My Day Through a Tall Window in SF

Tues. March 8... a Big Day

2012-01-18T19:24:00.000-08:00

This is an OLD essay, written March 8, 2011, that sat around as a draft.

Today is a big day for at least two reasons. First, it is the one-hundredth anniversary of a day Jessie, my mother, the old Suffragette, loved: International Women's Day. We discussed it at our poetry group last week, and everyone is writing a poem for the day, to be read next week. In the meantime, the great intellectual in the group, David, read us a story about a Russian woman who worked and fought in Paris for women's rights. David of course, as usual, knows more about Women's Day and the whole history of the fight for women's rights than any of the women in the group. But then, he undoubtedly knows more about anything that might come up than anyone, male or female in the group. So Jessie, be reassured... the day is becoming better known and better celebrated now, and women are slowly and surely, at least in the industrial world, becoming not only better educated and healthier, but also slowly moving up the pay scale toward men. Not equal yet in my lifetime, nor in Whitney's, but perhaps in my grandchildren's lifetime. Callie could make it... after all, in fourth grade she tested in the top two percentile of children in the country. You go, Callie and make us all proud!! Jess would love you.

Charlie Rose, as one would expect, has a program with three women discussing what is happening by and with women of the world. Tina Brown, who is now editor of Newsweek is one, the woman who formed Women 4 Women, Zaineb Salbi, another is Dina Powell, who does women's start-ups around the world, for Goldman Sachs. All of them talk about the fact that women MUST be allowed a place at the table to not only help a country build itself up well, but also in all war and peace negotiations. i.e. EQUALITY... or perhaps let us show YOU how to do it, as we can do it better.

Secondly, today is Mardi Gras down in New Orleans... and as Whitney is wont to tell me, in all of Louisiana, including her little town, where their third house is located. I hope they had better weather than they expected... well, at least no reports of hurricanes and the news photos showed millions of people celebrating in the streets of New Orleans. I was sure happy to see that. God knows they need the visitors. They are rather like us in S.F... they need the tourists to stay alive. We haven't had much 'tourist weather' lately and I hope our summer is better this year then it was last year. Spring has at least given us gorgeous flowering fruit trees and some very nice blossoms. Hope it bodes well for Summer and Fall. Actually, it matters to me little, as long as the sun shines on my lovely San Francisco. So now we have Lent. Does anyone observe Lent anymore? Ah, school days, when it was fish, fish, fish.

2012-01-16T16:33:00.000-08:00

My God, I’m Old As Babar

A short message on my radio the other day threw me for a loop. The morning commentator was announcing all the events and birthdays of the day and finished up with “And Babar the Elephant is 80.” Recoiling in shock, I thought, good heavens, I read those books to my children. Weren’t they ‘old’ then? I wasn’t reading first editions, Babar was an institution, or so I thought. But no, he is in my generation.

Oh dear, am I older than god? And, am I to be constantly reminded of my age by these young people on the radio, on TV, everywhere, saying in amazement how very old everyone and everything that surrounds us is?

Sometimes it scares me when I look around and see all of the things that this generation takes for granted as having been here ‘forever.’ I can remember when there was one telephone in a home. Well, not even in every home. We had one that had a separate earpiece that hung on a hook at the left side of the tall, standing phone. We children did not use the phone, it was for adults, and my grandmother was afraid to use it. She was sure it brought only bad news.

We entertained ourselves with books (my family had a full library of them), board games, and ‘playing outside.’ Oh, we had a radio, a large one, but my mother considered most of the children’s programs to be a bit ‘low class’ so my sister and I did not listen to “Little Orphan Annie” or “Jack Armstrong, All American Boy.” However, I can still sing the theme songs of those programs, as I simply sat beneath the window of the house next door, where the children were allowed to listen to everything, and heard the programs. That was my ‘playing outside.’

Oh, we were allowed to listen to some radio programs. There was one that I suppose was considered the “Sesame Street” of its day, It was a pallid little show with nursery rhymes and I suppose proper children’s stories, but I can neither remember its name nor actual form, only the theme song, which rattles around in my head, da, da, ti, da/ti, da, da, ti da/ti, da, da, ti, da, ti, da da, followed by a lovely lady opening the show. Undoubtedly a “Miss” someone, as in the insipid children’s shows that were on TV during my daughter’s era of childhood. I did not allow her to watch them, she was sent to ‘play outside.’

I moved to San Francisco at a rather advanced age and retired here. After retirement I volunteered at a senior center. My first assignment was teaching seniors to knit and crochet, as I had been a teacher of crafts most of my life. I had learned to use computers on my copywriting jobs in advertising in Chicago and owned the first Mac, a 128K, which I loved, so I naturally fell into the role of teacher of computing to seniors. There were no books on this, or rules, so I made up my own, writing the directions for turning on the computer and what to do next. We were using something called DOS, which probably means nothing to most people who will see this. It was a clunky Microsoft program, with very uncertain directions for use, which started with step three or four.

When I asked a young man from Microsoft why they were written without steps one, two and three, his answer was, “Well, everyone knows that.” I don’t think I ever got through to him that yes, all those engineers at Microsoft knew ‘that,’ but the rest of the world didn’t. That’s why I still own Macs, they always tell you steps one, two and three, with illustrations showing them, including where the ‘on’ switch is located.

Ah, I am so old I raise laughter in those younger than I when I tell them that I sat at a computer in the offices of SeniorNet surrounded by eager computer ‘geeks’ and in amazement typed a conversation with the president of New Zealand. I was ‘talking’ to that charming lady, on the computer, and not paying the phone company to do it. That was, I was talking to her until the line was broken, no doubt by a storm or some such, and we were left, still in a flurry of excitement, thrilled to have gotten through to New Zealand online. Now I chat with my friend Connie on Skype and think nothing of it.

She is always on Skype. I taught her how to use her computer -- over the phone, with me, the Mac expert in San Francisco, to her in Chicago. After a few lessons she asked me why the little arrow went up when she moved the mouse down and down when she moved the mouse up. I sat, confused for a moment, then asked where she had the cord to the mouse. Connie said she had it where the mouse’s tail should be, at the back. Such logic I had seldom seen... she was holding the mouse upside down. Well, it was just the way one would hold a real mouse, wasn’t it? Of course.

Connie is younger than I, as is almost everyone in the world. I did teach her the basics on the computer, as I have so many people, but she now outshines me. She went on to get a degree in computer usage, and teaches things like 3-D animation, etc. Things that are beyond my knowledge, as are many of the twenty-first century’s innovations. But then, when you are older than Babar, there have got to be a few things you don’t know about or understand.

Goodbye Steve

2011-10-06T21:00:00.000-07:00

One does not have to use a last name to say goodbye to this American genius. Besides, we all called him Steve. Now we have lost an American original... a great designer and creative genius who put his stamp on every techie move in two centuries. We have lost a man whose ideas have circled the globe... who is known better in other countries than in his own... a man whose beautiful, intelligent products changed the life of this world. Nothing will ever be the same as it was when I was young... because of Steve Jobs. OK, I know life is not fair, but I just wish I could have given Steve my extra years to make he world a better place. We so desperately need genius like his at this time in our poor misbegotten country.

I am a writer. Steve Jobs changed my life. No more carbon paper, no more 'doing it all over,' no more whiteout. I worked in advertising, as a copywriter. We used mainframes and they were terrible. If more than four people worked on a mainframe at one time, the damned things slowed down to around 40wpm. For people like me, who typed 75wpm, it was disaster... to a VP in my office, it was hell. She threw the mainframe monitor into the hall, screamed obsceneties at the VP who bought the piece of trash and went downstairs and bought her own Mac in 1984. By 1986 every creative person in the agency had a Mac. The copywriters could cut and paste, change things around without redoing everything... and the artists, ah, every artist I have ever known... all fell in love with the Mac... so easy to work on... the perfect canvas for their work. Every creative person in advertising had a Mac in no time.

Having seen the wonderful "1984 won't be like 1984 anymore" ad, in 1985 I got my hands on the tiny 128K Mac, I taught myself to use it, then taught myself PageMaker 1.0. I put a twelve page newsletter on one little disc... well, after switching discs... swap, swap, swap... first the system went in (the 128K didn't HAVE a system), then the program... then the disc I’d work on. I learned by doing... from the great manuals Apple wrote, with pictures of where you were, and what you were doing. Thanks to Guy Kawasaki, the original Mac Evangalist and one of the greatest salesmen in the U.S., the people who wrote the programs learned to make manuals in the 'Mac Style' and I learned easily. I work now on my huge iMac, the latest of a long series.

Steve was the computer person with good taste and a sense of what the next thing should be... always far ahead of the field, nothing he ever did was done without his impeccable good taste. One of the people eulogizing him said: "Every time you use a computer, a smartphone, an ipad, any of the copies or any piece of technological wizardry... you are using something with a little bit of Steve it it, whether it is an Apple product or from another company.” So I write on this lovely machine with a terrible lump in my throat and instant thought of the man who created it.

I weep as I write... I shall miss you Steve, for I felt you were part of my family. There will not be another great design genius with such good taste in my lifetime... nor in my children's or children's childrens. Good bye and bless you Steve for what you have given us. My heart goes out to Steve’s family and I hope his children inherit his great good mind.

Older Than God

2011-09-14T23:26:00.001-07:00

So, I keep trying... one more year has gone by. Nothing on earth like having a birthday on a tragic day for the whole country. Do they sing happy songs on your b/d, so they say cheerful things... no, I get mainly, "Oh, poor you... oh, I'm so sorry... is it really your birthday, etc., etc." And I can't even find Comic whatever to type this in, and the purple isn't even as nice as the old purple and the b/d is over, and I forgot to write something, so here I am now, not doing very well... and it is already the 14th. At least THIS isn't a bad day... although of late all the days are kinda bad for our poor country. The TeaBaggers are going to be the death of all of us. Where on earth did they come from. I had no idea that his sad, beaten country had so many other stupid people like dubya. But then, I am so old that I remember when we learned something in school. For example: I, unlike Sarah Palin, learned about Paul Revere -- not that "he galloped through town warning the British, shooting off his guns and ringing his bell." I learned about him warning AGAINST the British... and that they were the enemy at the time of the revolutionary war, something Sarah probably never heard of. Or that, as Michele Bachman opined, the 'Founding Fathers' freed the slaves... that Thomas Jefferson, he was a great man and he freed the slaves. Sure Michele, whatever you say, yeah, he freed the slaves. What has happened to the educational system here? Wish he had freed that.

When I took the Mensa test in Chicago back in the early sixties, the top 2% of people in this country had an IQ of 145 or higher; sadly, by the time I got out here and was working with SeniorNet, one of the men online informed me he was a member of Mensa, as he had an IQ of 138. That's a quick slip in the intelligence level of a country, and disturbs me immensely. Of course one could never imagine that either of the two 'girls' above as even vaguely intelligent. Both of them sound and act like someone who didn't do well in school, and one wonders if it is all talk that they actually went to college or university. Then, even more sadly, I watch Jay Leno and his "Jay Walking" segments, done not just 'on the street' but many of the segments done at colleges and universities in California. The people he asks questions of rarely can identify pictures of our Presidents or Vice Presidents, or answer simple questions one might ask of a child in grade school. We seem to be raising a whole generation of dolts and idiots, to join the previous generation (that of Palin and Bachman) of dolts and idiots... all of whom paid no attention in school.

I was enormously happy to chat with a taxi driver this week who told me that he asks for an absentee ballot so that he can sit down at the dining room table with his two boys, aged nine and eleven, so that he can go over all of the candidates and all of the bills on the ballots and discuss the pros and cons of everything there, and so teach the boys how to be good citizens. He and his wife, of course, have read to the boys since they were very young children. I am so pleased that I can say that about my own grandchildren. Their parents read to them, leading to their reading to themselves and the older girl reading to her two younger siblings. So, hopefully that generation will have at least five intelligent citizens. Oh, god, I surely hope so.

A Piece of Shocking News

2011-08-25T03:44:00.000-07:00

Or perhaps: The End of the World As We Know It, Before 2012

I was stuck in an MRI machine most of the afternoon, so I didn't get the news on Steve until a friend called me to tell me about it (I got home at 8 and didn't even turn on the radio). I did finally see the news at 11pm and pretty much wept through it. This is a really sad day for me, as I did love Steve Jobs. I hated the old mainframes we had in advertising... in spite of the fact that I learned a lot about them, and taught a lot of people how to use the dreadful one we had at the ad agency where I worked. But the minute I got my hands on my first Mac (a 128K in 1985) I was in heaven. I taught myself to use the Macintosh, then taught myself to use PageMaker 1.0. The Apple people had the best instructions anyone ever wrote... and illustrations. I had to work on PCs as a volunteer teacher at a senior center, and the Microsoft instructions were the worst. They didn't have the good sense to start with "Turn the computer on" showing in an illustration where to do that, then give number 2 and 3. When I reported this to the people at M/S, I was told, "Well, everyone knows that!" No, my dears, everyone doesn't know the first three steps, the engineers do. Apple always wrote for people, not for engineers... and always showed you exactly how it would LOOK, with an illustration.

The computer has been such a wonderful thing for a writer (or an artist... every artist I know has a Mac, as does every musician, anyone creative). Being able to forget whiteout and never having to retype anything is wonderful. To think that I can write a poem, then change any word anywhere in that poem, or put the last two lines up at the top and change the sense... or stick in a few lines anywhere in a story or novel... even throw in a chapter in the middle of the book! And Steve made it not only simple, but beautiful. I agree completely with something a guy being interviewed about Steve leaving said, "Doesn't bother me, I've always owned Macs, I always will. I certainly wouldn't ever want to have a PC." I have noticed that people will change from a PC to a Mac, but one rarely or never sees a switch from a Mac to a PC.

I'll always remember what Steve said to a reporter who asked him what he thought of Microsoft. "Well," he said, "they are a good company... have lots of great engineers and software specialists... great bunch of people, they hire the best they can find. Only one big thing wrong with that company... they have absolutely NO taste." How true that was/is (Jeeze...remember the talking paperclip...ugh). Steve Jobs not only had great ideas and was an expert on finding people who had great ideas and knew how to work and innovate (a friend's son was the major developer of the MacBook and a brilliant kid), but he had a designer's eye and gathered people around him who knew good design, and gave every product a distinctive, beautiful look. I wish my friend Guy Kawasaki, who worked for Steve, would go back to Apple. He is another absolutely brilliant guy... and a great idea man. Be good for the company to have him back.

I was impressed that one of the major reporters said that there were three men who were standout people of our time when it came to business brilliance: Walt Disney, Henry Ford and Steve Jobs. I never could stand the first two, who were rabid republicans, conservatives and not very nice people... but I adored Steve Jobs, and he would be the first on my list of great men of my generation... I think I will have to think hard to mention a second. That brilliant Apple ad said it best, "1984 won't be 1984 anymore!!!"

I certainly wish Steve the best... and hope he feels better soon. He is my candidate for "Man of the Century," I do not think we will see a duplicate of him for a long, long time. To bad he couldn't have been persuaded to run the country, we probably wouldn't be in the mess we are in right now if he had.

Oh, My Poor Language

2011-08-17T23:17:00.000-07:00

I guess I was a lucky child. My mother, Jessie, was a genius and an absolutely fascinating person. Perhaps not the greatest mother in the world, (more like having an Auntie Mame) but perfect for me. She was no Barbara Billingsley, or any of the often beloved ‘mother’ types, but she was a crazy, fun, interesting person, with four degrees and a mind as sharp as Bea Lilly’s, one that could stop you in your track.

Jess loved the English language. She read and spoke Old English. We heard “The Canterbury Tales” in the original, as well as Spenser’s “Faerie Queen,” before we were in school. She also spoke perfect modern English. We, her children, were expected to do the same, so she taught us two things that I find are not being taught these days, which is most unfortunate, they are so easy to learn.

First: Why are people suddenly using nothing but “a” and forgetting the other indefinite article, “an” before a vowel? Doesn’t “a apple” hit your ear as a terrible sound? Oh, I can say “a terrific tasting apple”... but “a apple,” ye gods, that hurts my ear. Say it... “AN apple” sounds so “right!” Or try, “I’m wearing a earring.” Does that strike you as a good sound? NO. I’m wearing AN earring, it’s shaped like A star.” OK?

Second: It is SO EASY to “get” how to use “I” and “we,” but so few people know how to do it these days. Jessie taught us at a very early age, and I don’t believe I have ever misused either one. All you have to do is leave OUT the other person in your sentence, and you will be able to HEAR which one to use. Here are some examples (one a direct mistake by poor old President Eisenhower, who had misguided handlers teaching him how to speak English badly:

They taught him to say: “Thank you for all the presents you sent to Mamie and I.” Now say that without ‘Mamie’.. “Thank you for all the presents you sent to I” Doesn’t that sound silly? So, how about the correct way: “Thank you for all the presents you sent to Mamie and ME.

It is really all right to say “me,” when it is proper. You would never say, “Give it to I,” would you? You would say “George and I went to the game.” Again, say it without the OTHER person, “...I went to the game.” You know you wouldn’t say, “...me went to the game.” See how simple it is, just leave out the other and say it in your mind... you’ll get the right word. And, for god’s sake, DO NOT say “Me and George went to the game. The polite way is to always mention the other person first and you will get it. Now another: “If you had left it to George and me, it would have been done.” Say it without George and you will see it is correct: “If you had left it to ME it would have been done. (NOT, “If you had left it to I....”) There is one that very few people get right, but again, if you listen to what you are saying, you just may notice the correct usage.

What is the answer to, “Who’s there?” It is not, “It’s me,” although that has pretty much become the answer. It is, “It is I.” Think about it... “I am here,” is another way of saying it, or “Here I am.”

So, the easiest way to figure out whether to use “i” or “me” in a sentence is to just say the sentence without the other person... and you should get your answer immediately. So, if you will please excuse me, I shall stop nattering on about English usage and go and correct a few library books, written by people who somehow never learned the simplest and easiest ways to use the English language (and they didn’t learn to use English in ESL classes, so they have no excuses).

Lost Again......

