The Holly Days

 Maybe it should be Holly Daze. The holidays are always a dazzling time, aren't they?  All those sparkling lights everywhere, the glittery wrapping paper, bubbles in glass after glass of champagne, everyone smiling with white, shiny teeth. Makes one walk around in a daze with all that dazzle. 

I don't mean to sound like a cynic. The holidays aren't bad, with the exception of spending too much money, eating too much fattening food, overloading on sugar (cookies!  chocolate!  eggnog and pie!) and being very slothful (i.e. no exercise, blame it on the rainy weather.)  Who doesn't like this time of year, when fake trees abound and fake happiness takes its toll?  All that smiling.  At least those bubbles in that champagne glass serve a purpose: dulling the ennui.

But wait, seriously now. Some holiday things are actually enjoyable.  There is something nice about buying a gift or two and getting to watch the recipient open them, seeing a happy face. Baking cookies and cinnamon bread, filling the house up with great smells. Turning on Christmas tree lights every night, even on a fake tree. Gathering with my kids for a Christmas Eve dinner and laughing at the dogs with their clear disdain for the holiday, especially when made to wear reindeer ears.

In these troubled times throughout the world it is good to have a couple of days to welcome joy into our lives.  With wishes of kindness and peace for the new year, let's all raise a glass of anything to the hope of a bright future.  Or at least a less tarnished one.

Travel on my mind

 Having knee surgery does not lend itself to travel.  Hell, it's sometimes too painful to walk out the front door and get a whiff of fresh air, let alone hobble down corridors in an airport. But even without the ways and means, the desire is always there. 

Sometimes I stop myself from looking at hotel websites when I get the "too-long-in-the-house-jitters" but usually I succumb and indulge in the pleasure of vicarious living. Mind you, I don't usually look at hotels I can actually afford (where's the fun in that?) so it is all fantasy and I can live with that.  What's the harm in checking for availability at the Hotel Plaza Athenee in Paris or the St. Regis in Rome?  Seeing the Christmas trees in the lobbies, the fine dining options, the $2500 per night suites with outstanding views, it all makes me happy and not too envious of those who can afford it. But I do wonder: if you can afford that price, what do you look at and drool over? 

The answer is this: you google "worlds most expensive hotel rooms" and you get a look at suites around the world that cost upwards of $30,000 a night, all the way to $150,000 for an underwater hotel in the Maldives.  But seriously, looking at photos of those incredibly pricey places, they all look like hotel lobbies, not rooms. They are huge, yes, and have great views and wonderful amenities (private butlers, private chefs, free massages, free booze) but they don't look as inviting as the $3,000 per night room at the Four Seasons in New York.

Hey, a girl can dream, right?  And a girl can scale back that dream to a $200 a night room in a cozy hotel in Oregon or Chicago or along the Mendocino coast.  As the knee heals, so my travel world will turn.

The Mess We're In

Not only are we experiencing wars, terrorist attacks and devastating natural disasters, we now have an evangelical christian as House speaker.  And this means an evangelical christian is second in line to the presidency.  If Biden and Harris are assassinated or somehow vanish from the planet, Mike Johnson will be president of the United States.  Think on that for a minute.  A man who supported overturning the 2020 election, a man who is a Trump toady, a man who opposes abortion and any discussion of gay rights, a man who will vote against any aid to Ukraine: this is the man that could be president. Not that a situation like that is likely, but the thought that our country has devolved this far is frightening and disgusting. How did we get to this point?

The better question is: how do we get out of this? 

More to follow.

Finally! Back in print!

 For the past several weeks I have had no internet connection on my laptop.  No access to anything.  My phone connected 85% of the time, my TV the same for streaming stuff. Quite frustrating, but here we are, back again!

Three weeks ago I had knee replacement surgery, which enforced upon me a great deal of free time.  A lot of boring free time. For the first two weeks, one's life revolves around icing the knee many times during the day, reading, doing exercises for the knee (painful!) and staring at the TV or out the window or into one's soul. (Short-lived.) Very boring. Even having unlimited time to read was tiresome and it's amazing how much junk there is on television, junk that I either had already seen or had no desire to ever watch. 

After two weeks, the highlight of my day was hobbling down the path and walking around the pool several times, just to get outside. (It's 60 steps around the pool, in case you were wondering.)

This past Monday I had reached the limit of my incarceration and decided to get in the car and drive to the post office.  HA!  What a joke that was because the car wouldn't start! Another enforced confinement. Once it a new battery was installed (after 3 calls in two days to AAA) driving became much more enjoyable.  I now can hobble into the post office, into a grocery store, into the library, using my trusty cane that I bought for $6 at the thrift store.

Knee replacements are quite common, especially in my Baby Boom generation, but that doesn't make them easy or convenient or desired. No one ever thought "perhaps it would be nice to have my leg sliced open, battered around a bit, bones sawed off, fake bones screwed on, then stapled back together." Because it isn't nice. Necessary, maybe, but nice? No. It hurts. Having parts of the body sliced open and poked about with sharp instruments is always going to result in pain.

Three weeks after the surgery I am still icing the knee and leg several times a day (with an amazing ice machine provided by Kaiser) and doing exercises to increase mobility and prevent scar tissue.  But I am still hobbling around with the cane, not striding purposefully down the path. The hobbling will get better, of course, and at some point the pain will back off. 

