

Which makes me want to get there for a visit as fast as I can, before it goes. But which also calls into question my insistence that people who live in dangerous places should just get the heck out of there (see Note of Feb. 1, 2009). For it would seem that there is no safe place. Those ranchers out there in Wyoming and Montana, I'm sure they figure they live in a pretty safe place. Brutal winters, but no hurricanes, no drowning sea coast, no earthquakes, no volcanoes.

And even if you live nowhere near Yellowstone National Park, you could be adversely affected by an eruption as far away as eastern Nebraska. That's where the fossilized remains of a whole slew of animals were found in what is now called Ashfall Fossil Beds State Park. They were buried under ten feet of ash, and had died from breathing in air full of ash. The ash fall from the last eruption covered nearly the whole of the United States west of the Mississippi. And there's no telling how long the volcanic winter from such an eruption would last. This is not a pretty picture.

So what are ya gonna do? You realize you have to "Don't worry, be happy," as the old song put it, because there is nothing you can do to prevent Yellowstone from blowing up...or a meteorite from hitting the earth, another unpleasant possibility Bryson investigates in his book. After all, meteorites have been plowing into the earth for millions of years; why shouldn't it happen again? But now the earth is full of people, and the impact of a meteorite the size of the one that hit what is now Manson, Iowa, about 75,000 years ago, would be devastating for a thousand miles in all directions. Bryson's description of "devastating" -- provided to him by geologists -- is pretty darn scary. Which starts me on another train of thought. Maybe we really need to be pumping money into space exploration, so that we can find some places for the human race to spread out, in case this little globe of ours becomes just plumb uninhabitable.

As Merlin would say...

2011-03-13T00:04:00.005-05:00

All my life I have been a lover of the arts. I am at my happiest looking at art, listening to all kinds of music, watching a ballet or other forms of dance, attending the opera, or a good play. And of course I'm a writer and a librarian, a lover of language, books.

But I have long been fascinated by science as well. I often have a hard time understanding scientific concepts, but I still find them fascinating. For example, in my college physics class I could not wrap my mind around the idea that "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." My physics teacher used the example of a brick wall -- you lean against a brick wall, bringing the pressure of your weight against it, and at the same time it is pressing back, to the same degree. "Come on," I said, "It's not doing anything! It's just standing there!"

What all this has to do with is the book I am currently reading and enjoying enormously: Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. As with most books I finally get around to reading, most other people have long since read it (this one was published in 2003). Nonetheless, if you haven't read it I can recommend it if you're in the mood to refresh your knowledge about this or that aspect of the physical universe, from the cosmically large, to the infinitesimally small, as well as to learn one or two (or 15 or 20) completely new things, all while being entertained by Bryson's cheerfully wry way of writing.

While I've been amazed many times over by what I've been learning, or reminded of, I think the most mind-boggling has to do with the world of the teeny tiny, of particle physics. It's on a par with the concept of "deep time" that I found so challenging when reading a book on dinosaurs not long ago (See Note of Nov. 20, 2010). And by the way, Bryson also touches on those incomprehensibly long stretches of time, in his sections on fossils and evolution.

Of course we all learned about atoms in grade school: the teeny tiny particles that make up all matter, and consist of a positively-charged nucleus surrounded by swirling, negatively-charged electrons. (Apparently that image, created in 1904 by a Japanese physicist who was more or less guessing, is "completely wrong, but durable just the same.")* We learned it, but did we really grasp the significance? I can't see the individual atoms that go to make up this penny I'm looking at, but since it's very old (pre-1984) it is made up of about 28,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000 atoms of copper. Clinging to each other, to form a thing. And all of those atoms have smaller parts. The nucleus of an atom, for example, is "only one millionth of a billionth of the full volume of the atom."* How do I think about that?

Or about the idea of "all but massless neutrinos" that zoom out from the sun and bombard the earth constantly (about 10,000 trillion trillion of them a second!), most of them passing right through you, me, and the planet itself? There are these things passing through me constantly, that have some mass, even if they are "all but massless?" This is like the approximately one trillion bacteria grazing on my skin, "about a hundred thousand of them on every square centimeter of skin,"* feasting on my dry skin cells, as well as the oils my body exudes. You have to assume at some point someone has looked at a square centimeter of skin and seen -- with what kind of amazing instrument? -- all those thousands of bacteria doing their thing.

Which takes me to such statements as: "'Given an adequate supply of nutrients, a single bacterial cell can generate 280,000 billion individuals in a single day,' says biochemist Christian de Duve."* In the same period, a human cell is doing good to divide once. My goodness, can anyone doubt that bacteria will inherit the earth? Especially since they can live anywhere, in virtually any kind of environment, while we delicate-flower humans are confined to a tiny area that supplies what we need for survival.

So fascinating, learning this stuff. It brings to mind a quote from one of my all-time favorite books: The Once and Future King, by T.H. White:

"The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting." You bet.

*Bryson, Bill. A Short History of Nearly Everything. New York: Broadway Books, 2003.

Sometimes I can be dense...

2011-02-26T21:55:00.005-05:00

You're always hearing about celebrities who have to go into rehab because of their addiction to pain killers. I used to think that was so weird. How could anybody be addicted to pain killers, at least anyone who hadn't been ill for a long time, during which time they'd been consuming large quantities of the things? In my naivete I believe I was thinking of products like Tylenol, or Excedrin. Or even if they were prescription drugs, I was assuming they were just more powerful versions of Tylenol or Excedrin.

But of course powerful pain medication, available by prescription only, often produces a feeling of euphoria, along with wiping out the pain. And duh, that's right, it didn't occur to me that the celebrity of the day was hooked on taking those little pills not because they alleviated his/her pain, but because of the high they provided. Which I suppose could be seen as a way of alleviating other kinds of pain. But the truth of the matter was revealed to me recently when I tried taking Tramadol, a pain killer prescribed by my doctor for the mysterious neck/shoulder/ right arm/wrist problems I've been having for the past few months. (And after my bout of snow shoveling this afternoon, on the heels of yet another snow storm, I have strong suspicions as to the source of those problems.)

Although I was forced to stop taking the Tramadol, because of an unacceptable side effect, the few times I did take it I experienced a not-unpleasant buzz, and a sudden ability to whisk around doing a bunch of things, when normally much of my productivity is a matter of mind over matter. I was reminded of the only other time I've experienced such sensations, back in the bad old days when I suffered so from painful menstrual periods, and was taking, for a while, a potent pain-killer whose name now escapes me. It provided such a pleasant high that I would actually look forward to the onset of the pain, because I knew that then I could take a pill, and everything would seem lovely (and the pain would disappear for a while). Eventually, I stopped taking that particular drug, because it ceased to be effective. But I do have fond memories...

Alas, fortunately or unfortunately, most drugs seem to produce such unacceptable side effects in me, that I must eschew the momentary high -- and the possibility of a fun time in rehab -- in exchange for a return to a normally functioning body, and good, old-fashioned pain.

Mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore

2011-02-21T21:18:00.001-05:00

And now Libya. And Bahrain. It is truly amazing.

Of course, they keep talking about the "peaceful" protests in Egypt that resulted in Mubarak's ouster; but as a matter of fact, according to the health minister, 365 died, and over 5,000 were injured. So it would be more accurate to say there was relatively little blood-letting, for a revolution. But still, even with the dead and wounded, the results were pretty darned impressive.

Libya looks to be more bloody, since so far the army is not supporting the people, as it did in Egypt. Except for those two splendid air force pilots who flew their planes to Malta, rather than "just follow orders," and fire on their own people. And the government of Bahrain is also not going gently into that good night. But despite the violence being aimed at them, in both countries, the people are still protesting. That takes both courage, and a true feeling of desperation. And it is fascinating and impressive to behold.

And yes, yes, don't we wish we'd left Iraq alone, and maybe the same thing would have happened there...

Letting the inner child out for a while

2011-02-19T23:08:00.004-05:00

Today was one of those I-Actually-Did-Something days. One of those days that come all too infrequently, these days. What I did was go to a Model Train and Doll House show at the armory in Augusta. I love both model trains and doll houses, so when I saw the sign yesterday, on my way to Burger King to get a Whopper without onions and a chocolate milk shake, and saw that the entry fee was only $4, I determined to go.

Not only that, I actually asked someone to go with me. As I've mentioned here before, too often I don't do things because I have no one to do them with. In this case, I didn't really mind going alone, but thought it would be a pleasant activity to share with someone, and also thought that the staff member with whom I am most sympatico might actually be interested in going, too. And she was but, alas, the show was only running today, and she was already committed to going shopping with her mother.

So I went alone. Out into the freezing cold day -- after two days when it got up into the 40s, to everyone's aston-ishment and delight, it is now back to being Winter in Maine -- and making the what is beginning to seem like such a long drive, from my house to the street in Augusta where most things happen (Western Avenue, which sports two shopping centers, numerous fast-food places as well as a lot of small businesses, the Post Office, the best hotel in town, the office of the local newspaper and yes, the armory) -- and joining the queue behind all the people with little kids in tow, so I could fork up my $4.

The show was not what I expected. I thought there would be lots of neat doll houses and running trains to ogle at. There were some of each, but not that many. There was an absolutely marvelous doll house in the form of a light house, with a beautifully done room on each of the three levels. The only thing I wondered about was why the woman who made it had put the bedroom on the second floor, and the living room on the top. "People" -- and there were figures in the kitchen on the ground floor -- would have to go through the bedroom to get to the living room. But the woman's work was meticulous. And feeling the way I do about lighthouses, well, you just know I would have loved to be able to add that one to my non-existent collection.

There was also a doll house that cost $600. It looked like a McMansion. Also beautifully done, but $600?

Several model train clubs -- Maine 3 Railers, Great Falls Railroad Club -- had displays of running trains. My favorite train was the Bangor-Aroostook, a train line that actually served that massive county in the north of Maine from the 1890s through the 1960s. What really charmed me were the all the Maine-specific cars that made up the train: an Oakhurst milk car (Oakhurst being a major Maine dairy), a presumably refrigerated Maine Lobster car, heating oil being transported in a Downeast Energy car, etc., etc.

Perhaps the best display was produced by Model Rail Scenes, apparently a branch or project of the Central Maine Railroad Club. Wonderful buildings for the train that was running to glide past -- a milk stop, with tiny old-fashioned metal milk containers waiting on the platform, farm buildings, a general store with outhouse. I came away with their card, which directed me to their web site (www. modelrailscenes.com), which showed me that all these items can be purchased as kits, with prices ranging from $60 for the milk stop, to $200 for a switch tower, to $325 for the barn/silo/shed. Just imagine what it must cost to outfit a complete countryside for your train to roll through!

However, despite these few displays, what the show mainly consisted of was people selling train cars -- never saw so many little train cars in one place, most lying on their sides in little boxes -- and the tiny, adorable, in some cases exquisite furnishings, and dolls, that go in doll houses. I don't have a doll house, or a child with a doll house, so obviously I wasn't going to be buying any of the doll furniture -- especially with prices like $59 for a miniature table-with-two-chairs, or $54 for a tiny rocking chair (think how much it would cost to fully furnish a doll house at those prices! These are not inexpensive hobbies.) -- and while I would love to be able to buy a whole train, with a track for it to run on, and cunning little buildings to go with it, such a purchase would not only fall into the luxury category, in which I may not, as a rule, indulge; but also, where on earth would I put the thing? Not an inch of available space in my house (which is so small it could almost qualify as a Doll House).

Actually, what I really wished was that I had not only the permission of my Friends organization to make such a purchase, but also some cold hard cash from them, so that I could get a small train with tracks for the library. This is obviously something for which I have no money in my regular budget, but is the sort of thing the Friends have paid for in the past. Two Christmases in a row we had the loan of a cute little train that ran 'round and 'round our Christmas tree, to the enchantment of many a child, and many a non-child. But then the fellow who had lent us the train died, and that was the end of that. In December of 2009 I was thinking of trying to find such a set to buy and donate to the library, as I was a little more flush then than I am most Christmases. However, to my real surprise, I couldn't find a place in the area that sold electric trains! None of the local stores like Target or Wal-Mart carried them, nor did the little independent toy store to be found in one of those shopping centers on Western Ave., not even the much publicized Red Dragon Toys, south of here in the town of Brunswick. Goodness, don't little boys get train sets anymore? So anyway, I gave up that notion for the time being.

But before I left the show today I spent a dollar on a raffle ticket for a complete train layout. Won't know who won until next December, but that would be just in time for Christmas...

Everyone's doing it

2011-02-13T18:32:00.005-05:00

I have joined Facebook. Why have I joined Facebook? Mainly -- perhaps even solely -- in order to get a better sense of what's happening with a number of friends/ family members whom I rarely hear from. It seems most of them are on Facebook!

This is not really my kind of thing. Even writing this blog is often difficult for me, trying to walk the thin line between revealing enough about myself and my life to keep it from being boringly impersonal, and revealing an embarrassing too much; between my well-developed sense of privacy, and my desire to communicate my thoughts and feelings about "things."

Besides which Facebook is so much a matter of word bites -- "the family and i just got home from chunky-cheese, the line was out the door the whole time we were there," or (among the teenagers), "Mall tonight?" "What time?" -- whereas I am hard-pressed to limit what I say in these blog postings to just over a page. I have to work at being succinct.

Then there's the fact that, besides the minutiae of people's lives, I am constantly bombarded with political links from my most politically active "Friend" (my much-admired sister-in-law, Karen, whom I discussed at some length in the Oct. 27, 2010 Note )-- which leave me feeling overwhelmed, because many of them concern issues I do feel strongly about, but I simply cannot sign that many petitions (I don't much believe in petitions anyway, but rather in letters from individuals -- and I can't write that many letters to my President and my congressional reps!); with pleas to buy purses or have a purse-buying party, from the daughter of one of my Friends (whom I felt duty-bound to accept as a Friend as well) who sells the things; and with the announcements that so-and-so is now friends with so-and-so.

And I don't understand all the intricacies of the thing. What does the "Like" feature mean? So often people seem to "like" something that doesn't really call for a do-you-like-this-or-not opinion. And since I am getting all these exchanges between my Friends, and their Friends -- whom I don't generally ask to be friends with, since for heaven's sake I don't even know these people -- does that mean all of my exchanges are appearing on not only my Friends' pages (where I don't find them!), but on the pages of my Friends' Friends? It's all quite mad.

And my god, was ever an expression more overused than 'lol'?

Nonetheless, this very public "bulletin board" is doing exactly what I hoped it would do: letting me see what are the day-to-day concerns and activities of those I care about, but have a hard time keeping in touch with. I've already learned much more about my nephew in these few weeks of reading his and his friends endless one-line communiques, than I have ever known before. Didn't know he played the guitar ("I sing, too," he told me), didn't know he "tutted" (tutting being a dance form -- as I learned when I looked it up on the Internet -- in which the emphasis is on sliding the arms and hands in and out of geometric designs, a la King Tut [or to be more precise, like the figures in wall paintings in Egyptian tombs]), didn't know he liked the Beatles (one of the few things we have in common).

Well, so there I am, though I may very well be the weakest link in the chain.

Dirty cars, and love

2011-02-06T18:54:00.002-05:00

Greetings from the land of filthy cars. I've been wanting to say that ever since I started this blog, and finally remembered to do so when it was appropriate, i.e., in the middle of winter, when everyone's car is, indeed, filthy. Even if it has just snowed, which has served to give your vehicle a little bath, two minutes on the road will take care of that, as the sand put down by the public works people, and the slush produced by traffic rumbling over still-snowy roads, gets thrown up by all that passing traffic. Most people don't bother to wash their cars all winter; there doesn't seem to be a point. So here we are, the land of filthy cars.

And here's a question for you. Why, in sit-coms and romantic comedy films, does the guy always say, when asked by a third party if he loves the girl, something to the effect of "What's not to love? (or maybe "Of course I love her.") She smart, funny, beautiful..." And that's it. Those always seem to be the reasons men trot out for loving the woman in question, even though as a matter of fact real-life men rarely love a woman because she's smart or funny (beautiful, yes). They may admire her brains, and enjoy her humor, but that's not why they love her.

Nobody ever says, "Of course I love her -- or, What's not to love? -- she's sweet, kind, loving, she hasn't got a mean bone in her body, she puts up with me, I can be myself when I'm with her, she's great in bed..." In other words, nobody ever gives any of the real reasons men love women.

This shows an appalling lack of imagination or insight, or else just plain laziness, on the part of a heckuva lot of writers. Even if you want to be succinct, because the whole show has to be squeezed into 24 minutes, even if you don't want to come on too heavy, because the show is a comedy, you should be able to come up with something besides "She's smart, she's funny, she's beautiful." Even "I don't know why I love her; why does anybody love anybody?" is better.

Murder in Grub Street

2011-02-02T22:34:00.004-05:00

I am so not au courante. I started writing this posting about a series of mysteries I really like, only to discover, when checking a fact online, that the latest book in the series was published in 2005, with the titles I have read and was going to write about having come out much earlier. Ah, well. Maybe there's someone out there who's even more behind the times than I.

The books are in the Sir John Fielding Mystery series, by Bruce Alexander, and the one I just finished reading, Blind Justice, was actually the first novel in the series, though I'm reading it after having read two later ones. Like most people, I hate it when that happens; but I stumbled on the later books in my library -- Murder in Grub Street and Jack, Knave and Fool -- long before Blind Justice appeared among a bunch of donated books this past week.

Sir John Fielding is a blind magistrate in the London of the mid-1700s. There really was such a person, and he really was the half-brother of the more famous Henry Fielding (author of Tom Jones). The books are written from the viewpoint of a young orphan boy who becomes Sir John's assistant, after being falsely accused of thievery, and being brought before Sir John's court. Evidently that was quite a little racket in the bad old days: some innocent being set up by a gang of crooks to appear to have stolen something from one of them, and being dragged off to court, where the accusers may receive a "bounty" for bringing in a criminal. Fortunately for young Jeremy, the blind Sir John sees right through the bad guys' game, and takes a liking to Jeremy.

This is one of the things I like about these books: one learns, in an entertaining way, interesting tidbits about the everyday life of that place and time. Given my interest in history, and in other cultures, past or present, it's easy to see why I would enjoy such books. Indeed, I've written about other mystery series with historical settings that I've liked (see Note of May 1, 2009). In the Sir John books, I've also learned a bit more about the Bow Street Runners. I had a dim recollection of having heard of the BSR, without really knowing what or who they were. In effect, they were London's first profes-sional police department, organized by the Fielding brothers (Henry Fielding was also a magistrate, besides being a successful writer). The court was in Bow Street, and the "runners" were the constables who worked for the magistrate, going out to bring in people the court wanted to see, taking them off to jail when that was necessary. They carried clubs for banging obstinate heads, which became eventually the policeman's night stick.

But for all the fascinating historical detail, what most holds these books together, and gives them their greatest appeal, is the upright Fielding, with an earthy enjoyment of his food and his beer, a proud deter-mination to make his way around without assistance, to the extent possible, and his all too human vanity about his ability to distinguish among voices. He is a man of both compassion and integrity, besides being very smart. He is someone you can admire -- one always want to be able to do that with the hero of a mystery series -- and the fact that the fictional character is taken very much from the real-life character (as I learned when I consulted Wikipedia about him) makes him even more attractive.

I have discovered that there are many more Sir John novels that I have yet to read, which gives me great satisfaction. It's always a pleasure to discover new authors that you like, and to know you will be able to read more of their work.

I'll close this mini-review with the blurb from Newsday that appears on the back of Jack, Knave and Fool: "Historical fiction done this entertainingly is as close to time travel as we're likely to get."

Ah, but what comes next?

2011-01-30T15:03:00.006-05:00

My, we do live in interesting times, don't we? I watched the protests in Tunisia with amazement, was especially amazed that the marching and shouting and street violence actually resulted in the much-despised president "stepping down," as they say, and leaving the country. A popular uprising, in that part of the world, actually toppling an unpopular government.

And now we have Egypt, which is even more aston-ishing. The country as a whole has enjoyed greater prosperity than Tunisia, but there are still many people unemployed, many of them young and educated, chaffing at having that education, and not being able to find a job (the same problem that exists in Tunisia). And so very many people living in gross poverty, on the equivalent of $2 a day, I heard on a news analysis program. And a government that has been a tiny bit more tolerant of self-expression, but not if it includes criticism of the government.