2011-08-08T20:57:00.000-07:00

So I must start over... and it was so good. But only I shall know this. Behind me 'Downton Abby' is playing, a new "Upstairs Downstairs" replaying over this summer. I believe this is the end. Rebellion, rebellion. What a lovely time for it to come... for now is the time we need another revolution in this country. A revolution against the fools in Congress... the dreadful so called 'tea party' ruled by people who have no idea why this country was founded, or by whom (oh sure, Jefferson freed the slaves) and have never read the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution, I am sure. Ah, my poor old ancestors are spinning in their graves back in New England. For this they fought and died in the revolution and every other war in our 'run-by-the-men' past. I fear we are too often 'run' by cheney types who do so love rounding up the children and sending them to be killed. Each time I read the PNAC writing I am sick that the people of this country could be so ignorant that they would vote in a patsy chosen by men who worked to ruin the country for their own power-mad schemes. Now those same people, with no idea why we are a country, or what we originally stood for, are backing these ignorant tea party people, who have no more intelligence than they do, and certainly do not know much about running a country. And so, we begin to sink into the morass, becoming more and more like the third world countries, run by greedy dictators. More and more we have two class of people: the very rich and the poor, so many now the poverty stricken, homeless and starving. I suppose my two children are among the very few left in the 'middle class' although they may be only a few paychecks from joining me in the lap of poverty. Ah, what greed has done to my blessed country. Perhaps we will all move up to Canada, to my daughter's house there and a better life. Or, perhaps they will move to the Netherlands, as I wanted to a very long time ago. A possibility, for this country has little to offer these days. England does not seem to be much better. Oh god... where to hide? Any place without the Wallmart children, cheney and bush (all the rich-white-trash bush family and friends). Oh, is there anyone who can save my once beautiful, once happy beloved country.

So here's a prayer I sent to a friend... a prayer for my poor (literally) country:

OK, god... you are supposed to be so great... how about you wipe out all of the U.S. Congress, and send us a bunch of really good angels to rewrite the rules, so that the people who are in Congress from now on are on Social Security, have worked at real jobs and are planning on going back to them... and while you are at it, make sure the people are half from minorities and a good divide between men and women. That's my atheist prayer for the day.

Can't Let June Disappear.....

2011-06-26T16:54:00.000-07:00

without a little note on nothing. And since it seems no one reads this but me, I suppose I should address my note to myself:

Self, get busy, instead of sitting here writing nothing, you should be doing your boring and seemingly useless exercising. So, make a lovely cuppa homemade latté, soothe Ms. Katt, who just had a miserable nightmare, and I'll give you permission to write a bit as you drink your latté... made even better by a slug of Irish Creme creamer (don't read what it is made of, you'll be shocked!). At least the homemade foam on top is simply some powdered milk mixed with an equal amount of water and put into my super hi-speed blender... oops, don't forget the vanilla and fake sugar flavoring. After a few minutes of sitting in the blender glass in the fridge, the foam is firm and flavorful, ready to spoon out and sit on top of the coffee in soft little peaks in my nice new, fat little Pfaltzgraff mug that seems to hold the heat in the coffee down to the last foamy bit.

One more thing to do. Call George and find out what we are to write about for tomorrow's poetry meeting. Seems we are still doing the Gertrude Stein shuffle, and must write the end of "If we're always the same age inside then....." And "We're always the same age inside, so....." five to seven words each.

Ah, what do I care about Gertrude... now I have just seen the beginning of '60 Minutes' about the children being so hurt in this depression generation. I certainly cry for them, poor little things. What a disgusting thing George W. Bush and his dreadful 'leader' cheney did to my country. So many starving and dying... and children losing their childhood and what can I do about it? All those greedy billionaires... I cannot reach them. If only they cared, but they only care to have more and more lovely mansions and yachts and cars and toys of all kinds... while the poor little children lose not only their toys, but also their lives. And who cares? Well, thank god some of the poor middle class people who have tried to help them, while the rich build museums to house their second class junk art, or make sure they have a symphony to entertain them. I no longer long for a Victorian in San Francisco, but merely wish I could somehow help the poor children of this beleaguered country, as I try to do by sending as much as I can to "Feeding America. There is no god... perhaps those strange Jesus freaks will look into the eyes of the poor starving children of this country, of this world, and see that, although I doubt it, for they do not see anything but what they believe, whether it be true or false... what do they care... "I got mine, go get your own..." just like bush and cheney and their whole rotten gang, who stole my country.

But, on a note of triumph... next came Wynton Marsalis and his tour of Cuba... one of my favorite places. I do not pray, for there is no one to pray to... but I hope, oh how I hope, that we renew our diplomatic ties with Cuba and soon... perhaps within the few years I have left so I could return and walk again through Habana again, listening to the music, eating from street vendors... even going to see the Hemingway cats. Oh, what a joy that would be... and oh, if only I could walk those streets again with my darling Selwyn Jackson, Day Manager of Mother Clancy's House of Joy. Ah, where are you Selwyn... probably gone with all the rest of my friends........

A whole day to write this... in between the little chores like comforting Ms.Katt and answering the phone, or quizzing George and Pat on what to write for tomorrow. Now I have a few minutes to do just that... write something. It must be done... so I shall.

A Quick Cry and then to bed...

2011-05-02T04:50:00.000-07:00

There is one singer who can make me weep to hear his lovely music always, and he is Joao Gilberto. His 'Girl from Ipanema' is of course known to almost everyone, but my favorite, and the one that brings tears to my eyes (and I do not know if they are of joy or sadness, or some combination of those... for with me nothing is black and white, but always soothing shades of grey... is 'Aquarella do Brasil' and can be found at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7DzHrKpbKA&feature=related

I do not try to place it here, as every time I do that it is snatched back by some watchdog who will not let me have it on my blog (copyright? I suppose so). But you can go to youtube and see and hear Gilberto playing his guitar and singing in that lovely voice in his language that he makes as soft and sweet as warm chocolate syrup, while in other's mouths it sounds like their tongues are wearing sandpaper. Gilberto makes me long to go to Brazil. Ah, perhaps I shall ask the Brazilian cab drivers of Luxor Cab if they sing... and be seranaded one day by one who can achieve the warm tones of Gilberto on my way to the doctor or my poetry group. Let's hope so......

I wonder why I can no longer change the type on my writing... or the color, or size???

Tues, March 8, Important for Two Reasons

2011-03-08T21:10:00.000-08:00

Having just lost the whole post I wrote, I shall now try to rewrite it; I may fail.
Reason 1: It is the 100th International Women's Day, a day always celebrated by my mother, Jessie, the old Suffragette, who worked so hard to get the women's vote and yet was never allowed to become a V.P. at Norge, the company she did everything but run completely, yet had to sign a patent release, and was paid only $1.00 for each patent she designed. During her lifetime we women were paid only 65¢ for each $1.00 men earned. We have done a bit better since, and now earn at least 75¢ for the man's $1.00. Hopefully by the time my granddaughter is grown, we might get up to the equal status. I am proud to say that Callie was tested in her fourth grade class and is in the top two percentile of students in the U.S. Jessie would be so proud of you Callie, and impressed.

Charlie Rose had a discussion of Women's Day with three women, Tina Brown, now the editor of Newsweek, the head of Women 4 Women, and Diana Powell, who searches out women to back with small businesses for Goldman Sachs (not my favorite co.). They talked about the fact that women must be treated as equals in all countries across the world, and that they should become equal to men at the bargaining table... and certainly be part of any war or peace discussion in all countries. That is it: EQUALITY in all things. EQUAL women at the table with an EQUAL vote.

The second thing about this day is: Mardi Gras in New Orleans, all of Louisiana and in many other places on earth. I was happy to see on the news that New Orleans was full of people celebrating their biggest holiday. N.O. needs the tourists and they need to be remembered, I'm so glad they are having a good Mardi Gras. And I hope Whitney and Mike have a good time in their little LA town and good weather... at least I haven't heard any news about hurricanes or any more tornados. So next comes Lent. Does anyone even acknowledge Lent anymore? Ah, remember Roman C. school and fish, fish, fish? So Happy Mardi Gras tout le monde... hope you all caught lots of beads and had fun. I merely had a glass of wine with dinner and toasted all the celebrants. I often wonder if Father Pauli and Father Mickey, the only Roman Catholic priests I've ever loved, really believe in God or just treated the whole thing as a good job and retired happy.

Let's Stop Them In Wisconsin!

2011-02-22T10:11:00.000-08:00

As an old union person, I insert this by a man I admire from a site I admire also:

It won't let me copy and paste, so here is the site name, with headline of article.

Exposing the Republicans' 3-Part Strategy to Tear the Middle Class Apart -- Let's Stop Them In Wisconsin

By Robert Reich, RobertReich.org
Posted on February 20, 2011, Printed on February 22,2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/149981

The Republican strategy is to split the vast middle and working class -- pitting unionized workers against non-unionized, public-sector workers against non-public, older workers within sight of Medicare and Social Security against younger workers who don't believe these programs will be there for them, and the poor against the working middle class... (much more at site address above)

Now is when we need to come together and let Congress know that the U.S. is not owned by the top 1% or 2%, but by us... the people of the U.S. Dubya made us a debtor nation, but cutting help to the poorest will not put us back on course. We the people need to learn how to live poor for awhile, and to see that some of the burden is finally put back on the shoulders of the super-wealthy, given a complete pass by the bush gang administration.

Read...Learn...Act Call and write your Congressmen/women.

My Views on Congress

2011-01-21T20:22:00.000-08:00

Hopefully people will find my blog and read this:

The 26th amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds)
took only 3 months & 8 days to be ratified! Why? Simple! The people
demanded it. That was in 1971...before computers, before e-mail, before cell
phones, etc.

Of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, seven (7) took 1 year or
less to become the law of the land...all because of public pressure.

I'm asking you to forward this email to a minimum of twenty people
on your address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise.

In three days, most people in The United States of America will
have the message. This is one idea that really should be passed around.

Congressional Reform Act of 2011

1. Term Limits. 12 years only, one of the possible options below.

A. Two Six-year Senate terms

B. Six Two-year House terms

C. One Six-year Senate term and three Two-Year House terms

2. No Tenure / No Pension.

A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no
pay when they are out of office.

3. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security.
All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social
Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social
Security system, and Congress participates with the American people.

4. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.

5. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional
pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

6. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in
the same health care system as the American people.

7. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American
people.

8. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective
1/1/11.

The American people did not make the current contract with members of
Congress. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves.

Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers
envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go
home and back to work.

If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will only
take three days for most people (in the U.S. ) to receive the message.

MUCH OF WHAT WE FACE IN TERMS OF PRIVILEGE AND SELFISHNESS IN THIS

COUNTRY MIGHT BEST BE CHANGED STARTING FROM THE TOP DOWN. If you agree
with
the above, pass it on. If not, just delete

You are one of my 20. I INVITE YOU TO KEEP IT GOING. WHATEVER YOU
CHOOSE -- THANKS!

The Land of Lost Paintings...

2010-09-14T01:44:00.000-07:00

I was pleased today to hear that a great-nephew has, and I guess admires, an old painting I made in 1952 (or maybe earlier?). It looks like it might have shed some paint (no one... of all the art teachers I had, and I had many... taught me to glaze or any way in which to guarantee the painting would last)... but I am on one side of the continent in San Francisco, while he lives on the other, so I hope it lasts a bit.

Amazing that I, the family 'artist,' have become just one of the family writers. I do not own any of my artworks anymore... they are spread out among the relatives... the majority are with my daughter, and I only own one tiny embroidery I made and framed when living in Eastern PA, entitled "Poppy on a Red Rug." It is a drawing of a dog we had who dearly loved to annoy us if we went out and left him, by peeing on one of our rugs. I don't even have the large book of drawings I made of family and friends. I think my sister took it with many of the things my mother had that were really mine.

Now I plan to do both... write and paint. I am reading my poetry in Yerba Buena Gardens tomorrow, and will break open the box of paints and canvas I ordered later in the week. Too bad we have no great musicians in the family, as I would dearly love to have some music playing as I read my poetry... so many of the poems are like songs and need music. I must start painting before all the flowers in our gardens disappear... Hell, this is California, we never run out of flowers... besides, I want to get back to painting people once more -- or maybe a few birds... who knows!

Ah, Phroggy... if you were only here, I should paint you. I miss you!

More on Loudon Wainwright III

2010-09-12T02:18:00.000-07:00

Why? Because I love him... he writes just what I would write if I could write music. So here is something about HIS family (though I am not fond of Rufus, but he is loved by many, so who cares what I think). (Rufus is great with his dad!)

this from "J-Walk Blog" http://j-walkblog.com/old/2004/12/23/index.html
The Wainwright Family

I first became aware of singer Loudon Wainwright III back in the early '70s. His first two albums (Loudon Wainwright III and Album 2) are among my all-time favorites. Long out of print, you can listen to some samples at Rhino Handmade, which made a limited edition CD (which is sold out). If anyone has a copy of this Rhino CD, please get in touch with me.

Over the years, I've heard of several other Wainwrights who are related to him. I was never quite sure of the relationships, so I did a little research. What follows is, I think, accurate -- but correct me if I'm wrong.

Loudon Wainwright III was born in 1947. He still performs and records, and has also had a minor acting career (M.A.S.H., Ally McBeal, and a few movies). His father was Loudon S Wainwright Jr., a famous journalist and editor for Life magazine, who died in 1992. The father of Loudon S. Wainwright Jr. was Loudon Wainwright, a wealthy insurance magnate and a direct descendant of colonial governor Peter Stuyvesant.

Loudon Wainwright III has younger sister, Sloan Wainwright. She's a popular indie singer/songwriter.

Loudon Wainwright III has three offspring:

* Rufus Wainwright was born in 1973, and his mother is Canadian singer Kate McGarrigle. He's definitely the most famous of the Wainwright kids.
* Martha Wainwright was born in 1976, and her mother is also Kate McGarrigle -- who was divorced from Loudon in 1977.
* Lucy Roche, whose mother is singer Suzzy Roche). Lucy was a student at Oberlin College, and she also sings.

Here's a link to a recent interview with Loudon Wainwright III: All in the family.

Musician and actor Loudon Wainwright III has had a very successful career, but he still can't get his damn kids to listen.

On My Birthday... Loudie Wainwright III was in Houston

2010-09-12T01:46:00.000-07:00

Well, whatta ya know... my favorite folkie/guitarist/songwriter was performing in Houston on my birthday -- and I wasn't there. I seem to have missed him everywhere lately, but if he ever gets back this way (maybe to see his brother) I WILL!! In the meantime, here's an article from Houston about Louden... I seem to have messed up all of the little songs I have tried to save on this blog. I do want his new album, "Songs From the New Depression." Once I get the old checkbook built up again, I'll get it, as I do love what he has to sing! What a great guy.

HITTING THE LISTENING ROOM
Forget the Dylan rap: Loudon Wainwright III channels George Carlin in his serious, silly songs
By Michael D. Clark
September 11th, 2010 at 2:27 PM

It's hard to classify an artist like Loudon Wainwright III. That's one of the reasons he is so enticing.

Blossoming as a singer-songwriter in the '60s, his songs have always been a soundtrack of the times in which we live. In fact, he was so good at it that many dubbed him as the successor to Bob Dylan as folk-rock's historian in the early '70s. Where he and Bob parted ways, however, was Wainwright's penchant for imbuing his work with a bit of tongue-in-cheek satire.

In that way he was also a bit like George Carlin.

Still, if you had to be the metaphorical lovechild of two hippy-era icons, one could do worse than Dylan and Carlin.

Wainwrights's 40 year recording career has been a series of luring fans in with his sincere ideas set to music, followed by metaphorically asking his audiences to pull his finger.

Before receiving Grammy nominations in the mid-1980s for the albums, I'm Alright and More Love Songs, Wainwright's best known song was a little ditty titled "Dead Skunk (In the Middle of the Road)." And when people started comparing him to Dylan he responded by mimicking Dylan's simple couplets and song style for the 1992 song, "Talking New Bob Dylan."

It's not surprising then that, following last year's release of High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project, — a very straight-forward tribute to the early 20th century singer and banjo player that earned Wainwright a best traditional folk album Grammy — his latest album is sarcastically titled, 10 Songs For the New Depression.

Another Birthday on a bad day...

2010-09-11T23:17:00.000-07:00

So one more year has gone by and we are in 5772 if one is Jewish, 2010 if christian, but what if one is neither, nor really much of anything and was born on the dreadful day for 3,000 in New York City? My 9/11 birthday has come and almost gone. I probably should say 'my birthday weekend' for I have had a great one. On Friday my dear little Elvira arrived with an enormous box of lovely huge strawberries as a birthday present (she knows how much I love strawberries... just like my Daddy), then Colin arrived with birthday cake (carrot cake, another favorite), so we had coffee and cake after the strawberries. Then on Saturday, my dear little Ana arrived with a bouquet of pink ruffled roses (one still shows the teeth marks of Sylvia Katt, who had it in her mouth about to bite it off when I arrived to shout "STOP THAT" at her). I will have to find a spot she cannot jump to if I want to see them all in good shape tomorrow. My gals are very good to me and I love them dearly. I even had a note from Jack from Brookings, Oregon... and a lovely one from Al, also in Oregon... one of the better corespondents I have ever known... always an answer to whatever foolish note he has received from me.

Then today I had about a two hour phone conversation with son Mark and the kidlets. I am so proud of all of them. Mark is a wonderful son, husband and father, married to a beautiful wife, who is also a great mother to the kidlets. And what can I say about the kidlets... not only a beautiful bunch of children, those three, but also very bright and adorable. Callie has taken the tests for the school she wants to attend for high school and has come out as one of the top two percentile in the country... but then, we all knew she was. She is far ahead of most of the children in her grade in school and now will get extra classes to keep her interested. Bella also is getting all A's in school and devoted to her dance troop, where she is doing extremely well. Charlie is now 4, although he looks more like a 5 or 6 year old... and as busy and funny as ever. They all sang Happy Birthday to me as an opening today... so darling! What a great family I have... how lucky I am... and busy, as I go Tuesday to read with my poetry group in the Yerba Buena Gardens down at Fourth and Mission. A lovely setting to perform with my San Francisco poetry family.

Now I shall close, make sure Sylvia is settled down away from my bouquet, and I shall settle down myself. I had a great birthday weekend... life is good. Love to all..............

2010-08-05T09:37:00.000-07:00

I have found a group who are at least attempting to do something about the mess that is our 'government.' Take a look, you might find them interesting, and then again you might not, particularly if you are a lifetime politician: http://www.fixcongressfirst.org/
Perhaps you might find this interesting: http://www.democracymeetup.com/
Or this: http://www.callaconvention.org/
And I found this one very interesting: http://www.leftyblogs.com/
But then, I like my mother before me, am something of a Progressive (or even Radical)

I would love to see a complete overhaul of Congress, with all Congresspeople on Social Security, and made to go home after serving a definite number of terms (or years), and not allowed to sign on as lobbyists for any corporations. Perhaps this is only possible with a convention... so let us call for a convention and rewrite or amend the Constitution, which was written for an agricultural nation. We are no longer that... life changes, therefore government should change.

