The conventions, at least for one night

Without normal broadcast TV, I didn't get all of the convention coverage.  But it's surprising what you can get live on the computer, so I watched some of that.  On Wednesday night I had a comp night in a new room at the hotel where I work, so I was lucky to watch Joe Biden and President Obama speak. Their speeches were, to me, excellent.  The next evening I watched Hillary Clinton's speech via the computer and it was equally as good.  Bill's was a little creepy, do we really care  how he picked up his wife? No. And Chelsea, well, whatever. 

If you are a Hillary supporter and if you don't mind parody, check this out.  https://medium.com/@shitHRCcantsay/let-me-remind-you-fuckers-who-i-am-e6e8b297fe47#.9fullvt50

It's rather amusing.   And if you are planning on voting Republican I would urge you to stay at home on election day, it will be cold and rainy and you might catch your death of cold.  If you are unsure about voting for Hillary, I implore you to just vote for her.  You don't need to like her,  but vote for her so we can get one more liberal Supreme Court Justice on the bench to protect rights that will be in jeopardy if a Republican wins the race.  Everyone's rights are at stake. Just vote. Please. Vote for the future, vote for that judge who will sit for 20+ years and watch out for women, children, people of color and ethnicity, gay people, special needs people, the disenfranchised, the elderly, the poor.  Vote to uphold a tiny part of Obama's legacy.  Just vote.

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"Fastball" documentary streaming on Netflix

If you like baseball, you will like the documentary "Fastball" that is currently streaming on Netflix. If you love baseball, you will like it even more.  Great pitchers, great pitching stats, nice footage.  There were stories about pitchers I knew like Sandy Koufax and Nolan Ryan but lots that I didn't know.  The directness of the fastball, the speed of the pitch, the way it seems to float upwards as gets near the plate, all are discussed.

It's a great way to spend 90 minutes. Narrated by Kevin Costner, I promise you will learn a lot about pitching, about the game, about the fastball.

Check it out.

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And a book review: "The Girls" by Emma Cline

Hot new book of the summer.  Don't bother buying it. If you can get it free at the library, it's an OK read.

It's Cline's first novel, although she did win some award for something else she wrote at some other time.  But because it's her first novel, she relies on narrative cliches a little too often.  "Now he had hard edges, the creep of tattoos under his shirt. He didn't remember me and why should he?  I was a woman outside his range of erotic attentions."  But Cline leaves those behind at times and can now and then write with great force. "Even possessing that small amount of money tindered an obsessive need in me, a desire to see  how much I was worth.  The equation excited me."

The story follows a young girl who tries to run away from home, hooks up with some vagabond "tribe" but never really fits in.  Modeled after the Charles Manson group in the 1960's, the reader knows from the beginning that something terrible will happen. But the fact of that makes the book almost boring until you get to the Big Thing That Happens. Who really cares about the little lost and sometimes stupid girl when the Killing is waiting around the corner?

I guess it's just me, but I got tired of her sad whines about not fitting in and then her stark realizations that she, too, could have been one of the killers if the group just liked her better.  Wow. Too bad on that one!

It's a quick read but I am  not sure I would bother. We all know the Charles Manson stuff, we all know about runaway girls. There's nothing here that makes the reader feel good and there are really no likable characters. The narrator tells the story thirty-some years after the killing, so she is not a young girl any longer, but she is still a bit whiny and lost and sad.  We can all be whiny and lost and sad but buck up. Get over yourself and get on with it. Get a real job. Get over the fact you once belonged to a creepy, sadistic cult. 

Get some therapy and change your life. 

OK, harsh? Probably.  But hey, it's my review..... 

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Life like a pair of pants on a coat hanger

That's kinda how I feel right now.  Yes, I got the new place to live. Sort of. I paid a month's rent deposit, was stupid to not get a receipt but the guy I dealt with was so ... nice and seemingly honest.  Ten days go by, the check is cashed and I have nothing in writing.  After firing off a very clear and direct email and phone call and text message, I finally got a call from the owner.  He said the rental agreement would be mailed to me the next day.  That was Wednesday night. I still don't have it.

Am I dismayed?  Yes, a bit.  Do I think it's legit? Yes, a bit. Do I feel like pants on a hanger, waiting around to see if I will  be used poorly or used appropriately?  Yes, a bit.  My friend Margaret, upon my request, scoped out the office site of the supposed owner and she reported back that it looked legit.  If the papers don't come in the mail on Monday, I am showing up at that door and confronting the situation in person.

Sigh. I do feel like this will all work out but yet I am a bit trepidatious. I will know more soon.

Janis Joplin documentary

The title is "Janis: Little Girl Blue" and it is streaming on Netflix.  A sincere and honest look at her life.  Good music, of course, and a look at an iconic blues singer who died so young.  What she would have become had she lived.... 