At least that's the plan.

More Mortality Consciouness

 Five and a half years ago I had a partial knee replacement on my right leg. The surgery and the recovery went very well, there were no complications and no bad outcomes. Retrospectively, I should have had it done months sooner and I should have kept up with the physical therapy better, but hey... shoulda, woulda, coulda. 

Next week I am having the same partial knee replacement surgery on my left leg. Same hospital, same surgeon, same everything.  Except I am five and a half years older. And therein lies the trepidation. 

Five years isn't much in a 73 year life time, but these five years aren't when I was in my 40's or 50's or even 60's. I am older. I am not as strong, my body does strange and unusual things all the time. Will this surgery be as swift and uncomplicated as the last one? Will my recovery be as simple and easy? Will I code on the table and die?

Yes, melodramatic I suppose but these are things I am thinking about.  Mortality looms large, of course.  I mean, fuck, Jimmy Buffett just died!  Jimmy Buffett! The king of "if it isn't fun, it shouldn't be done." How can I not think about dying?

It's not that I am afraid of this surgery. I am not. I look forward to being able to walk more than a half mile without pain.  A few weeks ago I took the ferry into SF, walked the two miles to my seat at a Giants game, walked the two miles back and my knee was wrecked for a week. I want that to go away, to be erased. Walking is my meditation and I need that back. So bring on the surgery!  Just don't let anything weird happen along the way or under the knife or in the few days after it.

And as Jimmy said: Yesterday's over my shoulder, I can't look back for too long. There's just too much to see waiting in front of me and I know I just can't go wrong.

Thanks for listening.  And listen here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR2KkwAVGHo

Half-and-half vs CREAM

Trivial, yes, but why does half-and-half even exist? What is the purpose of this stuff?  Yes, most people buy it to put in their coffee, but that's it.  It is a one-use product. What else in your refrigerator has only one use? Probably nothing. Everything else can be used alone or mixed with something else to create a new kind of taste treat or piled on top of a sandwich or put into an omelet or licked off of a spoon or spread on toast or so many other things. But h-and-h has only one use: to make your coffee taste less harsh. And you know what works so much better?  Real CREAM!  Yes, cream. A tiny dash makes your coffee taste richer and indulgent but it doesn't dilute your coffee.  If the cream is too much, you can mix it with regular milk and make your own h-and-h but why bother?

Cream has so many uses, a small container of it should be in your fridge at all times.  With cream you can have a biscuit in the oven in two minutes without all the bother of chopping in cold butter. With cream you can make a butterscotch sauce (with butter and brown sugar) that takes six minutes, start to finish and there is no way h-and-h can do that.  A tablespoon of cream into a bowl of soup makes that soup luscious without a ton of calories. Two tablespoons can be added to a pasta dish and transform that dish from good to excellent. If one is feeling particularly indulgent (or sad and needs a lift) cream can be used to make a sauce all on its own because once it boils down, it thickens and turns light golden. Pour that over sautéed chicken breast or a sautéed pork cutlet with some sautéed mushrooms and you are in heaven.

If you are a h-and-h aficionado, then ignore my advice.  I know that it can be used in making some sauces and is good in..... maybe mashed potatoes, but cream is better, in my opinion. But hey, just my opinion.  I could be wrong.

But you cannot make this with h-and-h, just saying:

 

My Saints. Not the football team.

OK, this is going to sound crazy and I am fine with that because it is a little crazy to the uninitiated. By that I mean, those who do not believe in the power of Saints.

I am not a believer in "God" or whatever you might call that person in the heavens who passes judgement and who could easily fix the crap in the world if he/she wanted to but chooses, instead, to let children be killed by bullets in their kindergarten classes and to let people die of starvation in a world that could produce enough food for everyone and let families be terrorized and killed in a small country that is plagued by war because of a brutal dictator next door and who lets people, in his/her name, do unspeakable evil to regular everyday people because those people think he/she is on their side and I could go on and on.  But no, I don't believe in any sort of god like that.

But I do believe in Saints. (I capitalize that word because the Saints are important to me.)  Especially Saint Anthony, the Patron Saint of Lost Things. St. Anthony has found things for me for my entire life, or at least for the past 50 years.  (Before that, I can't remember anything.) When something is lost, and I mean lost for not just ten minutes but lost after searching and digging and plowing through crap to find the lost thing, I ask St. Anthony to help. I always promise money, of course, because it's a transaction and the St. Anthony Foundation in SF does tons of work for people who need  help.  

St. Anthony has rarely failed me. Sometimes it takes a while, like a couple of weeks, but he always comes through and he always finds me what I need.  And I ALWAYS pay what I promised because, really, how could you not? Once, when I was very close to having zero money in my bank account and a large money-pit house (which I loved) on the market and I had been renting out the house on the weekends to strangers just to make the mortgage, I promised St. Anthony a bucket of money to find me a buyer for the house.  And he did!   It was a lot of money (for me) but once I asked, he found the buyer within a couple of days and it was totally worth it because it kept me out of defaulting on my mortgage, and we all know how crappy that turns out.

Honestly, I don't even like writing about this in case it jinxes my relationship with St. Anthony but I don't think he's that kind of Saint.  I think he would understand that I am telling you this from a sense of joy and gratitude.