We seem to have come to an impasse, with two do-nothing parties simply fighting each other instead of what they were elected to do... make laws and serve us, the people, as our representatives, then leave Washington and return to his/her 'job.' For I would like to see no more lifetime 'politicians' -- but instead actual 'representatives' of the people who voted for them. I am sick of labels. I want to see a Senator being a Senator, a Representative being a Representative, not merely a party hack, but serving The People and actually working at being In Congress daily, actually there, working at doing the tasks of our government, reading and understanding the bills brought before them, and assisting in the task of getting them through Congress, or defeated... but doing either in short order, with televised, not only speeches, but also a sweep of the entire 'audience' of a speech, so we can identify our representatives at work.

Is this all a dream. I sincerely hope not, for if it is, and nothing can be done quickly and well, perhaps the next thing is what also was done before: Revolution. I'm all for it. Perhaps it is up to me to form the next group. Revolution Now.

Messed up once more...

2010-07-07T01:59:00.000-07:00

I often wonder if anyone else has as many mess-ups as I when it comes to adding things to my blog. I hope I can fix the last video, as I loved it and would like to continue to play it.

At least I have managed to add Ms.Katt to the blog. She who after all owns not only this apartment with an extra large window looking out over Dolores, and everything in it, but also we acolytes who come and go from it. She is one of the smartest animals I have ever known, and has trained me in keeping her food and water bowls filled at all times, and her litter box cleaned out at all times... all by simply coming and announcing her wants during the day, and by jumping on me every hour of the night if I haven't done my duties before going to bed. She has taught me how to play 'fetch'... something I hadn't done since my dog Minnie was young... and how to put up with a remarkably long, heavy, warm, furry animal lying from my hip to shoulder all night long, snoring in my ear. But who would I have to talk to without Sylvia... or play games with... or eat dinner with... or laugh at when she is acting silly and leaping from chair back to chair back, then up to the middle of the window to run up and down... or to give me a kiss anytime I ask for one... or love unconditionally on my part... maybe a bit conditionally on hers. Sylvia, a Bengal, is only a few generations from a wild cat... and she came to me... whom my daughter terms: "A Wild and Wacky Woman" on the doormat she bought for me... so we go together Sylvia and I, and I am very glad that she chose me when she was a little kitten... as her brothers all scampered off, she climbed on my shoulder and purred in my ear.... it was immediate love!

Yes, I Guess It Does!

2010-07-03T14:05:00.000-07:00

I do hope I have done this right... for someone who has been working on Macs since 1984, one would think I could manage things like putting videos on this... I did it once, let's hope I got it:

Guess not, so for a fun one, go to this address, down to the bottom of the blog, and play the video that is there... I absolutely love it, for the Cole Porter song, and for the great snips of movies...

http://handmadebymother.blogspot.com/2010/02/now-heaven-knows-anything-goes.html

Thank you so much Handmade Guru... one of these days, this blog is going to spill over to my craft experiences and perhaps patterns, ancient (and I have many of those) and modern.

At Last... a Change...

2010-06-16T23:29:00.000-07:00

So... finally I was given a chance to change the look of my blog. It now looks like 'home'... after all, I am surrounded by books... too bad they had no pics of my pig collection or the Buddah and frogs on top of my monitor, but perhaps someday I shall discover how to add them. In the meantime, the books will have to do. Here I sit, playing on the computer once more instead of getting my apt put into PERFECT shape for the HUD inspection. I shall undoubtedly be told to pack up and get out, but I'll call my lawyer nephew, Tom, who was an Asst.State's Atty to 'get me off.' Ye gods... does anyone know an old lady who doesn't have too much STUFF... an idiot in my building got 3 different sets of 'inspectors' to come to see my apt... all three asked me why someone had called and gave me a pass... two of them asked me how long I had lived her... when I told them 13 years, one said, "Well, for goodness sake... you are amazing, my mother has only lived in her place for about six years, and hers is twice as full of stuff as yours."

Enough of complaining... I am an optimist and cheerful, so I guess the best I can say is , so what! I do have to clean off my desk, as I need to find the nail clipper to do Sylvia's nails. She caught me with a sharp nail twice using me as a 'ladder' to get up on the back of my chair. Oh, face it... I need to find all sorts of things and get rid of all sorts of things that cover the desk. Happily my dear Elvira found my last ream of paper, so I again have paper for the printer. I will be able to put my latest work on good paper. The Poetry Group will be reading in Yerba Buena Gardens on June 29th, so I have to have everything typed for for that. Mel and I are doing a sort of 'comic turn.' I am glad as I think the old one they have been doing for years is a bit tired. He and I always do well together and enjoy playing off each other. Old George called me tonight and he agrees with the Pell scholars at UC that I should write and do an act in a compedy club. I would kinda like to do something for the Fringe Festival... if I could get in... but I do need people to work with. Colin and Pat would be great. I'd better start working on it now, while I can still stand up and move... getting worse and worse on my feet. That Tuesday for our reading is getting close, but I am good to go when the time comes...

Whitney and Mike are together again... where they should be. I do hope they don't ever take separate jobs again. I am going to have to get a photo of the two of them and put them on the blog along with Mark and family... actually, a new photo of Mark and family should be put on, as that is a very old one. My darling little kidlets are growing up. Pretty soon they will have blogs. They grow too fast and are up to 9, 7 and almost 4, but look much older. I am so lucky in my family... I had great parents, two great children, and now a wonderful daughter-in-law and three gorgeous and bright little grandchildren.

Now I shall end and listen to Craig Ferguson, the mad Scot!

Loudy Doing My Story...

2010-05-26T03:26:00.000-07:00

2010-05-26T01:47:00.000-07:00

Why? I suppose because I felt I had better write something... I am getting so out of date and one should keep up. Hard when I have so little to say... although I did spend two hours talking to my younger sister on... must have been Tuesday night, as LOST was playing in the background. I might have cut her off, but I knew I could watch it on my computer. Still haven't seen the program that followed (V) but I suppose I will. Strange to have a TV again... I spent a lovely long time not having TV... I got so much done.

I fear I am going through one of my periods of depression again... perhaps because I am not talking to Whitney every other day or so... perhaps just late reaction to the disappearance of Kirk. Add a Who to that Why. I'm sorry they managed to kill off the LOST people and program... I rather liked it... and I despise the horrible 'reality' shows that will replace it and most of the other shows. TV in the summer is not worth watching, although I shall probably continue to watch the news programs, including the BBC... and a couple of other programs on PBS.......

Also seem to have hit the wall in my writing life... my poems, when I can urge them out, do not please me at all. Although Nancy liked the one I did manage for Monday... it was sort of a silly rhyming thing... not at all her type of poem. I must get busy, as we have a reading to do in June and I shall have to have some sort of 'topical' thing... probably about the great oil spill in the Gulf or anything else I can find of a topical nature... another in the nursery rhyme series... or maybe I can find some other style of poem to play with.........

I seem to live in regret... I regret that I have not had a hair cut in -- my god, it must be years... I regret that I have not cleaned out the cupboards and thrown many things away... I regret that I have not learned how to get things onto eBay and gotten rid of them... I guess it is time to rid myself of a lot of things... including all that are causing my depression... I'd better get with it!!

Finally....something...

2010-04-03T01:30:00.000-07:00

I guess we should feel joyous about the fact that everyone now can have health care. Ah, but the insurance companies are still there (I always imagine them as Scrooge, rubbing his hands together, gleefully, of course), and still collecting plenty for little. Why didn't the Democrats insist on the single payer option. This is not my fight anymore I suppose. I have Medicare... and I am one of the lucky, as I am old. Now isn't that a weird thing. The wealthy republicans are now angry... not just the trailer trash ones. Let's hope that some of this is good and will help the poor... oh, I hope...

Silliness of the evening... I find that at night my lovely, soft, unlined hands suddenly show all sorts of blue veins under the lamplight... and the left hand has a perfect heart shape of veins... the only mark that shows on that hand, while the other, or right hand has an ugly criss-cross of blue veins. Ah, Peggy... in the evening, under artificial light, always extend your lovely left hand to strangers and friends... well, I said it was silliness! I love the little heart, surrounded by small marks inflicted by Ms.Sylvia Katt, when I was stupid enough to play with her.

And as I mention her Ms. Sylvia leaps ono my lap, carefully turns around so that she can settle in her favorite way, head to my left, the only way she will lie on my lap. A creature of habit this one.

My... 10 million girls were aborted in India. If the first born was a girl, off the mother went to check out the gender of the second. If a girl... gone. Oh, I'm listening to the BBC, and they are full of information... tonight one 'the dead.' According to them, half the world's deaths do not get counted. So all these death statistics are all made up? Including the dreadful ones reported by the anti-abortion nuts? Perhaps. Oh, dear, now we are back to the poor 'good' priests, one of whom said they are in danger if they wear clerical collars because of the reports on 'bad' ones. There is no good news tonight.

However... as I look up to my right, I see a lovely big bunch of daffodills... brilliant ruffled yellow blossoms... Spring is here. We have had the strangest weather... one day of sniveling rain, one of bright sun... and back to the dull day, followed by more warm sunshine, filling my tall window with warm, wonderful sunlight... and a little finch who has a lot of nerve. He comes, sits on a long green shoot now covered with green seed pods he is not interested in. Ah, but he seems to be interested in getting my attention, as he sits there and taps on the glass, over and over. The first time he did this, some days ago, perhaps last week, I ran in from the kitchen to see who was tapping so loud on my window. It sounded like perhaps a person tapping with a key or some metal thing. But no, there was a tiny bird, banging on the window. He left, then came back and tapped some more. Sylvia didn't see him until about his third visit, when she stalked quietly across the room, jumped lightly onto the table by the window, making not a sound, and leaped. I swear he laughed and flew away, only to come back once she had settled down to sleep on her fake fur bed. He woke her up, laughed again and flew away. She is most unhappy about this brave little bird. Everyone tells me to let him in, but I am not interested in having my complete room torn apart by a flying cat.

I can smell the daffodills, and if the day tomorrow there is light rain... I shall go out in the rain and enjoy the Spring... my favorite season.

A Hope for More Readers...

2010-03-11T01:05:00.000-08:00

IF WE DO NOT PASS HEALTH INSURANCE REFORM:

Up to 17 million more people will be uninsured by 2019 than today. 1

The average family's health care costs will nearly double by 2020, from $13,000 to $24,000
— meaning they'll be paying a quarter of their income toward health care costs. 2

Insurers can continue the massive and arbitrary premium rate increases we've heard about
recently — such as Anthem Blue Cross raising rates for customers in California by nearly
40%, and rates in Illinois going up by as much as 60%.

As many as 275,000 people could die prematurely over the next 10 years because they
don't have health insurance. 3

Health care costs will take up a staggering amount of our national budget. In 1960, it was 5
percent of gross domestic product (GDP), last year it was 17 percent. Costs will reach 21
percent of our economy by 2020 if we fail to act. 4

Rapidly rising costs will make it harder for employers — particularly small businesses — to
provide quality health insurance to employees, leading many to drop coverage or shift to
plans that cover less. 5

Even those who have insurance today will be less secure, and more likely to lose coverage if
they switch jobs or lose their job due to rising costs on the individual market or being
denied coverage due to a pre-existing condition. 6

1. http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/411965_failure_to_enact.pdf
2. Commonwealth Fund, via NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/weekinreview/28abelson.html
3. Families USA, via NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/weekinreview/28abelson.html
4. http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content/Blog/The-Costs-of-Failure.aspx
5. http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content/Blog/The-Costs-of-Failure.aspx
6. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/opinion/07sun1.html?pagewanted=all

WOMEN'S DAY POEM

2010-03-09T21:10:00.000-08:00

I forget to post this yesterday, but I read it to my poetry group, who enjoyed it, after advising on cuts, which I made. My mother was a Suffragette, marching in Chicago on this same day. Jessie taught me a lot, but obviously not how to pick a husband...

...“peace and stability "can only be achieved with the
participation of women as equal partners with men."
-- The Organization for Security and Cooperation

I laugh, because I had two husbands
Who had no idea how to clean or cook
Who could not change a diaper or feed a child
That was all Women’s work and mine,
Even though I worked all day at a Man’s job
With long hours, as I had to be better
Than the Men if I wanted to keep working.
Long hours, hard work and collapse on Sunday,
Only to have a MAN stand over me and say:
“Where’s lunch, I’m hungry.”

Bless the children, oh great god
(Whom so many in our country believe in)
Convince the poor Women who shrink back
And say “Yes, dear” and keep having children
To only replace themselves, one child each,
And teach their boys to do the dishes
And their employers that they are worth
An even dollar to match each Man’s wage,
Not the seventy-five cents we get now.
Yes, if there is a god, let him show his might,
Help the Women to achieve ‘peace and stability.’
And you might also raise their wages.

Thank you George for your comments. You are very correct.
I do hope that some of the marching both our generations did help, Jess, we can only hope, I suppose; a few men agree with us... including our new president.

Louden Wainwright III

2010-02-25T15:54:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite singer/songwriters singing about one of my favorite columnists in the New York Times. I miss the Sunday Times, but the delivery guy can't find me, so I can't receive it...sad. But I can now listen to Loudy any time I want to, and I don't have to get out the records, tapes or CDs... he's right here. Wish I had a video of him playing his guitar more... he's very good! Oh... and this is from The New Yorker... I miss then too.

2010-02-25T15:46:00.001-08:00

No Wonder no one Comments (or reads?)

2010-02-04T00:40:00.000-08:00

This is absolutely the dullest, most prosaic page on the web. I MUST ask someone how to fix it and make it look like all the other pages I LIKE... I have no idea how to do it. That's what I get for letting myself just slide along and not learning any of the new things that can be done. Terrible... and to think that I used to teach people how to use computers. How did I manage to get so dull?

facebook, ah facebook... can be a bit much....

2010-02-03T22:56:00.000-08:00

I have a disgusting ad on my facebook page. It is a pic of Ronnie the Ruiner (dressed as a cowboy, of course), put there by a bunch of screaming nutsies (the man who started it is shown screaming in his rather disgusting photo) who obviously weren’t watching as he took the country down, and began the republican/PNAC lovely idea to really ruin the country, so that they could get together with 'leaders' in other countries and I suppose they felt: Rule the World.

What a shame that a group of old white men seem to think they can run the country any way they want. Yet they are elected by a tiny minority of ‘the people,’ as they are allowed the same two senators from the states with the smallest population that we are allowed in the states with the largest population. So MANY of the senators sitting in Congress screaming "NO" and "YOU LIE" and other nasty remarks are elected by a minority of the people of our country. And you may have noticed that the Senate is where things get stuck -- things usually desired by the majority of the people in this country. The old white men elected by the minority of the people of the U.S. will do anything to keep anything attempted for the good of the majority from going through. (Interesting... I highlighted the whole thing, but this would not go to red... very weird!)

Yet they feel they should run the country and hold up decent bills that would be best for us, the majority, who want them. Please notice the difference in the House, where people are elected by the majority of the populace. If they had been heard and been allowed to send their bill to the president at the beginning of the health care debate, we would have universal health care by now. Only the minority of the people are holding this up.

Don't listen to them, or allow them to rule the country by their delaying and underhanded tactics. Get out the vote in your state, sign people up... make sure this rotten minority doesn't take over again. And be sure to VOTE yourself. Remember, as the republicans used to remind us almost daily, the majority does rule... but we must VOTE, in the Primaries and in the General Elections.

And one last little comment... I am so happy to finally have someone in the White House who knows the name of our country, and doesn't say "...and god bless Amurica," but says it correctly:... "God bless the United States of America."

What a Week.....

2010-02-03T17:01:00.000-08:00

And it's only Wednesday! I cannot seem to get everything DONE until around 3am, and therefore cannot seem to get up until afternoon, thus causing the same problem the next day, and on and on. Why is it that there is less time when you have finally retired? And time picks up so fast as one grows older? And you put off the things that you should be doing and start reading all the interesting things you find when googling for info, moving from one to the next, to the next and all of a sudden it is 3am, and you have lost the thought... and have not done any of the should haves?

Oh, well, tonight I will go to bed on time (repeat that 10 times and tell Sylvia to remind you). She just came shooting in, jumped up behind me and settled in to wash herself for the 10th time today (obviously she is psychic). Now my chair will shake with the washing and tail swishing constantly.

I have been cleaning out my mailboxes and had to read the 'what's going on in SF this week note.' Interesting. We have a hip-hop version of Dante's Inferno; a play about origami; the eternal 'Beach Blanket Babylon;' a story about a first grade teacher rescuing her physical therapist from harm (their description is five times longer); a gourmet dinner and show at NYC prices; a Valentine's day cruise; tennis in San Jose; back to the beginning?--Antigone, Phaedra and Oedipus, none in the original however; more cruises--many cruises; comedy, comedy, comedy and so much more, including a whole day of winetasting (they say nothing of how they sober you up to go home). Golly, we sure have lots to do.

I won't be doing any of it... I shall be putting strange old books on my Kindle; thinking about finally hooking up my new TV which has been sitting at the end of my desk, holding up the dragons, which also must be put up on the wall; cooking a bunch of meals from the things that are falling out of my over-filled freezer; listening to a bunch of new CDs; and looking up songs to put on my new purple ipod (all these things from Whitney's huge Amazon credit card she sent me for my birthday -- bless her heart!). So I may never go out again with all the googling and learning how to use all the new stuff.

I adore the Kindle -- I can download all the books from the Gutenberg Website for free (of course, I volunteer at their website, one of the 'jobs' I have chosen to do the 'giving back' that Jessie taught us to do. I am 'proofing' the old books, something I always managed to push off on someone else when I was in advertising... but here it is fun, and you get to read some really interesting old books. Also, new books are a tremendous price for the Kindle -- often books that would cost you $30 to buy are $9.99, as are most from Amazon... or less, and often free. (I fear ABEbooks will miss me... books for the Kindle often are less than from them. I do love ABEbks though, and hate to say it, but just ordered something from them.)

And then there are the two new applications I just got for my Mac... a drawing one that I MUST get to, as I haven't done any drawing in ages, except doing some heads from Charlie Rose programs awhile back -- but in pencil. A couple of them were pretty good, so I want to do some more. Ah, that takes us back in a circle to WHEN do I find time to do...............? What a week, what a month, what a year -- OMG, it is no longer 2009, it is 2010 -- when did that happen?

Now For Another Rant....