Then, thanks to mass communication, the Egyptians are able to watch the successful uprising in Tunisia -- hey, if they can do it, why can't we -- and a few hot-headed young men, who always seem to be the ones to lead insurrections, take to the streets, and the powder keg is lit.

I think how the French Revolution must have started in just this way, with the common people finally having had enough of their dire circumstances in juxtaposition with the wealth and luxury of the aristocracy, and the indifference of the government. In fact, that seems to be the recipe for "revolution": the bulk of the people living wretched lives, with no sense that the government gives a damn about them. A few brave souls start shout-ing, marching, and all the lemmings join in. Then the mob mentality sets in -- there's violence, destruction, and the powers that be get scared. Inevitably they bring in the police/army -- the guys with the guns. But if the guys with the guns have any sympathy at all with the protesters -- as seems to be the case in Egypt -- or if the protesters are in sufficient numbers, and of sufficient desperation -- the government may be out of luck.

Of course we all learn about this stuff in school -- for some of us, a hundred years ago -- but now we're able to watch it being played out on our television screens. We are able to watch history being made, as we did with the moon walk, the assasination of Lee Harvey Oswald (I remember passing through the living room, glancing at the television, which had been left on all-but-constantly since Kennedy's assasination, and actually seeing Oswald gunned down), the Vietnam war, or for that matter the Iraqi war, during which we were given practically a blow-by-blow. Television really is a remarkable thing.

The current history-in-the-making is fascinating, but also unsettling, because most of the people involved in the yelling, marching and stone-throwing are not in any way pro-American. Even though they are vehemently against their current governments, they are just as vehemently anti-American. It is going to be very interesting, seeing how the world proceeds to change.

The not-so-good earth

2011-01-15T23:04:00.004-05:00

I have been reading a very interesting book, Pearl Buck in China: Journey to The Good Earth, by Hilary Spurling. This is a book I ordered for the library, because it got such good reviews, but I am the only person to have checked it out in six months, to my considerable disappointment. I'm always disappointed when one of my book selections falls flat with my patrons. I consider a circulation of five for a nonfiction book good, 2-3 is o.k., none at all is, well, flummoxing. How could I so misread my patrons' reading interests?

I know it's not that no one knows who Pearl S. Buck was -- which is apparently the case in the wider population these days -- because a lot of our patrons are older. They would have heard of The Good Earth, quite possibly read it -- maybe even seen the travesty of a Hollywood film that was made of it -- even if they had never read any other of Buck's books. But apparently no one is interested in the back-ground and experiences that made it possible...one might even say necessary...for Buck to write that at-one-time blockbuster novel, which all but singlehandedly saved the small, struggling publishing house, John Day Company, that published it in 1931, which won the author a Pulitzer Prize in 1932, and was a large part of her winning the Nobel Prize for literature in 1938 (the first woman to do so).

Well, too bad, my patrons have just missed out on a good book, from which I've learned a great deal, both about this complex, fascinating woman, and about a period of Chinese history most of us are essentially ignorant of (late 1800s, early 1900s). I vaguely knew that Pearl Buck was the daughter of missionaries to China, and spent her childhood there, but I really didn't understand to what extent China formed her. She spent the first half of her life trying to be someone she was not suited to be -- first the docile daughter of a Bible-thumping missionary (who estimated that in ten years he had managed ten converts, which just left millions still to be converted) -- then the equally-docile wife of an equally fanatically-dedicated agricultural specialist, still in China. Although she was born in the United States (in her mother's native West Virginia, which came as a surprise to me), during a holiday home for her missionary parents, she spent all but four years, from toddler-hood to her mid-thirties, living in China. The years 1910-1914 she was attending Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, Virginia, being miserable and feeling out of place (though, as she put it, "externally I became an American"), dismayed that no one was the least interested in the place she thought of as home.

I don't remember much of The Good Earth, which I read many years ago. Mainly I remember being appalled by the life of the main character's wife (who, for me, was actually the main character). She was not loved by her husband, who only picked her because he thought she would be a hard worker, which she was. O-lan's life was an unrelenting hard, from her days as a slave in a rich man's house, to her days married to Wang Lung, during which she was forever getting pregnant, bearing the children all by herself (the scene of her first solitary childbirth is indelibly imprinted on my brain), and work-work-working. I found it heartbreaking that even when she died, her loss was not much felt by her family.

Having read Spurling's book, I now know that the unfortunate O-lan was based to a large extent on an equally unattractive, but stalwartly loyal servant of Buck's. And that, indeed, much of what happened, virtually all of the conditions of which she wrote, Buck had witnessed, over the years. When the book was published the Chinese literati objected to it vehemently, because it was about rough, lowly peasants. Why would one write about such people? The government also objected to it, because it suggested rampant lawlessness in the countryside, and did not paint a pretty picture of life in China. But what came of Buck's close exposure to "rough, lowly peasants" was a respect and compassion for these people, along with a clear-eyed view of what life was like for them, how it dictated their behavior.

She also, apparently, wrote tellingly of her mother -- trapped in an inappropriate and unsatisfying marriage her entire life (at the time of her death she literally despised her husband, whom she felt, quite rightly, had sacrificed both her and their children to his fanatical missionary work) in a book called The Exile, and about her difficult father, whom she finally came to understand, respect and love, for all his flaws, in Fighting Angel: Portrait of a Soul. I'd be interested in reading both books, though I fear the former would depress me -- I hate being reminded that, in the good ol' days, so many women were trapped in miserable marriages that deprived them of the opportunity to be truly themselves -- and the latter would make me mad.

I can only say I'm glad Buck finally had her day in the sun, that after over 24 rejections the book that made her was accepted for publication, and that once she moved permanently to the United States, and unburdened herself of a marriage that had been as unsatisfying as her mother's, she was able to find constant, loving support from her publisher, whom she married, and with whom she adopted six children. Apparently much of what she wrote in later years was not, in a literary sense, very good, but she never stopped trying to convey to the rest of the world the "real" China. That was her mission.

To close or not to close

2011-01-12T15:46:00.004-05:00

Well, here we are in the midst of another blizzard. It's beginning to look like this is going to be a serious winter.

I closed the library, after doing my usual dithering. At eight o'clock when my alarm went off (Wednesday is the only day I have to get up to an alarm clock, as it is the only day I must be to work before 11. Late starting times are definitely one of the benefits of my current job -- starting the work day at 8 or 8:30 was always an agony for me.) I saw that it wasn't snowing all that hard. Maybe we should go ahead and open, and then close early (the storm was supposed to get worse as the day wore on). There were several reasons I considered this possibility. 1) I was out sick yesterday, and really didn't need to be losing another day of work. 2) Like me, my staff is paid only for hours worked, so the two women who normally work on Wednesdays would be losing pay. For one of them this is no big deal, for the other it is. 3) I know that a number of hardy souls who live in the immediate vicinity of the library would be glad to have it open. We have several patrons like this: retired, not much to do, very dependent on the reading matter they obtain from the library to give them something to do. 4) What if the storm turned out to be not all that bad -- we would have "wasted" one of our "snow days." Not that we have a set number, but when you close too often, your public begins to lose faith in you ("what, they're closed again?!") And this is Maine, where it is generally expected that one will carry on, despite the weather.

Finally, at nine, I called my staff member who normally opens on Wednesday, and who lives just three blocks from the library. She is also the one who dislikes losing hours. I figured if she was up for going in for a while she could do so, but I had decided I was not going in. It was rapidly looking worse out there, and it just seemed unnecessarily foolish (sometimes it is necessary to be a little foolish) to be making that 15-minute drive from Gardiner to Hallowell on what would certainly be treacherous streets -- after spending an exhausting half hour digging my car out -- and then having to come back again in two or three hours. As usual I got Sue's answering machines -- Sue and her husband are in that elite group of people who not only screen all their calls, but never pick up, so you always have to wait for them to call you back (I admit I do not understand this at all). However, Sue did not call me back, which confused me; surely she wouldn't have left for work already. She was scheduled to arrive at 9:30, to prepare for the 10 o'clock opening, and it would take her two minutes to get there if she drove, maybe 10 if she walked.

By 9:30 I knew we should not be opening. I had contacted the delivery service that brings and picks up our Interlibrary Loan books on Wed., to tell them we would be closed, had contacted the chairman of our Board of Trustees, (by phone, as for some reason Yahoo Mail picked this particular time not to give me access to my email account), to tell him we were closed, and to ask him to convey that info. to the rest of the Board. I did this because he had sent out an email last night, about the Board meeting scheduled for this evening, telling us to "watch the weather; we may have to cancel. If the library is closed we will definitely cancel." I think he was relieved to get my message, and promised to pass along the info., and said he would be cancelling tonight's meeting, as well.

However, I still hadn't talked to Sue. I tried to reach her several times between 9:30 and 10 at the library. I have told my staff not to answer the phone when we are not open, as I think it's important for people to understand that, just like any other business, we have hours when we are open, and hours when we are closed; but I knew that when I was not there Sue frequently disregarded this stricture. I hasten to add that this is not because of a basically rebellious nature, but because for Sue helping patrons is a sacred duty, and whether they call at 7 a.m. or 10 p.m. -- if she's there, she feels duty-bound to answer, and help them if she can. However, I got no answer, even after 10 a.m. -- except for the message I had had my staff put on the answering machine last night, saying if you're hearing this message during our regular hours on Wednesday it means we are closed due to the storm -- so I had to infer that a combination of my rather cryptic message to her home phone ("we need to talk about our opening"), combined with the state of the weather, had convinced her that we were not opening today. And when she finally called me, 11-ish, that turned out to be the case.

Well, I've gone on and on, when here is the real crux of the matter: it drives me crazy that I have such a hard time making this kind of decision. Perhaps it's a lack of faith in my own judgment, combined with a fear of not meeting the expectations of others. Perhaps I am just cursed by being so aware of all possibilities and ramifications...or perhaps the curse is being paralyzed by that awareness. Whatever is the cause, I must say it's a drag...

If you don't like the new law, shoot somebody

2011-01-08T21:36:00.000-05:00

I have just been reading on Yahoo news about the shooting of Representative Giffords in Tucson (I don't have access to television news on Saturdays until the 10 p.m. news on the Fox channel). I am just so sick of living in a place where people get pissed off, so grab their guns and go out and shoot a bunch of innocent people. And even more sick of living someplace where this is tolerated -- with just the same old mumblings about "this terrible tragedy," -- including by such people as Sarah Palin, who has actually displayed on her web site, in the cross-hairs of a gun, "targets" of elected officials whose political stands she disagrees with -- with nothing being done to make it less likely that such a thing will be repeated.

The irate sheriff of Pima County is so right when he excoriates the political "vitriol" that is being tossed about in this country, with hatred of those with opposing viewpoints being proclaimed from radio and television shows (and web sites). Then some mentally unbalanced person responds to that message of hate, which he has heard repeated over and over, by grabbing the gun he has no business having, and going off to shoot somebody, preferably several somebodies. And still the gun lobby triumphs, with their stupid insistence that "Guns don't kill people, people do." Yes, but if those wretched people didn't have such ease of access to guns, they wouldn't be able to shoot any 9-year-olds to death, would they? I have to stop; I'm too angry. THIS JUST KEEPS HAPPENING.

Especially for you

2011-01-04T23:58:00.006-05:00

I just received a late Christmas present. Or rather, I just discovered it. Under my sofa, where it was apparently kicked at some point. The thing is, I didn't know it was a Christmas present, when I found it in my Post Office box on Christmas Eve. It was from Vista Print. I had ordered some business cards from them a few months ago, but knew I hadn't ordered anything from them recently. And yet, on the three large envelopes inside the padded mailer was imprinted 'Thanks for your order!' I had the fleeting thought: Oh, it's going to be one of those unordered-merchandise-return-to-sender things. (Although yes, I know you can't do that once you've opened a package.) So anyway I tossed the package aside to be dealt with later; at the time, I was right in the middle of my brother's visit.

Recently my friend Fae asked me via email if I'd received a Mystery Package at Christmas. Having completely forgotten about the parcel from Vista Print (out of sight out of mind with me, and it had now been under my couch for who knows how long), I responded in the negative. Then this evening when I was searching everywhere for the spiral notebook in which I write my List of Things To Do, and without which I am lost, I looked under the sofa, and found the Mystery Package. When I opened the interior envelopes I saw sheets and sheets of beautiful return address stickers...with lighthouses on them. And a light bulb went on in my head. I had mentioned in my Note of December 18, 2010 that I couldn't shorten the amount of time doing Christmas cards takes by using return address stickers, because I considered those a little luxury I really couldn't afford. And most of my friends know by now that I love lighthouses. So...my lightening brain was busy putting two and two together...Fae had ordered luxury return address stickers for me, but since they came directly from the printer's, I hadn't known that.

But now I did, and could properly thank my good friend for her thoughtful gift.

This is the kind of gift I like to both receive, and give. A sudden realization that something would be perfect for someone, and promptly getting it for him or her. Not because it's Christmas, or their birthday, but because you know they need it, or would love it. My friend Ernest once sent me an audio book of The Iliad, read by Derek Jacoby, because he knew I was a huge fan of the actor's.
My sister's trip to the San Francisco area at Thanksgiving was a gift from me to her, because I knew it was some-thing she'd enjoy, and indeed needed, but could not afford.

A monetary gift need not be of the I-don't-know-what-else-to-get-you-so-here's-some-money variety. My English friends Ann and John once sent me $500, because both Micheal and I were at the time unemployed, and I had just incurred a large hospital bill as the result of what was apparently a mild heart attack. I wanted to pay them back, but they insisted it was a gift. A friend who would probably prefer to remain nameless sent me a gift in early fall that made it possible for me to make the trip to Texas I'd been wanting to make for months.

I also love gifts that are the result of personal effort/ talent. The above-mentioned Fae has delighted me with bracelets she made herself (she's a beader), and a very long knitted scarf she'd made herself (she's also a knitter). My friend Mary frequently includes Haiku poems she's written with birthday/Christmas cards, and one of the loveliest gifts I ever received was a whole book of them that she had produced. My friend Robert offered me my choice of a number of his art works, when I saw him in Ft. Worth this fall; a long time ago he did a watercolor of an owl for me, because he knew I liked owls.

It's people at their best: giving, to give pleasure.

In the spirit of the season

2011-01-01T23:22:00.005-05:00

On Christmas Eve my brother and I went to church. I am not a religious person but my brother, like most of my family, is; and I knew he would like to go to church at some point during Christmas. There is a plethora of churches in my area -- the granite Catholic church at the end of my street, across from the Gardiner common, the granite Episcopalian church on the other side of the common, the Congregational church a block down from the Episcopalian church, the Baptist church directly across the street from the Congregational...and two Methodist churches a few blocks away. (I've often wondered how there could be two Methodist churches on the same street, just a couple of blocks from one another. Did the Gardiner Free Methodist Church break away from the United Methodist Church because some folks objected to all the money they were being asked to fork up?)

Since the church Jeremiah attends in Santa Fe is Pentacostal, I suspected that the First Baptist Church of Gardiner might come closest to what he was used to. Besides which the church building, which is small, has gorgeous stained glass windows. I am a sucker for beau-tiful stained glass windows. And these do not contain pictures of Biblical stories, as is usual, but stylized nature scenes, with the occasional cross or lamb thrown in for relevance. Numerous times I have driven past the church at night, when the lights inside had the windows looking jewel-like, and have thought I should go to a service just to be able to see those windows with the sun streaming through them.

I was hoping the service would not be a normal church service, but emphatically Christmas-y, and it was. We sang a lot of Christmas hymns, which I like. One really can't object to singing Joy to the World, it's such an "up" piece. I also liked it when the minister had all the men go up to the front and sing We Three Kings of Orient Are. For one thing, it demonstrated that there were a surprising number of men in attendance, and for another, it was cool hearing that particular song sung by these robust, manly voices.

Instead of a regular sermon the preacher tried something that struck both Jeremiah and me as a good idea that didn't quite come off. He had a little scenario in which a neighbor dropped by for a chat, and they talked about the wider ramifications of Christmas. Unfortunately, the "neighbor" seemed to have forgotten all his lines, so the preacher kept having to say them for him, in a way that made sense, his saying it rather than the neighbor. And it meant he did nearly all the talking, with the "neighbor" just sitting there looking rather foolish.

I also felt that the pastor missed the opportunity to say some really pithy things about the "wider" meaning of Christmas (that is, beyond it's being a celebration of Christ's birth). For example, almost in passing he men-tioned that the year had been a very difficult one for many people, but he didn't really connect that very successfully to the issue of Christmas, as in: when money is tight, when maybe somebody in the family has lost his or her job, not only is Christmas the perfect time to remind ourselves that God is ultimately on our side, if we will hang onto our faith, hard as that may be, but a "tight" Christmas is the perfect time to wean ourselves away from all that excessive buying that doesn't really bring us happiness anyway. A chance for the family to promise to do something nice for one another ("I'll do the vacuuming for you, Mom/Sweetheart, every week in January.") rather than trying to buy expensive gifts they simply cannot afford. A chance to reaffirm that Christmas really is about being together, in loving kindness, rather than about accumulating more stuff. Etc., etc. (There were numerous other instances where I thought he missed some golden opportunities.)

You see, I could be a preacher; I know all the right stuff to say, and I know it's important to say it in a way that connects with people's real lives. On the other hand, I don't believe most of the stuff you're required to be-lieve, so I probably couldn't be a preacher.

Anyway, it was a pleasant evening, in a warm, comfor-table, very pretty church (Jeremiah and I agreed it didn't look like the Baptist churches we're used to in the south, which tend to be plain, if not downright sterile), and we went out feeling cheerful. But then it all got ruined because some fellow had penned me in with his auto. His front fender was literally touching my back one. And I couldn't move forward because there was a truck there. So we had to wait for the offender to come out. But we waited and waited, the church was emptying, and still no thoughtless driver. So now I was really annoyed, and went storming into the church, interrupting various happily chattering groups of people to ask if one of them had parked a four-door white station wagon in the back alley. Nobody had, but maybe the offender overheard me because as soon I got back out to the car here he came. He did apologize, but alas, I had gone beyond my patience and good-humor limit, and was not gracious. So much for the lasting influence of Christmas's message of loving kindness...

Why is the weather always bad at Christmas?

2010-12-31T23:43:00.005-05:00

Thanksgiving was spent with my sister Ellen, who lives in Colorado; Christmas was spent with my brother, Jeremiah, who lives in New Mexico. And here am I in Maine. We have each picked the place that suits us most.

Jeremiah and I had a lovely visit, a lovely Christmas together. He had never been to Maine, and was properly impressed, declaring it beautiful, and cold. I was some-what surprised by that reaction on his part, since I think of New Mexico, at least the mountainous area around Santa Fe, where he lives, as being cold in winter. And I know it snows there. But apparently we're talking degree here. Several days with highs in the mid-20s, nighttime lows around ten, are perhaps a greater degree of cold than he is accustomed to.

And then, of course, he got caught in the Blizzard of 2010, as they were calling it on T.V. This was on Monday, Dec. 27th, the day we were supposed to drive to Portland, visit the Victorian Mansion, decorated for the holidays, which I've only been trying to get myself to since I moved to Maine five years ago, take a general sight-seeing tour of the city, and then settle in for the night at the Holiday Inn by the Bay, where we planned to stay so we wouldn't have to get up at 3:30 in the morning, in order to leave my house by 4:30, in order to get to the airport by 5:30 (Jeremiah's flight was scheduled for 6:50 a.m.)

Except for spending the night at the Holiday Inn, none of that happened. It started snowing Sunday evening, the wind came up during the night, as promised by the weather forecasters, and by Monday morning it was pretty darn ferocious out there, with the winds making the snow blow at the horizontal. I had thought we would try to leave about 1 p.m., but there was just no way I was going to try to drive in the conditions I could see through my living room window at 1 p.m. I told Jeremiah that we might have to wait until later that evening -- the blizzard warning was supposed to end by six p.m. But as the day wore on I got to thinking how I didn't really want to have to cope with driving at night, on top of dealing with snow, wind and poorly cleared roads; for it was quite possible that, even if the blizzard-like conditions had eased by 6 p.m., it would still not be pleasant out there. So at 3 p.m. I made the decision -- o.k., we're going -- and by 3:30 we were on the road.