There are other Saints and Spirits that I ask for help now and then, and I do ask the Universe for help as well. I am fairly certain that there are powers out there, roaming around, wanting to help but they need to be asked.  (Or so I believe.)  But who knows?  The only proof I have is in the things that have happened that have no logical explanation, things that have appeared when those things were not in that place ten minutes prior.   

That's all, not going to tell you concrete details. Trust me. The Saints have power that we mortals do not. ......  And this is beginning to sound like  I also believe in Leprechauns and Unicorns and Dungeons and Dragons.

Here's a story:  in 2000  I spent 4 nights in Padua, Italy. There is a cathedral in Padua dedicated to St. Anthony of Padua, Patron Saint of Lost Things.  In this cathedral there is a small room on the side of the nave where there are thousands of notes pinned on the wall thanking St. Anthony for what he found for that person.  Thousands of notes. Clearly, St. Anthony is not just my Saint. It was so consoling to see all those tiny pieces of paper, a community of people who St. Anthony helped.  Wishes asked, wishes granted, hope restored.

What I don't like about travel

 It's so lame, but I HATE unpacking my suitcase. There is no reason for this but over the past .... 40 years (yikes!) it has been a thing. I arrive home, search for ants and spiders, never find them, adjust the temperature of wherever I am living, and plop down. Usually with an alcoholic beverage, tired from the journey, happy to be home, totally enthused about where I was. That's it.

Case in point: I went on a short jaunt to Flagstaff, Arizona. Left my place Tuesday morning, came home Friday early evening. It is now Sunday night and my little suitcase is still sitting where I dropped it upon my arrival. I have removed nothing. It hasn't even been unzipped. 

Don't ask why because I have no answer. I don't mind packing, I am quick about it and fairly frugal about what I take. The size of the suitcase depends on the length of the trip, so this was  my medium-sized carry-on which is pretty small. It can be stowed under the seat in front of me if necessary, so it's not like a steamer trunk that needs to be unpacked. There are no linens in it, no pillows, no overcoats, no hiking boots.  And yet it still sits there on the floor, fully packed.

The thing about unpacking a suitcase is this: it's unsettling. There are dirty clothes and semi-dirty/semi-clean clothes. There are completely clean clothes and shoes and some toiletries and maybe a tiny, folding umbrella or a raincoat in a 3-inch pouch. I hate that some things need to go into the laundry basket, some could get hung up and then worn again, some things are clean and can go back on the shelf but some of the stuff has that aura of not-clean-enough-but-for-no-reason. It all just bugs me.

What would be the best scenario is this: I exit the airplane and before I leave the airport I unzip the suitcase, take out the toiletry container (I have no problem with that) and hold the suitcase over a garbage container and dump everything into the trash. Even the almost-clean stuff, even the Levi's I just purchased, even the sleeping t-shirt I love. Everything. The unpacking dilemma would then be gone. I would be happy.

And almost two months later, still here.

 Really, where would I go?

A recap: when we last spoke I was walking dogs on Wednesday mornings for the SPCA.  Still on that, sometimes twice a week, and the dogs are still quite lovely. A few of my faves got adopted, which is the point of a humane shelter, but some of those I miss.  Some dogs have a slim chance of being adopted because of their size and their temperament, but we are always hopeful someone will come along and love that dog no matter what.

Still baking breakfast breads at the small Guerneville hotel, usually about 8 hours a week, sometimes more when it's really busy, like now.  With the heat we are now experiencing, which is brutal, I try to bake 8-10 loaves at home, early in the morning, then go to work very early the next day and bake for 5 hours so I can be done before the kitchen gets way too hot. Then I come home and get in the pool and cool off.  Not a bad gig.

Took a road trip to Southern California in May to see two of my brothers and their mates. Driving all the way down on Hwy. 101 was such a treat, easy driving, little traffic and wildflowers galore.  It had been years since I took that route, usually going down 5 which is pathetically ugly and boring, so the 101 corridor was a joy.  I had forgotten that parts of the highway are just yards away from the ocean and one can get out and stretch one's legs on the beach.  Stayed a night in Redondo Beach, where I spent my wicked formative teenage years, and checked out the beach there as well.  It was a quick trip but so well worth it.  Last week I took a road trip to Eugene, Oregon for a party with my kids' Dad and his wife, which was fun. Easy drive, the highlight had to be seeing Mt. Shasta in all its glory, standing tall and proud and still snow-covered, its lake fuller than I have seen it in years.

That's the lot of it, sad to say. As much as I want to get out of town and go somewhere, like New Orleans or Boston or Chicago, just to be a tourist and wander about, the weather in the US has not been cooperative.  Too hot or too stormy or flooded or too crowded.  I fear that this hot weather is going to hold for another month or so.  Which means, of course, more doing nothing.  Right now it is over 95 degrees outside and that is simply too hot for me.  I am not one who tolerates that kind of heat, even if it just means strolling through a shady park.  My strolling is done before 9:00 am.  After that, forget about it.

OK, that's it for now.  Will try and be more creative and write something more interesting soon.  Very soon.

Sun 16 | Day

98°

1%

SSW 8 mph

Sunshine and clouds mixed. High 98F. 

The DMV: Another depressing reminder about being old.