2010-01-24T02:31:00.000-08:00

What is it about old men. Not only do they grow long ears and bushy eyebrows, they also get stuck in their ways and cannot stand it if a woman might know a tiny bit more about a subject than they. Or even if she has a different opinion about something than they do. Are we to have no thoughts of our own? Are we to be considered ‘communists’ or ‘fascists’ if we take another ‘side’ than that of a man? The one I am most amused by is the guy who said that I was a ‘fascist’ because I had said I was a Socialist and after all, Hitler’s party was called a “Socialist’ party. GOD! Cannot a woman disagree with a man? And if she has plausible proof that what she said is true, is she still to be called a ‘liar,’ simply because she has disagreed with the ‘more intelligent’ man... well, more intelligent simply because he is a man, i guess. Surprise, guys... I read several news magazines (two present ‘both sides; of U.S. politics -- two or three don’t), have gone to school my whole life, listen to radio and TV and assiduously avoid ‘commentators’ from either ‘side.’ I love the BBC for its lack of ‘side.’ So I think I know whereof I speak. I do have an opinion... everyone does.

I think of ‘the men’s table’ in the cafeteria of a college in SF where I took classes. Bunch of scowling old men muttering to each other about their money (their ONLY lives so often). I saw a friend sitting at the table one day, with an empty seat opposite him... so, for a laugh I went over, said hello, put down my tray and pulled out the chair and sat down. An alarming growl went up and the men on either side of me slid their chairs away from mine. I sat down to silence and even worse scowls than usual. My friend, who was as amused as I, and I talked brightly about classes and world politics (more growls... we were the WRONG party). When I was finished, I arose, said, “Goodbye boys, nice seeing all of you!” and left to final growls.

Makes me remember both my younger sister’s and my grandmother’s admonitions: Georgie (after I told an engineer friend of her husband’s he was wrong about some territory, and finally went and got the encyclopedia to show him: “Come help me in the kitchen...you NEVER tell a man he is wrong! How COULD YOU! Now he’ll NEVER ask you out!” (Like I’d have gone... the guy was a jerk.) Grandmother: “Now Peggy dear, tha shouldn’t hae told your cousin he was wrong, e’en tho he were, no mon likes to be told when he is wrong.”

Well, I know, but I forget. After all, I had a wonderful GROWN man friend who could argue with me and admit when he was wrong and I was right, and I could admit when I was wrong and he was right. We were actually equals and I loved that. Unfortunately he went back to the wife who didn’t want to be touched, and a very dysfunctional family... I guess they needed him more than I did. (He always said he admired the way I could take care of myself... if he only knew how tough it was, particularly with men other than those like him.)

Well, there is one thing I have learned even though I am still told I am wrong. It is getting easier to make men disappear. There is no longer “As god is my witness,” today it is “As Google is my witness.” If it ain’t in Google, well, it jes’ AIN’T! And yet another man runs for the door. They are all cowards toward the ends of their lives. Strange, as when I was young and working in advertising, because I had ‘a man’s job’ it was OK for me to sit in the living room and argue with the guys and not be told I didn’t know because I was a woman. If I had a cogent argument, I was allowed to express it and it was accepted. Of course, the crowd I belonged to was young and we pretty much agreed with each other. However, I really must adopt a new rule: Never talk (or, particularly, argue) politics with an older man.

“I looked it up in Google”... great folk song material, “Oh, I looked it up in Google and what did I see/ big drum roll and a fol de rol, rol/ a band of republicans comin’ after me/ big drum roll and a fol de rol, rol.... Fol de rol rol, fol de rol rol/ republicans, republicans acomin' after me!! (obviously they were going to waterboard me until I told them what it was I couldn’t find in Google.) I love Google, but it is the biggest time waster in the Universe.

My poor old cat is winding down at the ripe old age of eight. She wasn’t interested in playing with any of her old toys (kept in a paper bag she was more interested in than the toys), so I went to the ancient Christmas stocking she got from a friend one year and got out a new tiny green mousie and tied it to a piece of red yarn. Then I flew him around a few times and she almost went mad. She’s been dancing after that mouse for half an hour, and just lay down to rest, but I now have the damned thing hooked onto the file drawer so she can play without me and she’s up and after him again, as now I am worn out from throwing him in the air.

Notes on nothing... notecards and nonsense...

2010-01-01T02:54:00.000-08:00

I just spent my evening in the silliest way possible... writing notes to put on the face of a note card. I have decided that I really need to have note cards to write snail mail to my friends. They don't read my blog, I am not that into Facebook, and I get carried away on my emails, so I figured I would order some nice stiff notecards that I could use to write shorter notes. Anastasia (my Wednesday 'helper'... she 'shops' and belongs to CostCo.) got me some more 'forever' stamps also. I'm sticking with the 'purple theme' like my hair... and found one just like my cards, but I may use the one with the girl reclining on a purple sofa, behind a book. I'm taking them to poetry group to see which they think is best. Oh dear, I suppose I should write a poem.

Anastasia also brought me some dark chocolate Bliss, which Ms. Katt cannot have as it is bad for kitties, so I had to search for some 'Kitty Gourmet' which is what we call anything in the way of cat snacks. All I have to do is say 'Kitty Gourmet' and she lights up in anticipation and wolfs down the little morsels. The ones I gave her were very dry, so she want in and had a long drink of water, then came back and grabbed my arm and asked for more, as usual. She's not getting any more, however, so she's gone back to trying to get the insects who bounce against our window because of the light. Sylvia loves to eat flies and any other bugs that manage to get inside. I was surprised that she simply played with the teeny grey mouse that came in through the heater along the wall. She brought it over to show it to me, played with it for a while, then just let it go and the poor little thing raced back to the corner and disappeared into the heating unit. I guess it goes down to the basement. Everyone has been complaining that they have mice. I don't think I will have them ever again.

Christmas seems such a pagan festival to me... after all, that's where it came from. And all the other celebrations are silly, too. All made up, but I suppose the winter has to be broken up somehow. Good old Jack had bought himself some skis and is off skiing like all the LA people I knew... rush off to Tahoe ... Heavenly... somewhere in the mountains and ski down. Not me... you couldn't get me on skis, and I do not ever want to see snow again. My grandchildren are reveling in it at the moment and Mel has put pictures of them on Facebook, playing in the snow, bundled into their snow suits. I wonder if I ever liked snow. I do not remember. I do remember moving from Memphis (where the snow melted as it hit the ground) to St. Paul, where one walked through almost tunnels of snow to get to school, and I had all sorts of problems with the cold and snow and mean kids who teased me about my "Mimphis accent," which no one could understand. The nasty little northern kids poked me and said, "Talk, girl, listen to her talk funny!" and laughed at me. I really despised everyone for the couple of years it took me to learn 'to talk Northern.' It trained me well, though, for I now have a good ear for accents, and take on whatever one I am surrounded by now. When I was in England, I sounded just like them, and particularly when I was in the Netherlands I sounded rather 'posh English' as all of the deBrauws had gone to school in England and most of the time I was simply introduced as "Elsie's husband's cousin from England, Peggy Bentnick, the niece of the Duke of Portland. My 'cousin,' the present Duke of Portland is a very good looking actor and I have been tempted to write to him and tell him about his lost American cousin. Elsie, the oldest of the children in the family I lived with was married to Rolfe, Baron Bentnick van Schoonhaten, a very tall, good-looking man also, with a lovely deep voice who could easily have been an actor, but who worked in the family bank in Arnheim. I adapted so well in Holland that when we were getting together with a group of young people to go to a festival, one of the boys spoke to me in Dutch, and when I said I couldn't understand him, said, "Oh, you're the English cousin then, right?" So that's the part I played, except when Mrs. deBrauw wanted me to tell about my childhood in the South, one of her favorite things. I think she had read "Gone With the Wind."

As usual, this seems themeless and silly. It is... ah, well..... rather like the notecards.

What 'Free Rice' Led Me To...

2009-12-24T00:47:00.000-08:00

I almost feel that I should be writing this in the largest size I can get. Why? Because I now spend a couple of hours a day on a program called "Free Rice" instead of playing games when I get tired of writing. Oh, it has a 'game'... but the game is feeding people all over the world and I am glad I found it. I've always been a word game fan... Jessie, my mother, made up word games for us to play from the time we were old enough to talk to the end of her days, so this is my kind of website. The best thing about it is that you get a grain of rice to 'give' to those who need it with every word you identify correctly. I had so much training in words by Jess that I rarely miss a definition -- if I don't know the word, I can usually guess it by the root of the word, or the fact that it isn't the other three or four definitions. I have been managing to get 3,000 to 3,500 grains a day... and I shall continue to do that and more from now on.

I also learned a sad fact from this same place... that we are far, far behind some other countries in our aid to poverty stricken countries and peoples. Take a look at this:
International Aid -- A Solution
http://www.poverty.com/internationalaid.html

It will show you that the Scandanavian countries, plus Luxembourg and Netherlands are way ahead in their aid to the poor, while we are at the BOTTOM in giving, down below Japan, Italy, Greece and Portugal. We assume... I hear people 'assuming' daily ...that we are so big in our 'gifting' to others -- well, folks, we are not. We are at the bottom, according to the UN statistics.

Of course, that is rather a regular thing with our wealthy... they give mainly to those who can 'entertain' them, as to the theatre, symphonies, galleries, museums, etc. They tend to overlook the ill, the halt, the blind, and particularly those annoying, grimy, lazy (so says Barb Bush), poor people, not only here in the U.S., but also abroad. Even Oprah and particularly the WalMart heirs fall into this bunch. The middle class in the U.S., plus the lower classes, and even the poor... largely support those annoying poverty stricken, homeless, lost people of this world. How do I know... well, I am now, through unfortunate circumstances I won't go into... one of "the poor," living on my Social Security -- but I work hard to save up enough to give to two of my favorite groups: "Feeding America" and "Doctors Without Borders." The first tries to feed the people who need their help in the United States, while the second has been feeding children and saving lives all across the globe. They both need our help to continue the great job they've been doing.

If anyone reads this, I hope they write to our President and urge him to give the miserable 0.7% (that is LESS than 1%) of our national income that is the same as the other countries are giving, that the UN says is necessary to stop poverty in the world. Let's get our money in there with the Swedish, the Danes and the Dutch and get rid of world-wide hunger.

2009-12-08T01:17:00.000-08:00

Why, why, why do I always seem to get involved with men who seem to find it amusing to torment me... who pull me into thinking they are interesting and fun and smart, then start riding me or teasing me or somehow make me feel that I wrong or a fool or often just make me feel rotten and terrible, just when I seem to have pulled myself out of a hole, often that some other man has pushed me into. I shall be alone once again this Christmas (mainly because I cannot stand the extreme cold weather where my children will be) and had managed to somehow have cheered myself up a bit (primarily from reading the absolute crazy headlines and writing funny limericks about some of the worst), when my latest man "friend" cut me to pieces, I guess because someone had done something to him and he needed someone to take it out on, on the most foolish and silly accusation that I took seriously... until I finally realized he was just riding me to amuse himself. I'm sure he would be absolutely charmed to discover that I now have the worst headache I have had in years... I have taken 3 aspirin... if they help I'll be able to lie down and sleep, but can't lie down yet as it makes it worse, so here I sit... writing until then......

Well, I guess I should just forget about making any more men friends. Most of my female friends are dead and gone, and new ones with brains are hard to find, but I must start searching. I do hope I can find some younger women who will put up with old me, as I cannot bear any more of my friends dying off. The year that four of my best friends died almost killed me also... and drove me into a terrible depression that I am just beginning to rise from... then this guy shows up who is out to make my life miserable. Lovely. And I was doing so well......... Well..... life is hell.....

Who is she.....

2009-11-23T01:02:00.000-08:00

Good heavens, does anyone know who, why and what Twitter is? I seem to have acquired a lot of very strange people "following" me. Most of them only because they want to sell me something. It seems that every day or two, if I happen to go to one mailbox that I used to use only to write to Kirk, but somehow got Twitter on that one, I have one or two weirdos telling me that they are 'following' me... or wish to follow me, or whatever it is. I still haven't figured out why they want to follow me, or have me follow them (following seems so strange in this quite strange thing). So, once in awhile, I say they can follow me, but I have no idea what it is for, as I never hear from them again. Well no... they do appear every now and then to sell something new. Like I care. I don't think I have ever even looked at what they are selling, let alone bought anything from a Twitter Type. The latest woman seems to simply hand out entertainment gossip... yeah, lady, I am just dying to hear from Michael Jackson from the grave, or see the latest little screaming kid dancing in her underwear (or less). Oh well, back to the 50,000 word NaNoWriMo novel...I'm getting very close to the number, but not the end... I'm afraid I'm going well over that number! My heroine is still on husband number 1 and she has three more to go to get her diamond ring.

ARE YOU THERE???

2009-11-08T18:15:00.000-08:00

One has to wonder. Does anyone ever see what one writes? Is anyone there? I dearly love to read other's blogs, and do so often. And often I try to write... or comment... on their writing. This is, after all, the way to tell them that I have read what they have to say, and if I like it tell them... or even if I do not like it... tell them. I am an outspoken person, as anyone who has read what I have to say must obviously know, but I guess I am simply writing to myself. Ah, perhaps I should comment on my writing. But why?

2009-11-08T17:57:00.000-08:00

Sunday is almost always depressing. I don’t know why; well, I suppose I do know why today... I am sitting here weeping over spilt boyfriends, having found not only the poem I wrote for Barry, but some of the loveliest of Kirk’s love letters, as I am trying desperately to clean out this room. (Gawd... no matter how many magazines I give away, they seem to keep multiplying.)

I’m also wondering what kind of stomach problem now... having eaten, or should I say ‘et’ as Collie does, two apparently uncooked crumpets -- well, Mike gave them to me, saying, “I don’t have a toaster...” so I naturally figured they had simply to be tossed into the toaster, buttered and eaten, or et. I don’t think so... they did seem a bit mushy and doughy in the middle, but I thought that was perhaps as I had over-buttered them. Well, the butter just kept melting into them... whatever, my stomach is talking to me furiously, so who knows what is next.

To get back to the letters... Kirkie was absolutely the best at love letters. So sweet, so delicious to read of his longings that so much matched mine... me too, me too, we’d say so often. He and Barry were so close in my mind so often... the only two men with whom I’d fallen in love at first sight, although I often told Kirkie that it was actually love at first write. His very first letter was so charming and so sweet that I simply destroyed all the rotten, dirty old men letters and kept only his, although, some time later I did start a correspondence with Don, the ‘religious conservative’. Imagine... those two terrible words, and I actually carried on a very interesting correspondence with him. I think that the only reason Don wrote to me was because he so desperately wanted to be a writer, and perhaps felt writing to me would help... then continued thinking that perhaps he could convert me to both god and conservatism... silly MAN. I often wonder where he actually went after his forced stay in the hot, miserable Southern state he was stuck in while he wrote to me. He mentioned perhaps going to Las Vegas, although I would consider that horrible city even worse than the hot forests of the South Don used to run in to keep in shape. I also wonder what he looked like... I pictured him as a short, dark haired, though pale, guy... slim because of his running, lots of dark chest hair and very strong (rather like Paul at BB/L, whose arms were like wood)... but when dressed looking like so many of the lawyers I knew in Chicago -- very stylish, light English or Italian suits, with those soft, expensive, Italian shoes, always looking quite new, as a lawyer never walks anywhere... he simply calls a cab. But Don’s running shoes always muddy and worn from the constant running through the pine woods of Georgia or Alabama... or some steamy Southern state. Why can’t everyone have distinctive names like Dick Zaunere. I put Don’s name in Google and several came up in Las Vegas. Now there was a man who loved his profession, although I don’t think religious conservatives should be allowed in it. He was a typical GOP member, and I do not trust any of them to be impartial. Ah, well, I guess lawyers are never impartial, they can’t be, they have to work for their clients. I suppose Madoff’s lawyer must try to get him off, knowing all the while the man was a rotter and stealing from everyone. What a profession to get into... I would not last two weeks. Although, I was in advertising for years and years, selling stuff I didn’t care about, until I could lie no more. Rather like a politician -- good god, there are too many jobs that ask that one go against all that one believes in. One wonders if the radio talk show hosts actually believe the downright lies they present. I guess they would have to, but what sad little lives they must live. How unfortunate that so great a country that my ancestors dreamed of, has descended into the filth and slime and become a land of lawyers, liars and theives.

Can any of us walk with our heads high again? At the very least, I have become a lot more tolerant of almost everyone. I do not hate anyone, but, sadly, I do not love anyone, either. Well, outside of the ones one is expected to love... one’s own. I do adore my children and grandchildren, even while being quite detached from all of them. The other sad thing about this once great country: there is a separation. One is not supposed to ‘get old.’ What a sad state, where so many old women have either bright yellow or pure black hair, attempting to regain their youth, and so many men do not know how amusing a wig or ‘comb-over’ looks. Take Donald Trump for example, he of the orange forward comb-over. Can they not see that ‘bald is beautiful?’ Well, not on me... and I do love my purple hair, although a foolish little girl at the hospital the other day said, “Do you always match your hair to your outfit?” I was in all purple that day. I guess I shall have to buy a set of those day-glo wigs they sell for Halloween. Now If I could only figure out how to make my eyelashes and mouth show up in photographs. I have disappearing features in most photos. Of course there is always retouching.....

Sunday... bloody sunday. I start with depression, and end with the same. But I have traveled from lovely letters to a land of slime, liars and thieves. I have a solution -- no one can go to law school for the next five years, then they must level out the number of lawyers left, and admit only so many to law school, keeping the number of working lawers at a very low number each year. Nonsense? Ah, well......................

Why Do Men Never Understand?

2009-11-06T22:03:00.000-08:00

Why? Because they are men, and men will never understand women, any more than women will ever understand men. God knows I have tried. Why do I bother? Why do any of us bother? There is no understanding, nor will there ever be. (Men love war, women do not!)

Only twice in my life have I loved someone who loved me, and I don't suppose one could call either of them 'men'... for they were boys. At age 10 my best friend was named Cecil, which I pronounced Seecul, except when I was at his house, where I pronounced it Sescil, as his English mother did, I was one of the very few people he allowed to meet her, as he wanted desperately to be an Amurican and be called Seecul. We were best friends and probably loved each other as much as any two 10 or 11 year old children can love. He was the first boy to kiss me... and then push me away, of course. We were the two smartest kids in the sixth grade and proud of it, as Miss Holland, our teacher, let us know that that was a good thing. I wrote a play that year, mainly so that Cecil could star in it, and I could be the Orson Welles (writer, director, designer, etc.) I'll always be happy that I saw him in the "Memphis Belle" documentary years later, so that I at least knew he came out of WWII alive and well, even though we moved and I never saw him in person again. Him I understood, and he understood me and we loved each other dearly. The only other 'boy' I ever knew that this same was true of was Barry Bushnell... we fell in love with each other at first sight, understood each other completely and parted most unhappily at at a bit later tender age.