Jeremiah offered to drive and I let him. He drove very carefully -- indeed, slower than I would have, slower than all the Mainers who were passing us did -- and we arrived safely, a little after 4:30, by which time it was too dark for him to see much of the city as we drove through it to the hotel. It was still very windy, and very cold, though the snow had let up, and we were in solid agreement that we were not going to walk around sight-seeing. After taking our things up to our room, which was nice, if unspectacular, and had the promised view of the bay that we couldn't see because it was night, we went down to dinner in the very nice restaurant, where we were the only customers in the place until just before we left, when another couple came in (the hotel was obviously far from full). The dinner was excellent, to our mutual surprise (a really good restaurant at a Holiday Inn?). My scallops were perfect, and Jeremiah's eggplant with Portobello mushrooms -- which I enjoyed the leftovers from later -- was also very good. It was actually quite pleasant, sitting there by the window looking out at the snowy street under the pink city lights, with the occasional muffled-up person hurrying past.

Later we enjoyed the luxury of lying propped up by all the great pillows on our individual beds, watching an episode of Bones, a show I like because of its emphasis on the importance of science, and because the heroine is the humorless, brilliant, logical scientist, while the hero, an FBI agent, is the romantic, intuitive one.

So after all that was Jeremiah's flight cancelled, like so many others, you're wondering? Since he was flying to Atlanta, not one of the impossible places like New York, New Jersey, or Philadelphia, we were hoping against hope that his flight would not be cancelled. And it wasn't, but it was three hours late leaving. And since Jeremiah got to the airport at about ten of 6 -- courtesy of the complimentary airport shuttle, a really wonderful invention -- he had to hang around the airport for three and a half hours before finally getting on a plane. Then had to wait 2 1/2 hours in Atlanta for the later plane they had put him on, since he had of course missed his earlier connection. He was supposed to arrive in Albuquerque at 1:15, but didn't get in until 6:30 in the evening. An extremely long, tiring day for him, but obviously far better than those folks who had to wait literally days to get back home.

Well, it will all make a good story for him. He can now say he's experienced a New England blizzard.

With a little imagination...

2010-12-22T01:32:00.004-05:00

The ornaments I hang on my Christmas tree are nothing if not original. Many have been made by various friends over the years, out of Styrofoam balls, glitter and beads. It all started with the first Christmas my husband and I shared, in 1968, the year we were married. We were living in Los Angeles at the time -- with me chaffing because it was in the 70s, and it was Christmas -- and I invited my friends Grace and Joe up from Long Beach to a tree-decorating party. Which first involved making the decorations. And later when I was living in Boston, I coerced my Boston friends into participating in another such party. And off and on over the years, whenever somebody would visit me at Christmas time, I would have him or her make at least one ornament.

Some are quite lovely -- the one covered completely in blue glitter, for example -- some are very clever (e.g., the globe of the world with glitter continents by Boston friend Robert), some are amusing (friend Rick's The Phantom Frog Strikes Again, with its grinning masked "action figure"). One that my mother made demonstrates her patience in producing a craft: what must easily be a hundred green sequins topped by a gold star, and pinned to the Styrofoam with gold headed pins, forming a "cap" above the face she had colored in. Another face that someone else did -- friend Meaghan? (who was formerly friend Grace) -- comes complete with eyeglasses. There's a snowman, complete with three segments and a black top hat. Don't know how whoever did that one -- I think it may have been Micheal -- came up with that particular accouterment.

I've done the same thing with the Christmas tree we put up at the library: each year, we put out the Styrofoam balls, the glitter, the glue, the what-have-you, and invite and encourage people to "Make an Ornament for our Tree." And they do, little kids and grown-ups alike. Here again, some real artistic talent is revealed. But mainly it's a way to give people an investment in the tree. It's not just one we put up and decorate for them to look at, it's one they've contributed to. And we save the decorations from year to year, just as I do mine at home, which has imparted a sense of tradition to the tree.

This is the kind of thing that makes Christmas meaningful to me: people coming together to share various kinds of traditions, which give them a sense of continuity, while making the world colorful and festive (or delicious) for a while.

So Merry Christmas, already.

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree

2010-12-20T22:39:00.005-05:00

Since I live alone, and don't usually have guests at Christmas, I frequently do not put up a tree. But this year my brother is coming from New Mexico for a visit, so I definitely needed a tree. And any tree this girl has has to be real.

But here was my problem, or rather the first of what were to prove numerous problems: where to put a tree in my tiny house? I had one the year my mother spent mid-November to mid-December with me, and again the following year, but in both instances my living room was set up differently. Once I discovered one of my book-cases was sitting over a heating vent (how had I missed that fact when I moved in?), which was not good for either my books or the temperature of the room in winter, things had to be re-arranged. Now in the only possible space I didn't have a bookcase that it was no big deal if it was partially covered by the branches of a Christmas tree, but rather the small table where I eat my meals. Couldn't very well cover that up. I finally decided I would just have to get a tree small enough to stand on top of my desk -- that was simply the only horizontal surface available.

So I drove way out to Longfellow's Greenhouses in Manchester, thinking that would be the most likely place to find a really small tree. But the only small trees they had -- which were actually the perfect size -- were live trees, and cost $65. I couldn't bring myself to pay that much for such a small tree, especially one that I didn't know what I'd do with until spring. So the next day I stopped at the tree lot I pass every day on my way to work, with the sign out front that touts "All Maine Trees." Frankly, in this state full of every kind of evergreen (it is the Pine Tree state!), I can't imagine any tree lot having anything other than Maine trees, but oh, well.

The smallest tree on the lot seemed like it would be small enough, but when I got it home I saw it was definitely too big to fit on my desk. Well, I could hardly take it back; I would worry about where the heck to put it after I got it into its stand. But that proved a task beyond my powers. It simply is not possible to screw in the screws that hold the trunk in place, while holding the tree upright. After doing a lot of screaming and swearing, which I acknowledged to myself was hardly in the Christmas spirit, I went next door and asked Bill the Drunk if he could perhaps help. Note that I don't really know that Bill is a drunk; it just seems like he's all but stumbling drunk whenever I talk to him (or possibly stoned) -- he's frequently out in the driveway having a cigarette when I'm coming or going, evidently banned from the house when he smokes. He's nice enough, but a little unsteady on his feet. Actually, when I went over there I was hoping one of the other fellows who lives in the house would be there, but as usual it was just Bill, so Bill is what I got. He held the tree while I struggled with the screws, but we could not get that damn tree to stand straight.

Finally I sent Bill on his way, and called Earl. Earl is the fellow who hauls the library's old newspapers and cardboard to the recycling center, and he has also traditionally done whatever kind of "muscle" work I needed done around the library. He is no longer young, but is determined to prove that has not affected his muscle power one whit. Though I sometimes fear he will drop dead of a stroke or heart attack on me -- all while talking a blue streak -- I find him enormously helpful. And he has helped me personally a couple of times with other Woman Living Along problems.

However, as luck would have it, Earl was not home. So in desperation I called the one male member of my staff, and asked if he could possibly help me set up my Christmas tree. With his usual good grace Bob drove from Hallowell to my place, did his best to help me, but finally agreed with me that the big problem was most likely my broken tree stand (did I mention my tree stand was broken?) So while Bob went to have lunch with his wife, who happens to work in Gardiner, I went to good ol' Harvey's Hardware and bought a new stand; Bob came back after lunch and we were able to get the tree up, and more or less straight. While he was gone I had decided where the tree would go: in the kitchen! The kitchen is separated from the living room (where I also eat) by only a narrow, waist-high counter cum built-in bookcase, so the tree would be plainly visible. And the only things taking up space on the kitchen side of the counter were a big box of bubble wrap, and the big cooler my mother gave me to carry food in when I was driving from Texas to Maine. Both could easily go down to the basement (in fact, I asked myself, why hadn't I don't that before?)

So, success at last. I was so worn out, I decided decorating would have to wait for the weekend.

'Tis the season

2010-12-18T17:41:00.005-05:00

Well, it's all over but the shouting. Sent my last Christ-mas cards out this morning. Doing Christmas cards is an activity I actually enjoy -- I like the idea of connecting to all those I care about at this time of caring and sharing -- but it just takes so long. First there's picking out the cards, then deciding which ones should go to whom. I don't just buy a box or two of the same card and send them out to everyone I know; I want what I send to be appropriate. Does this scene work for this person or couple? Does the message inside? And I have to keep a record of what card I send to whom, since I sometimes have cards left over, which I may use another year...but heaven forbid they should go to the same people!

Then there's the fact that I send cards out to a total of 38 households (plus three Hanukkah households, but this year that holiday came way too early, so those folks are getting Happy New Year's cards from me). But the real labor-intensive part comes from the fact that I make a point of writing personal notes to everyone, if I'm not including a Christmas letter. When I do a letter it isn't a summary of the whole year, as many people's Christmas letters are, but simply an of-the-moment letter. It may vary slightly from person to person, but the gist of it is the same. That saves me some time -- it's all on the computer, any slight changes take no time at all -- but this year I didn't seem to have a letter in me, so per-sonal, handwritten notes it had to be. Those people I more or less keep in touch with during the year -- or those few who I know actually make a point of reading my blog -- may get a very brief note; others, a more substantive one. But it all takes time, and thought.

And finally, I have to photocopy all the cards, so I'll know what I've said to whom (since I remember nothing, see Note of...ah, I forget). And then I have to handwrite my return address 40 times because I don't have those little return address stickers (a frill I can't bring myself to spend money on). And at some point I stand in line to buy Christmas stamps. And all of this takes me a week to ten days to complete. Which is where I am now, tired but triumphant.

But, here's the thing. Most people (at least most women) not only churn out the Christmas cards -- and I'm sure many people have lists as long as mine, if not longer -- but they also have to buy presents for various near and dear, an obligation I'm spared because of my Starving Librarian status. If they have kids, several gifts for each one of them. If they have nieces/nephews they're close to, they have to have presents. The parents -- both sets, if you're a couple. The spouse. Secret Santa at work. Everything has to be selected (will he like this, is this too young for her, will this fit, do you suppose they already have one, can we afford this), wrapped, mailed in a timely fashion or put under the tree. On top of baking cookies for the family, and the church Christmas fair, on top of decorating the house (male contributions in this area usually restricted to putting the lights on the tree, and putting up the outside lights), on top of going to see the kids in the church's nativity play, on top of maybe going to a Christmas party, maybe throwing one. Planning, shopping for, and preparing the Christmas meal.

No wonder they're so relieved when it's all over. No wonder the holidays are so stressful for so many people (especially women). There are just too many things one is expected to do, or that one demands of oneself, to make the holiday "just right." Toward the end I got really tired of doing Christmas cards, and that was just one little task that I was demanding of myself. But ye gods, if I had to do all that other stuff...

As much as I love Christmas, with all the trimmings, I probably just wouldn't. In order to keep on loving Christmas.

Oh, yes, I forgot...

2010-12-02T22:14:00.006-05:00

As yet further evidence that my memory is essentially useless: Ellen and I had two delays on our trip, not one. And the second was lengthy enough for us to sit down in a restaurant and have a leisurely lunch.

Friend Fae drove us to the airport at about 11 a.m. Saturday, for our 12:50 flight to Colorado Springs. Although we'd been blessed with sunny weather throughout our stay, the last ten minutes of the drive were in pouring rain, that had us all feeling nervous. Indeed, both Ellen and I were worried about Fae having to drive home in that rain, but she assured me in a later email that it stopped as soon as she'd left the airport (it would seem the gods didn't want people coming to the airport, but if you'd already dropped off your passengers, ah, what the hell). After we'd snaked our way through a longish security line that nonetheless moved at a reasonable pace -- and during which a smiling, very young, security guard reminded me that I'd have to dump that water bottle in my hand ("Or you can just dump the water in the bin and keep the bottle," he'd said helpfully, but, thinking about those annoying faucets in the ladies room, where you have to hold your hands just so to get the water to come on, and it can go off any time it likes, I decided against the refill-it-after-the-security-rigmarole substitute for having to purchase a $2.50 bottle of water post-security.) -- and after following the little old white-haired gentleman who had to all but undress (first they had to tell him to take off his belt, but then his suspenders set off the alarm. So then he undid them at the front, but of course that didn't help at all, since the metal clips that had attached to his pants were just as metal dangling down around his knees. Finally one of the security guards helped him undo them at the back and remove them. At least they didn't say, O.K., sir, you'll need to step over here for a pat-down.) through the security gate, we found a Departures monitor and learned that our plane wouldn't be leaving until 1:20. We had nearly two hours to kill.

So we opted for lunch. And not in a food-court kind of set-up, with overpriced fast food, but in a real restau-rant, where you sat down, ordered, and waited for them to cook your food. A first for me, in many years of flying. The place was called Yankee Pier -- more irony -- and served really quite excellent seafood. I had the fish and chips, and while the fish was fried, the flesh was cooked just right, not overcooked, not rubbery, and the batter was very light. Excellent fried potatoes made out of real (as opposed to pop them frozen out of the bag) potatoes. Ellen said her tuna melt was "real" tuna (as opposed to canned), and delicious. It was nice not having to rush, or take the food with us, to clumsily consume while waiting to board the plane.

Of course, this meal did not come cheap, $34 for the two of us, with only water to drink, and no dessert. Ah, well, we just pretended we could afford it.

By the way, re the very nice young security guard: throughout our various flights all TSA workers seemed to be bending over backwards to be pleasant and courteous, and Ellen and I were both wondering if the recent flap over the pat-down business had anything to do with that. At any rate, it was better than being treated like a potential criminal...

The unfit traveler

2010-11-30T21:59:00.003-05:00

One thing my trip to San Francisco demonstrated to me is how fearfully out of shape I've become. I haven't exercised in months, because I finally reached the point where I just couldn't force myself to do this thing I had always hated doing. (Rather amusingly, my sister was reading on the trip a book on staying fit and feeling good for women "of a certain age," that included a section headed "All the best people hate to exercise.") I knew I would feel better -- though I always feel terrible immediately upon finishing an exercise session -- knew my increased stiffness was due to no exercise, knew it was affecting my stamina, which isn't good at the best of times.

But it took all that hiking up steep hills to convince me that I needed to bite the bit and start exercising again. It wasn't just the Streets of San Francisco, though there I was usually bringing up a limp fourth (Ellen, who exercises regularly, and seems to be made of energy, was always way out in front and never even seemed winded). But there were other demonstrations.

We got in on Wednesday morning, and after lunch Fae suggested we go to nearby "Windy Hill" (which turned out to be appropriately named) from which you can see both the sea and the bay. I later learned, thanks to signs along the trail, that this is part of the Windy Hill Open Space Preserve of San Mateo County. The climb up to the top was neither that long nor that steep, but Fae and I vied for who would get there last. Near the top, in the first "open space" (most of the way up we had scrub brush on one side, and a hillside covered with scrub brush on the other), I saw a bench, and practically cried Eureka. But we weren't quite to the top. Ellen and Jim were already there, taking pictures of the bay. And if you looked off to the west, there was a slim line of the Pacific Ocean, gleaming in the sun. All very nice, if a bit nippy, but I'd been given my first taste of my out-of-shapeness.

Then, Fae's idea for Thanksgiving afternoon, when we were waiting for the turkey to roast, was to walk "up the street" to where one of their neighbors ran a miniature train around his back yard every holiday. Fae knows I love trains, and thought I'd enjoy this. Which I did -- it was an adorable little train, complete with whistle which the "engineer" blew as we went around curves -- but the walk up and up and up the winding, winding, winding street to the neighbor's house had me ultimately collapsing on a guard rail to catch my breath and slow my heart rate. I felt like a little old lady. Since their retire-ment Fae and Jim have been doing a lot of walking, and it has obviously paid off.

So, Melody, it's time to get off the bed where you're taking that nap, or get off that computer where you're doing that admittedly fascinating genealogical research, or get off that couch where you're watching the latest episode of Bones or Fringe or Lie to Me, and EXERCISE.

Where I left my heart

2010-11-29T23:52:00.005-05:00

Went to the San Francisco area for Thanksgiving, with my sister Ellen. I had invited myself to the home of friends Fae and Jim months ago, and when Fae was having a hard time coming up with additional people to invite, I boldly suggested my sister. I knew Ellen had never been to San Francisco -- and while Fae and Jim actually live in Redwood City, about 20 miles south of SF, I knew we would be going into the city at least one day -- knew she could use a special little holiday, rather than sitting at home alone (her only son lives in Hawaii, and was not coming home for Thanksgiving), and felt sure Fae and Jim would enjoy her -- she is a pleasant, agreeable, and very funny person -- and that she would like them (they are pleasant, low-keyed, very hospitable).

It was a really good trip. Even the flying was relatively hassle-free. No, we did not get patted down, or put through a machine that would enable some stinker to put our naked images up on the Internet. Indeed, at none of the airports we went through -- Portland, Maine, Denver, CO, Colorado Springs CO, or San Francisco -- did we see anyone being patted down or zapped with radiation. Nor were we cursed with weather delays. The only real delay we had was in Colorado Springs, when the United agent informed us over the intercom that the flight attendant had "called in sick," and the person who would be replacing her would be arriving at about the time the plane was scheduled to leave. Even then, though we were about half an hour late leaving, we "made up the time?" (How? By flying faster? If that was the case, why don't they always fly faster?)

When we went into S.F. on Black Friday, which, far from being black, was a beautiful, sunny day, I was reminded of why it remains my third favorite city in the world (after London & Paris, and just before Boston). It's beautiful, cosmopolitan, unique. Ellen was the expected delighted by it. We managed to do most of the things she wanted to do. We strolled up Grant Avenue into Chinatown (yes, "Grant Avenue...San Francisco... California...USA!"), and later enjoyed dim sum in a little tea house on an alley off Sacramento Street, (next door to the Willie "Woo-Woo" Wong Playground). We walked up Nob Hill and wandered through the quite gorgeous Fairmont Hotel's lobby, and one of its shops, full of beautiful Indian fabrics, rugs, clothing, decorative boxes, etc., none of which had price tags on them (both Fae and I were afraid to ask the price of anything). We also paid our respects to the Ritz Carlton, which was properly elegant, but not so grandiose as the Fairmont. We took a Powell Street cable car down the hill to Fisherman's Wharf, to join the thousands of other tourists, and the hundreds of seagulls. Ellen got her picture of Alcatraz, and the Golden Gate Bridge.

The one thing she had wanted to do that we just ran out of time and energy to do was visit Haight Ashbury, where I lived for six months in 1966-67 (see Note of June 23, 2008 for some of my reminisces ). But we went home to Redwood City and enjoyed a Maine lobster dinner at a favorite spot of Fae's and Jim's, the Old Port Lobster Shack on Veterans Blvd. -- and yes, we were all amused by the irony of this girl from Maine having Maine lobster in California, but hey, I never have it in Maine because I can't afford it -- and then went home and crashed. A good day, a good visit all around.

Former masters of the earth

2010-11-20T22:46:00.005-05:00

I have been trying to plough my way through Dinosaur Odyssey: Fossil Threads in the Web of Life, by Scott D. Sampson. I am as fascinated by dinosaurs as any 10-year-old boy, but while the book is certainly interesting, and informative, it is also pretty heavy going, at least partly because of all the mind-numbing words like ornitho-mimosaurs, hadrosaurs, ceratopsids, not to mention all the proper scientific names of particular species -- Deinonychus, Tenontosaurus, Coelophysis. I never realized there were so many.

There are a number of concepts I've had a hard time wrapping my mind around, the biggest being that of "deep time." The (approximately) 4.54 billion years the earth has been around, that's an example of deep time. The "160 million-year tenure of dinosaurs," that's deep time. We're not talking a hundred years, not a thousand years, or even ten thousand years -- the approximate length of time human society for which we have plentiful evidence has been around -- we're not even talking about 4.4 million years, which is about how old the oldest humanoid (not human) remains thus far found have been. The last of the dinosaurs died out about 65 million years ago (that's 10,000 x 10 x 65), and this was at the end of their "160 million-year tenure." How can I possibly think intelligently about that kind of time span? And how can self-destructive humans ever hope to compete with that record for longevity?

