I should have taken photos. Perhaps tomorrow I will. For some reason the four corners close to my small place have become a repository for crappy, leftover, ratty, torn, scarred and ugly furniture. We are talking here about a three piece sofa that looks like it was in someone's backyard for months with cats living on it and rats frollicking about and birds pooping on the entire thing. And now it's at the corner, near the preschool daycare. Yesterday when I was walking Cooper early in the morning there was a person sleeping on it, the three sofa cushions on top of him! It was disconcerting, to say the least.
On another corner is a pile of stuff with a sign that says "Free!" Like these are great items, come and get them before the sale is over! Here's the inventory: a microwave oven with a dent on the top and with no door. (Really, how will that actually work? But Free!) A set of four plastic kitchen chairs that have the bottoms torn out so no one would be able to sit on them. (Again, how will that work? But Free!) And finally, an filthy and torn ottoman that should be schlepped to the corner across the street to join the three piece sofa, they look like victims of the same trauma.
Finally, on the third corner are two things: a cardboard box with the word "FREE" (in capital letters) and a kid car seat without any sort of straps with which to secure a kid. Hmmm..... I peek into the FREE box and there are two cans of tomato paste and two boxes of dried pasta and one can of chow mein noodles. I would assume these have expiration dates of many moons ago. Why not chuck those into the trash can? A homeless person might pick up a can of fruit but boxes of pasta? And the other item: a car seat without any straps to secure a kid? What is the point and again, just toss in in the dumpster that is sitting just across that corner.
Ah, it defies explanation, I know that. There is no logic. It is sad. But one block away, in the legit JC area, this would never happen. I kid you not, one block away is zero tolerance for anything left on a corner unless it is tidy and possibly attractive. My block, bring it on! Repository for anything, rotten and disgusting? Sure! The only good thing about this situation is that for a night or two (until the vermin arrive) is that a homeless person can sleep on something other than the cold concrete. Those sofas will sit there for three weeks, guaranteed. It is what it is.
.
Tuesday, August 28, 2018
Tuesday, August 14, 2018
The meaning of life, for me, for a couple of hours.
Last Friday, August 10, was my daughter Jenn's 45th birthday. (Yes, I was a child bride.) I went up to Guerneville on Friday night, there was a group of her friends there (mostly lovely gay men), we grilled burgers and drank wine and laughed. A bit later Gabe and Annie arrived, just in time for the last of the burgers and some hot dogs, more wine was opened and soon most of the guys went home. It was me, Jenn, Dar, Gabe, Annie and another couple who stayed to search for shooting stars from the Pleiades meteor shower. I went to bed at midnight, I was the only one who had to work the next morning, on Saturday.
My shift on Saturday ended at 7:00, I was at Jenn and Dar's by 7:08 and we sat down to dinner at 7:10. The five of us and two of their friends whom I really like. Great pork ribs, salad, sides, wine, excellent simple but delicious dinner. Dar is a wiz at the grill, the ribs were 100% perfect. By 9:30 it was just the 5 of us. We got more wine, blankets and settled in to see more shooting stars.
(I know this sounds boring. It wasn't.)
At one point I said to my kids: "This is the meaning of life for me at this moment: I am here with my two kids and their mates, so my four kids. There is nothing better. It is all about the love and all about the four of you. Thank you."
And I really believe that the meaning of life is just that: being with the people you love. (Had my Stacey been there, well, even better, she is my other daughter, just like Dar and Annie..... and her Ben and her Sam and Henry, well, that's all family.) We search for the meaning of our lives, we think about our accomplishments, our successes and failures and where we are and where we want to be and all of that. But for me, at this time in my life, it just comes down to one simple fact: we love.
It doesn't matter why or how, it matters that we love. It matters that we love, even if it is messy and difficult because it is also special and sometimes remarkable. More often than not it is simple and easy while also complicated and annoying. But that's all part of the process and part of why and how we love. That we love, there is the meaning.
We saw some shooting stars that evening. We shared a lot of laughs, a lot of wine and a lot of love. That love put those shooting stars in their place. That love was so bright.
xo LTBT
.
My shift on Saturday ended at 7:00, I was at Jenn and Dar's by 7:08 and we sat down to dinner at 7:10. The five of us and two of their friends whom I really like. Great pork ribs, salad, sides, wine, excellent simple but delicious dinner. Dar is a wiz at the grill, the ribs were 100% perfect. By 9:30 it was just the 5 of us. We got more wine, blankets and settled in to see more shooting stars.
(I know this sounds boring. It wasn't.)