I made the horrible mistake of falling completely in love at first sight (write) with one other person at a very advanced age, and we knew each other completely, or so I thought. Alas, it doesn't always work out that way. He may have understood me, but I did not, nor will I ever, understand him. So now, I guess I will just have to come to the conclusion that I will never, never understand men... nor will I ever again find one who can understand me (or particularly, my sense of humour, which I think is very straightforward and so easy... not so Paiguy, not so).

A Little More Introspection

2009-10-18T18:17:00.000-07:00

Not a love poem this time, just one that is how I feel... not that anyone cares, but after all, this is the place where I toss little pieces of me to the winds, perhaps hoping that they will coalesce into some sort of covering to warm my heart and protect me from harm and/or any more hurt or unhappiness. Why do I do it? The answer is one that almost every writer gives: Because I have to.

Learning...

I have learned from my own and other's failures
In many things, perhaps even motherhood,
How to roll with the punches, take the blows
And often rise above the whole damned thing.
To forget and forgive: family, friends, enemies,
For there is more to life, and fighting is useless.

Further, I have learned that war is useless,
Feckless, futile, ineffectual, hopeless and a waste.
How have I learned this? By living through
So many, of my own making, and my country's,
So many that I do not want ever to hear
The ludicrous ranting of some useless leader
Who cares so little about peace and prosperity,
About the life and death of his country's people,
That he will simply avoid diplomacy and declare war.

"At Break of dawn...

2009-10-18T01:44:00.000-07:00

there is no sunrise... when your lover has gone..." and the damned weather has gone along with me for this miserable week, too. We're going into what they laughingly call 'winter' here in S.F. It just means that we get snivily, drisily dark days when you can stay inside and cry and nobody notices... and you can turn over at sunrise and finally go to sleep and nobody misses you 'cause who goes out in this weather anyway. Well, at least I guess that it means that I have finally come to and realized that after nine years of what I thought of as a 'forever friendship/love' has ended by my being dumped in an email. I still find it hard to figure out how he could spend at least eight years telling me and writing me about how much he loved me and then could suddenly write an email saying he didn't. He couldn't even call me... after I had sent him a phone card when he was in a mess and had no phone he could call me on. So much for love and romance... this is the last time I want to have anything to do with it. I love guys, but I want no more love affairs. What am I saying... at my age I doubt that I will ever have a chance at one again. Love doesn't run out, but I guess that time does. And to think that nine years ago I wasn't looking for love or romance... I was just looking for a writing partner. Well, we did write some interesting poetry together, but that was the extent of it, and now, in my depression, I am having trouble writing my name, let alone any stories. What am I saying again: I wrote a 3-day novel in which he figured prominently, got beaten up and wound up being brushed off, while I turned my sights to another nutty guy. Oh no... it was only fiction, but it felt good to have him beaten up.

One of my problems is that music is a big thing in my life... and certain songs bring K back and are hard to listen to. I love Lee Wiley and some of her songs were so much a part of "us"... like "Any Time, Any Day, Anywhere" which brings him back to me so quickly. And I find myself mooning around the house singing all the terrible old 'when your lover has gone' songs. I had forgotten how many of them there are, and a sweet program on KALW took the time to remind me of ALL of them. At least they serve to remind you that you are not the only person to suffer... there must be thousands... millions... billions... beating their heads against the wall and saying, "Why me? Why me?" And yet... they eventually stop crying and get back to work or play, or something like a normal life... so I guess I will also. But right now, just let me cry and get it out of my system. You don't even have to sympathize -- just tell me to shut up and go away... it might even help me to learn to say goodbye gracefully.

I Need to see a Face

2009-10-07T01:48:00.000-07:00

I think I have just been told goodbye by K. I shall miss him...nine years of almost constant communication is hard to forget about, particularly with someone whose mind seemed to run on the same track as one's own. I'll probably never again know anyone to whom I say, "me too, me too" constantly, and get it back again constantly. Sad times, goodbye times. But I really have to see a face to believe what is said. A look... body language, all that, all necessary really to believe it's true. That, unfortunately will not happen, for it cannot. Sad.

But I guess best thing to do is accept it, so I have written a poem, as usual. Friend Erna from my poetry group also felt a great loss, and feels it is one of my best... I don't know, I can't judge anything this new. Maybe years from now I can look back and judge... if I last that long.

You

You are not my happiness
You are not the center of my life
For I have found contentment
Of a sort.

You may still live within me
In that confined, crowded space
With others I have loved
In my heart.

You cannot push them out
Anymore than I can toss you out
So learn to live with them
As I have.

For life goes on for me now
And even without you I can live
As if you had never been
My only love.

Isn’t it amazing that you fade
Into the clouds of my past
And might even disappear
From my life.

Confined with all the others
In that tiny, over-crowded place
Full of forgotten memories
That is my heart.

2009-09-09T22:51:00.000-07:00

I did it, I did it! Finished the story for the 3-Day Novel Writing Contest on Labour(sic) Day Weekend. I'll never be the same (good lord, everything I say turns out to be the title of some old song from childhood...never be the same in this world...) If there is more I've forgotten it.

I was ruthless...used everyone I know, and some rather badly, in the story. Poor K got beaten up and J wound up in a bar, being stalked by a killer. I had a nice call from Gail to wish me happy birthday, so I threw her in as a therapist. Well, I told her I would and she said it was OK. I was up until dawn on Sunday night...when stationary things began to move around, I figured I'd better get some sleep and set my alarm and conked out. I lived on the fried chicken and potato salad Ana went and got for me, plus the lovely cherry pie...I am having another piece right now. She also got me some white zinfandel to have to salute the end, which I am doing, having sent Anastasia off to the Post Office today with the printed copy of "Obsessions, Passions, Fixations, Oh My..." and I was certainly happy to see it go in its little blue and white jacket from the P.O. It's gotten quite expensive to send anything to Canada...that little package cost me $10.95. I guess it's gone up in the US also though...I didn't bother to find out. It's only going up over the border to BC, so that seems like a lot.

Elvira will be back tomorrow and Sylvia and I will be happy to see her. We had a strange substitute Tuesday. She reminded me of nothing so much as a tiny Uncle Miltie. She came in, did the phone bit, went out to the kitchen and put on her plastic gloves, which were too large for her, and raced around, throwing stuff into the waste basket and folding and rearranging everything in the bedroom. She cleaned out all the big cardboard things I had stuffed under the cabinet in the bathroom and the place looks magnificent. Luckily she was too busy in the other rooms to come in and toss all my stuff in here, or I would never again see my 'important' papers. God knows what's gone, but right now I don't know so I don't care. Every time she came and did something for me I expected some of the Uncle Miltie schtik and sometimes got it. She even had dyed black hair...fabulous. Good thing she left at five...having to push the phone buttons a million times with those funny long plastic gloves...wonderful.

My crazy French phone in the bedroom fell and did something terrible to itself...half the time people can't get me, as it slides off. I may have to abandon it, but I hate to. And crazy Ms.Katt has taken to resting on top of my Dover bag, which is on top of my briefcase and my new gorgeous Levenger messenger bag (half-price sale!!) I'm afraid I have a thing for Levenger products. I cannot resist red leather accessories! Or the 'bomber jacket' leather series. Now I need somewhere to go to carry the lovely things. I got some new cards...purple, of course, and I had to have a new case for them. It is red and holds a little pad for writing also. One of these days I'll try to get more of my lovely fold-over cards that I used to write information on. Have to map them all out again and that is a chore. My new cards list me as Poet, writer, eccentric. That's me!

Saying Goodbye Is Hard

2009-08-27T15:26:00.000-07:00

It's hard to say goodbye to the last of a group of brothers who figured so much in our country's history during my lifetime. The final Kennedy brother, the baby brother, has gone from this life and history. The way I shall remember him is as a man who made mistakes in his early years and spent the rest of his life working to make up for those mistakes. Everything he has done from his seat in the Senate was to help his fellow man woman and child, and to make this country a better place in which to live for all of us. His personal life was not a happy one, but he did not whine about it, and probably worked longer and harder than anyone else in Congress for this country and its people, sitting in the back of the room where he started, never pushing to the front as the other Congresspeople did. He always tried to get people to work together for the betterment of man, eschewing the usual pettiness of minor legislators. Teddy tried for consensus, but only if it meant that the country was being served well by that consensus. He worked for the best for all of us.

I shall miss that booming voice, the brilliant smile, and the good will of a great man who tried so hard to help those who often had no other voice to help them. Goodbye Teddy, in your own way you were the great one in your family and I fear you will never be replaced. A hard thing to say in this cold, sad world that now needs you more than ever.

Late Night Musings...

2009-08-20T02:17:00.000-07:00

What I learned today: I am now told that the correct way to say aluminum is to use the English enunciation -- al-u-min-i-um, so I guess one must add the extra 'i' also. Strange. And what dictionary told us this... I have no idea. I guess I wasn't listening that intently.

I still cannot put any weight on my right foot without great pain ensuing. Have just about decided that it is a recurrence of the gout I had so many years ago, so I shall avoid all innards and all the other things one must eschew (have to look on the Internet and get a list) and hope it will stop stabbing me constantly and waking me up in the middle of the night. Most annoying. This would happen just when I was getting out and getting some exercise... now I shall have to begin again, if the stabbing stops. I found the elastic stockings from the knee ops, so I shall use them when I go out. I do want to go to some of the things in the S.F. Fringe Festival. Have been trying to find Joe Bullock as he usually knows all these people, but he has disappeared like all my friends seem to just when I need them.

At least I have written the bit I do with Mel for the Poetry Reading on Aug.25 in Yerba Buena Gardens... and the new 'Health Care' nursery rhyme for same. Hard to write when in pain. I do hope it is gone before Labour Day weekend and the 3-Day Novel Writing Contest, as I am determined to enter that this year. Which reminds me... I had better fill out the entry form, write them a check and get it in. Then I will surely write. So, off to bed now so I can get up early and get all the other stuff done -- letters to kidlets and clear out all the pileups of unopened and unread mail, both snail and emails -- too damned many of both for one person to handle. I need a secretary again... or a 'wife' or a bonfire... or perhaps all three.

Today I received something in the mail I have been wanting for a long time... of course, the mail people ran over it with a truck and broke the case, but the CD is OK, I'm pretty sure. It's a copy of Lee Wiley's "West of the Moon" album. Oh, if only I had that voice. She could slide from note to note like no one ever has... her phrasing is astounding, and that soft, almost Memphis accent, backed by some of my old Dixieland buddies from NYC... perfect. I'll listen to the whole thing tomorrow and feel like I'm back in New York. This is the album that all the musicians love... me too, me too. The title song just knocks me out.

Having spent the day not only getting my poetry writing done, but also working on getting the word out on health care reform, I am very tired... and so to bed... but before I leave, a quote of Mel Books' from an old favorite film, "The Twelve Chairs": "Hope for the best, expect the woist!"

Yeah, I'm STRONGER...

2009-08-13T22:32:00.000-07:00

I keep telling my kids and all my young friends... don't get old. Well, I'm telling y'all IN SPADES tonight. I was doing as I was told, lying down with the foot up on a pillow, so what happened? The damned foot started stabbing me with pain, which it continues to do now, although it has let up a bit... I got up, as, why should I lie there and suffer, why not get up and suffer a little more... hell, I can take it... Oprah just started to tell me "YOU'RE STRONGER THAN YOU KNOW...How to tap into your true power and really make it work for you." Well, at least that's her word for the day in her HUGE and getting huger magazine "O." Jeeze, "Newsweek" is hurting for money, the ad revenue goes down and down for all the decent little mags like 'Atlantic' and 'Harpers'... and "O" is heavier every month (as is "Vogue," "Vanity Fair," etc.) and has more ads than any of them. Is this what this country has come to... a bunch of dippy women buying makeup and $500 a pair shoes, and what Oprah considers a nice little bargain of a dress for only $895. Here's an example of one of the 'advisors' pages on what YOU can buy that will make all the other ladies sit up and take notice: Versace glasses, $264, NARS lipstick $24, a cute little Smartcar for $11,990, Ralph Lauren Home 'throw' Blanket, $1,795, Marni skirt, $720, Orla Kiely case for your ipod, $298, Orla Kiely coat $699...my god, what bargains!!! Oprah, maybe you had better quit, I think I just spent my entire income for the year, and I didn't even get the iPod to put in that cheap little case!! Well, thank goodness, the Salvation Army is having its 50% off everything in the store this weekend. Not that my foot will allow me to go to the sale, but I can DREAM can't I?

Yep, getting old and being broke gets to be less and less fun when you can't put any weight on your foot. Well, you can still laugh once in awhile... I was on the phone with my friend Pat yesterday, and when she asked what I was doing, I said, "I'm just lying here with my feet in the air..." and then started laughing, as did she, at what I was saying. "Only problem is," I said, "I'm not having any fun..." and I imagine the picture going on in her head was probably the same as in mine. (OK, Whitney, if you don't like the tack this is taking, go read someone else's blog...) To continue: it gets harder and harder to be 'alone' as one gets older. Thank god I have Elvira and Anastasia and Ana, at least for a few hours, or perhaps until the governator decides to take them away from me so that he doesn't have to tax any of his wealthy friends.

Caretakers are already disappearing, and I fear that if I can simply move mine might be snatched away, too. I sure hope not, as I get the feeling that the reason the foot is biting me now is because I kept having to get up and either find things for the Elvira substitute I had today, or show her for the third or fourth time, how to work the 1-cup button on the microwave. Yes Oprap, I am stronger than I know...just hand me the cup and I'll do it myself! I made a typo on Oprah, but I kinda like it, so it will stay. Now here I sit alone, praying that Elvira comes back tomorrow...she knows where everything is, what I like to eat, how to...face it, do everything....she and Ana both.

Barry, wherever you are... dead and buried up there in Sonoma... I find myself missing you terribly. If you were here, you might be lying with your head in my lap, laughing at me and my complaining. That's how I remember you the best... fighting sleep and asking me a million questions... right now you would simply sit up, fold me in your arms and kiss me gently and so sweetly to shut me up... kind of a 'kiss and make it better' one. You were the best kisser, Barry... no, I take it back, Kirk was the best kisser, and yet he, like you, deserted me when he was having problems. The two loves of my life... my two love-at-first-sights... one at the beginning of my life, the other at the end... and how I miss them both. Of course, the first died young, but the second will probably outlive us all, up in the wilds of Or-re-gun. Funny, I had the same experience with both of them... an evening of questions back and forth... both of us talking fast to get it all in... followed by a long, long, wonderful kiss, whispers of how we loved each other, then out the door with calls of 'next time...next time..." and when 'next time' came, after what seemed forever... the flying together like magnets for a repeat of that kiss. Ah, an hello kiss can be even better than a goodbye one... and they were. So the aloneness swirls around my head as the foot quiets down and stops biting so severly. I guess I did just get it off my mind... practice breathing Peggy like Les told you to when Whitney wouldn't make her appearance in this world almost a month late... or as Nancy tells us to the breathe in the poetry before our group meeting... or as I have been told to do for meditation... can't fool me, it's all to get your mind off your pain or your problems, or your aloneness... I can do that deep breathing until the cows come home... DAMN, the pain just stopped. Wow. Maybe it does work! So I guess I had better hie me off to bed before it starts up again. Sylvia will give me her version of the 'kiss and make it better'... she'll lie on top of me and keep me warm. Hey, I'm not alone... I have a spoiled rotten Ms.Katt, Ms. Sylvia Katt stretched across my body and purring in my ear. What the hell more do I need!

Help, HELP!!

2009-08-11T22:40:00.000-07:00

Ah, help me oh great Buddha... or someone, anyone... for I seem to have succumbed (perhaps it was the drugs - no, not that kind -- pain pills for my foot... puleese!) to the cyber-devils.

Connie, it's all your fault. I started with something as simple as getting myself on Facebook... so great to find all the relatives there, along with Connie and other old friends. Now I discover that I am on almost anything you can get on... here, well, I've had this blog for a few months... and on Hub and Vox, whatever they are... and constant nice little places that are dying to take my money for stuff I WANT... not need... and places to sign up to win cruises... or new kitchens... or big money... or... And I'm on several writing sites that I haven't time to look at... can you say 'The Red Room...?' or 'Pandalous' or is that it?... etc. Whatever... they do come up all the time, asking where I am... I don't KNOW where I am... but I manage to spend so much time sitting in front of this cursed computer that I don't get a lot of exercise, and rarely get anything important done. Now Connie, you want me on SKYPE? OK...I'm on, only one little problem -- I cannot seem to figure out how to get my voice on there...oh, that's me, but no sound.

At the moment, in case anyone besides me ever reads this bunch of ........ I am on my way to bed, having taken my pain pill so I can sleep, with my injured (?) foot, ankle, leg, whatever on a pillow -- and on the way to the doctor tomorrow so that she can take a look at 'it' to see if she can figure why I cannot put any weight on the foot without feeling like I am walking on hot bricks, and why now, all of a sudden, the ankle has a swelling at the front of my leg.

Oh, great Buddha, since you are the only one whom I think makes any sense in the 'religious community' -- do me a favor and quit picking on me. I haven't done anything terribly bad of late, and I don't think I deserve all this pain and swelling. Make nice and make it all go away and give me back my good health....but wait until after Liz, my doctor sees that it really has happened, as uaually, once I get a chance to go and see her, the symptoms are gone and I'm sure she thinks I made it all up. (Then it comes back double the next day -- how unfair can you get!) Puleese, make it all better! Thank you dear Buddha... I shall spread the word of your kindness, if you just, for once, HELP!!!

"But I NEED it!"

2009-08-09T16:42:00.000-07:00

The quote above is from Mark, aged from around four up... Elvira and I have a great little comedy act going using those words. I told her about Mark, usually the perfect child, when he really wanted something, his cry was 'But I NEED it!" The answer, of course, is "NO, you WANT it!" or the actual truth. So my cry these days goes out to unhearing and uncaring ears... "Damn, I NEED it." Silly me, I am suffering from a lack of give-and-take that I have had for nine long years with that miserable deserter, Kirk. I got used to getting a daily letter full of love and understanding and bright, intelligent conversation about likes and dislikes, interesting tidbits about everything...always something one could get one's teeth into and answer in much the same way it was given, and give back something with which to do the same. God...does that make any sense at all, even to me? What was the charm...perhaps just two crazy minds full of trivia...but always written with love and good humour. And then, as my life continued on in much the same easy, even manner, his completely fell apart and I guess he simply fell back on the whole pack of people he had supported all the years in the past, who never gave a damn about him, but still needed him for support. I didn't need him for support physically, but, oh, my mind, heart and head sure did and I guess always will. He was one of a kind -- sweet, gentle, so bright, and a someone who could have finished my sentences for me. I loved his long, strong arms around me, yes, but I loved the words that flowed from that capacious brain down through those long fingers into the computer even more. He was my brick, my Lancelot, my lover, my friend, and the reality that he is gone is almost beyond comprehension. So, is it any wonder that I say, I NEED it and mean I WANT it back...or even a pale copy might be nice......sure.