Getting old is tough. (I am well past the time when I can pretend to be "middle aged."  Old is my current category. I can hardly wait until I define myself as "Elderly."  Sigh.)  Bones and muscles ache and get weak, sight and hearing start to fade, the memory is faulty, it takes longer to pee, one wants to have a nap at very random times of the day, the power of concentration wanes, and on and on. But even bureaucratic organizations have ways of making us feel old and confused and extraneous.  For example: in California, once you are 70 years old, you can no longer renew your drivers license online. You must go to the the DMV in person and stand in line and take a test to see if you know the rules of driving.  No matter that you have been driving for over 50 years, no matter that you haven't had a traffic citation in years and years, you still must take a written test in order to renew your license. 

So, you dutifully make an appointment, you show up 15 minutes before the appointment time and you still need to get in line with EVERYONE!  Even those without an appointment!  So, your first thought is "why did I bother to make this appointment?" which is a question that has no reasonable answer.

You wait in line and you are sent to a computer to register for the appointment you already made, you get back in line with a magic registration number.  That registration number means you can now sit in a chair and wait for your number to be called and then you are sent to another line. This third line of the morning gives you an eye test, takes your thumb print and takes your money. And you are sent to another line, a longer line, where you will get your photo taken and sent to another computer to take the written test.  But it's not actually written, it's on a computer screen.  Once you take the test and hopefully pass, you wait in another line to get your papers stamped and a pretend, temporary license, and then you can go home.

Whew. It took less than an hour, which is sort of surprising. It seemed like hours.

The DMV was populated by young people just getting started in the driving world, people who were trying to get a valid ID card and the rest of us, old people, who were there for the same reason: to renew our licenses. Lots of gray hair in that building this morning. And a lot of very timid and scared people who were completely baffled by the entire process.

When you go to the computer to take your test, you need to read the rules and instructions. It was clear that not everyone did so. One woman, probably older than me, failed her test and was very worried that they wouldn't let her drive home because of that!  There are options to skip certain questions on the test, there are instructions about what to do if you fail the test the first time, info about re-taking the test and information about other stuff.... but many don't read these instructions. I felt like I should have stuck around to help these folks, to guide them to the right line, the correct window for DMV professional (!) help, but all I could do was express my gratitude for passing the test and get the hell out of the building.

I don't blame the DMV, they try to streamline the process, but they are dealing with every sort of person, in every walk of life: youngsters, oldsters, people who don't understand English too well, people who don't really have a legitimate physical address but who still need an ID card, people with inflated egos and deflated levels of cognition. For the most part the staff was kind and patient. But it's just a big machine and we are, occasionally, cogs in that machine. All we can hope for is to settle our business quickly and get out of there.  

It was a beautiful day when I left the DMV, sunny and warm and in a couple of weeks I will get a new CA Drivers License with what I am sure will be a gorgeous photo of my old face surrounded by its gray hair and I won't need to return for many more years.  

.

And a month later....

.... still not much to say. However, today was the first day of Swimming Time!  Yes, the pool temp today was around 73, which is doable, so in I went for about 25 minutes. It felt great! My exercise routine lately has consisted of a few walks in the morning, sometimes a walk in the afternoon and a lot of sitting on the couch reading and getting up to drink some water or look outside. Nothing, in other words. Being in the water is hopeful.

Work: the same. About 10-12 hours a week split over two days. At least it gets me out to the Russian River area and I get to see Jenn and Dar.  And it gets me out of the house and off the afore mentioned couch, always a good thing. 

Dogs: still walking them at 7:00 on Wednesday mornings and will do so tomorrow. Dogs are still good, more to report on that tomorrow.

Movies:  nothing much. But a good Netflix show, 8 episodes, good dialogue, good acting: The Diplomat.  Check it out, it's worth watching.  I just watched a new movie with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, titled "Air" about Nike's signing of Michael Jordan to represent their new line of basketball shoes. Decent movie, free on Amazon Prime, and the soundtrack (from about 1984) was great! 

Books: nothing memorable.

And on and on. I will try and get my game on and write more. No promises. Thanks for listening.

Boursin Cheese, once a gourmet delight!

 Growing up, our family didn't have fancy cheese. (This was the 1950-60's, by the way.)  We had sliced American cheese for the grilling of sandwiches and a block of cheap cheddar for things like enchiladas and tacos. Our parmesan cheese came in that green container, ubiquitous to all Baby Boomer kids.

The first time I tasted Boursin cheese was early in the 1970's. I was married, we were at some friends  house drinking cheap wine and this cheese was there, a little round thing, dotted with herbs, and we spread it on a cracker and ate it. (Cheese-and-crackers was a relatively new experience to me as well. I knew nothing about the appetizer scene.) But this new cheese was amazing! It was soft!  Tasty! Nothing like American cheese or cheap cheddar! I loved it.

Fast forward 50 years. I am currently house/dog sitting for Gabe and Annie and in their fridge is a half circle of Boursin cheese!  "How delightful is this?"  I think.  I spread some on a gourmet cracker (no Ritz crackers here) and it is still pretty good. It's still soft and tasty and herby but there is a tiny taste of ..... fakeness.  Something artificial is living in this cheesy treat. This is surprising. Looking at the ingredients, there are none that would give it a 'fake' taste. So I chalk it up to the difference between my palate 50 years ago and my palate now. Maybe my taste buds have gotten snotty in their old age and Boursin just tastes like the 1970's to those taste buds.  Who knows?