Of course, they weren't all the same dinosaur species during that 160-million-year stretch. Just as in the more recent past, species came and went, evolved and died out, due to one cause or another. I never thought about that, but living creatures are certainly going to change, evolve, over that long a time span.

Another idea I have trouble with is that the birds of today are the descendents of a certain group of dinosaurs (interestingly, not the flying kind, like pterosaurs, but "small, carnivorous dinosaurs [that] found a way to be-come airborne," and that "managed to eke through the extinction bottleneck that brought an end to the Mesozoic." Admittedly, if you sit and watch a bunch of birds, you can spy very predatory and rapacious be-havior, but that's the closest to anything dinosaur-like that you can easily detect. But at least I'm glad to learn that no one is claiming that birds are the descendents of T-Rex.

One very interesting and highly plausible idea Sampson has introduced me to is that the weird horns/stiff neck "ruffles"/rooster-like crests/and other adornments many dinosaurs sported were less likely to have served as weapons, as originally thought -- many would have been very ineffectual weapons, because of their locations -- or even to assist in getting at or eating food, than to have served as attraction mechanisms for the opposite sex. After all, that's the purpose served by any number of oddities in the animal kingdom today. The elaborate spread of the peacock tail, the brighter coloration of the male of many bird species, the antlers of the deer, the red bottom of female baboons...all of these serve a primary function of attracting the opposite sex. I like to think of a female triceratops spotting a nearby male and thinking, "My, look at the frill on that big guy. I'd like him to be the father of my children."

Only, of course, not really thinking it, but intuiting it. Enabling the reproduction dance to go on, and evolution to continue on its ponderous but ineluctable way.

Oh they have to win they have to win

2010-11-06T20:59:00.005-04:00

All right, I'm willing to concede that professional sports are more than "just a game." They're a competition to see which team is better trained, in better shape, with more finely-honed skills. But what I don't get is why fans identify so totally with their favorite teams. It's one thing if your kid is playing on the little league or the high school team, if a team you're cheering for is from your alma mater, even if you've long since left the place. But just because a professional team is called the Philadelphia Phillies or the Texas Rangers, does not mean it's made up of a bunch of home-grown boys. The Rangers have players from California, Arizona, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, just to name a few. And every professional team is the same. So what are the fans so invested in? What is it that makes them so hysterical when "their" team wins, so morose when it loses?

This kind of fan fanaticism is something I truly do not understand, and my inability to do so is one of the things that makes me feel I am not a member of the human race. Maybe one of my psychologist friends can explain it to me. Watching game four of the Series, I was amazed by the people in the stands that the camera would catch, some of whom looked tense and miserable, as if they might cry at any moment, some of whom actually looked as though they were praying, many of whom just looked depressed. All because it really did look like "their" team was going to lose (which it did). And of course when a favored team wins the fans jump up and down, scream, cry, hug one another, and, when they get out to their cars, drive up and down the streets with horns blaring, screaming out the windows.

Why? Why is winning or losing so important? What does it prove? That a particular team, for that game at least, was better at their job than the other team. But their expertise has literally nothing to do with the fans, or I guess I should say the fans have nothing to do with their expertise. Are not responsible for it, cannot take credit for it, really have no right to feel proud of it. And remember these are not local boys -- many of them will be playing for other teams in a year or two or three. Winner's hysteria seems to be saying 'this team, whoever it may be made up of at the moment, has a name and a home base connected or close to where I live and they've won; therefore I'm ecstatic, feel triumphant.'

And Melody doesn't get it. Is it just the old us-against-them mentality, played out in sports? A kind of tribalism, that sometimes seems genetically fixed? Melody herself is such a weird spectator of sporting events that she can actually appreciate a good play by the other team, instead of despairing because it results in them scoring a point, or otherwise furthering their cause. And I have such a strange idea of good sportsmanship that I think in a situation like the one on Monday night, when the Series was lost to a team that just plain played better, someone over the loud speaker should have called for a round of applause for a game well-played by the winning team, and should have gotten it, from a bunch of disappointed, but gallant, Ranger fans. Wouldn't that have been cool? In the best of all possible worlds...

Take me out to the ball game

2010-10-31T19:52:00.006-04:00

I have watched most of the first three games of the World Series (which should surely be called the National Series...how presumptuous of us!), and am looking forward to the fourth game this evening (although the competition is a new version of Sherlock Holmes on Masterpiece Theatre. The game may lose me for an hour.)

This kind of sports enthusiasm is unprecedented for me. Although I've always liked baseball, I've never been much for watching games on television. However, this summer I found myself watching at least part of the occasional game on Fox, and was reminded of what a terrific game it really is. For one thing, you can see what's happening, as opposed to American football games. You are able to clearly see both individual skill, and beautifully-executed teamwork. Indeed, with today's long-range cameras and instant replays you can see amazing detail, can see exactly what makes a particular play impressive. Surely there are few things more satisfying than a flawless double play. As someone who has always "thrown like a girl," I can't help but be impressed by an outfielder who scoops up a ground ball, sends it like an arrow clear across the field to the second baseman who tags the runner and then zings the ball to first base. And of course it's exciting when you're not sure, you're not sure, but...yes! It's a home run!

And the game is not just a matter of big lugs plowing into one another, trying to put one another out of commission (a la American football), or of purposely starting free-for-alls (ice hockey). It's a matter of skill and teamwork, rather than brute force.

But I have to say that, as I watch, I can't help but think of it as a kid's game that grownup kids are playing. I mean, think about it. When you hit the ball you have to run as fast as you can around in a circle, being sure to touch a "bag" at three points in the circle. The other side is trying to tag you with the ball before you can do that. Sometimes there's actually a skittish little dance as a runner tries to avoid being tagged. Grown men doing that for a living!

They make it "grownup" by having things like errors ("Come on, you're a pro, you shouldn't have fumbled that ball."), and by having pitchers who throw such fast, sneaky, misleading balls that it's no mean trick to successfully hit them.

I decided I'm rooting for the Giants. Yes, I know, I'm a bad Texan. But I watched the Giants play the Philadelphia Phillies this summer, and so enjoyed this "bunch of misfits," as they are frequently described, that when I learned they were playing in the Series, I decided they were "my" team. (Since the Red Sox aren't playing.) I'm especially impressed by pitcher Tim Lincecum, who looks about 16 -- it doesn't look like he shaves yet! -- who is skinny, and yet delivers his pitches with amazing power.

I'm happy the Rangers have made it to their first "National" Series, and I won't be heartbroken if they win -- after all, this is "only a game" -- but...go Giants.

Am wondering if my friends Bob and Mary, big Giants fans, attended either of the games that were held in San Francisco. Rather amazing location for the ball park, right next to the water...

Paying our respects

2010-10-27T23:41:00.004-04:00

Well, here I've actually gone and done something. I flew to the Dallas/Ft. Worth area to visit various friends and relatives, living and dead. The main reason for my trip was to see my friend Clifford, who has known me since the day I was born. One of my father's oldest friends (they knew each other from the seventh grade on), Clifford and two other of my father's friends brought a big, soft, pale blue teddy bear to the hospital in honor of my birth. I still have that bear (Joe), though the pale blue has long since faded to grey, he's lost his stuffing and been restuffed more than once, with negligible results, and the big black eyes were at some point replaced with pale pink pearl buttons, that somehow make him look cross-eyed. Nonetheless, I love this bear.

Clifford is now the only one of "the gang" left, and has reached the impressive, but somewhat unsettling, age of 90. I thought I should check in on him. I also did some grave-hopping while in Ft. Worth. At my father's and stepmother's grave, which is located on a hill over-looking the Trinity River, it was so windy that I realized I was not going to be able to leave the flowering plant I'd brought, as it was quite likely to get blown away. I later picked up a heavy ceramic planter at Walmart's garden center, tucked the basket with the plant inside that, and made a second trip out to Oakwood to put it in place. It looked like it would now be able to withstand that Texas wind, and, if no one steals it, should be available for future "plantings."

I was accompanied by my sister-in-law, Karen, on this trip (on the first it was Cliff). Karen is the widow of my stepbrother who died in 1999, while I was spending three months in France. I didn't even know he had died until I returned home, and had never yet been to visit his grave. I had also never been to visit my stepbrother Dean's grave, though I had attended his funeral, in southern Louisiana. Both of these brothers died at sadly young ages (54 & 53), and I was reminded of how sad that was, standing at their graves. But it was great watching Karen in action. Not only had she brought artificial flowers which she tucked in amongst the ones still there from her last visit ("Very unusual that they're still here," she said. "When they mow they usually take them away."), but she had bought little plastic pumpkins full of candy for each grave (she tended a total of six, all her husband's relatives, not hers, which shows you what kind of person Karen is), as well as a package of Twizzlers for Mike's grave, as that had been his favorite. I loved the efficiency combined with affection with which she freshened and tidied the graves.

And I also visited my own husband's grave, in Terrell, the morning of the day I flew back to Maine. Here, I cried. I always do. Micheal also died too young (58). All these men who don't take proper care of themselves, dying early.

But I didn't just grave-hop. I also spent some time with one of my high school classmates, whom I try to see whenever I go to Ft. Worth. On my first evening there he and his mother took me to dinner at Pappadeaux, which doesn't get very good reviews on Trip Adviser, and which was too noisy, but which served me up a delicious almond-crusted talapia. (The next night, when Karen and her partner took me to dinner, I had crab-stuffed talapia. I said it was pretty ironic, coming from a coastal state to this land-locked city and having fish twice in a row.)

Our second evening together Robert and I drove to Dallas to visit yet another high school classmate, where I admired his beautiful town house, with a view from the bedroom balcony of the Flying Red Horse, Pegasus, atop what was once the Magnolia Petrolium Building, and is now the Magnolia Hotel. This building, at 29 stories, used to be the tallest in Dallas -- I can remember driving from Ft. Worth to Dallas as a kid, and spotting the building's winged red horse soaring above the city -- but now this iconic sign can barely be discerned amongst all the city's much taller buildings. But from Steve's balcony you have a very nice view of it. At Steve's we consumed lots of champagne, the hottest Thai food I've ever had, and did lots of reminiscing, which is one of the things old friends are for. Thanks to the champagne we were all extremely amusing.

My final evening was spent with my Dallas cousins, in the first house I had been in in four days that was always cool enough for me. Temperatures were in the 80s while I was down there, which as we all know is too hot for my tastes. Jim and I are both heavy into tracing the family tree, and had a bang-up time pouring over a bunch of old photos he'd inherited from his mother, who'd inherited them from her mother. I hadn't seen either of my cousins, or their families, in over six years, so it was good to see them all again.

All in all, a satisfying visit, during which I did everything I intended to do, saw everyone I intended to see, and didn't hyperventilate too much, driving in all that mad traffic.

Going with the flow

2010-10-16T17:44:00.004-04:00

O.K., I've now joined the rest of the human race in two areas. I've purchased a cell phone, and a rolling suitcase.

Yes, I know, I was probably the last person in the United States of America who was still lugging by hand a heavy suitcase everywhere she went. I think it was my agonizing experience at the Portland, Maine airport in January, when I was preparing to take a flight to San Antonio to attend my mother's funeral, that cinched it for me. When I got up to the automatic check-in machine, I discovered I did not have my billfold. Had taken it out of my purse to pay a highway toll; must have left it on the seat of the car. Shit. Since you can't leave your luggage unattended, I had to lug my suitcase with me, back across the street to the parking garage, and down quite a way to where I'd parked my car.

Sure enough, there was my billfold on the seat. So then I trudge back to the terminal, go up to the counter, and discover...I don't have my billfold! I absolutely went to pieces, kept crying, "This isn't possible, I just went to get it, I can't believe this is happening!" The only thing I could think of was that I had knocked it out of my purse, which meant it must be lying on the concrete out there, just waiting for someone to pick it up. And what made it all too perfect was that I was again going to have to carry that damn suitcase with me, while I retraced my steps.

I begged the woman at the counter to let me leave my suitcase with her. She kept saying she couldn't do that, but she did finally take pity on me, given that I was having a mini-breakdown right there in front of God and everybody, and said she'd walk with me over to the X-ray machine, and if they o.k.ed it, then she could keep it, while I went to look for my "wallet." So that's what we did. And the billfold/wallet (you say tomatoes, I say tomahtoes) was not lying on the pavement anywhere; it was still on the seat of my car. I had picked it up off the passenger seat, paused to do something or other, and set it down on the driver's seat while I was doing that something or other. And left it. Those near and dear who do not think my Alzheimer's is taking over, just aren't paying attention.

Well, as I said, it was probably this painful experience that convinced me I really did need a rolling suitcase. Mind you, I love my old suitcase, which is an excellent suitcase, still in perfect shape though it's got to be thirty years old. Though it's an undistinguished black, it has a very distinctive, almost military, stripe of red, kaki and olive, running across the top from the back seam to the combination lock...which of course I can no longer use. (Not being able to lock ones suitcases is damnable, as far as I'm concerned -- why can't they x-ray them when you're at the counter, then let you lock them?) This strip makes it easy to spot my case among all the other black bags coming around on the baggage carousel, as do my initials engraved on a small patch of leather at the top of the stripe.

I am very conservative in many ways, not wanting to discard or stop using something just because it's old being one of those ways. But I have had to acknowledge that, as I am not strong, and no longer young, lugging a suitcase around by hand on my travels is just proving too much for me. So there you go.

As to the cell phone, I was probably the last person in the world who didn't have one of those. They are as ubiquitous in Third World countries as they are in the U.S., but I kept saying, for years, that I didn't need one, and why get something you didn't need? Just something else to spend money on and have to stay on top of. But on my last few trips there has always been at least one instance when it would have been really helpful to have a cell phone, so that I could call and let people know I was going to be late in arriving.

So what the hell, I broke down and signed up for the cheapest plan I could find, from Consumer Cellular. A mere $10 a month, with free phone. No minutes included with this plan, but it was recommended if I expected to use 20 minutes or fewer in a month, which I do, since this phone really is intended for emergency purposes only. Twenty-five cents a minutes for all calls, including long distance. No contract, can cancel anytime. Does that sounds like a reasonable deal? It did to me.

So we shall see how this being like everybody else goes.

Trade-offs

2010-10-02T00:36:00.005-04:00

O.K., now that I've got the ice cream addiction pretty much under control (very occasional now, instead of practically every night) I've turned to the caffeine addiction. Way more difficult. Actually, I've been drinking caffeine-laden sodas all of my life, without giving it a thought. But only in the last few months have I resorted to that favorite supplier of caffeine for most of the world, coffee. I've never been a coffee drinker because I don't like the taste. Love the smell, dislike the taste.

But a few months ago I discovered what everybody else discovers when they're about 18: coffee is the best waker-upper there is. At work I have an ongoing problem with staying...not exactly awake, but alert, on my toes, up to all the multitasking I have to do. I was accustomed to downing a candy bar and quite a few slugs of Diet Dr Pepper at some point, every single day, as my energy level and mental acuity began to flag. But the candy bars would inevitably begin to wreak havoc with my inner workings, after a few days; besides which there was the inevitable low after the sugar high had dissipated.

So one day I bought a cup of Pumpkin Pie coffee (or some such name) at the local bakery, Slates, intrigued by the name as much as anything. Adulterated with plenty of fake sugar and light cream, it wasn't half bad. In fact, the flavoring that entitled it to be called Pumpkin Pie made it almost tasty.

And...this was the biggie...I found that a few sips of it perked me up even better than the Coke/candy combo. So I began buying a cup about every other day -- yes, a cup would last me two days, since I never drank much at a time.

But then, as with any addiction, I began drinking more each day, so that in no time at all it was a cup a day. And I realized not long ago that I was having to consume coffee in order to get going in the morning. Big news, huh? But this did not please me. The fact that I ran down and had to have this particular pick-me-up throughout the day shouted dependence. And the idea of being dependent on anything, at the mercy of anything, has always appalled me. It was one reason I had such a hard time understanding my husband's alcoholism -- how could he bear to be so not in control of himself and his life, so at the mercy of this substance?

I also realized that while the coffee did "wake me up," it also made me very nervous, and I'm nervous enough, thank you very much. And there was the fact that I was spending $1.31 a day -- almost $7 a week -- on something that probably wasn't good for me, and adding all that light cream to my waistline in the bargain.

So I stopped drinking coffee last Saturday. And, what was probably a mistake, decided to try to drop caffeine altogether, while I was at it. For I know that caffeine tends to make me feel hungry, which means I probably eat more than I otherwise would, as I freqently have some kind of cola, or iced tea, with my meals, or between meals (the latter for the needed pick-me-up). That is, I can never have just a glass of soda, I have to have something to eat with it. And that's certainly adding to the waistline.

Until this afternoon, when I had a few sips of Dr Pepper, I had had no caffeine in a week. And I felt tired, tired, tired all week. Practically all I did when I was at home was sleep, because I felt too tired to do anything without giving myself a caffeine fix. And at work it was pretty much a matter of there in body but not in spirit. It was just a good thing there were no crises or meetings to deal with. (There was a program on Thursday evening, that I had to drag myself back to the library for.) This afternoon, when I really had serious doubts about being able to do anything at work, I decided to look online, to see what the timeline for caffeine withdrawal was. Because I felt I really could not go on like this for much longer. At one site, where "the public" was answering the question, 'how long does it take for caffeine withdrawal symptoms to disappear?' the most common answer was 'about two weeks.' Although, some people said, it can take up to three months (a couple of people said six months!) for your body to recover completely from being deprived of caffeine. Good grief.

It was after reading that that I concluded I may have been hasty in trying to eliminate all caffeine from my diet at once. So, no coffee -- I do think I can stick with that -- but there may be a sip of Dr Pepper from time to time. The girl has to be able to write, if nothing else.

On hearing an angel sing

2010-09-21T20:25:00.003-04:00

I suppose everyone out there -- with the exception of my friend Clifford, who doesn't watch anything but sports with the sound turned off -- has by now heard the amazing 10-year-old Jackie Evancho, either in her recent operatic performances on "America's Got Talent," or on any of the performances saved to YouTube (which include the ones from AGT). She is certainly one re-markable little singer; indeed, her voice seems to be coming out of a full-grown woman, rather than that little slip of a girl (which is, in fact, why some people were thinking there must be a mechanical trick involved). It's one thing to reach those exquisite high notes, but how can her body produce those rich, full lower notes? How has she got the diaphragm for it?

I didn't see Jackie on AGT, but my local FOX News station always shows cuts from shows like American Idol and AGT, and that's where I heard Jackie's rendition of Pie Jesu from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Requiem. I have this album, and while I don't think much of it as a whole -- it's lugubrious, as all requiems are, and more than once I can detect The Phantom of the Opera lurking in the background -- Sarah Brightman's performance of Pie Jesu on it is exquisite. But...little Jackie's is, I do believe, more so. How a 10-year-old girl could compete with a 25-year-old one, is beyond me.

But, enough rhapsodizing. Here's what I'm wondering. What kind of childhood is little Jackie having? Although it's obvious she has a god-given voice, you don't get that kind of breath control and phrasing and fullness and roundness without practicing, practicing, practicing. So is Jackie, like very talented children from Mozart to Frances Gumm (aka Judy Garland), doing without a childhood, in order to perfect her talent, and then showcase it? And how much of this has to do with the parents (as in the case of Mozart and Judy Garland), rather than Jackie? In other words, how much is she being pushed, as opposed to encouraged? And is she going to end up having this miserable life, while all of us out here are enjoying her beautiful voice?

I always worry about children being exploited. Childhood is a modern phenomenon; for millennia, as soon as children could reproduce they were likely to be married off, and among the working classes children worked from a very early age (e.g., on the farm), even if they were lucky enough to also be able to go to school. And they were always expected to adhere to adult standards, no matter how unrealistic that might be.

But we have such a thing as childhood now, and I think it's a good development, in the evolution of human culture. I'm inclined to think kids today are not given enough responsibility; not enough is expected of them; but still, I think they should mainly be involved with being kids, while they are kids. Grownup life, cares and woes come soon enough, and then last the rest of ones life. I just hope Jackie is getting to have sleepovers and go to Harry Potter movies with friends.