Cri-men-ettly (what is that from?...where did I learn it?) Barry and Kirk can't be the only people on this earth with whom I can have a mind-meld, can they? When we were together, we never shut up...the conversation was fast and furious....well so was the sex....but it was the constant "me too, me too, me too," that was the most fascinating. To be able to finish the last half of a favorite quotation, to the recognition of a poetry style...to...to I suppose just knowing that the 'other' KNEW what you were talking about. Granted, I shall never see another Barry race across the room, thrown himself at my feet, kiss my hand and say, "Hi, I'm Barry, who are you?" At my age, the poor guy coouldn't get up off the floor again... but there MUST be more than two others in this huge population who know what I am talking about. Maybe not, maybe I have worn out my welcome. However, once I get past the novel writing contest, perhaps I shall try another 'personals ad.' God I hate even the sound of that! But this time, maybe to someone FAR, FAR away...just to write to...never to get in the least involved with...never to 'get hurt' you mean, don't you? Yeah!

So, back to the drawing board. But this time, I am really getting busy and practicing my craft, so to speak, for the big 3-Day Novel Writing Contest. I have three 'ideas' this year, which is more than ever before, as in previous years I simply started writing, not even knowing where I might be going. Had to scrap a whole half day of stuff one year...dumb idea. I've been gearing up by writing little stories for my book about Jessie (mother), who was a great source of stories and I am finally getting them down on paper (well, 'on computer'), a good way to get the old mind going. Wrote three last night late, and will write more tonight. I find that I write best after around 3 pm. However, I shall get plenty of sleep and manage to eat real meals during the 3-Day, I always do, and can still get well over 100 pages of writing done. I do wish I could remember some dreams right now, as they can be my best source for fiction. I tend to dream movies in full color, and often with known 'stars.' I used one of my dreams for a 3-Day novel, and I thought it was pretty good...but lacked the swearing they seem to love. Those Canadians... you never know. And I always found them a bit stiff. Not in their writing, I guess.

Time for dinner. I had best get with it. I shall make myself a nice little potato salad with LOTS of celery (still loaded with that) and some purple onion. Someone put a bowl of cut onion in my fridge, without a cover! Yuk! I do hope everything doesn't smell of onion now. Retraining will be in order this next week! My foot is still killing me to walk on, but I must get used to it, if not over it, as I cannot just sit here with it 'up.' Onward and upward.....ah, well......

Forget goodnight.....

2009-08-07T00:58:00.000-07:00

I got carried, yes, carried away.... Love that song, and now I am awake with my right foot throbbing away, so I read something I had dumped on my desktop to use in writing, and it made me angry enough -- again -- to stay up awhile and write about it.

But first -- I do not understand the people in this country who think we should keep on breeding and having More and MORE children. I have long been in favor of the Zero Population Growth people who say, "Have ONE child for each, then knock it off." I don't care how many times people tell me that we have a huge country and room enough for millions more....IT IS NOT TRUE. We are already short of water for everyone and there are children STARVING in YOUR country...that's MY country, too, and I don't like to see children starve!!! Nor adults doing the same. I get really sick of people saying, "Well, it's OK for people like the Kennedys to have lots of children, they can afford them." NO, No, No, they simply are taking the food out of the mouths of the children who do not have their money to get it. I used up all of my money getting my first knee replaced even waiting in pain until my Medicare kicked in -- (well, not all of my money...my ex managed to trot most of that off to Aruba and gamble it away) AND, has anyone really looked at how easy it would be to pay for decent health care, IF we didn't have to PAY BIG BUCKS FOR SALARIES AND NONSENSE to the INSURANCE COMPANY EXECUTIVES, and pay for all those big buildings they love to put their names on??? Look at this -- I didn't MAKE these figures up (as people like Baucus does -- after all, he has to get a few bucks from the Insurance Companies doesn't he) (he should have been recused from serving on that committee, as he HAS interests in health care firms)...they have to 'support' all those adorable Senators and Congressmen/women, so they will listen to THEIR SIDE (BIG BUCKS side). These figures came from the U.S. Census Bureau...look them up yourselves.

Population, U.S. 304,059.784 -- July, 2008 (oh, god, how many since??)

Population over 18, including over 65 = 217,800,000

Now look at it this way. If everyone in the U.S. over 18 paid $25.00 a month for health care (and that is surely a helluva lot LESS than any of us, including seniors, pay) the government would have $5,445,000.000.00 each MONTH, or $65,340,000,000.00 by the end of each year. THAT'S SIXTY-FIVE and a HALF TRILLION DOLLARS, people. I think that might be a good start toward a better health care system, don't you? Even those greedy, rotten doctors who are only in it for the money might want to get into that system, instead of being a high priced 'special entity' -- right?

Now let me tell you, the Canadians send their government $47.00 a month for their ‘free health care,’ which I might add, I have found is a lot better than what most people get in this country and pay a LOT more for.

(My prime example of the horrors of the ins. co. systems in this country is my daughter, who paid in to ‘the best health insurance in the country’ until she had breast cancer. Then had to go back to work a couple of weeks after the operations (two, as the stupid doctor left a bit in) because she couldn’t take the time off with NO pay, and she had to pay $30,000. as ‘her share’ of the cost of operations and the chemo and radiation they insisted she have. She WORKED to pay for this WHILE SHE WAS STILL having chemo and radiation. What a GREAT HEALTH CARE SYSTEM(S) we have in this country!!!)

And don't tell me to go back where I came from, some of you charming repubs...my family came to this country (and BUILT IT FOR YOU) in 1635.

NO MORE Oxycodone or Perco anything for me!!!

2009-08-06T23:19:00.000-07:00

Jeeze....will I ever WAKE UP! Being a good little patient, I took the pills I was sent home with and slept like a log last night. Elvira came at 1:00 pm and I was still sleeping. Got up, limped and hopped in here, had coffee, strawberries and cottage cheese and pill, tried to think enough to write a bit and finally limped/hopped back to bed, falling asleep to the sound of E.vacuuming. Woke up around 6:00, managed to cook potatoes and carrots E had cut up for me, ate them with a bit of chicken, and again almost fell on the keyboard fast asleep. I think I did nod off a couple of times (well, I was listening to first BBC, then Fox online), and I haven't taken anymore pain pills, nor will I until I find out what the hell is wrong with me.

I need to wake up at least the brain, so that I can get started with an outline for my fourth try at the 3-Day Novel Writing Contest, which is coming soon, and I'd like to stay awake for that at least. Also have to write some new stuff for our poetry reading in Yerba Buena Gardens on August 15 at noon. Nancy likes to repeat stuff, I don't. I want ALL new. I'm also planning on writing a play for next year's Fringe Festival, if not before. Where is Joe Bullock when I need him? Have my cast (not one for my foot) lined up... friend Pat, little El-veer-a (unless she panics and runs) and Collie, if he will do it... if his poor foot recovers. He's limping worse than I am. Well, we'll get him a cast!

Ah, yes, I KNOW... I shall just get off here and go to bed and dream a 3-Day, as I have done in the past. Have to remember to throw in a few 'dirty' words. The ones that win are very earthy, so I have to 'clean down' my style I guess. Now, before I manage to fall on my face on the way to bed, I shall bid you goodnight -- is anyone really there? Goodnight air......ah, well.......

To Add Humor to Injury....

2009-08-06T03:13:00.000-07:00

Have to add this little bit: The last time I went to the E.R. at Davies (I broke my nose on my 'office' chair with steel feet and cracked two ribs), the dear little doctor who took care of me, sewed up the nose gash and told me they can't do anything for a cracked rib but tell you not to laugh or cough, was named David Crockett. Hurt my ribs to laugh, he was right. Since I had forgotten to bring a friends phone number to get picked up, he gave me a sleeping pill and put me in an empty room.

This time, I just sprained the right foot (they think... as usual), but I got my Percoset to keep down the pain... and took a cab home alone. As I looked at the prescription today when I was sending Anstasia over to Walgreen's, I finally found the name of the doctor who took care of me and wrote the prescription -- He is named Leif Eriksen. OK... so he is probably Danish (ends in 'sen'), but that's a pretty good pair of ER doctors to have... right? Next, Christopher Columbus?

Coincidence is ME, or perhaps US -- my sister Betty Rae's birthday is D-Day, my son Mark's is the day that JFK was shot, and mine... lovely day: 9/11.

Go See This, plus yet another injury...

2009-08-04T22:55:00.000-07:00

Here is one more great article to go and read:
http://www.alternet.org/media/141685/how_lou_dobbs_scared_rush_limbaugh_off_the_birther_story/

I loved it, and you also get a great clip from Jon Stewart. How scrumptious to have a sagacious man to cut down that bunch of ninnies over at the Faux Network, if it can be called a network... more like the low-class comedy bunch with no brains, a more turgid gang would be hard to find. I am glad that Jon and his whole group, particularly Colbert are there to watch them, so I don't have to.

Now about the INJURY! I did it again -- this time I jumped out of the shower (I MUST learn NOT to JUMP) and landed on my right (or 'good' foot), hearing a sound like one makes stepping on one of those clear plastic glasses. Wasn't a glass, though... it was my foot, obviously screaming at me. Since it didn't get red and swell to twice its size, as the left one had done when I tore the top tendon on the foot in half, I foolishly thought it might stop hurting shortly. It didn't... it also didn't swell a lot, although the arch got a bit puffy, and I couldn't stand on it, as it hurt like hell to bear any weight on it. So I sat, tried to get my doctor and waited for her to return my call. She was just a little sarcastic when I finally talked to her... "Call 911 and get over to Davies' Emergency Room... I can't do an x-ray over the phone, you know." Well, I didn't call 911, as I wasn't about to spend two or three hundred dollars, or whatever the going rate for ambulances is these days (DAMMIT.....get those STUPID 'conservative democrats' to get single payer, universal, DECENT health care -- oh, I forgot, they get decent health care, and they also get PAID BIG BUCKS by the lobbyists to keep the damned insurance companies collecting terrible amounts of money from all of us -- rant, rant, rant!!!).

So, deep breath, Peggy... I called a cab and went over to CPMC's Davies Campus, just up the hill from me (and a hospital I love as they have cared for me in the past), and the driver, a lovely man from Nigeria who thinks S.F. is TOO COLD most of the time -- boy it sure must be HOT in Nigeria, went in and told them to get a wheelchair for me. A nice little tiny Chinese woman finally managed to get me in... She said she loved the way my hair matched my outfit (I was wearing a lavender t-shirt and purple plaid pants) and then asked if I always matched my hair to my outfits. "No, dear, I'm not ready to dye daily" I said, "but most of my clothes are purple."

One thing I love about Davies... I simply gave them my name, signed the usual form and they pulled up my records, put me on a gurney and left me to read one of the Atlantic's I had thoughtfully thrown into a bag. Here's another good read: "Race Over?" by Marc Ambinder from the Jan/Feb 2009 THEATLANTIC.COM. I feel so justified... when I told someone I couldn't stand Tavis Smiley, he accused me of being a racist. NO, I am not, it has nothing to do with the color of his skin, it's his style, personality, etc. that I cannot stand. This article backed me up on that and a couple of other things, like how happy I am to KNOW that Barack Obama refused to pay a number of black 'preachers' to back him, and they turned to Hillary, who DID. Enough said!

After reading the article, I saw the E.R. doctor, then went to be x-rayed by a darling, TALL, slim young man who was extrodinarily gentle with my aching foot. I asked him if he was Swedish or Norwegian, as I thought the nurse had called him Olaf. He laughed and said, "No, my name is David Leibonowsky (or something similar), and I'm Polish/Russian/Lithowanian," and told me everyone in his family got biblical names... boring... and he wouldn't mind being an Olaf. As it turned out, he told me I hadn't broken anything in the foot... the other doctor concurred... they gave me a softer medical sandal to wear home, plus some Percoset to take tonight before going to bed (I got a couple earlier, so I have to wait a bit), and a prescription for more to get my gal to go after tomorrow.

So, I am to stay off my feet for a few days... they will call me if another doctor reads the x-rays and sees something significant (say that several times). My feeling is: why me, why me????? What did I do? Well, I guess I will now read all the rest of the Atlantics and Harpers I have piled up waiting for me to stop getting out and doing something like sitting in the sun. Well, I am teaching Ana to cook. I was given a big bunch of Swiss chard yesterday, so I sat here and typed a recipe for an omelet using it, an onion, a tomato, garlic and basil (all of which I had), then called out instructions as she chopped and cooked, and I had it for dinner before I left for the ER. It was DELICIOUS! And large enough to have the other half for lunch or dinner tomorrow, with a salad I will again call out instructions for to Anastasia, who comes to take care of me tomorrow. Gee, don't you all wish you lived in S.F., so you could have these lovely ladies take care of you when injured?

Just about time to take the next Percoset and get to bed. Sylvia Katt has already told me she is ready to lie on top of me and I should 'meow' come 'meow' on 'meow'...'GO MEOW TO MEOW BED.'
Ah, well...........

Food, Glorious Food......red for tomatoes

2009-08-02T23:33:00.000-07:00

For those who do not know me, "Jessie" is my mother, who liked to be called Jessie!

Aha, I have found a wonderful kindred spirit once more in the NYTimes (a paper which cannot deliver a REAL copy of their paper to me, no matter how many times I have written to them, or spoken to them on the phone, about HOW TO GET INTO MY BUILDING...AND NOT LEAVE IT ‘AT THE DOOR.’ Jeeze, we have around five or six ‘doors’...which one guys? where? when? why? what? who? Well, be that as it may (and I have finally just said CANCEL! and I shall read it on my computer... which is not nearly as much fun as ‘in hand.’) back to the reason for this silly blogging for today.

I found a wonderful article in the ‘op-ed’ columnist’s listing by Michael Pollan (July 29, 2009), entitled “Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch.” (I adore all the op-ed people, next to the magazine, the best of NYTimes.) If you love food, admire Julia Child, or just want a really good read take a look at this long article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/magazine/02cooking-t.html?em

So many things he said struck me. I guess I am old enough to be in the ‘first wave’ of feminists, and I guess I missed where one was going to get out of the kitchen, as I have always loved to cook, and wasn’t going to let any feminist movement stop me. Or maybe it is just that my first ‘nurse,’ Jessie’s oft quoted, super-maid/housekeeper/nurse, Mary Phykos (I do not know the ‘real’ spelling, as I have just heard it pronounced that way. She was Checkoslovakian {damn, I cannot even spell that} so I probably have it completely wrong....the only Chezk?? in our building is really Polish, so she’s no help). Ye gods, what happened to that sentence?? Shall I now return to ‘be that as it may.....?’

Mary Phykos adored me. She met my parents at the car door as they came home from hospital with me, snatched me up, crying, “Little Poppa, little Poppa (I looked exactly like my father) and was loathe to give me up except during the times Jessie nursed me. Besides being smitten with her adorable charge, she was also a wonderful cook. Poor Daddy gained weight he never again managed to drop... going from being a very skinny young man to a plump one during Mary’s time with us. He spoke often in later years of her cooking, as did Jessie, always in glowing terms. She knew what a great chef she was, as one of her favourite expressions was (and I heard this from both my parents forever): “Mine Gott, how I can cooook!” I cannot tell you if she was as good as they say, but I’m convinced she imparted to me her love of food and cooking.

Well, they all did. Jessie never hired anyone who couldn’t take over the cooking chores from her Not that Jess couldn’t cook... hell no, she was a wonderful cook, inventive and knowledgeable about all aspects of that chore. She just didn’t want to do it. Jessie had better things to do with her life than being a slave to “a man, a house, a stove.” She was the ultimate feminist before anyone ever heard of Betty Friedan. Granted, she didn’t like to see ‘things’ around, but she always said, “I don’t mind a bit of dust, but will you PLEASE pick up your things and PUT THEM AWAY!” (She had a basket on the stairs always, called “the as-you basket,” meaning “As you go upstairs, take this with you and put the things AWAY.”)

So, to get back to what I was attempting to write about... we always had good cooks working for us. From the time I was a little kid, I stood on a chair beside the stove and I learned. I learned that a good cook NEVER measures, he/she simply picks up the pinch or the handful of what the particular dish needs, stirs several times, tastes, then either goes on with the rest of the dish, or throws in the amount needed and repeats. I learned ALL the different herbs and spices one could use and what dishes they went best with. I should say, I tasted and learned, for I got to taste, also, to see that the right amount was put in. I further learned to taste everything, (Jess insisted on this) whether I thought I’d like it or not. I’m still not fond of a lot of Southern food -- ‘sweetea,’ yuk; slimy anything, yuk; undercooked fried chicken, yuk; filet gumbo, yuk -- and a newer thing, seemingly worshiped by new Hispanic and Chinese chefs, cilantro, I cannot abide, it tastes like my grandmother’s attic smelled, and turns me off.

One of my favorite ‘teachers,’ however, did not work for us. A friend in Chicago named Mary Ann Boscarino had a mother who was raised in Italy, obviously somewhere below Rome, as her ‘gravy’ (as all the Italians I know call what we call ‘spaghetti sauce’) took hours to make. My friend Gus, who hailed from Tuscany insisted that this was terrible, as it should only take around an hour to make good gravy. I adore Italian food and wanted to learn, so Mrs.Boscarino said she would teach me. When I asked her for her recipe, her answer was, “What recipe? You just make it.” So I spent a week or two with my notebook at ready while she ‘just made it.’ I am now one of the best South of Rome Italian cooks I know. Actually, I watched and listened to Gus and I am also one of the best Tuscan cooks I know. I am particularly good at pasta primavera, although I do it my way, with a lot less calories. I go to the Farmer’s Market in the Civic Center, buy every kind of ‘peak of ripeness’ veggies I can find... tomatoes, soft and RED, little zucchini, both green and yellow, perfect green onions, the larger the better, etc., etc., everything at the look, feel and smell of perfection, and usually cheap, as who wants to take all that RIPE food back to the farm -- take them home, chop them up, mix a ‘gravy’ of my own concoction... couple of cups of yogurt, little honey to sweeten it up a bit, olive oil and some balsamic vinegar, put the veggies on top of well drained spaghetti or other pasta, pour on that gravy and feed it to guests... as I have, as usual, made too much for me and Sylvia, the cat to eat, and it does NOT last until tomorrow... it is for NOW.