Check it out if you can. It's moving and insightful.

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A couple of things

First, a few days ago I asked you all to put that positive energy thing out there for me finding a new place to live.  Some of you must have because I got the new place to live. So THANK YOU whoever you are. Thank you.

Second, the small hotel I work for, Olea Hotel, won Sunset Magazine's Award for Best Hotel in Wine Country.  We were up against huge places like the Fairmont.  The biggest reason the hotel won the award, apart from the beautiful grounds and great rooms, is because of the front desk staff.  It felt good to be validated that way, oddly, especially since I don't put a lot of stock in awards. Check out our reviews on Tripadvisor and you can see the Sunset blurb here:   http://www.sunset.com/travel/2016-travel-awards-winners/best-wine-country-hotel-olea-hotel-glen-ellen-ca

Third, and not important, on Friday I am driving to San Rafael to meet men (my son's age) to see a SR Pacifics game and on Monday I am driving to SF to see a SF GIANTS game and how cool is that?  Baseball, bookending a weekend.

LTBT.  Happy, yes, I am.

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YAY!!! HURRAY!!! NO MORE NAKED PEOPLE IN MY KITCHEN!!!

Yes, it's true!!!!  I got myself another place to live, away from the crazy ass lovely Roberta!  A small one bedroom duplex, about a mile from where I live now, all mine.  All mine.  

I have to say, when I was staying at Steve's I had the epiphany that changed everything. My love for living alone was reinforced and, more important, I understood what was keeping me from finding my own place:  my own mind, my own attitude.  Everything I said about my current situation was negative. The focus was on the negativity. Staying at Steve's changed that: I realized that in order to change things, my attitude had to be positive, not negative. Talk about a sea change. Once I acknowledged that fact, I was happier and more certain that a new place to live would come to me.  Asking the universe for help sounds odd, especially for those that know me, but it's what I did. (Plus I promised St. Anthony, my personal Saint for Finding Things, a $200 bonus to St. Anthony's kitchen if he helped me find a place by the end of the year.  Hey, I might not believe in a god but I do believe in spirits. And I believe in paying them when necessary.  St. Anthony also found a buyer for the Big White House in 1998 when I was down to my last hundred bucks.  Go figure.)

I spoke about this change of heart and mind out loud. I told people that my goal was to find a place by the end of the year but no more negative stuff, just all positive looking-ahead stuff.  In the past two weeks four different living scenarios came into my view.  Two were not right, one could be OK and this last one is just fine!  Isn't it a wonder what the power of positive thinking can do?  That and acknowledging that sometimes one needs help.

YAY for this!  Details remain to be worked out but I am dropping off the deposit tomorrow and will finalize the move-in dates, etc.  

Sigh.  Life is Good.

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Holding my breath.........don't want to jinx this......

I looked at a little duplex today for rent. It would be almost perfect for me.  Well, perfect is too high of a standard but let's just say that I can see myself living there and liking it a lot.  The guy who was doing some maintenance and clean-up liked me and said he was putting me at the top of the list of candidates. (And he was cute and almost age appropriate, I can't believe I even wrote that!)  One bedroom, here in SR, giant kitchen, a teeny ten by ten concrete backyard but enough room for my Webber grill I can plant some stuff in pots and make it look nice. It has a couple of tall trees in back so has some shade. Not fancy but I don't need fancy, low curb appeal but nice inside appeal.  

Here's my test:  I can see having Christmas Eve there. Not as cozy as Jenn and Dar's but a bit more room and it will be homey.

Holding my breath and I will keep you all updated on this situation.

An antidote for an hour

After watching enough truncated reports on the deaths in Nice, France, I needed something else.  I could not read the book I just started. I couldn't sit in the yard, too hot, couldn't watch TV, too stupid. But on the streaming PBS station I found an episode of American Masters, with opera great Renee Fleming, about song. All about music and singing. Nothing about violence or politics or current events or this day or any day. Simply about music, masters and apprentices and the power of that music.  Gospel, pop, classical, opera, jazz, new music.  All of it.

If you can find this on your TV, please consider watching it. For an hour, Renee Fleming introduces us to a dozen singers we know and many we don't.  The power of the voice is such that it makes you laugh and makes you cry. Tonight it made me cry more than I anticipated. Cathartic, I guess. To hear Alison Krauss sing "Ghost in the House"... well, I rewound that about 4 times to hear it again and again.  Her voice is that of wise angel, pure and yet sad and knowing. "I'm just a whisper of smoke, I'm all that's left of two hearts on fire that once burned out of control."  It's perfect.   And Dianne Reeves, jazzing up a song that makes you smile and mentoring a young woman on stage with a smile and some advice, so generous.  And another young woman whose name I forgot doing a cover of Elton John's "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" that will make you stare at the ceiling with your mouth open and you will shake your head in amazement at her rendition.  "..It'll take you a couple of gin and tonics to get you on your feet again." Trust me, it kicks butt.