(Do listen to her, if you haven't. She will amaze you.)

Perfection

2010-09-18T19:31:00.008-04:00

Today I did something pleasant that was good for me. All too rare, those things that are good for you, but also pleasurable. I had lunch outside in the sunshine. The weather was absolutely perfect, with a high of maybe 70 degrees, no humidity at all, and until about 1 p.m. there wasn't a cloud to be seen. The sun was very bright, but the tiniest whisper of a breeze kept it from feeling too hot on my face and arms as I sat eating my Subway roast beef sandwich at a clean picnic table in the rectangle of a park that stretches down in front of the State House in Augusta.

One of my errands for the day was to take the graduation card, with accompanying gift, that I had for my niece Sara (and that I've been meaning to get mailed for a week -- it's just so hard to get myself to do things these days!), to the Augusta post office before one o'clock when it closes. Driving there I passed the park, which lies across the street from the State House, sloping down toward the river. I knew I was going to have to eat soon, and the thought struck that a little picnic in the park would be nice. Something different from my usual resorting to a Burger King Double Whopper or McDonalds Double Quarter Pounder when I'm out and about and hunger strikes.

The park is very nice, but seems to rarely get used, perhaps because of its location. Maybe during the work week, when it's nice, people from the State House, the legislators' office building behind it, and the State Library and State Museum, which are across the parking lot from the State House complex, take their sand-wiches, sodas and yogurts across the street and down the slope. But today I pretty much had the place to myself, except for a mother and father with their two young kids, who seemed to be practicing riding their bikes. There were also a couple of men who looked like construction workers, who ambled past my table bearing their empty pizza box to the trash receptacle by the sidewalk. And a fellow who was taking pictures. I myself regretted not having my camera with me, as the white State House dome against that Microsoft Active Window Bar blue of the sky, framed by the trees in the park, made a striking picture.

White I ate I was reading one of my two current books, The Rose Cafe: Love and War in Corsica, by John Hanson Mitchell. It reads like a coming-of-age-while-doing-Europe novel, but is actually a beautifully written piece of nonfiction, describing the few months Mitchell spent on the northwest coast of Corsica during the early 60s, when the Algerians were fighting for their independence from France (Corsica is controlled by France, so all the papers were full of this news), and the U.S.'s involve-ment in Vietnam was beginning to gather momentum -- thus, the 'war' part of the title. You get a clear sense of the island of Corsica, its inhabitants, the various tourists -- French, German, English -- who come through, stopping at the small inn where Mitchell washed dishes and did whatever else they wanted him to do, in exchange for room and board. It's a travel book with a difference.

So after this pleasant repast I was able to make myself do some other errands that I've "been meaning to" do for ages: pick up the sweater that had been sitting at the cleaners since June, buy a couple of bottles of paint for the kids at the library, using the coupons that ran out today, buy a new pocket dictionary, and a new French-English dictionary, since the ones I've been using for years are ancient, and falling apart. And then on my way home I passed the fellow I've passed a couple of times this week, sitting out in a parking lot hawking pumpkins from a flatbed. On an impulse I swung into the next parking lot up, and drove back down to where he was, and bought my annual pumpkins. Normally I like to get these from a farm stand out in the country, but this fellow was from a farm, and deserved some business, given his infinite patience in sitting out there all day, every day.

Stopped at the supermarket -- something else I've been avoiding this week, because I just get so tired of having to eat, having to cook, having to decide what to cook and eat -- and I bought some fresh flounder, brought it home and cooked it very simply, with parsley and dill, and it was delicious.

A leisurely day, physically comfortable, with no hyper-ventilating, but still getting things accomplished. It was a wonderful day.

The price(s) of not doing it yourself

2010-09-13T23:38:00.009-04:00

A few weeks ago I had a fellow clean out the flower beds on either side of my front stoop ('porch' is too fancy a word for two wooden steps and a wooden slab about the size of a window pane). I was hoping he could go on to put something new and exciting in, in place of the junky stuff I had disliked ever since I moved in here. However, Jim is, as he says, "a lawn guy," not a land-scaper, and I could tell he wasn't eager to try to decide on what to put in. I had originally made calls to three different landscapers in the area, and not a single one had called me back, which was what had sent me to "the lawn guy" in the first place. The day after Jim finished clearing away everything but the dwarf spruce that I had pulled out of a big pot beside the stoop and planted in the ground with my own two hands, and which I there-fore felt some sentimental attachment to...anyway, the day after he pulled everything out, and carted it away, one of the landscapers actually called me back. And made an appointment to come look at "the space," and talk to me about what I wanted, and give me an estimate. He came on a Monday -- seemed very knowledgeable, talked me out of almost everything I'd found online that I liked the looks of (everything was "too invasive"), and said he'd send me an estimate.

Two weeks later I called because I still hadn't heard from him. The secretary (or maybe his wife -- around here many many businesses are Mom & Pop concerns) told me she'd "just gotten the estimate on her desk and would send it to me right away." That was a Monday, and I didn't receive the estimate until Thursday, which makes me doubt it was sitting on her desk waiting to be mailed. But anyway, the cost was about $200 more than I was expecting/hoping it would be. So then I called ol' Jim back, to see if he thought he might be able to do it cheaper. But he listened to what the landscaper was proposing, and said he didn't think the costs sounded unreasonable. He was willing enough to put the plants in, but I could tell he was not eager to try to locate them; he suggested I do that. I didn't like that idea...this undertaking was supposed to involve money on my part, not work...so I called the landscaper back, again talked to the ubiquitous machine, and said I had some questions about the estimate; please give me a call.

Nothing for another week. Finally I got a call from him at work -- "I've tried to call you several times as home; I guess you don't have an answering machine, huh?" Uh, no, which was exactly why I'd given him my work phone, which does have an answering machine. Anyway, I told him one of the items listed on his estimate -- clearing of the beds -- had already been done, and I was hoping we could deduct that from the costs. He said he would come out and look, and see if there would still be some clearing that had to be done, since they had to be sure all old roots had been removed. I went out that evening and looked, and could see some weeds were starting to sprout here and there, so obviously there were still a few roots in place. So a couple of days later I did put in some work, tugging away at a bunch of recalcitrant roots right next to the stoop, and the scattered weeds. I also removed some more plastic, buried beneath the top layer of soil. Jim had mentioned to me that he'd discovered several of these sheets, in the process of clearing the beds, and had decided to leave them there. After he told me that I'd taken a look, tugged on a few visible edges, and ended up pulling out everything I found. Why on earth have plastic sheets in the ground? And why on earth leave them there?

So the landscaper finally gets back to me, says he's taken a look and "they" seemed to have done a good job of clearing the beds (yes, we did), and that that should definitely reduce the final cost. So I say O.K., let's do it. And they actually came out a mere five days later, and put in the new plants.

But. I was all excited on my way home from work, thinking I was going to be seeing this whole new vision of lush greenery with white accents (my house is charcoal grey with white trim, so I wanted plants with white edges). But what I saw when I pulled into the parking area was a whole bunch of...what is it that looks like shredded wood?...covering the floor of the two beds, and four little plants on one side of the stoop, four little plants on the other, next to the preserved (but moved, when I thought where it had been was just fine) dwarf spruce. These little guys cost me $40, for four lamium plants, $33 for two hosta wide brim plants, and $52.50 for two dogwood "ivory halo." I was expecting to get full-grown plants, but now, it seems, I have to wait for them to grow. Does this seem right? Have I been took? Or is it just that I don't know how these things work?

The great American pastime

2010-09-05T19:59:00.002-04:00

I went shopping today, which is very unusual for me. I don't mean grocery shopping, which I do about every other day. I mean clothes shopping.

As those of you who know me know, I've always hated to shop. It's always seemed like such a waste of my precious time, and I've never been rich enough to shop with anything approaching abandon. I have to think about each purchase, being as practical as I can be. First of all, is it something I can afford? (Since this is always question #1, I am always attracted to the end-of-season reduced racks, where prices have been slashed to what the items are actually worth). Then, if it's a skirt do I have at least one and preferably two tops I can wear with it? If it's a blouse do I have at least one skirt I can wear with it? Is it something I can wear to work?

Even before I do these mental calculations there are other things I have to consider. For example, when buying outer clothing, the first consideration is color. I don't even look at things that are beige, brown, rust-colored, orange, yellow, grey, greyed-down shades of blue or green (also known as teal blue and teal green), navy or -- usually -- black, because those colors do not look good on me. Second, I consider the fabric. A kicky little summer dress made out of polyester is ridiculous, because polyester is hot; likewise I can no longer wear knitted tops because they cling and my "top" (more accurately my mid-section) no longer takes kindly to clinging. Then, style. Do I like the look of the thing? These days the answer is frequently no, as I find most of the styles hanging on the racks ugly, sometimes in the extreme. Admittedly we've at least gotten away from padded shoulders, a fashion that I loathed, and which seemed to last forever, the way long, baggy shorts for boys and young men have.

And finally...does it fit? And not only fit, but look good on me? Both questions are answered in the fitting room, where one is forced to avert ones eyes at the sight of ones soft, aging, semi-nude body, while experimenting with various fashions, some of which (in former shopping expeditions) wouldn't even close at the waist.

You can see why I consider shopping more ordeal than fun. But I decided to put myself through this ordeal today because we really do seem to be in the midst of The Endless Summer, and I am sick to death of wearing the same six skirts, five tops, in various combinations. I lost the use of three old standby skirts this summer, due to the ever increasing waistline (I have gained 30 pounds in the past five years, ten of those pounds in the past year). I have more blouses, but they are not cool enough for the inferno that is my library. On top of which, I figured since this was the end of the season, there would be some good bargains to be had.

So I went to good ol' Kohl's, the closest thing to a department store in the Augusta area (it appalls me that the state capital has a K-Mart, a Wal-Mart and a Target, but no proper department store. You have to drive 50 minutes to Portland, or an hour and a quarter to Bangor, to find department stores, buried in malls.) And I helped the economies of China (a skirt, two blouses), Indonesia (a pair of shorts, since the one and only pair I still fit into -- thanks to the elastic waistband -- are starting to wear out), Vietnam (3 pair underpants) and Thailand (another pair of underpants). I will admit the fact that not a single item was made in the U.S. makes me uneasy, but here's the real killer. Supposedly American businesses have things manufactured overseas in order to keep them cheap. But a simple little cotton blouse was originally $40 (I got it for $16, which is what I would say it was worth); my pair of shorts were also originally $40 (I got them for 12). So what I'm wondering is, where are the cheap prices, that come from sending everything overseas to be put together? And my god, what must they charge for shorts at Neiman Marcus?

Well, at least I should be cool, while looking fetchingly different, this coming week

Enough already

2010-09-01T00:21:00.001-04:00

According to the weather guy on the radio we here in Maine are in the midst of the first official heat wave we've experienced since 2002. And heat wave it is. After a couple of days last week when there were intimations of fall -- pleasantly cool mornings, warm sunny days but with very low humidity -- all of a sudden we're getting five days in a row of high temps in the mid-90s. For Maine, at the end of August, that is really bizarre.

We've had a really good summer, for those who like summer weather. The people who have camps they trek out to on weekends, or for a few weeks, have been loving it, as have all the out-of-state visitors, and all the businesses that depend on all those tourists. I've been happy for those folks, even as I have spent most of the summer hiding out in my little air-conditioned house, avoiding the heat to the extent possible.

But even all the people who have been enjoying the summer, are ready for it to end. Mainers simply are not hot-weather folk, or they wouldn't live here. Fall, wonderful, spring, nice, winter, actually enjoy unless it's too brutal or goes on for too long, but too much hot summer weather? Boo, hiss.

But whater ya gonna do? I close my library, because it's too hot for my staff to be working in, and I come home to my air-conditioned house, and wait for fall.

Agreeing to disagree

2010-08-29T17:16:00.003-04:00

Sometimes I despair of American culture almost as much as my friend Clifford, though generally for different reasons. My greatest dismay is at the absence of basic civility and tolerance in public debate, at the rudeness and unkindness evident in so many human interactions, from such things as the judging done on America's most popular television show, "American Idol" to the making of comments on blogs.

Those of you who bother to read the (very few) comments that crop of from time to time on this blog, will have seen the several from the gentleman who took great umbrage with my statement that Paul McCartney is not a "strong" singer. While I think our disagreement may very well stem primarily from a failure to define our terms (what I mean by strong may not be what he considers strong), still, I think his comments need not have carried the tone of contempt and disdain that they did. I believe it is nearly always possible to disagree, to point out errors, to criticize an opposing position, while remaining courteous, while exhibiting respect for ones "opponent" as another human being. Certainly when discussing something as relatively unimportant (in the general scheme of things) as a rock musician!

But for far too many people these days, that idea doesn't seem to exist. "I'm right and you're wrong which means you're either evil (in politics) or stupid (in discussions about rock musicians);" that seems to be the operating attitude. If people in the Middle East maintain such an attitude, peace will never happen there. If we do not manage to "win the hearts and minds" of the people in such places as Pakistan and Afghanistan, those who have had such intolerance deeply inculcated will triumph in that part of the world (and then where will we be?)

To me, the very essence of a civilized person is one who is civil to all, until circumstances demonstrate that that is no longer a viable position; someone who is tolerant of those with differing opinions, ways of life, religions (a basic tenant of America civil liberties, that many people are forgetting these days in their blind hatred of all things Muslim...as if all Muslims were flaming, America-hating radicals). But behaving in a civilized manner does not seem to be a high priority with many people these days. The art of putting down others -- especially for the amusement of still others -- seems to be valued more highly than habits of cooperation, mutual information sharing, constructive criticism, and hey, kindness. And I really don't think our country is the better for it.

I did think it was rather nice of the irate Paul McCartney fan to post a bunch of links to McCartney singing. And I also appreciated the fact that he apologized for having inadvertently posted his lengthy comment three times; that was courteous. But when I think how much more effective he could have been if, instead of an attack, he had tried having a dialog...well, perhaps it would have been less satisfying for him; but I'm sure it would have been more interesting for others. Different strokes...

To blog or not to blog

2010-08-23T22:09:00.002-04:00

If you regularly check in with this blog, you have un-doubtedly noticed that quite a bit of time has passed since my last posting. Alas, I have begun to have second and third thoughts about this blog business.

Although I've tried to make whatever I've written about interesting, it all comes down to: my activities, my thoughts and opinions, my recommendations, my complaints, my life. And while I know I have friends out there in cyberspace who are at least moderately interested in not only what's happening with me, but what I think about what's happening with me (they are no doubt the "returning visitors" I see on the statistics page); I'm equally sure that most people couldn't care less. Especially since I rarely do anything exciting, don't report on life's little disasters in an hysterically funny way, don't reveal the sordid secrets of my life or of people I know. There are personal blogs out there that have become famous because their producers give an all but blow-by-blow description of their lives, including fights with spouses, medical procedures undergone, bouts of depression, problems or absurdities at work, etc. I'm much too private a person for that sort of let-it-all-hang-out-approach, and although I've made the occasional complaint about work (usually having to do with putting on library programs, which I DO NOT LIKE TO DO), I am much too self-protective to endanger my job by complaining too much, or too specifically.

As a culture we have become obsessed with knowing the inside secrets of other people's lives. Particularly the lives of "celebrities," whose claim to fame may be something as insignificant as having once appeared on one of the ubiquitous, and wildly misnamed, "reality" shows (there is nothing real, or realistic, about those shows. They are as phony as Pam Anderson's breasts.) And at the same time that we devour news on Tiger Woods' marriage or Sandra Bullock's divorce or Lindsay Lohan's latest arrest, thousands and thousands of us eagerly share with a million strangers descriptions of our kids' recent birthday parties, pictures of throw pillows we've crocheted, how our bedroom looks now that we've repainted it, not to mention political rants, religious exhortations and blah blah blah.

And, despite the fact that I have endeavored to make my observations, and even my complaints, interesting, as well as something that at least some people might be able to identify with, I feel I am doing the same thing as all those other bloggers out there: saying 'look at me, listen to me, pay attention to me.' There is surely something vaguely sad about that.

Giving, in a time of crisis (or anytime)

2010-08-08T11:25:00.004-04:00

I was just trying to find out what, if anything, one of my favorite charities, the Central Asia Institute (CAI), was doing to help those affected by the recent flooding in Pakistan. The CAI, for those of you who don't know, was started by former mountain-climber Greg Mortenson, after he was rescued by villagers in the high passes of northwestern Pakistan. While he was recuperating in their village of Korphe, he learned that the children had no school and, impulsively, he promised he'd build them one. He spent the next three years trying to fulfill that promise, and found himself, in the process, falling into his life's work: getting schools built, supplies purchased, teachers trained, throughout northwestern Pakistan, and eventually northeastern Afghanistan.

Mortenson has written about his experiences and his mission in, first, Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School at a Time, published in 2006, and later in Stones into Schools, which covered the expansion of his efforts into Afghanistan. Mortenson's story is truly inspiring, proof of what a single person can accomplish if he or she is sufficiently motivated. (It also illustrates how much energy, perseverance and sacrifice are involved in bringing about a miracle.) And it provides a shining example of what the United States should be doing, in our efforts to "win the hearts and minds" of the people in that part of the world. Mortenson's organ-ization is determinedly apolitical; it is not trying to foist American ideology onto the locals; it is completely respectful of the Islam religion. It is just trying to help these very poor people obtain what they want, which is education for their children. The one stipulation the CAI insists upon is that girls must be educated, as well as boys. And in almost every place they have sought to build a school, this requirement has presented no problem.

But to return to my original impetus for this posting: what, if anything, was the CAI doing to help in the current crisis? I was especially wondering because back in 2005, when there was a major earthquake in north-eastern Pakistan, the CAI was flooded with questions from regular donors as to what the organization was doing, or was going to do, to help. After much soul searching, the CAI decided it would not try to do any-thing in the way of immediate-emergency-response. They felt there were other organizations better equipped and trained for that sort of thing, and that what they should concentrate on was exploring the area for damaged or destroyed schools, to see how they could help rebuild those. And this actually proved of enormous psychological help, during that very stressful period, because going to school every day gave the children a sense of security, and normalcy. Also, the CAI was able to provide wages for teachers in that area, some of whom hadn't been paid for months.

My guess is the CAI will maintain the same policy in the current crisis, even though one of the areas most severely hit was where much of the school-building of the past 15 years has taken place. Quite possibly some of those schools have been destroyed, along with the villages they were in. Which means the CAI will have its work cut out for it once more. I would like to have seen some mention of this, of the crisis in general, on the organization's web site, or that of its founder, Greg Mortenson. Nonetheless, I do consider this a charity worth supporting -- can anyone doubt the positive effects of making possible a balanced, as opposed to extremist, education amongst people who would otherwise continue living in abject poverty and ignorance? Leaving their young people ripe for the picking by Muslim extremists? I've added a link to the CAI's web site, for anyone who might like to learn more about it. And I urge you to read Mortenson's books. They are fascinating, and make you feel good about the good people can do.

A few moments of peace

2010-08-07T00:12:00.001-04:00

Last Sunday afternoon I drove down to a favorite spot of mine on the river. It's at the far southern end of South Gardiner, which is an unprepossessing spot in the road a few miles south of the real Gardiner, where I live. There's a fork, where you veer slightly to the left, rather than staying on the highway that curves to the right. This puts you on a road with, first, an old church, and then several large old houses on your right, the river on your left. I drove down to my favorite large old house, which has a wonderful front porch, with both a swing, and rockers, for sitting and staring out at the river across the road. I always park on the grass verge there, across from this house that I'd live in in a moment if I had someone to live with me (I get too afraid living in a big house by myself. Crazed ax murderers, you know.)

I sat there for about half an hour, watching the occasional boat go by on the beautiful, serene river. The Kennebec is everything a river should be: wide, but not too wide, gently meandering, with the occasional small, tree covered island in the middle of it. The banks are heavily forested. Indeed, looking across the way from where I sat, and down in either direction, I could not see a single sign of humankind, just a mass of green trees. It undoubtedly looks exactly the way it looked when the Indians were creeping around searching for dinner.