Still, it was nice to revisit an old acquaintance. It was nostalgic, remembering lots of meals with old friends, thinking back on semi-drunken, what foods we thought were the epitome of sophistication then, the wines we drank (or guzzled) and the late-night conversations fueled by that wine. Good memories. 

Bad Dog Day Afternoon, No Biscuit for Me: Part 8

Sorry, I couldn't resist that title.  "Dog Day Afternoon" is a good movie and the title fit, sort of.    (I have been watching old Al Pacino movies lately, pre "Godfather," which is one of my all-time favorite movies.  "Serpico" is on Netflix and holds up well, by the way). 

And my dog time is not the afternoon, as you well know, it's 7:00 a.m. so the afternoon reference is also bogus.

But the non-bogus part of this is that it was a bad morning for me and the dogs.  Every other  Wednesday that I have been at the SPCA walking the dogs has been either good or very good. Sometimes I walk 4 dogs but usually it's 6 or 7, depending on the dogs, the time and the other volunteers.  Today I walked 2 dogs. That's it.  Just 2 dogs and both of them were dogs I have walked previously.

Clover is a smallish female mix, maybe 40 pounds and she has been in prison at SPCA Sonoma for a couple of months and I can't believe she hasn't been adopted. She's calm when walking, knows how to fetch a ball, is personable and loving.  I walked her today and gave her lots of pets and treats. She loves hot dog bites.  

And this is Harry.   

Harry is huge!  Like 100 pounds huge. But beautiful and calm and I am sort of in love with him. Almost all the dogs at the SPCA wear a harness to walk which means we put those harnesses on the dogs when we take them from their cells.  Some are so difficult to harness (see below) and some are easy.  (Some fall in between terrible and easy.)  Harry, even with his size, is easy.  He knows that going out means peeing and pooping (which he won't do in his cell) and a romp around and Harry loves to smell stuff. He also likes treats, dog treats, hot dog bites, anything.  I love this dog. Even as big as he is, he is gentle most of the time and once our jaunt is over and I return him to his cell, he is happy to get more treats. But then, when I close the door and look at him, he has the sincerely sad face that only a lovely dog can have. He breaks my heart every time.

So, Clover and Harry. My pals. So far, great.

But then I ventured into unknown territory. Usually there is a regular employee there who also walks dogs early in the morning and stands with me at the white board and gives me guidance on who I should leash up. This man knows my hesitancy with really large, jumpy dogs.  However, he was not there today so I relied on the notes all dog walkers are required to leave on the computer.  Keep in mind that these are dogs that were not there last week.  The notes said things like "easy to leash" and "jumpy but easy" and "once harnessed he was an angel" and so forth.  I picked three of these unknown dogs and got into their cells and I could not harness one of them.  The smallest was an 8 month old puppy, maybe 30 pounds, but his cell was full of poop and pee (which I usually tolerate just fine) and he jumped and nipped at me and spun around and around and barked for about 3 minutes, at which time I called it quits.  The same thing happened with two other dogs but they were larger, 50-60 pounds, not housetrained so lots of pee and poop on their paws (which, again, is fine if they are willing to be coerced into the harness) and way too jumpy and pushy for me.

In defeat, I signed out and left the shelter. I felt like I had failed the dogs. Not just the dogs, but that I had failed myself. Of course, as we humans do, I conveniently extrapolated that experience into this: What a failure I am. What a joke my life is. I can't even harness a dog. What is the point of anything?

Humans are so good at that, aren't we? Taking one thing that happens and making it the entire point of our existence?  

It took me a while to get past that mind-set. It brings up the entire point of being retired, of course. What's the point? I don't want to play any sort of card here, but the cards are on the table for a reason.  But that's a blog for another day.

Thanks for reading. I wish I could say something like "strange things are afoot at the Circle K" but I am sure those cards are not in the mix.

To be clear, I did not walk the bunny or the cat, nor did I attempt to walk either of them.  Perhaps that would have turned my day around. Perhaps not. Just saying....

.

,

Reading John Irving

 John Irving fans know this: to read him is to commit. His books are long and involved, many subplots, many characters who change over the course of 400-500-600 pages. The reader must be in for the long haul and like it. There's no reading Irving if you don't like his work or are just "meh" about it. Needless to say, I am a fan and I have liked every one of his novels, some of them I have read more than once.

But his latest, "The Last Chairlift" clocks in at close to 900 pages!!!  That's not a commitment, that's a kind of craziness.  Seriously, I took it out of the library, kept it past it's due date, returned it and put it back on my request list to read the second half.  Irving's books aren't quick reads, either. They do not accommodate skimming. Every time you try to skip past a paragraph or two you realize, at paragraph three, that you missed something crucial and need to backtrack.  So you don't skip ahead too much.

But the writing and the plot and the characters! It's been a while since I've read his other novels (he hasn't written one in seven years)  but the characters in this one are so shimmering and almost ethereal and yet completely real and alive.  And beguiling and frustrating and maddening and joyful.  

The story begins in the 1940's, in Colorado, at a real hotel, the Hotel Jerome, now a luxury auberge hotel.  Things happen there, ghosts are present, lives change. The story moves to the East Coast, to New Hampshire (of course, Irving is always going back to his roots) and New York and other locations but the Hotel Jerome appears in the book many times.