And so much more. Kim Burell, an amazing Gospel singer launching into "Let There Be Peace on Earth" simply brought down my personal house and I used a half box of Kleenex right there. 

Commentary from one singer: When you sing, you have these parts coming together to create this whole.  It's a wonderful metaphor of how you wish society would be.

And yes. Try to find this PBS episode, if you can. If you have Netflix, you can find it on your list of stations/channels. If you don't, well, see if this helps:  http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/american-voices-renee-fleming-full-episode/3739/

For one hour I was almost able to put the tragedy of Nice on hold. Yes, I cried through most of it because of every reason, especially because of the contrast between the beauty and simplicity of music and the ugliness and complicated madness of terror.  And I wept at the beauty of music we know and that we don't know, at the power of that music to move us, at the simple gift of a simple line of notes.  What it is, I don't know. On a night like this one, after another 80 deaths for no reason, I know nothing. I am still crying. Enough.

But sometimes there is an hour of solace. And I have learned to take that solace when it comes because when it appears, it is sorely needed.

Goodnight my friends. I wish you well.

xo 
as we say in our family: LTBT

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What the fuck is happening in our world?

Another mass killing.  Nice. Dallas. Brussels. Istanbul. Ankara. Yemen.  Paris. Bangladesh. Orlando. And on and on, so many deaths, innocent lives gone. Is there anything that can stop this?  What fuels this ideology of killing and why?  Where is safe? "Victims just piled up in the streets" is one commentary from a reporter as we see bodies, dead, so many of them, in that street.

Enough. 

What's the plan here, if you can't blow people up, just run them over?  Ban or limit guns, yes, in our country but that''s not going to solve this. No one can stop hate and thus we can't stop this hurricane of terror.

Enough.

In Guerneville, communing with the redwoods.......

Jenn and Dar were out of town this weekend, I took Saturday and Sunday off, which gave me 4 days off in a row!  A miracle, to me.  House and dog sitting up here in the redwoods.  Their little place is sadly right on the road, so there is a fair amount of road noise, but gladly it is surrounded by redwoods so there is a lot of ambient peace and beauty.

Having coffee and toast, just sitting and looking at the trees, makes me happy.  A few weeks ago, when I was house and dog sitting for Steve, I commented on sitting on his porch, looking at all the different trees, being so happy to be surrounded with greenery. There is a theme here, which I was slow to see: I like trees in my line of vision.  I like looking at them, smelling them, hearing them ruffle in the wind, listening to fog drip off of them.  Where I live now, in Santa Rosa, there are a couple of oak trees on either side of the house but they aren't nice to look at.  They are solid, but there is nothing graceful or pretty about them.  In my quest to find a new place to live, the tree factor has become important.  I  am not a gardener, so I don't need to grow things, but I want to see things that are growing. 

When I look back at places I have lived, the swaying of trees, the changing of the leaves each season, these are things I remember.  In Daly City, there were huge eucalyptus trees in back of us that smelled wonderful and moved in the slightest breeze.  In Inverness, of course, there were trees all over the place, oaks and pines, apple trees, fir and redwoods.  In the tiny Santa Rosa duplex I lived in had a magnificent garden of flowers and vegetables right outside my door and walking that neighborhood brought me in contact with again, more trees. 

It is time for me to find that new place to live.  I am asking everyone who reads this to send a silent (or noisy) thought to the Universe to help me find this new place.  With the housing market the way it is in Northern California, relying on on-line rental sites is too frustrating and futile.  Creating a network of friends who will put me on their habitat radar is the best way to find a new home.  Anything you see or hear about, let me know.

And thank you in advance for doing so.

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"The Usual Suspects" revisited

It's a holiday weekend and of course there are  no holiday weekends for those of us in the hospitality industry.  Hospitality equals ......(expletive deleted here) and we all know that. And it also means working weekends. That's a fact, that's life.  No big deal. 

Tonight I grilled a chicken breast and some squash perfectly and needed to watch something on TV.  There is so much to watch but it was time for something other than CSI or The Blacklist or crap like Bloodlines. After clicking around and trying on several things, I settled on watching "The Usual Suspects" which I have seen several times. I guess I needed something a bit familiar and it does not disappoint. 

You have already seen this movie but watch it again.  I promise you this: you will be surprised at what you forgot, things you missed, things that will catch you off guard. It's complicated, of course. It's not just Verbal Kint and Agent Kujan. It's not just the beautiful Dean Keaton (Gabriel Byrne) or any of the usual suspects.  It's a really good movie, full of betrayal and dishonor and trickery. Totally worth watching again.  Check it out.  Free to stream on Netflix, of course. 

More tomorrow.