New book, old movie, no roommate!

There is something nice about not having internet connection for several days.  One goes old school and watches movies on DVDs.  I have given away and tossed dozens in the past weeks but I hold on to a few classics.  Just watched "L.A. Confidential" again and was reminded that it is up there with the Ten Best Movies to Take to a Desert Island. (If said island had a DVD player, of course.)  What a great movie!  So intricate, such clear and different characters and what a detailed plot. It's been several years since I have watched it and there were a few things that I don't think I caught on the first three viewings. I forgot that the dead corrupt cop, Leland "Buzz" Meeks was the sort-of boyfriend of the dead girl Lefferts who was killed at the Night Owl Shooting.  And I had forgotten about the attempted takeover of the Mickey Cohen crime ring by Pierce Patchett and Dudley Smith and the heroin they were trying to distribute.  If you have never seen this film, find it and watch it. If you have seen it, watch it again, I can assure you it holds up well.  I can loan it to you on DVD, it's not streaming on Netflix.  Maybe on Amazon.  But it is so, so good.

Books: I have read and liked almost all of Dave Eggers work. "Zeitoun" was one of my favorite books a few years ago, a true story of a Syrian resident of New Orleans, a man who has been there for years, has a business, has a wife and kids.  When Hurricane Katrina hits, Zeitoun goes out in his small boat to rescue people and pets, he saves lives, he sees the incredible damage done to his city.  And then, because of Homeland Security and the reign of terror against anyone not white, he is arrested and sent to prison for no reason other than his ethnicity. Read it. It's scary and moving and true.

But that's not what I have just finished. "Heroes of the Frontier" by Eggers is a work of fiction.  A woman named Josie flees her insensitive and dense husband in Ohio, takes her two kids and flies to Alaska. Her plan is vague, her heart is muddied with anger and confusion, she rents a sputtering old VW bus and tries to navigate the state.  Josie is rebuffed by wildfires, by kind but odd strangers, by her own uncertainty.  It's a great tale, a great adventure, even if at times you want to slap her in the face.

But Eggers, his prose just puts you in the characters' minds and he doesn't let you give up on them: She wanted no more of the useless drama of life. If theatrics were necessary, fine.  If a human were ascending a mountain, and on that ascent there were storms and avalanches and bolts of lightning from angry skies, then she could accept drama, participate in drama. But suburban drama was so tiresome, so absurd on its face, that she could no longer be around anyone who thought it real or worthwhile." Come on, who has not thought that, especially if you ever lived in that white suburban death drama kind of neighborhood scenario.  

I really liked this book. It would not be too far from the truth to say I REALLY liked this book. Josie is lost and found and a trooper and a loser and a Mom and a child and everything between all those boundaries.  SO ARE WE ALL.  You do not need to have been a parent to understand the feeling of failure (and possibly success) at caretaking another person. I would just say find this and read it. It won't rock your world but it will make you think twice about your own rocking of that world.

Me and Cooper, on the couch, watch TV in the main room, not hiding in the TV room, eating what I want for dinner and making a mess in the kitchen and cleaning it WHEN I WANT TO CLEAN IT UP, leaving the mail scattered around the house, not putting all the groceries away. Drinking whiskey or wine without having to hide it. Bottom line, it is really nice to be on my own. YAY.

thanks for following along.

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It's been so moving.....

There have been no blogs lately because I have been moving and thus my internet connection has been transitory.  But now it's back!  From the situation with the roommate, a situation I did not enjoy, to a small place just for myself and the dog, it's been a busy week changing living places. Along the way I have already taken two loads of stuff to thrift shops and I have three more boxes to either take to a thrift shop or find a way to get this stuff, dishes, cooking stuff, blankets, a beautiful hand made quilt, up to the people who have lost everything in the Lake County fire.

I left West Marin in October of 2010 and with me came several boxes of dishes, bowls, serving platters, vases, tchotchkes, ceramic pieces.  Those were stored in boxes in Gabe's garage and transferred to the garage on Meyers Drive, where they remained unopened.  I carried them to this place and opened them and am giving at least 90% of the stuff away.  There were boxes of bank statements, credit card bills, investment reports, paper, paper, paper. I have shredded and tossed most of that stuff as well.  Too much crap to continue to carry along. 

My new place is a large half of a duplex near the JC.  A decent size living room, large kitchen, regular size bedroom, bath.  Small and ugly back yard which I think can be nice with some potted plants and maybe a few square feet of sod.   But serviceable,  I can have my Weber grill out there and some chairs and a table.

The best thing is that I have no roommate!  I come home from work and I don't have to interact with anyone or feel like I am being rude by not interacting.  My days are full of talking.  I do not want to talk when work is done, at least for an hour or so. I can cook what I want, when I want and I don't have to smell that hot, humid stench of boiled cabbage/broccoli/onions. (She NEVER sauteed one thing. Everything was steamed, including hamburgers.)  

Cooper is adjusting, I think he likes the neighborhood, and if he doesn't, too bad.  I do. It's odd. The Meyers Drive house was a nice house and the 'hood was friendly and safe. But it wasn't a good walking neighborhood. This one is. There are a couple of negatives about it like no garage and no laundry, but the laundromat is a three minute walk from here and without a garage I have no space to store stuff, so doing laundry is easy and it means I get rid of stuff. 