A lot of John Irving's novels revolve around political themes (war, injustice, civil rights) and there is always a sexual component to them as well. He champions, in  his novels, the queer and trans world and the struggles of groups outside the "norm," whatever that might be. This novel is no different. The main characters are straight, bisexual, gay, lesbian, trans and questioning.  Just like the real world. A lot of the story takes place in the 1980's, when Reagan was President and ignored the AIDS epidemic, and it continues until present day.  In 900 pages there's time to span 80 years!

"The Last Chairlift" is quite a tale and I enjoyed it immensely.  It makes me want to re-read some of his older novels but not quite yet. There are too many new novels out there in the literary world and too little time.  I'll go back and revisit older ones when I am too old to go to the library and pick up new books. But if you like Irving, you will like this book. 

Dogs on My Mind: Part 7

 Walking lots of dogs early in the morning is a little like speed dating:  you interact with each dog for a very short time for a very specific purpose.  That's where the analogy ends: in speed dating one is not intent on getting the subject to pee and poop as quickly as possible.  With dogs, at least with the dogs we know are house-trained, they have been inside for 12-15 hours and they REALLY NEED TO PEE!  Some get five feet outside the door and pee becomes a certainty.  (Poop takes a little longer.)

It's always a gamble when I arrive at 7:00 on Wednesday mornings to see who is still there and who has found their home. Stan, the frisky one-year-old I mentioned previously, has found that home, thankfully.  There are my old favorites, of course, like Shiloh, who I hope gets a home soon because he is such a love. Nora and Clover have been at the shelter for a few weeks and are doing well. And there's a new dog, Penny, a mix between a Pitbull and Catahoula, neither of which are on the small side of dogdom. 

Penny is beautiful and so gentle. She will take a cookie out of my hand like she is whispering to it, just a little tiny movement of her mouth. She walks on a leash perfectly and is spirited but responsive and respectful. If I had the space, I would take this dog home with me in a second.

Nora is another newish dog, a cross between some sort of husky and maybe a German Shepherd.  She's not too big and she is a great walker, plus she knows how to play fetch and is happy tossing the ball into the air and playing with it like a cat.

The SPCA has acquired a few other dogs and some are so endearing that I know they'll be gone in a week or two. I try not to fall in love each week, but like with speed dating, it's difficult to ignore the great qualities I see in some of these dogs. Not a Wednesday goes by that I don't drive away thinking "... maybe.  Maybe."

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All the good dogs: Part 6

 It's a guessing game as I get to the SPCA at 7:00 in the morning: which dogs will be there and which dogs will have magically vanished?  I want my best dogs to be there but at the same time I want them to be gone, to have been adopted in the seven days since I walked them.  So it's always a bittersweet morning.

There is a lovely young (one year old, a bouncy puppy) black lab and pit bull mix, named Stan. (Come on, you gotta love a dog named Stan.) On the early shift we try to walk the dogs who are house trained first, because they have been waiting for at least 12 hours (more like 15) to pee and poop.  Stan is jumpy when I squeeze my body through the door, holding a piece of a hot dog in my hand to distract him from trying to bolt out the door. Stan wants to get escape, definitely, but at this hour he just wants to pee.  We get out, he walks about ten feet and he pees. And pees.  And pees. Seriously, he pees for about 45 seconds, which is a lot of pee!  Stan calms down a bit. We go to one of the large yards where he can be off leash and he zooms around like a crazy animal (!) and then, whew!  He poops.  (I know, TMI)  And now he is totally just a dog. Not a dog with huge needs, just a dog. Stan doesn't fetch, he cares nothing about a ball being tossed. He just zooms.  And then he jumps on the structures and waits for me to come over and I pet him and his entire body just relaxes into the petting. That's really what he needs: love.

And don't we all? 

Then Stan and I go back to his cell.  He gets some sliced hot dogs that I bring from home, he still wants to escape from  his cell but he fetches the sliced hot dogs that I toss across his little habitat and I scoot out the door.

Next is Shiloh, an older pit bull mix, the one that looks like a piggy bank, white with big black spots. Shiloh has been there for a while, like five months. It's difficult to figure out why he hasn't been "chosen" because he's so cool, so calm, such a lovely older dog. He also goes out, walks  20 feet and then pees a lot. Shiloh is so happy just walking around, so happy to be out of his cell. An easy walk, a romp in the play yard, back into his cell.

And so it goes. Some new dogs, a couple of huskies that are actually lovely, not as hyper as huskies can be. A small, older chihuahua mix that needs to get out to pee but you can feel the distain radiating off of her, like she knows she must do her business but she would rather 1) do it without someone watching her, 2) do it without being on a leash and 3) she would rather be anywhere but here. All she wants is to be on someone's couch, in a warm home and be loved all day. She cares nothing about me, and no offense is taken.

So many other dogs: I walked eight dogs on Wednesday in two hours..... and covered almost three miles doing so. It was a good morning.