At one point I said to my kids: "This is the meaning of life for me at this moment: I am here with my two kids and their mates, so my four kids. There is nothing better. It is all about the love and all about the four of you. Thank you."
And I really believe that the meaning of life is just that: being with the people you love. (Had my Stacey been there, well, even better, she is my other daughter, just like Dar and Annie..... and her Ben and her Sam and Henry, well, that's all family.) We search for the meaning of our lives, we think about our accomplishments, our successes and failures and where we are and where we want to be and all of that. But for me, at this time in my life, it just comes down to one simple fact: we love.
It doesn't matter why or how, it matters that we love. It matters that we love, even if it is messy and difficult because it is also special and sometimes remarkable. More often than not it is simple and easy while also complicated and annoying. But that's all part of the process and part of why and how we love. That we love, there is the meaning.
We saw some shooting stars that evening. We shared a lot of laughs, a lot of wine and a lot of love. That love put those shooting stars in their place. That love was so bright.
xo LTBT
.
"Clock Dance" by Anne Tyler
Anne Tyler writes about the small things of life, the details that most observers overlook, about quiet people who try to go about their lives without making ripples in the water. Her characters do not want attention, they want to be left alone to continue their quiet, unassuming lives. But in a Tyler novel there is always something that happens that leads to a jolt out of that quiet life for at least one character. It's not a lightning bolt of a jolt, more like a small slap of reality that makes the character open his or her eyes a bit wider and be a tiny bit anxious and a tiny bit excited, both at the same time.
"Clock Dance" is a typical Anne Tyler novel. If you want speed, suspense, intrigue and action, her novels are not for you. On the other hand, if you want a calm, insightful novel about ordinary people who look at themselves in the mirror and see not their own faces but the faces they wish they had, then you might like Tyler's novels. Her characters try hard. They don't always succeed in ways they want but they always change in ways they could not have predicted.
I read "Clock Dance" in one day, up the coast in a house I shared with a friend for a day and a half. It was the perfect book for a slow, calm day. (A fast-paced thriller would have been perfect as well, no book is a bad choice for a house on the coast.) The characters were needy yet real, their situations were remarkable yet not, the story unfolded in a typical Anne Tyler way. I could almost predict the ending but that didn't diminish the journey one bit.
It's a nice read. I wouldn't buy it but if you find it at the library or somewhere free, it's worth lugging home, making yourself a cup of tea and digging in. After a couple of hours it will be time for a glass of wine and then you will be finished and you will be happier because of it.
.
"Clock Dance" is a typical Anne Tyler novel. If you want speed, suspense, intrigue and action, her novels are not for you. On the other hand, if you want a calm, insightful novel about ordinary people who look at themselves in the mirror and see not their own faces but the faces they wish they had, then you might like Tyler's novels. Her characters try hard. They don't always succeed in ways they want but they always change in ways they could not have predicted.
I read "Clock Dance" in one day, up the coast in a house I shared with a friend for a day and a half. It was the perfect book for a slow, calm day. (A fast-paced thriller would have been perfect as well, no book is a bad choice for a house on the coast.) The characters were needy yet real, their situations were remarkable yet not, the story unfolded in a typical Anne Tyler way. I could almost predict the ending but that didn't diminish the journey one bit.
It's a nice read. I wouldn't buy it but if you find it at the library or somewhere free, it's worth lugging home, making yourself a cup of tea and digging in. After a couple of hours it will be time for a glass of wine and then you will be finished and you will be happier because of it.
.
Monday, August 6, 2018
Books in my car, listening, driving and not crashing into trees.
It is so difficult to listen to talk radio these days because I do not want to become immersed in the political diatribe that is swirling around all of us. It sickens me. The political climate of the US right now makes me retch and it frightens me more than I can say. So I try to listen to NPR on Friday because "Science Friday" steers away from politics and focuses on science, of course. And in that discourse we have everything from genetics to climate change to animal migration and on to esoteric topics about skin and light and sleep and so many things that make one's mind tingle with new realms. I am a huge fan of Ira Flatow and "Science Friday" and Ira's enthusiastic voice.
The other hours in my car I get books on CD out of the library and they provide a buffer from the real world. I listen to pretty much everything: literary fiction, mystery, books on science, biographies if they aren't too long, police procedure, true crime, autobiographies, anything that catches my fancy. My criteria is that there cannot be more than 15 CDs in the case, which rules out books like "Crime and Punishment" by Dostoevsky and "War and Peace" by Tolstoy. But I am fairly certain those are books meant to be read, book in hand.