Better than anything, from a dear little gal we had working for us in Pittsburgh, Lessie, I learned to make something out of almost nothing. My absent minded mother would sometimes forget to shop (she usually remembered, and even made out menus -- most of the time) and Lessie would turn out a magnificent dinner with leftovers and anything she could find in the cupboard. One of my father’s (and mine) favorites was a dish she made from leftover salad, something Jessie always told her to throw out as, “who would want all that wilted, dressing soaked stuff.” (Lessie NEVER threw out anything. She had grown up in a large, very poor family, where you used every scrap, particularly of food.) So, Lessie cooked up a bunch of potatoes from the larder, then added left-over salad from the night before that she had hidden in the back of the fridge from Jess. My father was so fond of Lessie’s invention that he told her always to make extra salad so that he could have it the next night. This, and the potatoes and carrots mashed together and liberally buttered, that Mary in Memphis used to make for me when I was a little kid, are my two “comfort foods” that I cook for myself when I am feeling blue and downhearted. I can eat them and hear both of those wonderful ladies saying, “Now eat your food, Paaaaiguy, or “Miss Peggy” in the case of Lessie, and cheer up... for as my sister Betty Rae once told me she became aware of when you became a “Miss” in the South, when she heard the term being used toward her oldest girl, Rebecca when she was thirteen, and I was past thirteen when Lessie came to work for us.

Goodness, this has been a long and roundabout way of mentioning that I really enjoyed reading that article about Julia Child, but while I was doing it, I also went out to the ktichen and whipped up a nice little snacky of my own devising. Lessie taught me NEVER to waste food, so I had to figure out a way to use up a LOT of celery I had been given (now WHO needs five bunchs of celery?) I have five bunchs of celery, so I cut up a LOT of little celery sticks... and I mean a lot... and stuck them in a tall jar full of water and ice cubes and put them into the fridge. I put several heaping tablespoons of peanut butter into a Chinese rice bowl (the kind real Chinese people get in front of them at a banquet, not a BIG bowl), added some Kosher terriyaki sauce (it’s what I had in the fridge) and some Dijon mustard (kept adding until taste was right -- it needed a ‘bite’ to it, and I am allergic to any kind of pepper, so mustard is my ‘bite’), threw in some mayo so I could stir it well (peanut butter is IMPOSSIBLE... watch a cat or dog with it!) and have been dipping and chewing all through this tale, going out to get more COLD celery sticks every now and then.) Well, I had to have something to eat or I’d have died of hunger with all the food- reading/writing.

Only problem: man, I miss Jessie... and Mary (my darling ‘Mammy’ from Memphis), and Ruby, and Lessie, and Essie and all my surrogate mothers from all those what are beginning to seem like hundreds of years these days. Thank heavens I live in San Francisco with a bad foot, bad leg and useless arm that cannot hold up anything over five pounds (Good God...do I HAVE to have ONE MORE replacement? My doctor, Liz Kantor refers to me as ‘the poster girl for the replacement crowd’) as they take care of their elders (and betters?) and I have Elvira (El-veer-a, please) and Ana to help me out, particularly with the ‘as-you’s) and Anastasia, the one who thinks she is a ‘companion,’ but does LOVE to do the shopping). YIKES... I have become Jessie -- except, I STILL am the best chef in the building. The others do their own cleaning, but either get food delivered (yuk!) or let ‘them’ do it. Not me, I shall cook until I cannot stand at the stove any longer, then rush to sit and rest my aching back and eat my own delicious cooking (diet, what diet? Well, Liz, I DO try. Good thing I am a good cook, and have the good sense NOT to buy whipping cream, cookies, etc., etc.)

Ah, well............. read the article!

Title, We Don't Need No Steenkin' Titles......

2009-07-29T01:18:00.000-07:00

Well, at least tonight we don't, as I cannot think of one. Funny, I notice that as always I did too long a 'title' for my blog, so that it shows up on my dashboard page as "Through a Tall Wind" -- not a bad title for SF at least. The wind is often so bad in our wind-tunnel of a driveway that small people have a problem getting into the yard. At any rate, neither the rather long title I did for my blog, nor the above 'lack of' is as long as one I did for a poem recently, it was around 8-10 lines long...about a silly woman who said she was switching her vote to McCain (from Hillary) because he was a 'feminist' -- she could tell because after all, he had chosen a 'woman' as his VP! (or perhaps because he dropped a wife who was no longer beautiful and married a pretty young one with money?) That's even worse than the Russian woman who told me she was voting for McCain because "THEY (ye gods, I thought that kind of talk had gone out of our country looong ago) are all stoopid." So, I said in return, "Gee, did you graduate Harvard with a magna cum laude? If not, don't bother talking to me again." Be that as it may (a favorite expression of Jessie's):

For me it is still Tuesday ("Tuuesday, dear, NOT Toosday"), so, let me see, day before yesterday (Sunday, as I could simply have said) I had a great day. Went with Pat Jones (no relation to Uncle Collie, kids, but she's from England, and with a name like Jones, obviously another Welsh type) to the Yerba Buena Gardens Theatre/Music Festival, which was a day of fun out in the sun, dominated by big time acts like Beach Blanket Babylon, but also had room for some very interesting little theatre groups and solo acts, some of whom will be seen at the Fringe Festival, which I do plan to try to attend.

Actually, I may even work up an act myself for next year's Fringe. That should shut some of the people who keep asking when I am going to 'be in something' up for a bit at least. If I do, I will have Pat and Elvira appearing with me...they have said they would love to, and I must ask Collie if he would like to dance in as the waiter in what I plan to call, "My Dinner With Peggy" (or should I call it "My Dinner With Pat?") We, Elvira and I, got hysterical talking about it...well, we also had a few laughs about her calling the jello she had made and then hidden behind a bunch of stuff, so that I had neglected to eat it, 'yello' and then saying gelatin quite properly. Interesting, I wonder if all Hispanic people say 'y' for 'j'.....but can say the 'j' sound when it is spelled with "g' as in 'gelatin?' Pat was after me on what accents I can do as we walked the MILES it takes to get through the Metreon to the outside doors. "Can you do Cockney?" (I can even do the rhyming Cockney, 'so oi tikes the apples 'n pears to 'er sea shore...') "Can you do French? ('Ah, mais oui, ah am gooing to 'eight street to z' baak-ary...'), etc. See, I can even write in accents. I have lots of people to study...my darling little El-vee-ra (NOT El-vi-ra, please!) for S.&Central America (they do NOT have 'Spanish' accents, as they do NOT lispe), my Parisian friend Michele (NEVER Michelle for a woman, she says), and of course, I can do Russians beautifully.....my building is full of them. I do the little martinet who lives on the second floor best....the one who prances into our manager's office and says, "Yuuh, I need mon come my a-pat-munt, NOW!" Isabelle: "I am busy talking to someone else at the moment...and I don't have 'mon' here today. What do you need?" Martinet: "I need shen-da-leerr poot up NOW, bot rrooms!" Isabelle: Well, sorry, but as I said, I am busy talking to someone else, and my MAN won't be back until tomorrow. I'll write up a request and he'll get up to see you when he has finished all the other jobs written up for him. Martinet stomps out and she turns to me and says, "He may get the damned chandeliers put up some time after next Christmas if he's lucky!!" I love having him come down to see her, as I am often there to hear all the dialogue, which I will use in an act someday. Friends who have heard my stories about him and another Russian I see often have begged me to go to a comedy club and do them....I'm considering it. As I have said often, everything is grist for my mill, particularly lovely accents. I even have a native SF one that always ends with, "Thank you for sharing that with me....." The 'native' S.F. person doesn't really have an accent, but most are so sweet and kind...I love them.

Now I got off track again, where was I? Ah, yes, the perfect Sunday....Pat and I walked through ALL of the Metreon building and out onto Mission, where she went over to Market St and I went across Fourth to the Mission bus stop and sat down next to a charming Russian lady who told me we had JUST missed the bus, so we sat and chatted a bit, and a very attractive lady sat down on my left. She was just coming from the Theatre Festival also, and was from Bombay...she had wanted to stay to see the rest of the performances her daughter, who lives here, didn't want to see, so she sent them off and said she'd take the bus home. Now the three of us chatted about SF, about the Festival, about ourselves and had a jolly time waiting for the Mission bus. We all were going to almost the same spot, so I pulled out my card (and lost my change purse...damn!) and gave it to her, so she would have my email address. She went me one better, and seeing how close to her daughter I lived, said she would call me when her husband goes back to India and come and see me. She is staying on for a month after he leaves.....he has to get back to work. So now I have a lovely friend from Bombay, and will undoubtedly meet her daughter and family, who live a couple of blocks from me.

I LOVE San Francisco -- where else does everyone talk to everyone else.....at theatres during the intermission, at the symphony before a performance, on the bus....and the cab drivers are the most fascinating characters anywhere. They are from all over the world and darling. I've gotten recipes from Brazilian drivers, been sung to by an Italian one, and the Venezuealan (sp?) driver who drove me to the Sunday Festival loved one of my poems I read to him, and when I told him I have three or four novels in my desk drawer, wanted to be my agent....I had a hard time getting out of the cab, he wanted to finish our conversation. I told him I'd see him at the cab barn, as I have an idea for a book about cab drivers in SF, and he insisted that the next time I called for a cab to ask for him. What a day.....and what a great city I have come 'home' to, for this has been my Spiritual Home ever since Ned started telling me about it when I was around sixteen years old. I never could understand why my kids don't feel exactly as I do about it, particularly when Whitney spent her fifth birthday here, and even got to 'help the drivers turn a cable car around.' She walked between two of them, pushing the car at the turn-around, yelling, "Look at me, mommy -- I'm helping," while they chuckled at her pleasure. Such a funny, darling child! And Mark spent part of his fifth year here, running into the water with Joe Bullock at Ocean Beach, and riding on his shoulders in the park during the 'summer of love.' Mark didn't want to leave -- he had Jenny and Joe to entertain him -- and neither did I. I should have stayed, sent for my money and bought a house, as I wanted to. Shoulda, coulda, woulda means nothing..... perhaps that is the weird break in the life-line of my LEFT hand. The lifeline on my right hand goes on forever up around my thumb--God! I am another 'Mama' without the miserable temper. She'd have lived forever had it not been for that blod clot they didn't catch in time which killed her at 100. I have a better doctor (the best dr. in SF, Liz is!) so who knows!!! However, I find I am suddenly getting the stigmata on right hand that I used to get when I was a kid and the left hand itches miserably in the same spot...terrible! If anyone thinks this will get me back to church....think again!! Oh, well, maybe a short visit to Father Mickey in the old Mission across the street will help. Naw, he'd just laugh at me and tell me about how the graveyard our building was built on was for the pagan Indians and the Episcopalians. (I love that man, he reminds me of the dear priest we had at school, Father Pauley who was a nut like Mickey.)

So, fun and weirdness aside.....life is pretty great! And it is definitely TIME for BED! 'Nite all, it is way, way past tomorrow.....Ah, well................

Saving our History

2009-07-24T23:23:00.000-07:00

I found a very interesting article in the New York Times (I'm late reading everything) about plans of the last admin that have been scotched by the present one, THANK GOODNESS, as we thank so many of the changes that have been made lately. This one about the Grand Canyon & surroundings:

Ban Set on Mining Claims Adjacent to Grand Canyon
By FELICITY BARRINGER Published: BY NYTIMES, July 20, 2009

In a modest victory for environmentalists, the Obama administration said Monday that it was designating nearly one million acres of Arizona land near the Grand Canyon off limits to new uranium mining claims for two years.

In a statement, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said his department was acting “to ensure we are developing our nation’s resources in a way that protects local communities, treasured landscapes and our watersheds.”

Environmental groups like the nonprofit Grand Canyon Trust in Flagstaff, Ariz., have argued that extensive mining operations could contaminate the watershed around the canyon, particularly streams that flow directly into the canyon or into the Colorado River.

Last year the House Natural Resources Committee voted to put the acreage off limits to new mining claims. But the Bush administration disputed the committee’s authority and said it would continue to leave the lands open to new claims.

Mr. Salazar’s decision will not block development of mines whose claims have already been validated.

Some of the 10,600 existing claims within the acreage could thus end up as mining operations if the ore can be profitably extracted. Many of the current claims were filed when the price of uranium soared in 2006 and 2007.

In 2007 the price reached $130 a pound; today uranium is selling for about $50 a pound. From 2005 through 2008, about 3,000 new mining claims were filed in areas near the Grand Canyon.

New mining claims will be barred in three sections of land: one to the north of the canyon, stretching near the Utah border; another bordering a Navajo reservation and Vermilion Cliffs National Monument; and a third south of the canyon in the Kaibab National Forest.

Roger Clark, a land-use expert with the Grand Canyon Trust, called Monday’s decision “a good first step” and said he hoped the moratorium would become permanent. That is the goal of legislation pending in Congress called the Grand Canyon Protection Act.

A House subcommittee hearing on the bill is scheduled on Tuesday.

Mr. Clark also called on the government to take a second look at the environmental reviews that justify existing claims, some of which he said were years out of date.

Ron F. Hochstein, the president of the Denison Mines Corporation, a Canadian company that is about to start three mining operations in the excluded areas, said the decision would have no immediate practical effect on its operations. “We are planning to move forward,” Mr. Hochstein said.

He said the impact of the decision on the mining industry was “more psychological,” reinforcing what he called “an absolutely incorrect impression” of the environmental impact of uranium mining.

Board Approves Drilling Leases

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A federal appeals board has cleared the way for oil and gas drilling around prehistoric ruins in southern Utah.

Rejecting an appeal filed by the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, the Interior Board of Land Appeals ruled that the federal Bureau of Land Management had taken appropriate safeguards in granting leases in 2006 for drilling in the Monticello area.

The area is near crumbling cliff houses, eroded pit houses and cave sites with prehistoric storage boxes made of stone slabs.

WE MUST ALL GO TO TEMPLE TOMORROW AND CHURCH ON SUNDAY TO BLESS THE ADMINISTRATION THAT HAS ENOUGH SENSE TO SAVE OUR TREASURES, AND NOT GIVE THEM AWAY TO THE AVARICIOUS, ROTTEN, ALREADY TOO WEALTHY OF OUR COUNTRY. (Also to pray AGAINST the drillers.) WHAT IF MCCAIN HAD WON????? THERE GO THE NATIVE-AMERICAN RUINS...WHO NEEDS THEM? CERTAINLY NOT CINDY.....McC or their whole crew.

And, speaking of avariciousness, has everyone heard the latest on the 'Octomom?' She's (of course) going to be on a reality show on TV, with separate salaries for each of the fourteen kids she has birthed. Lordy -- I almost died having two! No one could have paid me enough to have three or four, let alone FOURTEEN! MADNESS!

Exhaustion creepeth in w/the cold......

2009-07-22T23:43:00.000-07:00

Yikes, yikes and double yikes......first I couldn't find this 'page'....I seem to spend half my life getting into the wrong place online...and getting myself on strange 'pages' that don't have much to do with me, and failing to use the 'right password'.....and getting lost reading all the fascinating stuff online..... why this evening alone I learned that Gidget, the Taco Bell Chiuahuahua or however it is spelled... died today of a massive stroke at the tender age of 15. How can I get through the evening!!

My friend Connie Fillippelli (remember: all double consonants) (my spelling gets worse!) insisted that I go on Facebook and I have spent the better part of two days either trying to figure out what I am doing, or finding and writing to people I haven't seen or heard from in ages. I guess all the notes got through....although I am still looking desperately for Mildred Schmertz or any of the Schmertzes and cannot seem to find Ginger Wiles anywhere! Are you out there in the atmosphere? I have one friend who is everywhere, is adorable one minute and despises me the next...STOP that! I don't think he reads this tripe though, although he blogs, boy, does he blog.

I am exhausted....partly because of all the people crushing in on me so suddenly...and all the info doing much the same.......and also because we of my poetry group had our big reading in Yerba Buena Gardens...with quite a large crowd in the audience in spite of the fact that it was COLD, WINDY and rather miserable.....first time that has happened in a long, loooong time. We are usually too warm. I had three in the audience cheering me on....dare I say, well, at least three, as the applause was quite good as I finished reading my silly 'nursery rhymes.' Someday perhaps I shall be allowed to read something serious.....maybe in August when we read again in the Yerba Gardens Festival. Wow, Facebook is as exhausting as reading one's poetry.

We went to a Mexican restaurant after the reading, in spite of one large vote against, and all had not only good lunches, but also a good time. Gina, the gal who made the documentary movie i was in, managed to come and came over to lunch with us also. She and Nancy are old, old friends....both look like teenagers....so unfair! I talked about the 'sex film' back in a June post... well we got the DVDs of the film, and I was surprised.....I didn't look that Terrible! I should figure some way to put it online......no, I don't think so.....children can read this! But it was fun, and not too bad. Pat Jones of my poetry group, and I went to see the 'screening' of all the films, and this was one of the better ones. The others were all G rated, of course....things like boats in the SF harbour, and cable car bell ringers, with no mention of s*x. There were only two 'stars' in our film.....an Ooooooold man and me. And the way he talked, he isn't really getting much. Oh, I am so mean! I have been having so much fun lately....and most of it from listening to friends who have a LOT to say....and laughing and joking with my friends.....particularly my "San Francisco Family'....the TODCO Poets, whom I love dearly, one and all. Thank you NANCY!

Somehow, bedtime is getting earlier and earlier. I used to sit up until 2...or 3.....or even more (what is that song?), yet here I am yawning and wiping my eyes....the droopy "Cartwright" left eyelid is making it hard for me to see.....golly, K had the same problem....I miss him too. So, Daddy with the droopy left eyelid....and Jessie, whom I am suddenly beginning to resemble, and K, wherever you are......goodnight, I shall dream of you....and perhaps have a nice conversation that I can relay here next time...........ah, well......... (one never knows, do one....Fats Waller)

Utter Confusion.....

2009-07-12T02:30:00.000-07:00

I think I am losing it. First, I did something that screwed up my gmail page...well, gmail no longer shows up on my Firefox start page....and Firefox unfortunately gave me THE LATEST...which just screws me up further. Now I have to sign out to get back to where I was every time I do some foolish thing like enlarging a photo.....there is no longer a 'back' button up in the left hand corner of my 'page'...only an arrow in a circle, an X, and a house.....none of which will let me go BACK. Oh, good lord....am I going to have to shut myself away for a week and read all the stuff about Firefox and Mozilla and even Google and gmail? It was all so easy before they started upgrading me all the time....I don't want to be upgraded......I just want to do all the nice simple things like hitting an arrow facing left and going BACK. I finally caught on to the menu bar where they show me where I am and discovered how to hit that to get rid of a page....but it doesn't show anything for when I do something like enlarge a photo.....or a couple of other things....so I have to go out of the damned program and start all over again. It was very annoying when I was online writing to friends and had to do all that....disappearing for quite a time with everyone wondering what happened to me. Well, I didn't tell them....let them thing what they will. Now I MUST go to bed.....I'm a Mac person, we don't like to read manuals....Ah, well......