A Coach for Everything in My Sad, Small Life

It's not that I want a coach for anything in my life but perhaps I am missing out on an opportunity to totally turn my life around! Like those ads you see on Instagram or on the back of cheap magazines that promise instant money, instant weight loss, instant success in everything, coaches now seem to be the answer to every prayer, all day, 24/7. Life coaches, pet coaches, dating coaches, baby coaches, kitchen-bathroom-patio coaches:  they are swarming around every single aspect of your life. These coaches can do anything you want: make you money, get you laid, train your dog or your kid, fix your marriage, teach you to cook, curb your addictions and help you find Jesus or Allah or Jehovah.  Or Satan, I suppose.

Not that this is a new phenomenon, but I didn't realize how prevalent this coaching thing is until a friend told me that a friend of his was using a "dating coach" to help write personal on-line ads on some platform like Bumble or Grumble or match.com. Seriously, if you are looking for a mate you should be able to write your own ad, unless you are looking for a fictionalized version of your life. If that's the case, it should be totally easy: "Hunky guy with black curly hair and blue eyes looking for a cute dolphin with sleek lines and a slim tail who loves swimming in the ocean under the moonlight and eating tiny fresh fish."  How difficult is that?  You need to pay someone good money to write up a lie? People are paying $250 a shot for a good ad.  Hell, I would do it for $25, a bargain! And I would guarantee results! I will go out and get those tiny fresh fish myself!  And feed them to you ! 

And a coach for your kid to get that kid to sleep through the night? Read a parenting book, let the kid cry a couple of nights and done!  Same with a kitchen coach: watch youtube and find everything you need for free!  I actually found a coach who will teach you, if you pay her, in two days, how to make and maintain a sourdough starter! Two days! For a loaf of bread! Holy cow.

I want a coach who will do exercises for me, clean my kitchen, finish the jigsaw puzzle that has been sitting on the table for a week, steal my knee pain and make it theirs, tell me the meaning of life and make me really good cocktails. I am willing to employ an intern for this purpose, an unpaid intern, and will give them a glowing line on their resume.

Just saying.  Man up. Do it yourself.  DIY, right?

Being alone and being happy about it.

 A friend called me a few days ago to read a quote from Hunter S. Thompson about being alone and about self respect. Because this subject has been my obsession lately, it was like a lucky star just dropped into my lap. That someone else out there in the wide universe read a few sentences and knew that those words were meant for me was humbling and validating. 

We are all unique individuals, even if we are with someone. Our society puts such emphasis on "partnering up" that sometimes one can feel like an outsider when one doesn't want a mate. Whether it's a long-term partner or a short-term relationship, it's what is expected of us in our culture. How many times has someone said to me something like "...but don't you want to meet someone?"  Meaning, of course, don't I want someone in my life, in my house, in my bed, for the long term.  The answer, for me, is a strong NO. 

I have long-term mates. I have friends I have known for over 50 years, I have kids and siblings  and I have known them forever. These are not casual relationships: they mean the world to me. No one can or should go through life without friends, without contacts. But these friendships are enough for me right now. I can see the people I want when I want. No one needs to be with me every hour of every day. No one needs to be my companion on more than a now-and-then basis.

Sometimes I wonder if my childhood prompted this need for the solitary life. We had 8 people in a three bedroom house and there was never a chance for privacy or alone time. Until I was in my late 40's I never lived alone. Three of my six siblings live alone like myself. Maybe there's a genetic (or environmental) reason some of us are solitary beings, living alone quite contentedly. 

There is a huge difference in being alone and being lonely. Being alone is a choice to not have someone else around. It doesn't mean I am lonely, it means I am happy by myself. And if I am not happy, another person isn't going to fix that.

In the words of Hunter S. Thompson:

We are all alone, born alone, die alone and we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way.  I do not say lonely - at least, not all the time - but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.

Life is for the birds

Hours of entertainment!  Toss some birdseed on the ground and watch what happens. I guess this would happen anywhere, whether you have a large yard or just a patch of dirt near the sidewalk; once birds know there's food around, they will come.

There is a bird feeder hanging near my kitchen window but watching the birds jockey for position at that feeder is not nearly as enjoyable as watching them roam all over the yard, nipping on the bird feed I toss out every morning. (It's cheap and even Safeway carries it.)

Different birds have different eating styles, of course. The little birds, about the size of a tangerine, just get in there and peck away, sometimes getting a big piece that requires them to fly to a tree and nibble on it. But usually they look like typical eaters: little heads bobbing up and down, moving from tiny seed to seed. The gray morning doves are different. They are slower, gazing over the ground like they are at a Las Vegas buffet, figuring on what's the best and making their selection carefully. Then they stand in one place and peck away, not moving around much. 

The woodpeckers are very quick, flying in, scaring the small birds, their bright red heads gleaming. With their shiny white breasts and their black tuxedo-jacket wings, these guys seem formal, like they just stopped off for a bite before going out to a nightclub to listen to jazz. 

And then there are the blue jays. Everyone scatters when these characters show up. Not only are they bigger in size, but they are bigger in sound and fury as well. The jays just chow down, no finesse, just gobbling as quick as they can and they eat a lot! All the little birds hang back about a dozen feet away, hoping the jays will leave them something.

If crows show up, I go outside and tell them to leave.  Yes, everyone thinks crows are so smart and clever.  I don't care. Crows are even more bullish than the jays, walking around in their black overcoats, strutting like they own the place. They can get their own meals, I am not feeding them!