My normal commute is an hour a day, 4 days a week (sometimes 5) so getting through a 15 hour book will take me almost two weeks, given that I work 4 days a week. That's fine. More than that, I lose interest and then what's the point? But there is something so engaging about listening to a book spouting itself out from your car speakers. It's like having someone read to you but they don't really care about you. Sometimes they don't even seem to care about the story, they are merely reading the words. But most of the time the narrators become the story, they change their voice for each character and they, with their singular voice, make any story come alive in the listener's mind. It make commuting not just entertaining but educating at the same time.
What's not to love?
The other hours in my car I get books on CD out of the library and they provide a buffer from the real world. I listen to pretty much everything: literary fiction, mystery, books on science, biographies if they aren't too long, police procedure, true crime, autobiographies, anything that catches my fancy. My criteria is that there cannot be more than 15 CDs in the case, which rules out books like "Crime and Punishment" by Dostoevsky and "War and Peace" by Tolstoy. But I am fairly certain those are books meant to be read, book in hand.
My normal commute is an hour a day, 4 days a week (sometimes 5) so getting through a 15 hour book will take me almost two weeks, given that I work 4 days a week. That's fine. More than that, I lose interest and then what's the point? But there is something so engaging about listening to a book spouting itself out from your car speakers. It's like having someone read to you but they don't really care about you. Sometimes they don't even seem to care about the story, they are merely reading the words. But most of the time the narrators become the story, they change their voice for each character and they, with their singular voice, make any story come alive in the listener's mind. It make commuting not just entertaining but educating at the same time.
What's not to love?
Thursday, August 2, 2018
"Educated" by Tara Westover
On the NY Times bestseller list for many weeks, I had trepidation about this memoir. Having read many memoirs of terrible childhoods (i.e. "The Glass Castle," "Hillbilly Elegy,"Running with Scissors," "Angela's Ashes" to name just four) I have lost patience with many of them. Often times the writer could have left his or her home and started on a new life. Yes, this might have been difficult but because the author was, at some point, an adult, it would have been possible. Until I read "Educated" the only other memoir of a terrible childhood I really liked was "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls. She put up with her life until she could leave and leave she did.
I know many who have had crappy childhoods. I did not have a pleasant one but it wasn't terrible. Tara Westover, however, had a terrible life. Raised by very strict Mormon parents in rural Idaho, far off the grid, she was unschooled, unsocialized, belittled and physically abused. She was not sexually abused but her life was pretty much hell. Her mother, after a life-threatening and life-changing automobile accident where she undoubtedly suffered brain damage, became a sort of "healer" from the herb and spirit world. (That makes no sense, of course, until you read the book.) Her father was a scrapper, finding used cars, used steel, used iron and reselling it. He also believed that the "End of Days" was near and made all of his family stockpile everything: food, water, guns, ammo, fuel. He was a tyrant, cruel, unforgiving and flat out mean.
Tara knew how to read and she worked the hard scrapping life along with her several brothers. She longed for an education because she knew it would be the only way out of the life her parents had chosen for her.
How she figured out how to get that education and how she struggled with emotional, psychological, physical trauma while trying to educate herself is a remarkable story.
"Educated" is not pretty or sugar coated. Tara's life story is brutal but because there is success in many ways, it is totally worth reading. What strength and resilience she shows in simply trying to be part of the everyday world is amazing.
Highly recommended.
.
I know many who have had crappy childhoods. I did not have a pleasant one but it wasn't terrible. Tara Westover, however, had a terrible life. Raised by very strict Mormon parents in rural Idaho, far off the grid, she was unschooled, unsocialized, belittled and physically abused. She was not sexually abused but her life was pretty much hell. Her mother, after a life-threatening and life-changing automobile accident where she undoubtedly suffered brain damage, became a sort of "healer" from the herb and spirit world. (That makes no sense, of course, until you read the book.) Her father was a scrapper, finding used cars, used steel, used iron and reselling it. He also believed that the "End of Days" was near and made all of his family stockpile everything: food, water, guns, ammo, fuel. He was a tyrant, cruel, unforgiving and flat out mean.
Tara knew how to read and she worked the hard scrapping life along with her several brothers. She longed for an education because she knew it would be the only way out of the life her parents had chosen for her.
How she figured out how to get that education and how she struggled with emotional, psychological, physical trauma while trying to educate herself is a remarkable story.
"Educated" is not pretty or sugar coated. Tara's life story is brutal but because there is success in many ways, it is totally worth reading. What strength and resilience she shows in simply trying to be part of the everyday world is amazing.
Highly recommended.
.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)