I love living close to this river, driving beside it every day on my way to and from work. A beautiful river is a gift from the gods. Like ripe nectarines, beautiful music, and great sex.

If you stick around long enough...

2010-08-01T20:38:00.006-04:00

The other night I watched part of the program on PBS honoring Paul McCartney (officially Sir Paul McCartney, but please), as he received the third annual Gershwin Prize for Popular Song from the Library of Congress. The program took place at the White House, with President Obama and family in the front row. McCartney and other performers did a selection of his songs. I missed most of the other performers, except for an all-right version of Baby, You Can Drive My Car, by the Jonas Brothers -- a very young group, with whom I am totally unfamiliar -- during which I was completely distracted by the lead singer's hair, which literally covered practically his entire face. I know that some of the time he was singing with hair in his mouth, which could not be pleasant.

But anyway. Listening to McCartney sing, I was reminded that he was never the strongest of singers, and his voice hasn't gotten any stronger with age. This guy is no spring chicken -- he was born in 1942 -- but there he is with brown hair. I've complained before (Note of June 13, 2008) about the double standard that forces women to color their hair, while men are allowed to grey naturally. But in the world of rock music this is obviously not so. Two of the Rolling Stones -- who are all well into their 60s, and looking genuinely old -- also "still" have brown hair. Their peers -- we baby boomers who may be aging but still love rock and roll -- might accept them with grey hair, but presumably not the young whippersnappers who buy the records and go to the concerts.

While watching the PBS program, I was also reminded of the book I recently plowed through (it's a BIG book): The Beatles, by Bob Spitz. In it, McCartney comes across as the most traditionally ambitious of all the Beatles, the most realistic, the best at ingratiating himself with people. This tribute at the White House is surely an illustration of all of these qualities serving the man, and providing him with those things he wanted out of life.

The book provides a fascinating portrait of the "four lads from Liverpool," who really did change popular music dramatically (I can hear my friend Clifford saying, "Not for the better!"). This relatively restrained Beatlemaniac (see Note of Nov. 30, 2009 for my version of Beatlemania) was surprised to learn about all the unpleasant realities that she was totally unaware of, during that time when she was busy thinking of the Beatles as so cute, funny, talented, and different. They were all of that, but as four very young, unsophisticated men who suddenly found themselves a totally unexpected wildly successful (originally their ambition had been to be the best rock band in Liverpool) they didn't lose any time immersing themselves in sex, drugs and rock and roll. Indeed, I had no idea that drugs played such a huge part in the lives of all four men, but especially John Lennon, who resorted to LSD frequently, once he'd been turned on to it, and was even addicted to heroine for a while. Apparently during many of the later recording sessions drugs both played a big part in the interesting sounds and effects they created, and in the rapidly disintegrating relations among the four men (in particular Paul and John, who were always in a kind of competition for leader of the pack).

I was surprised to learn what a nasty piece of work John Lennon was in general. He always hated the jolly, clean-cut, well-dressed image that Brian Epstein, the Beatles' manager, insisted they adhere to. That image worked magnificently, but John chafed under it. He was the original "angry young man," and his preferred persona, which he adopted when he first started playing the guitar at 15, and formed his first band, was that of what the British called a teddy boy, what we Americans would call a punk. Tight jeans, leather jacket, hair slicked back in a duck tail, cigarette hanging out of his mouth (all the Beatles were heavy smokers). When the Beatles went into their psychedelic phase, in the late 60s, and dropped the neat (if long) haircuts and buttoned-up suits, John became truly shaggy and scruffy looking. He was always wanting to shock people, shake 'em up, while Paul wanted to make them happy, give them what they wanted.

And you see who got the prestigious Gershwin award, even though there is no question that all of McCartney's best work was done with John Lennon. Of course, Lennon was shot to death at the tragically young age of 42, but I can't see him ever doing anything so main-stream as appearing at the White House to accept an award from the Library of Congress. But...we'll never know.

The end of the lawn mower saga

2010-07-24T00:17:00.003-04:00

I have reported lawn mower adventures in earlier Notes (May 11 & 14, 2010). I did take the mower with the wandering knob back, waited forever while the fellow at Lowes' first tried to put on another knob that might not come unscrewed while I was mowing, and finally dug up another mower "out back" (the one I had purchased had been the display model, supposedly the last of its kind). The reason this one was "out back" was due to "missing parts," but when I said "Uh-oh," the guy assured me it was just the grass catcher, and since I had the one from the original mower I was all set.

So Mr. Lowes helps me get the new mower back into my car (I had had to have the woman next door help me get it in for the outgoing trip, as it is simply too heavy and unwieldy for me to manage alone), and when I got home I eased it awkwardly to the ground (that I can do on my own), and wheeled it down the slope to my back yard, and around to the basement door. In the basement I plugged it in so it could charge, and the next day I wheeled it out and started mowing the lawn.

And the knob fell off.

Well, hell. Obviously it was a design flaw. I was both disgusted and depressed. Was this thing made in Thailand? (See discussion of foreign-made air-conditioners, in my very first Note of June 8, 2008). Well, my lawn was terribly scraggly; I had to go ahead and mow the damn thing, trying to keep an eye on the knob, so as to catch it before it came completely unscrewed and fell off. Frequent pauses while mowing to reach down and tighten the screw. And a couple of times I failed to notice, and the knob fell off, and I only realized it because the handle started coming apart. So then I would have to go back and search in the grass for the knob.

And, as had been the case before, it took me three sessions to get the lawn completely mowed; I simply was not up to doing it all at once. Then I went into a blue funk, trying to decide what to do. Write an irate letter to the company? (Black and Decker, by the way. I thought they had good products!) I've long since learned that writing to a company can be very effective, but really, what could they do for me, except tell me to go get a replacement...which would have the exact same problem.

Should I take the damn thing back to Lowes' and just get my money back? Or should I go to the hardware store and see if I could get a knob that would stay on? Did they sell loose knobs at hardware stores? I really did like the mower, except for this problem, and really liked the idea of not having to pay someone to do my lawn.

My indecision was a decision in itself; I did nothing for several weeks. My landlord's son mowed my lawn for me once without my even asking; I later realized it was probably because John was again showing the house next door to prospective renters, and would prefer the lawn that lay in front of the parking area not look like a meadow.

Finally, the day came when I really had to mow my lawn again. Girding my loins for the Battle of the Wandering Knob, I got the front lawn mowed, and part of the back, when one of those times I failed to catch the knob before it fell off it managed to fall off in the path of the mower. And crunch, crunch, no more knob.

And thus, my decision was made for me. I looked at my receipt and saw that the 30-day no-questions-asked return period was long since past. But I called Lowes' anyway, and asked for a "manager with lots of power," and told the guy my tale of woe. And he said, "Well, m'am if you want to bring it back, you certainly can." "And get my money back?" "Yes, m'am."

Yay!!! I was out the door in a flash, trying to trundle the mower back up the slope to my car, with a handle that was trying to come apart in my hands. And then, of course, I couldn't get it into the car, and of course there was no one home next door. Well, a woman's gotta do what she's gotta do, so I walked two houses up, knocked on the door, and asked the middle-aged lady who came to the door if there were someone with muscle in the house who could help me put a lawn mower in my car. She told me no one else was home, but she'd help me. And she did. And I took the damn thing back, and got my money back, and that's the end of my trying to do something I didn't want to be doing anyway.

And they think we sit around reading magazines

2010-07-21T22:54:00.003-04:00

This past Saturday was Old Hallowell Day in new Hallowell. Very big deal that encourages citizens to celebrate their city (smallest city in the state of Maine), and bring folks in from around and about, to spend money at the local merchants. There's a road race, a parade, lots of junk food for sale down at the river, etc.

As usual our library had a book sale. It's generally the most successful of the three we have during the year (the others are during the town's Fall Fest, and at Mardi Gras), at least partly because it's held on the lawn, where passers-by can be lured in.

The sales are lucrative fund-raisers for the library, but they are a lot of work, much of it hard physical labor. When people bring donated books in, one of my staff has to go through them, pulling out any we might want to add to the collection (someone will have to check them against the catalog, to make sure we don't already have them), tossing any that are in too bad a shape (it kills me the way people "hate to throw away books," so will bring us stuff that's grown mildew, sitting in the attic or basement for years, which we then have to throw away), then put them into one of the several boxes we always have sitting on the office floor. One box holds hardback fiction, another, paperbacks, another, kids' books, another, cookbooks, etc. When a box is full it has to be labeled and carted down the stairs to our dark, dank basement.

This last step is the initial "hard physical labor;" carrying heavy boxes of books carefully down stairs and around to where they can be set down is not fun. But the real killer comes the evening before a sale. All those boxes that have been collecting for months have to be brought back upstairs, along with the long tables that they will be set out on (and no, there is noplace to store them upstairs). For the past three sales we have had the use of three brawny young men from the local pre-release program, which has helped enormously, but there are still plenty of boxes to be carried by the rest of us. The first couple of years that I was in this job the volunteer helpers were almost all elderly members of our Friends' organization, and their equally elderly spouses. I was always worried someone was going to drop dead of a stroke or heart attack.

Fortunately those folks have pretty much retired from the field, but unfortunately, younger blood, and muscle, has not stepped in to replace them. Last Friday night the volunteers who showed up were two middle-aged male members of my Board, one younger, though not really young, female member, and two other women, also no longer young. And the 63-year-old library director, who has the physical strength of a guinea pig, and the stamina of a four-packs-a-day smoker (note that i've never smoked in my life). I had sent out a plea for volunteers in our monthly newsletter, which goes out to a large number of patrons electronically, and a print version of which is distributed around town. Had also sent a Reminder email a couple of days before the event. The only responses I received were from two also-no-longer-young-women who apologized that they weren't going to be around, or they would certainly help.

Where are the men? Where are the teenaged kids? I hate lugging boxes of books up and down stairs (and note that all books not sold, except for those I'm quick enough to toss into boxes set aside for trash, have to be re-boxed and taken back downstairs at the end of the sale); and for the Old Hallowell Day sale that re-boxing and labeling and carting is done in the heat and humidity of a typical Maine summer's day. I had also volunteered to work one of the cash tables for the last hour of the sale -- because of the shortage of volunteers for that task, as well -- though I ended up spending most of the hour doing the aforementioned weeding of books that were obviously not going to sell, no matter how many sales we put them through. I was able to do this because the president of our Board, who had nobly agreed to walk in the parade, carrying one end of the library's banner, had returned from the parade and collapsed into the chair next to his wife, who was helping me. Business was very slow at our table -- the Friends' items-for-sale table, rather than the regular cashier's table -- so I left them to it, condemning myself to standing under that heartless sun, discarding or repacking books.

So we made lots of money, and thank god it's over.

A window on the past

2010-07-16T23:39:00.002-04:00

[Note that this continues the two previous posts.]The next morning I'd planned to drive on to Binghamton, but since I hadn't had time to search out the Prentiss Cemetery, where members of the Rockwell side of the family were buried, I made the decision to try to find that first. After all, when was I likely to be in this neck of the woods again? That's a long drive from central Maine...

But once again, I got lost. Part of the problem is that the maps will refer to County Rd 4 or Guy Beardsley Rd., but the roads themselves are completely without signage. I was again pulled over, puzzling over my maps, when I saw a woman up ahead pull into her driveway, and decided to go ask her if she knew where Prentiss Cemetery was. She didn't, but assured me that one of the librarians at the public library would undoubtedly be able to help me. This kind lady was named Pat, as I saw from her mailbox, and she insisted on leading me back into town, and to the library, and introducing me to (as I was later to learn) the archivist, Leigh Eckmair. Not only was Leigh able to direct me to Prentiss Cemetery, but when she learned what families I was interested in, she started pulling out all these published genealogies, and notebooks, and boxes of records. Turns out the Coles and the Rockwells were among the major families of the area throughout the 1800s, and this little library is stuffed to the gills with information on them.

Oh, frabjous day. Talk about serendipity. Even though I had told my friend Kathy to expect me between 10 and 11 -- and it was 10 o'clock now -- I knew I had to take advantage of this unexpected golden opportunity. And I was pretty sure my being a couple of hours late would not upset my friends unduly; they're not the kind of people to get bent out of shape with worry or irritation in such a situation. So I spent about an hour looking through "stuff' -- with Leigh kindly photocopying a number of things for me -- then made a mad dash for the cemetery, which is very small, and old (1795), and where a 20-minute search produced Amos Rockwell's large gravestone. Then I was on my way, though determined to return, on my trip back to Maine the following Tuesday. Especially because, just as I was leaving, Leigh had produced a diary belonging to William Cole's mother. Imagine! A chance to read about an ancestor's life, in her own words!

I spent about an hour and a half the following Tuesday morning pouring over that diary, which was really more a day book than a diary. Elizabeth Rockwell Cole tended to be succinct. Most entries began with a weather report ("Pleasant but cold," or "Very cold", etc.) then most often it was "R. [Richard, her husband] went hunting," or "R. went to town," or "R. did chores." There was a lot more of what R. was doing each day than she herself. One day, though, she "finished throughing the wood in the wood shed" [it took Leigh's assistance to figure out Elizabeth meant "throwing" -- her spelling was not always the best]. Another day she and R. "cleaned out the stables;" on another they "moved the manure." This was a hardworking farm woman, for sure.

I was hoping to find some reference to Elizabeth and Richard's son William, my great-great grandfather. Since the earliest entries (that I saw) were from 1870, by which time William was living in Texas, I was hoping to find at least some reference to his death, perhaps some mention of bringing him back to be buried in the family plot. When I was just about to give up -- I really had to get back on the road, for that long drive to Maine -- there it was, on March 15, 1872 (William died in Feb.). On this day Elizabeth did go to town, to "the office" (how she always referred to the post office) where she "found the letter with the sad news of dear William's death." And her next sentence was, "Oh can he be dead."

The next day she and R. "took the sad news to [their married daughters] Emma and Jennie. Emma took it real hard." (Emma was just a year younger than William, and apparently they were close.) The day after that Richard and Elizabeth saw Emma again and "she cannot let go of her brother."

This was affecting. I was seeing the past. I was seeing the real people who were my ancestors, dealing with what real life was throwing at them. I wanted to read and read that diary...but I had to head on back home.

But you may be sure, I shall return.

Adventures in cemetery hunting

2010-07-13T18:56:00.005-04:00

[Note that this continues the two previous postings.] Something I couldn't help wondering, as I drove through the area where my great-great-grandfather grew up, was how he could have exchanged this beautiful country for steamy hot south Texas. The two-lane roads I was driving on wound through green valleys sprinkled with healthy-looking farms, a number of them good-sized dairy farms, lying among hills completely covered with trees. But of course in winter it isn't green. It's frequently white, and it's cold. Perhaps William Cole disliked cold and snow. And maybe he was madly in love with Mary Jane Casterline, and willing to live wherever she wanted. This is the kind of thing you really want to know about your ancestors, more than when and where they were born.

Gilbertsville, which contains the town hall for Butternuts Township, is a very small (population 375 as of 2000 census), pretty town, lots of big old trees, attractive old houses. Not the white-with-black-shutters kind you see so much of in New England, but Victorian two-stories of different colors, many with front porches for sitting and watching the world go by. In 1983 the whole village won status as a Historic District recognized by the National Register of Historic Places, a real triumph for local citizens and people concerned with historical preservation, as they had been fighting for many years to keep a dam from being built on Butternuts Creek, which would have resulted in the entire village being flooded.

There's hardly any business at all -- I saw a quilt shop, an ice cream shop, a hardware store that at first I thought had gone out of business, it was so beat up. The cutest little library you could ever hope to see, even cuter than my little library in Hallowell, which was built to look like an English country church. The Gilbertsville Free Library looks like a small, overturned stone boat. Originally built as a school in 1818, it has served as the library since 1888. Inside it's all dark wood, with the bookcases built into the walls. This library was to prove an absolute gold mine of information, but more about that in a moment.

First, I had to get to the town from Oneonta, seventeen miles away, where I'd stop to have a quick meal, and buy batteries for my camera, since I'd discovered, as I was getting ready to leave Maine, that the batteries on said camera were dead (there's always something). I was trying to follow a map I'd pulled off the Internet, but those little back roads simply didn't run the way the map indicated they should. At one point I was idling at a stop sign, pouring over that map and my regular New York state map, when a car pulled up behind me (practically the only traffic I'd encountered since I left the highway 10 minutes before). I ran back to ask if they could direct me to the town of Gilbertsville. It turned out they lived on the edge of same, and suggested I follow them. When we reached their house the male half of the couple came back to my car and told me where he and his wife thought I would be able to find Brookside Cemetery, where various ancestors were buried.

Ah, yes what would we do without the "kindness of strangers."

Brookside is a very pretty country cemetery, with lots of the local "big, old trees." It isn't that large, but large enough for me to spend over an hour walking and driving around it, trying to find the Coles. I was just about to give up -- it was almost seven p.m., the sun was all but gone, I was getting hungry again, and knew I had to go find someplace to spend the night -- when I spotted a very tall, imposing monument across from where I was. I had visited virtually every other area in the cemetery, some of them more than once, but not that one. I was thinking, "No, it couldn't be that." But of course, it was.

I took pictures, but really could not determine if William Cole was, indeed, buried there. There were a number of small stones around the monument, which might very well have marked the actual graves of the several people listed on the monument, but they were sunk so low in the earth they couldn't be read.

At last I tore myself away, made the 20 minute drive to a town with the unlikely name of Unadilla, where I found the old-fashioned Country Motel, with a little old lady in a knick-knack cluttered office, complete with yapping small dog, running it. Was amused when I moved my stuff into my room and discovered I had to plug in all the electric amenities -- microwave, small refrigerator, air conditioner. Then I discovered that even plugged in the ac wouldn't work because there were no knobs on it. When i went back to the office to report this situation the LOL said, "Oh, yes, I'd forgotten about that. The last person, I just gave him a screwdriver, but of course he was a man..." And she gave me another room, into which I had to move all my stuff from the original room, and where I again had to plug everything in. But at least the ac had knobs on it.

Next: Serendipity

Roots

2010-07-04T18:27:00.006-04:00

[Note that this continues the previous post.] Nearly 30 years ago I became interested in tracing my family tree. This activity was helped along enormously by stumbling on a published genealogy of the Camp family, which enabled me to trace my father's paternal lineage as far back as the Thomas Camp, originally of Virginia, who pretty much supplied the South with its Camps. The man had two wives who each produced twelve children, all but three of whom were boys, who all went on to have a whole slew of children, most of whom were boys.

The maternal side of my father's family has been harder to trace. His mother's father, Robert Terence Quinn, was from Liverpool, of Irish parents -- my only ancestor to immigrate to the US. later than the 1600s -- and to this day I have been unable to learn anything more about his family. He came to this country alone, at a very young age, and did not enter at New York or Boston, as did so many Irish immigrants, but at Galveston, Texas. During the 1880s the ships that landed at Galveston were almost all German; hence the large number of Germans to be found, rather surprisingly, in Spanish-flavored San Antonio. Although some of those ships could have stopped at Liverpool, Robert Quinn is not on the passenger lists (now available online) of any of them. My father believed young Robert stowed away one of these ships when it was docked at Liverpool, was probably put to work when he was discovered by the crew, but was never on any official list. One of the family mysteries, hopefully to be solved one day.

Then there's my fraternal grandmother's great-grandfather, Jonas Casterline, born, according to his army papers, in Seneca County, New York in about 1815. He served in the U.S. army in the early 1840s, fighting Seminoles in Florida. He married a young army widow whose husband had been killed by said Indians. He finished up his service in Corpus Christi, Texas, where he was mustered out in 1845, and a few of his descendents are to be found in south Texas to this day. But I have been able to learn nothing about his parentage, or the rest of his ancestors.

For many years Jonas was one of only two Yankees this girl with a very southern heritage had been able to find in the family tree. The other, William R. Cole, married Jonas's daughter, Mary Jane Caster-line, in about 1869. I knew from the 1870 census (for Refugio County, TX) that William was from New York, but never knew where in New York, or how he came to be married to a Texas belle.