Watching the bird action early in the morning makes my day. The little juncos, the titmouse with the little mohawk haircut, the cute chickadees, there are so many different species. The humming birds don't come and eat the birdseed, oddly, but they are always around, flitting from bush to bush, flower to flower, dipping in and out of the water fountain. Every now and then a squirrel will join in and then I know it's going to be a very good day.

Life now or in the past

One thing you get with a weeklong storm is down-time. Intermittent showers quickly turn into a downpour, which means taking a walk in the park is dicey. Driving anywhere is troublesome because of water on the road and the danger of a huge tree limb falling on your car. (Yes, that's a big personal fear. Call me crazy, but still.) There's lots of time for reading but even that gets old by the sixth day. Luckily, in my neighborhood the power has not gone out, so there's the dismal joy of too much TV, another thing I tire of quickly. And bottom line, how many on-line Scrabble games with strangers are really necessary?  

So, back to the concept of down-time. Alone time, for those of us who live alone. Time to think. At this juncture, the beginning of a new year, thinking carries the danger of deep and possibly insightful rumination. Rumination sounds heavy and bleak. Maybe pondering the past would be better. Or even pondering the future.

At this point in life, past when one can claim to be "middle aged" and has advanced into the category of "elderly" (and how the hell did that happen?) the ponderings are usually about life in the past. Not future plans, although that should be a factor, but more about "how did I get here?"  Especially, how did I get to be in this elderly category when my mind still pretends to be 55.  

It is baffling. Not the mind part but the age part and the past. Too much time is spent thinking about what happened when and why. You always think you will remember things, the important things, like the baby's first step or buying the first house (or the second or third) or the time, the only time, you won a game of Scrabble with your brother. You hope you will remember the first time you fell in love, the first time you had sex, the first (and hopefully the last) time you were in the back of a police car. The first time you went to Paris.** When you graduated from college, when you bought your first real car, not the junker you could afford, but an honest car, and the first time someone called you "Momma."

But we don't remember all that much and it is now becoming apparent that the fact is just that: our memories are falling to the side of the road, like melting ice chips: just there, look!  And then, gone.

Of course, most of the things mentioned above I do remember because how could I have listed them if I didn't? But so many years of my kids' lives are just a blur to me now. There are years in my life that I can't reconstruct time-wise and to try and reconstruct the reasons why I did certain things is impossible. 

We all know the Faulkner line:  The past is never dead. It's not even past."  We are a culmination of everything that has happened to us and thus our past is never dead, we are living it. We can't change it but we also can't unlive it. Our past is us.

It's almost like there are two parallel universes here, one that we live now, our day-to-day life and another, the life that we chose a long time ago and it is still walking next to us, every day.  What if we had chosen the 'other' thing, made an opposite decision?  Those options are still ranging around in my mind, probably because they were not the ones I picked at that moment.  Once you make a decision and your life takes that course, those other decisions don't simply vanish. They are still hovering overhead, tempting you, irrationally saying "hey, I'm still here, you can still pick me." And I believe they never leave.

This is not to say that I wish I had made different decisions along the way. Nope. Each choice made me who I am now. The things I remember, the results of those choices, are good. But all those other options are like a pillow case full of lofty air, not weighing me down but not letting me go either. I think they're there as a reminder: nothing is past. Everything is now, everything is present.  Live it.

** To be honest, I do remember the first time I went to Paris. As I stepped out of the taxi from the airport, and put my foot on Rue Cler, I was overcome with this thought: "I have been here before. I will be fine."  And I was.

More of the canines: Part 5

The past three Wednesdays have been good with the SPCA dogs. I finally figured out how to get the dogs I want and how to not be pressured into walking the really jumpy and large dogs. There have been a lot of small dogs at the shelter for some reason, and all of them are so, so cute.  But if they are there on a particular Wednesday morning there is no guarantee they will still be there the following week. The little guys get adopted quickly so one should not get attached to them. 

Yesterday at 7:00 a.m. it was pouring rain.  Taking the little dogs out in the rain was almost painful: they get soaked and cold very quickly and for most of them it wasn't how they wanted to spend their morning. Dry and warm and in their kennels sounded a lot better, but out they go to pee and poop and then to either go for a walk around the property or pop into an unused training room so they can play and run around inside. The big dogs cared less about the rain, they were happy just to have a 15 minute reprieve from incarceration. And to have a person dry them off and pet them. All the dogs are so needy for love and attention.

There are dogs at the SPCA that are simply too big and jumpy and thus it's almost impossible (for me) to harness them. After attempting to overcome the size and jump factors, I just gave up on walking these dogs. Since I am the only volunteer over the age of 60, it's easy to play the "old" card and that card seems quite acceptable to everyone. Honestly, the people in charge are so happy that I show up at 7:00 in the morning. There are only two (sometimes three) of us early morning volunteers and I let the other person take the dogs I don't want. No one cares. 

There will come a day when I fall in love with one of the dogs, I am already sure of that. Yesterday there was a small, adorable dog that I could have easily taken home, but I am not quite ready. When I return next week I am sure that this little guy will be gone to a good home. There is also a big dog who looks like a ceramic piggy bank, very round, white with large black spots, incredibly friendly and grateful for any and all attention. If I lived in a larger space he would be a contender as well. 

The greatest thing would be to show up some Wednesday and have almost no dogs to walk! To know that these needy pups found a good home would make me the happiest dog walker ever.

More to follow, I'm sure.....