Whew. It's all good.  

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If we weren't all crazy we would all go insane. (Thank you, Jimmy Buffett.)

First thing: the daughter we all know and love turned 43 yesterday.  A prime number, guaranteed a prime year. As beautiful and ambitious and complicated as ever, she is, at this moment (or as of last night, we know how mercurial these things are) very happy.  Where did all those years go? I don't mind that she is 43, but I do mind that there are so many gaps in my memory of those years. I mind it a lot. But Jenn is busy (duh) and happy (yay) and time marches on.

Second thing: I read a blog I wrote on August 4 of last year, just a few days after the roommate moved in, and already, after just a couple of days, I was tired of having a roommate. I wrote that it wasn't her so much as it was me, my desire to live alone was so obvious to me that having a roommate wasn't working even then.  Of course, in the following year, it is apparent to me that part of it is her (hello, naked in the kitchen, pill popping, ox bile eating person) and part of it is me (please don't talk to me when I come home from work or in the morning or after dinner or around noon or ever.)  But I lasted a year. In other words, it took me that long to find my own place.  YAY for that.

Third thing: I get the keys to the new place this weekend.  By Monday night I might actually be sleeping there. It's so strange, this transition stuff. Here's me tossing out crap I have had for ten years, a little bar of soap from the hotel in Tunisia, a handful of French and Italian coins from the days of francs and lira, a compass that stopped working because my trajectory never points north, dozens of DVDs of movies I love because I need to move on from them, old pasta, old jars of olives, Parmesan rinds that are good in soups one makes in the winter but not in the summer.  I shredded tax returns, bank statements and investment statements that had my social security number on them.  (However, any tax returns with a name and a social security number on them from the Assbag, I left whole, and left them in a box on the street corner with a sign that said "FREE" on it.) 

That's enough for now. Life is crazy. We are all a bit crazed. Admit it, embrace the oddities of life, our eccentricities and be happy about all of it.  Kids, husbands (exes), friends, pets, souvenirs, possessions, family, transitions.  All make us nuts, all give us comfort and solace and all are part of who we are, where we have been and where we are going.  

Yesterdays are over my shoulder so I can't look back for too long.  There's just too much to see waiting in front of me, and I know that I just can't go wrong.

Thanks again, Jimmy B.
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So, yes, it appears I am moving!

Finally filled out a rental agreement, paid some money and I supposedly will get the keys on Saturday.  In the meantime, my roommate has found a new roommate, a guy who talks All. The. Time.  He has been here a couple of times, claimed to have mostly nothing to move in, that he lives in a ten by twenty room and yet!  Today he brought in about six huge crates of stuff.  And talked for two hours, never shut up the entire time.

They will be happy together, of that I am sure.

more to follow.

Why we love cast iron frying pans

Last Friday I ordered Chinese take out.  Veggie chow fun and orange beef.  And yes, orange beef is bad for you but it was a long day of trying to deal with Comcast, boxing up stuff for the move, coming upon my roommate sunbathing in the nude, after which I had to take a shower and try to purge that image from my mind. So I ordered it and it was good.

Tonight, those leftovers: into a seasoned cast iron frying pan went some olive oil til hot, chopped onion and garlic, then a small diced white eggplant, dices zucchini, red pepper flakes, dashes of fish sauce, and some of those chow fun noodles.  The noodles of course release starch and thus create sticky stuff on the bottom of the pan.  When it was all done and tasty, I turned it out onto a plate, added a little more olive oil and tossed in the orange beef, which is sticky and messy.  Couple of minutes, put that on the plate, the bottom of the pan was a mess, ran hot water into it and took my lovely plate outside to eat (roommate was gone!) and enjoyed some nice quiet air.  Cooper had a tiny bite as well. He approved.

When I came back in, I rinsed out the frying pan and everything just loosened up and rinsed away.  A couple of swipes with the sponge and the pan was clean, no sticky bits, no burned veggies and sauce, clean as a whistle. 

Gotta love that seasoned cast iron material!

Rachel Maddow (heart, heart, heart)

It is no secret that I want to live next door to Rachel Maddow and want to have BBQs with her and, yes, want to kiss her full on the lips in a sister-solidarity manner.  (Yeah, right....)  I love this woman. I want to meet her and I really do want to have a BBQ with her.  Any time, any where. I have emailed BBQ invites to her but have heard nothing so far.  I am still, foolishly, hopeful.

I don't get to watch her on my streaming only TV but I do get truncated versions of her on my Roku News Channels.  And thus I have fallen back in love with her over the hysterical historical political conventions. 

There is nothing else to say.  One either watches Rachel or one doesn't and if one has the ability to watch her and chooses not to, well, then I don't want to be your friend. She kicks not just ass but she kicks everything. 

(OK, I will still be your friend but please explain why any one would not watch Rachel if they had the chance.  Unless that person was a Trump supporter and then I REALLY do not want to be your friend. I do not even want to know you. Seriously.)

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