Several years ago I had posted queries on some of the online genealogical forums (e.g., Genforum.com) about William, but never got any response. Last fall I tried again, and this time received two responses that opened a floodgate of information about William, his parents, and their ancestors. All of a sudden the Camp family had a very substantial Yankee heritage indeed, going all the way back to a Miles Morgan who immigrated to Plymouth Colony from Wales in about 1636.

But of all the fascinating information I was suddenly discovering, the most amazing, to me, was that my great-great-grandfather, William R. Cole, was born and grew up in the same county as, and just a few miles from, the small town where this girl from Texas had chosen to go to college, Oneonta, New York. Is this a heluva coincidence or what? At the time I went to school there I didn't even know I had an ancestor named William Cole, since my interest in genealogy did not develop until several years later.

At any rate, I decided this trip to Binghamton to see my friends provided the perfect opportunity to take a look at the little communities associated with the Coles and the Rockwells (William's mother was a Rockwell). There is a web site with the rather macabre name of Findagrave.com. There I had found pictures of a grave marker for William's father Richard, as well as for his grandfather, also Richard. I wanted to see these graves for myself, and also, hopefully, solve a mystery that had arisen. On this same web site, when I did a search for William R. Cole, I came up with the same grave marker (which is actually a big, impressive monument). Could William be buried there? I knew he had died in Texas (according to family tradition, he stepped on a rusty nail and died of blood poisoning, at the tender age of 25), but it occurred to me that perhaps his body had been shipped back home. I wanted to see if I could find out. I did know that I had never been able to find a grave for him in Fulton, TX, where his wife Mary Jane is buried.

So now that I've bored you with my family history -- which was the motivation for my little side trip -- I will tell you what I found in the beautiful, bucolic countryside of Butternuts Township, Otsego County, New York.

In preparation for the future

2010-07-01T21:38:00.003-04:00

I just returned from several days spent in upstate New York. I went with two purposes in mind. One was to watch the son of one of my college roommates graduate (as salutatorian) from high school. I've mentioned this delightful family before (see Note of June 8, 2009); it's always a great pleasure to spend time with them, and Bryan is a very nice, smart, funny kid, so I felt inclined to witness this rite of passage of his.

There were a couple of noteworthy things about the graduation ceremony, as far as I was concerned. One was the row of kids sitting right in back of us who were determined to make as much noise as they possibly could, every time anyone they knew crossed to get his/her diploma. I couldn't help wondering why there were no adults with them, why no adults from the school made any attempt to calm them down. Eventually I turned around and said, "Guys, let's hold it down a little," because I dislike the adult abdication-of-responsibility thing. One of the kids actually said, "Sorry," and they were a tiny bit less obnoxious over the next few names called.

The other thing I noticed was the obviously casual dress of many of the graduating students, underneath their graduation robes. A lot of the girls wore flip-flops -- a phenomenon I'd also noticed at the college graduation of my goddaughter last year -- although a decent number wore heals. But what I found really appalling were all the boys with bare legs showing beneath their robes -- evidence that they were wearing shorts -- with big clunky shoes or sneakers worn without socks to finish off the look. Good grief. Why on earth didn't their parents insist that they wear slacks, shoes and socks?

Quite possibly because they didn't think it was important. People so rarely dress up for anything anymore, even going to church. Maybe wearing shorts on a hot summer's day seemed practical to those parents...but note that the event took place in a very air-conditioned "Events Center" at Binghamton University. And come on, if graduating is such a special occasion, doesn't it deserves a little something special in attire?

My friend Clifford occasionally bewails the (as he sees it) complete moral deterioration of the country. I'm not sure I can concur with that, but I myself am dismayed by the national deterioration in dress standards. I miss seeing people look nice. I deeply regret that people no longer seem to think "looking nice" matters. All that's important is being comfortable, which all too often translates into looking like a slob. And if you're young it's important to look like your peers, so you all look like slobs, or tacky (the slut look) or stupid (the baggy pants).

My friend Joey has a very entertaining photo blog, which you can access through the Fascinating Photos link on this blog. He often takes pictures of people he sees at state fairs (he loves going to state fairs), the horse races, or just on the street. In many of these pictures the way people are dressed is frightful. They would say they're dressed "casual;" I would have to say they are dressed without style, taste, grace or any idea of what looks good on them.

But whaterya gonna do. Supposedly fashions go in cycles, so I'm waiting (have been waiting for quite some time) for the more formal style to swing back around. Like hats! Remember when everybody wore a hat for special occasions? Heck, men used to wear a hat all the time. Every time I see an old movie in which even the criminals wear hats -- not backwards or sideways baseball caps but fedoras and Milans and Panamas -- I think what a shame it is that particular fashion has gone out of fashion. Will it ever return? Along with stockings (everybody goes bare-legged now, even when wearing cocktail dresses!), and the occasional "nice" dress? We can only hope.

The other reason for my trip to New York appears in my next posting.

If you want to feel cheerful...

2010-06-17T01:04:00.004-04:00

Some time ago I watched a delightful program on PBS, on the Balloon Fiesta at Albuquerque, New Mexico. Occurring every October, it's the largest hot air balloon festival in the world, with 600 balloons allowed (according to Wikipedia a cap of 750 was imposed in 2001, after an all-time high of over 1000 in 2000; in 2009 the cap was lowered to 600.)

Watching the program, I was reminded of the time I attended the Fiesta with my brother Jeremiah, who has lived an hour away from Albuquerque, in Santa Fe, for many years. My husband Micheal and I also went to a balloon festival at Lewiston, here in Maine, a few years back; and when I was staying with my sister Ellen in Colorado Springs, in 2005, we went to one there.

There is nothing like a bunch of hot air balloons to take your mind off your problems, and the problems of the world. You watch all these big, floppy, colorful pieces of fabric begin to bulge, wriggle on the ground, determinedly take shape, as the hot air is pumped into them. There are always a lot of people helping; it takes a team to get one of these things into the air, to track them once they are there, to retrieve them. And then finally the envelope, as, for some reason, they call the top part (why not call it the balloon?) is full, has risen majestically from lying on the ground to hovering in the air -- the people who will be riding are clamoring into the basket -- the other members of the team are holding onto the thing, to keep it from taking off before it's time -- and then they let go, it lifts off, and everyone who's standing nearby claps and cheers. Since there are lots of balloons there is lots of clapping and cheering. And then those of us left on the ground get to ooh and ahh as we watch the sky fill up with these huge, imaginative, often very playful, often quite beautiful examples of this, the oldest method human beings devised to satisfy their desire to fly. It's all just a totally positive experience.

I've ridden in a balloon once. When Jeremiah came to visit me when I was living in Alaska, I decided to treat him to a hot air balloon ride for his birthday. Mind you, this was something I had long wanted to do myself, but I was pretty sure he would dig it, too. Which he did, although given his height, and his thinning hair, he found the frequent blasts of hot air directly over his head a might uncomfor-table, and in fact came away with a slight "sunburn" on the top of his head.

For my part, I was surprised to find that traveling by balloon was not as exciting as I had expected it to be. I love to fly -- or did in the days before it became a major pain in the ass -- but I found balloon travel was more like walking at a stately pace through the sky, than like flying. It was pleasant, rather than exciting. But I'm glad I did it. I reckon it's something everyone should do, like riding a donkey up a cliff on a Greek island. Both, interesting experiences.

Minus the warts

2010-06-13T16:58:00.004-04:00

On the other hand you can tell it's an authorized biography, because very little that's negative gets said about the Queen Mother (see Note of June 6, 2010). Most of the negative things are slipped in via letters or other writings of other people. For example, when there's concern over how long it's taking the Queen Mother to decide which of her ladies in waiting she's going to let go, now that she is no longer The Queen, a friend of hers writes to another friend: "The Queen, bless her heart, has cultivated procrastination to a degree which is really an art -- when one is vexed, as I fear I often am, one should recall that the Bowes Lyons [the Queen Mother's family] are the laziest family in the world. Against this reflection it becomes remarkable that she accomplishes so much."* He goes on to say, "I think it possible that this omission may be the reflection of what has been apparent from the first, a sturdy repudiation of any idea that HM has any intention, because she is widowed, of relinquishing all to which she has become accustomed."** And the author adds: She did not give up any of her ladies.

In other words, once a queen, always a queen.

It is just the very occasional, slight dig like this -- or the admission of her growing matronliness of form during the '40s -- that suggests Elizabeth Bowes Lyons Windsor was anything less than perfect. And there is absolutely nothing to suggest that the marriage of King George and Queen Elizabeth was anything less than ideally happy, though the times and the situation they lived through were very hard on them both, especially the king, who lacked physical resilience, and had to make up for it with strength of character (and isn't it inter-esting what a difference there was between him and his older brother, who was very briefly Edward VIII, in terms of character. It suggests the dangers of getting by on charm and good looks for too long.)

But come on, every grownup knows that all marriages have their problems, even the most loving, even the happiest. You have two individuals trying to live together day after day, year after year. There is bound to be some conflict, some disagreement over how things should be done. Arguments, upsets. I realize that the British tend to be much more reticent about personal matters than we let-it-all-hang-out Americans -- and of course this was even truer of earlier generations -- but my guess is Elizabeth did confess in a letter of two, to some close friend or family member, that she really wished "Bertie" did not require quite so much bolstering up, or, during the months preceding the abdication, that she thought the behavior of Bertie's older brother truly reprehensible.

The only "complaining" she does do -- and i'm glad to see it, because it does show that she's human -- is over how hard it was to visit the areas that had been bombed during the war, which she and her husband did religiously. In a letter to her sister she wrote, "It makes one furious seeing the wanton destruction. Sometimes it really makes me feel almost ill. I can't tell you how I loathe going round these bombed places. I am a beastly coward, and it breaks one's heart to see so much misery and sadness."^ She loathed doing it, but she did it. More character. We get lots of examples of character, precious little in the way of flaws.

Still, for all that the book may have left out, it continues to interest.

*Shawcross, William. The Queen Mother: The Official Biography. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009, p. 672
**Ibid, p. 673
^Ibid, p. 529

Courage under pressure

2010-06-06T22:46:00.007-04:00

I've been reading the authorized biography of Elizabeth, the Queen Mother (called, appropriately enough, The Queen Mother). It was moderately interesting, reading about her youth, her marriage to King George VI (when they were married he was Prince Albert Frederick Arthur George, and throughout his life was called Bertie within the family, but when he became king in 1936 he used the last of his Christian names, to provide the country with a sense of continuity from his father, George V), the dreadful period when "Bertie's" older brother, Edward VIII, decided to abdicate so he could marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson, which resulted in the shy, nervous Albert, inflicted with a stammer, and with no desire to be king, being forced to become exactly that.

Yes, all quite interesting, but what has been most interesting is the section on the Second World War, and how the royal family, and all of Britain, coped. As was the case when I read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Note of May 25, 2010), I've gotten a much better sense of just what the war meant to the British. I think I, perhaps like many Americans, have been more aware of happenings in the European war from D-Day, in June of '44, on. But the people in England had been enduring the ravages of war for four years by that time (they had officially entered into war with Germany in September of 1939, but there followed several months of what came to be known as the Phony War, when not much happened. Beginning in early 1940, things started happening.)

People in England suffered with the same food shortages that they did on Guernsey, but also had to contend with bombing raids. For four years. This was especially true in London, which was practically flattened. Reading about it reminded me of my first trip to London, in 1974, when I learned that so many of the historic sites I was looking at were not the originals, but had been rebuilt after the war. They had survived for many centuries, and then been wiped out by modern warfare within a four-year span.

And the British people as a whole really do seem to have been amazingly staunch, impressively resilient and determinedly cheerful through it all. And their king and queen were in there suffering with them, and being just as staunch, resilient and determinedly cheerful. One wonders if we Americans, as a people, would bear up so well, for so long. We all like to think so, of course, but selflessness and a disinclination to complain seem to be less in the way of American national traits.

We have been so lucky in this country. True, our ancestors lived through the Revolutionary War, and the Civil War, both taking place on our soil, and producing the tragic losses that all wars produce. But except for the attack on Pearl Harbor, which was an attack on a military target (the ships within the harbor, and the harbor itself), and the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001, this country has been spared so many of the outrages and devastation of war.

The Queen Mother, by the way, is coming off almost as the Princess Diana of her era -- much loved by the masses of common people, charming everyone she met with her graciousness, her ability to seem to be genuinely interested in whomever she was talking to. Although by middle age she had become plump and somewhat dowdy -- especially by American standards -- when she was younger she was considered quite lovely, with gorgeous skin, beautiful eyes and smile, and her good humor and kindliness. And she appears to have been a true helpmeet to her husband (unlike Princess Diana).

But I can't help wondering: why was she the Queen, when she was married to King George, but Prince Philip has not been the King, while married to Elizabeth II?

Down in the 'hood

2010-06-02T00:25:00.003-04:00

Just as I'm always a few years behind in my reading, I'm behind the rest of the country on television viewing. Some time ago my friend Mary out in California mentioned that she and her husband enjoyed watching The Wire. I had to admit that I'd never even heard of the show. This isn't quite so outrageous as it might seem, since there was only a brief period, after I moved to Maine, when I had cable T.V. (The Wire appeared on HBO, 2002-2008.) Except for that brief period my television viewing has been limited to what the rabbit ears on my T.V. can pick up, i.e., the local area PBS station, and (as I discovered only recently) the FOX station.

Someone donated to the library the first season of The Wire on DVD, so I decided to check it out. Despite the fact that I almost ODed on the F word during the first episode (no doubt there to emphasize how realistic the show was...I did notice that in later episodes while the word hardly disappeared, it was used a little more discriminately); and despite the fact that occasionally I could not understand either what the drug dealers or the police were saying, thanks to their respective jargons, there was no denying that the show was inter-esting. And gradually I had to admit it was damn good. Great characterizations, totally believable acting (were those real kids from the projects that they'd hired for the show?), intriguing, complex story line, sly, ironic humor.

But hey. Such a distressing, depressing world it illuminates. The world of the drug culture in inner city America. It is, indeed, a hideous picture of America; and you know, as you watch, that it is only too true. What especially breaks my heart is seeing all the kids, I mean little kids, caught up in this. It's bad enough, the 16 and 17-year olds, sitting on the couch out in the middle of the courtyard of the "low-rises" (which are right next door to the "towers", or high-rises), overseeing the nonstop trafficking of heroine, every direction you look. I think to myself, what a waste of human potential. But in one scene "D," the top overseer, breaks all the eggs a little girl who couldn't be more than ten just bought at the store, because he's figured out she's been "thievin,'" i.e. keeping some of the money that should have been turned over to him. That little girl, like too many real-life little girls, and boys, is involved in the drug trade. Damn.

In another scene, Wallace, one of the more appealing dealers, gets waked up by his...sister? cousin? he's taking care of about six little kids in a three-room apartment with electricity filched from a neighboring building...gets waked up because the girl needs help with her math problem, which involves the number of people getting on and off a bus. When she is unable to do the problem in her head, as he reads it to her, he gives her another example using a drug transaction, and she is able to do the calculating immediately. He demands to know how come she can do that, but can't keep track of the people getting on and off a bus, and she says, "You mess up on the stuff, they fuck you up."

Actually, this scene represents one of the strengths of the program: it shows the human side of all the characters. Wallace getting up when the clock radio goes on, walking around brushing his teeth while rousting the kids from their beds (mattresses on the floor), "Come on, get up, you're gonna be late for school -- what, you wanna go into foster care? You wanna go into foster care, you leave your black asses right where they are." One of the drug king's major shooters, a basically hang-loose guy who just does what he's told, having a roomful of gorgeous tropical fish that he dotes on. One of the girls who works in the "titty bar" run by the drug king, not being able to see much at all without her big glasses that she (naturally) rarely wears. Among the police, the complete jerk of a Deputy Commis-sioner for Operations at one point telling the major "hero," after a fellow police officer has been shot, that he is not responsible. Telling him in a rough, tough way, but telling him. And on and on. Life. For real.

So now I have to get hold of season 2.

The importance of books

2010-05-25T21:57:00.006-04:00

I've just finished a wonderful book called The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. It was written largely by the former lady, but when she became ill her niece took over to make the changes the editors were wanting. Alas, Shaffer did not live to see the book appear on American bookshelves, as it came out in July, 2008, and she died in February of that year. Such a shame that she didn't see it become such a big success, since she worked on it for many years. A glaring example of the importance of deriving satisfaction from a process, (see Note of Aug. 19, 2008) since you may not have the opportunity to enjoy the result.

Given that the book did come out in 2008, those of you who read new books when they're still new have probably already read it. I almost never read books when they first come out, except for Robert Parker and Dick Francis mysteries, and now both those gentlemen have died, so there won't be anymore new books from them.

But back to TGLAPPPS. It's a book that manages to be charming and amusing -- sometimes laugh-out-loud funny -- while relating the horrors of Nazi occupation for the inhabitants of Guernsey Island, in the English Channel, during the Second World War. It's written in the form of letters, a format I usually tire of quickly, but here it's quite successful, after the first few letters. A London writer who is undergoing the tiresomeness of going 'round for book signings to publicize her book receives a letter from a gentleman on Guernsey, who is writing to her because a book he has come into possession of, and that has made a great impression on him (the writings of Charles Lamb) had her name and address in the front. She is so charmed by the letter she replies, and ultimately gets drawn into a correspon-dence with not just him, but various other of the Islanders who are all members of the...you guessed it...Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

The letters are a delight. Not only do you come to know these people (including the London author) very well through their letters, but you learn a few things you may not have known about a few authors. And about how important books can be to people. And oh yes, you learn about what life was like under German occupation.

This book brought home to me in a new way the different kinds of deprivation that the war inflicted on people, perhaps the most devastating being the food shortages (in places where they were not also enduring bombing raids, and Guernsey was not bombed). Eventually no butter, no sugar, no tea, no salt, never mind the big stuff like meat. (The GLAPPPS came into being as the result of a highly ingenious method the Islanders developed of overcoming the Germans' system of keeping tabs on all livestock.)

On Guernsey they were also forced to see their lovely little island torn up by German fortification efforts, and forced to witness the working to death of slave laborers who were brought in to do the work. Those who felt a wrench of pity for the prisoner-laborers could find them-selves in big trouble if they tried to help them, as was the case with a major character in the book, who never actually "appears," though she is referred to by and has a big impact on virtually all the other characters.

The book is an informative and entertaining little gem. I encourage you to read it.

Looking for an explanation

2010-05-14T17:27:00.004-04:00

Why can't things be the way they're supposed to be? Why are so many events/situations/purchased products/people not quite as they should be? Why is perfection such an impossibility? We all know that it is, but why?

Turns out there's something wrong with my new lawn mower (besides the fact that I don't have the correct instruction manual for it). A knob that holds one part to another part keeps coming off as I'm mowing. This is the third thing that has been not quite right about this "purchased product"-- the first having been that Lowe's sold me a lawn mower without an instruction manual, the second, that they then supplied me with the wrong manual. This is a long way from perfection.

And now I have to take the damn thing back, which makes the situation painfully far from perfection. Roll it out my basement door, around to the side of the house, up the slope to the driveway, fold the thing up, heft it into my car, make the 20 minute drive to Lowe's, heft it out of my car, do my share of waiting at Customer Service (I already did a lot of waiting when I went back for the manual which turned out to be the wrong manual), with who knows what outcome, since this was the last one of this model they had.

I did at least get my lawn mowed. Took three days, about 40 minutes each day, since my stamina is almost non-existent, and since the grass was so high, and on the second day so wet, that I had to take a stroke back for each stroke forward, in order to get it all. But you know, except for the damn knob that I kept having to go back and look for in the grass when I would realize it had fallen off again because the handle had started coming apart again, I was really pleased with the thing. Cordless electric is definitely the way to go. But now what's going to happen?

And then there are my new curtains. You remember the bathroom curtains Cozy Cottage was going to make for me? They were ready in only a week, rather than the two the woman had thought it would take, and they're very pretty -- the fabric goes just fine with my bathroom decor, which I'd been worried about -- but they're too short. In this case, the answer to why something isn't perfect is: I screwed up. My length-wise measurement was off by half an inch. But actually there's one other thing that's "not quite right": the hem is too wide. When we were discussing how I wanted the curtains made, and the woman said, "And you'll probably want a five or six inch hem, to give it weight," I was taken aback -- that seemed mighty wide to me -- but I figured she was the expert. But as it turns out the curtain is so small, because the window is so small, that the wide hem is notice-ably out-of-proportion.

So I've decided I have to take the curtains back, too. Have her increase the length, and narrow the hem, undoubtedly for an additional charge. What price the urge to perfection.

Oh, but it's so gorgeous in our neck of the woods now. The faint green haze that could be seen in all the trees a week ago has been replaced by lush green foliage. The trees are back! The green is back! All the lilac bushes are blooming! We've had temperatures in the 60s, and low humidity. If you don't look too closely, this is perfection.

Oh, that maintenance

2010-05-11T22:38:00.004-04:00

I'm so happy! I did it! Actually, I did several things. First I made the difficult decision to actually spring for a lawn mower. I didn't really want to do this. I hate to mow the lawn. It does not fit my self-image. None of my self images, not the Struggling Writer one, or the Starving Librarian one, or the Delicate Flower one. When Micheal and I lived in southern Louisiana, in the big, beautiful brick house out in the country with the acre of lawn, I often had to mow the lawn -- on a riding mower, no less -- because M. would be off-shore for at least three weeks at a time, and the growing season in southern Louisiana does not permit any lawn to go three weeks without being cut. And I would feel so mortified, riding around on that damn miniature tractor, with the occasional car/pickup/18-wheeler flashing by on our country road.

So, I didn't want to have to buy a lawn mower, and spend an hour or so every week or so mowing the lawn. But neither did I want to drop $50 every time I had someone do it, as I have had to do in summers past. I either tended to go too long between "haircuts," resulting in a really shitty looking lawn too much of the time, or if I left it up to the "barbers," found myself having to pay for a weekly haircut, which I simply could not afford.

Then there was the question of what kind of lawn mower to get. I saw some on sale at the local hardware store (which as a matter of fact was the impetous for my beginning to seriously think about this), but not knowing the first thing about lawn mowers, didn't know whether these were a good value. I did contact the fellow who volunteers to mow our lawn at the library, to see if he would be willing to go with me and check them out. He has mowed my lawn for me once (we lugged the library's mower to my house so he could do it), and now I told him that if he were interested, he could mow my lawn occasion-ally for pay. He seemed interested in the second proposal, and indicated his willingness to help me mower-shop, but that was the last I heard from him.

There was also the fact that I didn't really want to have to deal with a gas mower. Getting gasoline from a service station, making sure the mower has enough fuel, and...most of all!...having to pull that damn starter rope to get it going. I've never had good luck with those things, yanking and yanking away, getting nothing but sputtering for my efforts. When Micheal and I lived in Abilene, and had a smaller lawn to mow than the one in Louisiana, we also had an electric push mower. This was great in terms of starting -- just plug it in and turn it on -- but keeping the cord out of harm's way was a big drag. So now I was thinking how I would really prefer to have an electric mower, but really didn't want to have to fight with an extension cord.

Well, my lawn was starting to look like an absolute meadow; I knew I had to take some kind of action, either call the professional barbers, nag at Earl to help me pick out a mower, and then get him to use it, or at the very least get one that I, in a pinch, could use myself. I knew that, whatever a mower might cost me, it would soon pay for itself, in money saved from paying professional barbers (even if I paid Earl, he would take no more than $20 from me, still a savings).

So I started calling around, asking if places had electric mowers. The fellow at Sears, the first place I called (after the hardware store, which had only gas-powered), said, "Plug-in or cordless?" and my ears perked up. "There are cordless electric mowers?" "Yep." So I got the price there (a little steep), and after that, all my calls were for cord-less electric mowers. And I finally found one that was $70 cheaper than Sears' version, at Lowe's. And I went and bought it, and lugged it home, and then called when I discovered there was no instruction manual (I had purchased a display model, as it was the only one at that price left, but I was assuming there were instructions tucked in there somewhere, which proved not to be the case), and I waited three days for the manual that the fellow I talked to said he would send me, and then I went back to Lowes, demanding a manual, and finally getting one for what I suspected was the newer model, which proved to be the case, but even so I managed to figure out what was what with my model, and get the battery charged, and get the thing started, and darned if I didn't get my entire front lawn and part of the back mowed this afternoon, after I got home from work.

The Delicate Flower did it!

The devil's food

2010-05-06T00:10:00.005-04:00

Alas, I fear I am addicted to ice cream. I've always liked ice cream -- who doesn't like ice cream -- but it was never that big a deal to me. Except for the old-fashioned, everybody-takes-a-turn-at-the-churn homemade stuff. That, I always absolutely adored (especially peach), and when exposed to it would eat a sinfully large amount. But I don't think I've been exposed to it since I left home at 18.

In the last few months I've noticed that even unspectacular, supermarket ice cream has become quite a big deal to me. As in, I find myself wanting to have some every night of my life...and frequently having some. And not just a little bowl. I've caught myself eating half a small carton in one evening, and then finishing it off the following evening. Like somebody finishing off a bottle of scotch in two nights!

This is definitely not a positive development, for a number of reasons. It's very fattening, and this girl who was as thin as Twiggy in her youth, has been about 30 pounds overweight for...five years? All sorts of wearing apparel no longer fit. The last thing I need to be doing is adding weight.

Also, I'm hypoglycemic, which means I'm supposed to avoid sugar. I have tried eating no-sugar-added ice cream, but besides not being as satisfying, it's full of sugar alcohols, and I'm not sure that that's so much better. And milk does not really set well with me: the combin-ation of sugar and milk almost always produces unfortunate internal consequences within a few days.

So why have I suddenly become addicted to this thing that is not good for me? Well, why does anybody become addicted to something that isn't good for them? Because it gives them something they need. Alcohol makes a lot of people feel like they are cool, clever, can do anything. Cigarettes initially make people feel cool, properly rebel-lious, part of the in-crowd; later the damn things help them keep their nerves under control, keep them, as a smoking friend of mine said, from killing people. Drugs enable people, however briefly, to escape their wretched or boring and empty lives.

With ice cream, well, it's undeniably comfort food. When you're eating it, nothing makes you feel happier. And I reckon I've been craving a little comforting. Or maybe, a whole lot of comforting. My life is so very far from being what I'd hoped it would be, and in the last couple of years I've had to face the fact that circumstances and my own limitations will probably keep me from making it the way I'd hope it would be. Jezze, you've got to have a little respite from that thought. I've never been into drugs, or excessive use of alcohol. Or shopping -- another escape-from-unpleasant-reality for some people Let's see, what else is there? Ah, yes, Ben and Jerry's Vanilla Caramel Fudge ice cream. Or their Cherry Garcia. Or Haagen Dazs's French Vanilla.

But don't blame me. The devil made me do it.

Ka-boom!

2010-05-05T01:50:00.003-04:00

I just watched a fascinating and exciting program on NOVA, Mount St. Helen's: Back from the Dead. All about how Nature reasserted herself after the devastating eruption of May, 1980.

Part of the program had to do with the eruption itself, and with the smaller eruptions that took place over the next few years (of which I was unaware -- I don't think the media was paying much attention, since those weren't cataclysmic eruptions). Although I already had a general idea of the mechanics of a volcanic eruption -- magma being pushed up from deep underground by pressure, until the pressure is so great the magma escapes through the surface, becoming lava once it reaches the surface -- it was interesting to learn that what provides the umph to the kind of eruption at Mt. St. Helen's is water in the magma, that has becomes gas as the result of the intense heat. Actually, it seems incredible that there could be water down there in the first place...wouldn't it be too hot, I'm thinking? And where would water be coming from, 62 miles down?

The program didn't go into either question, but the good ol' Internet has informed me that water arrives deep underground when (for example) the Pacific tectonic plate is pushed under the North American plate, taking with it the water that was on top of and in the interior of the layers that are pushed down. As soon as that water hits the high temperatures of the lower depths, it becomes gas, moving up with the magma toward the surface, miles above, and contributing mightily to the ultimate bang when the surface breaks open. You could say the volcano is breaking wind!

The geologist manque in me finds all this fascinating. But what really gets me is the idea that the earth is just going about its business of evolving, just as it always has. Plates moving -- accompanied by earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions -- causing land masses to move, inch by inch (looking at a world map you can see so clearly where South America at one time fit into the crook of Africa). These things have always happened, but now human beings are witness to their happening, thanks to the fact that there are now so many of us, living absolutely everywhere, and thanks to instant communication and satellite pictures. And because there are now so many of us, living absolutely everywhere, we are often inconvenienced by these happenings -- witness the devastation caused by the 2004 tsunami in southeast Asia, the recent earthquakes in Haiti and Chili, witness the massive shutdown of air transport with the eruption of the unpro-nounceable volcano in Iceland. But that is not the earth's concern; it is simply following the laws of its nature. As far as the earth is con-cerned we might as well not be here. And we mites (as humanoids are thought of by an alien entity in a Star Trek book I read recently) on its surface just have to run for cover when necessary. (And praying to the gods to keep the volcano from erupting ain't gonna help, either.)

There was again seismic activity at Mount St. Helen's in 2004. No eruption, no lava flow, but what the geologists call "spines" of lava were pushed up through the floor of the crater. This was truly fascinating, since in a very short period of time they were able to see these huge rock formations appear where none had existed before. But the gas that produces an explosive eruption has apparently dissipated. Until the next batch of gas-laden magma makes it slow but sure way to the surface...in 200 years? A thousand?

The earth is a hard taskmaster, but it certainly is interesting.

Jambalaya and a crawfish pie...

2010-04-29T23:35:00.003-04:00

Last Saturday when I went into downtown Augusta to look for curtain material, I found hunger striking just as I was parking. I managed to get through my errand at Cozy Cottage Fabrics o.k., but knew I needed to eat as soon as possible. I had been wanting to go back to the Riverfront Barbeque and Grill, also located on Water Street, where I had eaten once before, with one of my staff and her mother. I had been favorably impressed with the food that time -- had had the blackened haddock, which came with one of the best restaurant cole slaws I've ever had (not too sweet, not awash with mayonnaise) as well as a tasty jalapeno cornbread -- and wanted to see if the place would stand up to a second visit.

It did. This time I had the seafood and sausage jambalaya, again accompanied by the cole slaw and cornbread, which seems to come with everything. The jambalaya was excellent, although one would definitely need to like spicy food to enjoy it. The seafood part was shrimp, small but plentiful, and two crab claws. Oh, crab meat is so delicious. I found the dish properly authentic tasting -- it could easily have been produced by some little hole in the wall in southern Louisiana. Indeed, the restaurant itself could easily sit on some corner in New Orleans' French Quarter: Big, dark wood bar, high, stamped tin ceiling painted a dark chocolate brown, a nice contrast to the vanilla-colored walls, very roomy, dark wood booths all around the walls; in the middle of the room a few small tables along a strip of highly polished black-and-white checked floor that I could see serving as a dance floor. Good blues playing on the sound system.

I have yet to try the barbeque, which comes in all guises, but I know that Barb really likes their barbeque ribs. The place isn't cheap -- my meal cost me $20 with the tip, and I had only water to drink -- but I didn't feel ripped off. As tired as I get of having to eat so often, as much as I dislike to cook -- and as bored as I get with my own cooking -- I do enjoy having a good meal at a nice restaurant. There is a real dearth of good restaurants in the Augusta area -- Slates, just around the corner from my little library in Hallowell, being one of the few -- so I'm pleased to discover another one, that I can recommend to people, and take visitors to.

Now all I need is some visitors.

Let there be light

2010-04-27T11:17:00.001-04:00

The other night I watched a PBS program on telescopes, with a large part of it featuring the Hubble Telescope, and the wonders of the universe that it has revealed. It was pointed out that astrophysicists have discovered, thanks to telescopes, that there's a huge amount of what they call "dark matter" out in space; indeed, they believe about 23% of the universe is made up of dark matter, another 73% something they call dark energy, 3.6% intergalactic gas, while only .4% is "ordinary matter" (stars, planets, galaxies).*

And here's the thought that occurred to me as I was listening to all this. Maybe the dark matter and the dark energy are the body of God. Maybe the universe is God, with all the planets and stars and galaxies sort of appendages to that body. Maybe originally, just as it says in the Christian Bible, there was only a dark universe, that is, God, eternal and everywhere, but without form or light. And the Consciousness, the Intelligence that was God got bored, felt like making something happen, decided to try a little experiment, said (or thought) "Let there be light," and there was a Big Bang, and a jillion particles were hurled outward on a long, long journey, during which they coalesced, became stars, planets, galaxies. And God watched, with interest, what was happening, watched the evolution of worlds, of species on those worlds, of cultures among those species. He didn't necessarily take care of any of these results of his experiment -- he let them play themselves out, "naturally," according to the laws that had been set in motion with his first action. But they were all a part of Him.

I could almost accept this idea of God. I have not been able to accept the all-knowing, all-loving God I was brought up to believe in -- have seen too much evidence of an uncaring universe at work -- but such a scenario as I have described would cover the evidence that our sciences have found for evolution, and for the formation of the "ordinary matter" of the universe, while also explaining the sense of God, the ancient sense that there is a God, that all peoples of this world, at least, have had. And it would account for all that mysterious dark matter and dark energy out there!

It's a thought.

*Craig, Matthew and Sara Schultz. Invisible Galaxies: The Story of Dark Matter. The Universe in the Classroom, No. 7, Summer 2007. http://www.astrosociety.org/education/publications/tnl/72/darkmatter.html

Spring is bustin' out all over

2010-04-24T19:54:00.003-04:00

While I know many parts of the country have been enjoying spring for some time now (in Louisiana and southern California it comes in February!), here in central Maine it's been slipping in just over the past couple of weeks, which is actually a little early. Temperatures in the upper 50s/lower 60s, a decent but not depressing amount of rain making the grass start to grow again (Oh, no! Now I have to start worrying about how to keep it cut again!), blossoming trees breaking out their white and pastel colors overnight, sunshine yellow forsythia and brilliant fuchsia-colored azalea bushes making such a stark contrast with what was still a basically winter-brown background. But fat green buds were beginning to appear on all the branches, and today, for the first time, many trees were sporting a faint green haze.

I suspect that for most Mainers autumn is their favorite season (it is mine), but spring has its own special delights, and thanks to our normally long and snowy winters (though not this year -- we had no real snow storms after the first week of February!), Mainers are always so delighted to see it. Today when I went out to do some errands I saw that the rail trail running through Gardiner/Farming-dale/Hallowell/Augusta was crowded with folks jogging, biking, pushing baby carriages, walking dogs, and just strolling. Out enjoying the beautiful day.

One of my errands was unusually domestic, for me. I had decided I needed a new bathroom window curtain. What I've been using as a curtain for the two years that I've been in this house is one panel of some curtains my stepmother made for me years ago, to match the multi-colored blanket she had knitted for me. Those curtains hung in the windows of several tiny efficiency apartments that I lived in during my 19-year sojourn in Boston. But because they are consider-ably longer than my small bathroom window, I had taken just one panel and draped it up over the curtain rod. I always liked those curtains, mainly because they're so colorful -- bright aqua and blue, hot pink and red, with a small amount of black/white/gold thrown in -- but the pattern is very modern. All those colors appear in stripes of different widths, making it look rather like a painting by Mondrian. Not really appropriate for my conventional little bathroom with the wallpaper of tiny green garlands with cranberry-colored berries.

No, I needed real curtains, that fit properly, of a color that would go with my towels, and the tiny green garlands. And the brown woodwork.

So I drove into downtown Augusta, which basically is one street -- Water Street -- running for several blocks along the river. Augusta, for all that it is the capital city of Maine, really is just an overgrown small town. The numerous empty storefronts along Water Street testify to the fact that the old downtown has been supplanted, as in small towns throughout the country, by a huge shopping center at the northern edge of the city. It isn't a mall, because the stores are not connected, but there's a Walmart (the only store in the area open 24 hours), a Kohl's, a Home Depot, a Pier 21, all the usual suspects. Around the corner from all of this is a Sam's, a Staples (office supplies), a Barnes & Noble bookstore, the local multi-screen movie theatre. All your shopping in one convenient spot.

But I went to one of the businesses still doing business on Augusta's "Main St." The woman who owns the Cozy Cottage Fabrics and Rustic Furniture (how's that for a combination?) relined one of my coats this winter, and did a beautiful job. Even went the extra mile by driving all the way to Portland to get a green satin-like fabric, as she could find none in Augusta (including in her own fabric shop), and still she charged me only $45. So I figured she might just be able to produce a suitable bathroom curtain. I had already looked at Bed, Bath and Beyond, and found that the standard-sized curtains available are too long; and the woman I spoke with there said she'd never seen 30-inch long curtains for sale, anywhere. So it really seemed like custom-made was the only way to go.

I was disappointed that none of the fabrics on display came close to what I'd envisioned, but I finally settled on something I thought was really pretty -- a pattern called Stonehenge, which looks absolutely nothing like the pre-historic site, demonstrating that the people who name fabric patterns are as determinedly creative as the ones who name colors, (e.g., Sea Foam for green) -- and I thought it should go with everything it has to go with. Since I got back home and took another look at the bathroom, I'm having second thoughts, but the die is cast. The very pleasant and helpful woman who waited on me said it should be a couple of weeks...

And my next spring-induced activity? I may just buy a lawn mower!

Burnt peas and...

2010-04-12T23:00:00.003-04:00

O.k., I've burned up another sauce pan. So many I've destroyed over the years, by going off to do something else while something was cooking, and forgetting all about that something until I suddenly smelled burning steel. Have also burned a large number of tea kettles over the years. It's all part of my I Hate-to-Cook Syndrome. I can't just stand there waiting for the water to boil, or the whatever it is to finish cooking; my God, I've got more interesting, important stuff to do. Although I suppose the loss of all those pots could also be attributed to my I-Don't-Remember Anything-for-Longer-Than-Thirty-Seconds-Unless-I-Write-Myself-a-LARGE-Note-About-It Syndrome.

At any rate, I do get tired of having to go out and buy another $24 pot. Oh, for a cook. Which I have said for most of my adult life. Any takers?

Neighbor Update

2010-04-11T18:56:00.004-04:00

The latest on the neighbors with the noisy trucks and yapping dogs. (See Notes of July 3 and 9, 2008, June 13 and Nov. 28, 2009). They're moving out! Actually, what they're moving is their stuff, since they themselves have been gone for virtually all of the past eleven months. I said in my note of Nov. 28 that they were back in residence, but that proved to be true for only a short time. The mysterious white trailer remained in the driveway, but they were elsewhere, except for the very occasional appearance, usually to snowblow the driveway.

A couple of weeks ago the roaring trucks began appearing every few days, and there was much activity in the house and the yard. Eventually there were others with Matt and Patty, loading up the white trailer, which had proved to be, when opened...empty! Ach, what a disappointment. No mysterious experiments going on, no little house-on-wheels, not even a couple of motor cycles or -- much more likely in Maine -- All-Terrain Vehicles. They had an empty trailer sitting in their driveway for all these months, apparently waiting for spring weather to come so they could pack up and move out.

While they've been moving out, the presence of one of the obnoxious trucks -- the one with the license plate FIDDLER (Patty plays the violin -- how about that, a violin-playing truck driver) -- has reminded me of just how lucky I was that they were living elsewhere for most of the past year. So goddamn loud, that truck, like a locomotive idling. I got over my vague feelings of loneliness -- from not having neighbors on that side -- long ago; and it really was so wonderful not to be awakened, or kept from getting to sleep, by that damn roaring.

I keep wishing I had the physical and psychic energy to press for laws -- that were enforced -- against this kind of noise pollution. I honestly believe cars driving around with the bass on their radios tuned so loud you can hear it blocks away, and cars and pickups that are intention-ally made noisier than they need to be, are a modern scourge that negatively impacts people, whether they realize it or not. I believe our lives are made less gracious, less civilized, more nerve-wracking and stressful, by this kind of noise pollution.

What I have to hope for now is that it will take Matt and Patty a while to sell the house -- in the current market, a good possibility -- and that whoever they do sell it to will not be into stereo music with the bass turned extra loud, but will have ordinary, quiet vehicles, and cats.