Nic Kristof's wisdom...

2009-07-05T23:20:00.000-07:00

Well, folksies, one of my favorite NYTimes op-ed guys wrote something recently that explains a lot of things, so I felt I would add it here. See if it applies to you, y'all......now before you all start yelling, "Not to me, it doesn't..." think about it. When it comes to snakes, I know it applies to me.

New York Times - Op-Ed Columnist
When Our Brains Short-Circuit By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF July 1, 2009

Our political system sometimes produces such skewed results that it’s difficult not to blame bloviating politicians. But maybe the deeper problem lies in our brains.

Evidence is accumulating that the human brain systematically misjudges certain kinds of risks. In effect, evolution has programmed us to be alert for snakes and enemies with clubs, but we aren’t well prepared to respond to dangers that require forethought.

If you come across a garter snake, nearly all of your brain will light up with activity as you process the “threat.” Yet if somebody tells you that carbon emissions will eventually destroy Earth as we know it, only the small part of the brain that focuses on the future — a portion of the prefrontal cortex — will glimmer.

“We humans do strange things, perhaps because vestiges of our ancient brain still guide us in the modern world,” notes Paul Slovic, a psychology professor at the University of Oregon and author of a book on how our minds assess risks.

Consider America’s political response to these two recent challenges:

1. President Obama proposes moving some inmates from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to supermax prisons from which no one has ever escaped. This is the “enemy with club” threat that we have evolved to be alert to, so Democrats and Republicans alike erupt in outrage and kill the plan.

2. The climate warms, ice sheets melt and seas rise. The House scrounges a narrow majority to pass a feeble cap-and-trade system, but Senate passage is uncertain. The issue is complex, full of trade-offs and more cerebral than visceral — and so it doesn’t activate our warning systems.

“What’s important is the threats that were dominant in our evolutionary history,” notes Daniel Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard University. In contrast, he says, the kinds of dangers that are most serious today — such as climate change — sneak in under the brain’s radar.

Professor Gilbert argues that the threats that get our attention tend to have four features. First, they are personalized and intentional. The human brain is highly evolved for social behavior (“that’s why we see faces in clouds, not clouds in faces,” says Mr. Gilbert), and, like gazelles, we are instinctively and obsessively on the lookout for predators and enemies.

Second, we respond to threats that we deem disgusting or immoral — characteristics more associated with sex, betrayal or spoiled food than with atmospheric chemistry.

“That’s why people are incensed about flag burning, or about what kind of sex people have in private, even though that doesn’t really affect the rest of us,” Professor Gilbert said. “Yet where we have a real threat to our well-being, like global warming, it doesn’t ring alarm bells.”

Third, threats get our attention when they are imminent, while our brain circuitry is often cavalier about the future. That’s why we are so bad at saving for retirement. Economists tear their hair out at a puzzlingly irrational behavior called hyperbolic discounting: people’s preference for money now rather than much larger payments later.

For example, in studies, most Americans prefer $50 now to $100 in six months, even though that represents a 100 percent return.

Fourth, we’re far more sensitive to changes that are instantaneous than those that are gradual. We yawn at a slow melting of the glaciers, while if they shrank overnight we might take to the streets.

In short, we’re brilliantly programmed to act on the risks that confronted us in the Pleistocene Age. We’re less adept with 21st-century challenges.

At the University of Virginia, Professor Jonathan Haidt shows his Psychology 101 students how evolution has prepared us to fear some things: He asks how many students would be afraid to stand within 10 feet of a friend carrying a pet boa constrictor. Many hands go up, although almost none of the students have been bitten by a snake.

“The objects of our phobias, and the things that are actually dangerous to us, are almost unrelated in the modern world, but they were related in our ancient environment,” Mr. Haidt said. “We have no ‘preparedness’ to fear a gradual rise in the Earth’s temperature.”

This short-circuitry in our brains explains many of our policy priorities. We Americans spend nearly $700 billion a year on the military and less than $3 billion on the F.D.A., even though food-poisoning kills more Americans than foreign armies and terrorists. We’re just lucky we don’t have a cabinet-level Department of Snake Extermination.

Still, all is not lost, particularly if we understand and acknowledge our neurological shortcomings — and try to compensate with rational analysis. When we work at it, we are indeed capable of foresight: If we can floss today to prevent tooth decay in later years, then perhaps we can also drive less to save the planet. Thank you, Nic!!.....P.C.

So Much More to Learn...

2009-07-04T17:50:00.000-07:00

Well, I did learn ONE more thing about following a blog, and managed to do it. But the blogger found me somehow on Twitter (there's another thing to learn about!). I must and will learn how to do all these things, otherwise how can I criticize the old Russians in my building who will not learn how to speak English. Genya says it's because they are too old -- and they are all younger than I. Just because they look older is no excuse. I know people have read this, my blog...but I have NO followers, in spite of the fact that I have urged them to 'follow.' Even Whitney, my own child does not 'follow' me....but then, when did she ever? (I didn't mean it Whit |-}. That's me making a mean smile with eyes scrunched up.) I think I shall go back to (grin), I'm not real good at cute. Pardon me while I take a very large foot pill.

To get back to the person who made the Twitter contact...he is a local jazz musician and I loved his blog on Suzuki and the teaching of music to children. I do wish my kidlets (grandchildren) were taking some kind of music lessons. There are no 'natural' musicians in my family, or in my daughter-in-laws, but I get the feeling that Bella (the right brained one) might just like having some kind of music lessons. I wanted so to learn to play the piano, but Jessie wouldn't let me, as I couldn't raise my ring fingers alone (Jessie, the classical pianist...I take it back, she WAS a musician, although she could NOT sing...we all sing off-key.) Jess stuck me with trying desperately to learn to play the violin...I was TERRIBLE. I have two lovely poems, one about the violin disaster and one about that darling Arlo Guthrie. I will try to find them and put them on here. They explain a lot. God this is rambling....I seem to have wandered off point again...I am becoming my mother.

So....after I checked into Twitter, gladly 'followed' the sax player, I went on to read his blog about the musical children, then on to a jazz musician in London and a photo of a man with a bass sax, which reminded me of Ernie Caseres (Caceres?) OK...remember I am old and I haven't seen or written his name in years! He played clarinet and any sax that no one else was playing...a very versatile musician, but it must have been difficult to carry all those cases to every gig. he was also such a cute little guy you wanted to hug him on sight. Sometimes I miss NYC and the whole Condon crowd...Muggsy, Pee Wee, Ed Hall, Hackett, crazy George Brunies, Big Sid Catlett, the best drummer of all times...all gone and some of the names are dropping out of my mind, sad to say, but I can hunt for the Condon CDs or dig out the LPs and listen. I still don't have anything with my favorite person on it...I miss old Red MacKenzie...after all, Ned Travis sent me to him to hear the others, and he was the one who introduced me to them. Then Smitty, Scrib and I hung out at Nicks and Julius' and breathed in the music, so it is still in there in my soul. Sometimes late at night I can still see and hear old Brunies up on the bar, waving his trombone around in the air....."You so ugly, you so ugly, you some ugly chile....now the clothes that you wear are not in style/ you look like an ape every time that you smile....yo' hair is nappy, who's yo' pappy...... you some ugly chile. None of them ever grew up...sometimes I wish I hadn't...maybe I didn't.

Am I blue....am I blue....ain't these tears in these eyes tellin' you?

Gina & The Documentary Film

2009-06-30T23:42:00.000-07:00

Now, let me see.....how DID I get into this? A simple phone call, left a message and complicated my life once more. But what a fun time. Gina, a tiny 'kid' (well, anyone under around 55 is a kid to me, Gina), invited me to work on a digital film she was making on sex and the older person. Well, I am tired of younger people (there are some on the radio next to me at work) talking about what we do or don't do. One of the things we 'don't do' is have anything to do with sex. Yeah, note that all the people who advertise Viagra look like they are around 50. Well, it ain't so kids....your mother is just as capable of having (and/or desiring to have) sex, as is your weak old father (although he may have to have some Viagra, Cielas or whatever they call it. Probably won't admit it, though.

Gina couldn't think of a name for her film. How about "Only MEN need Viagra!" or "Birds Do It, Bees Do It, Even Over Sixty-threes Do it!" or "Fun Things to do After Menopause" or "Oh, Yeah, You'd Be Surprised What Mother Does." Too long? How about, "MOTHER!! DAD!!"

So, a nice slim girl picked me and my bag of props and wardrobe up to go to a huge warehouse that houses film studios, bakers of cookies, exercise studios and all sorts of strange businesses. If I were a journalist, I think I'd be out there intrviewing all those people...fascinating. I met the whole film crew...all very young and knowledgeable. All the things I had done when very young came back to me -- the Pittsburgh Playhouse where I built scenery and had terrible stage fright; the cable company in Oak Park, where I had to have two people put the huge camera up on my shoulder; the 'character model' job Gus insisted I do at BB/L for the "Bob & Carol, Ted & Zelda Watch Radio" campaign (I was Zelda and 'Carol' did my hair by taking her two hands to my head and messing it up as much as possible--Gus wouldn't let me get a haircut until it was all over). Back to yesterday: I addressed the camera as Gina asked me questions about my sexuality then we went to the studio's bathroom (have to write about that...bathrooms??), where I did the makeup bit and put on the red wool hat from Peru that Whit bought me....and finally I sat and watched them take some shots of photos of me from baby until now, and the big one with K. Gina fed us dinner while they discussed the next film and I made the long trek out to her car, to arrive home some time after 8pm. Long, but fun day.....back to acting, but no throwing up this time. I may finally have grown up.

All that talking, all that acting and all that walking did me in. My left foot (the one whose upper- foot tendon I tore in half jumping out of bed to answer the phone) gave out and was so sore that I simply drank a cup of coffee and went back to bed to read all the magazines that came last week (the catalogs simply were thrown in the bag that Elvira carried out to the big blue can--it's bigger than she is) to be recycled into yet more catalogs. I find that my faves in the magazine world these days are "Fast Company" and "Forbes".....rather odd choices for an old woman. Oh, I still enjoy "Poets & Writers" and try to get through "Newsweek" every week also, which I did first today. It was full of mostly BOOKS this week. I am fascinated with the new Newsweek....not really much of a news magazine anymore.....and a lot less trashy gossip....just a bit of hard news, then a theme like the present one of books. I loved reading it. Now Forbes had a great article of various people talking about their 'best advice.' I loved Nora Ephron's little snips like "Never put tomatoes in the refrigerator, Don't learn how to iron or someone will make you do it (I didn't...or even how to make a bed), Never run for a bus, Marry a man who was unhappily married to his first wife for 17 years"......she can be very funny. They also have a box giving what advice will cost you from various people like lawyers and psychics. I learned a lot by spending the day in bed and putting the foot up above my heart. Thank god for my gem, Elvira! Now the foot, having had to be placed down on the floor, is objecting again, so I shall go to bed and hope it is better tomorrow. I have to go to the bank, so it had better be.

And a quick congratulations to Al Franken......FINALLY a Senator from Minnesota! I wish him well -- NOT an easy job, Al.

Good Old Days??

2009-06-28T17:32:00.000-07:00

Good lord.....I have been living in SF long enough to long for 'the good old days...'

When I could stand on Market St with all the tourists to watch the Gay Pride Parade....
When I could still stand for more than fifteen minutes without my back killing me...
When I still didn't even know any gay men & women
When I had a bunch of really good friends in my 'family group' who were gay or lesbian...
When I lived in a house on Hayes St with an old friend from Saginaw (now dead)....
When we used to have parties to watch the runners come down the Hayes St hill....
When I used to run for the bus to make it to work at UC/SF......
When I exercised happily by running across the street to have pool exercises at UC.....
When I had a prescription to use the HOT pool at CPMC after my knees were replaced...
When Bud and I used to go to classes at least twice a week at Fromm/USF.....
When Bud died leaving me in tears, feeling that my big brother had left me alone and ill.....

Of course the Gay Pride parade made me think of all of this...and my SF 'family'....only two of the eight or nine are still alive or here, sad to say. None of them succumbed to AIDS, thank goodness, just heart attacks mainly, or moving away because they can't afford to live here anymore. I think I may miss the wonderful parties at Bud's the most....I used to sit on the piano bench with his crazy friend Lyle, who sang in musicals... and sing, while he tried to find a song I didn't know the words to... hard. He's moved to Las Vegas to do shows. And poor Jan, my favorite of all my friends, who died for some mysterious reason they never figured out....it was as though she just faded away, very strange. Her sister told me they did an autopsy, but couldn't find a reason for her death. Yeah...there WAS no reason, she just shouldn't have died, leaving us with only half of Berkeley explored, and no list of what we each knew about the Bay Area. Even a bunch of my old (quite old) friends from Fromm have moved away....up to real 'Northern California' mainly, I guess to stay close to the ocean.

I could never go back to anywhere away from the Pacific Ocean, and particularly no where where I would be surrounded by republicans. There are so many reasons I worked so hard to get out here for good, starting, I suppose with dear Ned and his stories of a childhood in Sea Cliff, and his adventures in the Bay Area. I used to tell him of my darling Mary and Jones who took such good care of us in Memphis, and he told me of his Chinese nursemaid and took me to the restaurant she took him to as a child to have dim sum.

I wonder if he ever got to "Aunt Kate's" where we went for BBQ as children....I wonder if it is still there. I know the Peabody Hotel, where we helped gather up the ducks in the evening and take them up to bed, and go up in the morning to escort them down in the elevator in the morning, still is, as I have sent several of my friends there and had gushing postcards from them. "Lovely hotel....the ducks are still here....." Although I rather think the ducks are new replacement ones. Same kind at any rate. We lived there while Jessie looked for a suitable house for us, then a bit longer, until I got over one of my bouts of measles (not caught from the ducks, I'm sure). I lay in a large bed, windows drawn, surrounded by old magazines Alonzo Locke had rustled up for me, cutting out pics and pasting them into a large scrapbook with 'library paste,' (which doesn't seem to exist anymore) taking a taste of it now and then. Too bad it no longer exists, as my memories were much sharper when I could still smell the stuff.

Good heavens, the Gay Pride paraders must be dying of the heat! It is 78 in here, and it is always much cooler than the outside....much! So it must be hotter than hell out there. I shan't go out, as I do not like hot weather. I'll just pour myself a nice cup of iced tea and go back to work trying to write some poetry for the reading on July 21 in Yerba Buena Gardens. Hopefully it will not be as hot that day, as I have to wear a hat. Well dear Steve will have set up the tent over our seats, so we won't be in the sun, but the poor audience will be........oh, dear..............ah, well..................

ah, yes, nattering indeeed

2009-06-23T21:49:00.000-07:00

Well, now is when I shall tell a funny story about leaks in the gorgeous apt. complex my first husband and I lived in before Whitney was born. Bert and I rented this smashing apt in an old set of buildings on the Near North in Chicago that was owned and rehabbed by the guy who was the art director for ABC-TV and a wealthy lawyer. There were two buildings with a big space in between where a building had burned down, now walkways and garden. Across the back Ray built a wall with terracotta heads that had water coming from their mouths into a pool that ran all across the back of the property. The old buildings were completely new inside, with high ceilings and VERY modern apts.

We hardly needed any furniture, as Ray (not his real name) had built in drawers all across one side of the bedroom, including a very large space for luggage, etc. to be stored, with sliding door closets next to them.. The bedroom had a balcony opening that looked over the living area below, and the windows went from the very bottom to the top, so that the curtain for the bedroom was on a circular track just above the overlook. I bought osnaberg and laid it out on top of newspapers all across the enormous floor of the bedroom, threw fabric paint in black, with flashes of red and yellow across it and made beautiful curtains of it. (Which I later sold to the guy who rented the apt after we left, at about five times what I had paid for the materials.) We also had terra cotta figures built into the rounded fireplace on the first floor, a perfect breakfront built into the dining area, and hand-carved balustrude. Too much. Oh, and it also had a huge grill across one side of the kitchen, with a large vent....like having an outdoor grill inside, a practically walk-in fridge and freezer...with more cupboards than I have had since. We bought a huge couch, three overstuffed chairs, a coffee table for downstairs, and made a very large bed with foam mattresses for upstairs, and one chair for the built-in dressing table. The bathroom had a little hidden nitch for the toilet, two huge counters with marble sinks, a tub and a shower.

Across from ours was a small apt on the first floor, with a very fancy, elaborate two story one on the second and third floors. A spectacular curved staircase that seemed to hang in the air went up to the bedrooms. That apartment also had windows that went from the bottom of the first floor, all the way up to the top of its second floor. It was, by far, the showiest one in the two buildings and our crazy neighbor never did get curtains as I recall. What did he care, he had been a chorus boy in New York and didn't care who saw him in any state.

The first floor studio was rented by a fairly young, blue collar couple, working their way up the social ladder, while upstairs was a young, gay Spaniard of noble heritage, who was impossible. His family had sent him over to get him out of the country, and he made a spectacle of himself as a chorus boy in New York. So he was sent to Chicago with enough money to pay a year's rent, daddy bought him the pale blue Lincoln Continental he wanted and sent him a monthly allowance. He of course, spent the year's rent right away, bought two spectacular dogs and fancy furniture and food, then spent half his time screaming on the phone to daddy or his sister that he needed more money, completely neglected the dogs.....and danced heavily to LOUD music with his new boyfriend.

The dogs took to peeing on the floor in ONE spot, and one day we heard Gloria (the girl downstairs) screaming, "Damn you, you rotten little $^%#@, turn down that ^%$&* music, stop the %#@$&*%$@ dancing AND that dog pee is coming through our ceiling -- do something NOW about it, or I'm coming up to kill both you and the dogs!!" The poor landlord had to go and insist that Jose (I think) get rid of the dogs and do the whole ceiling over.....which cost daddy a great deal of money....and daddy also had to pay for a hotel room for the kids downstairs while it was being fixed. After that, the Spaniard, Jose, had to go to live with his sister on some island somewhere, where she could keep an eye on him. He gave the Lincoln Continental to his boyfriend, and brought me two dozen porterhouse steaks that he had simply thrown into his freezer in a stack.... they were all stuck together .....that he had bought because I said they were nice to have for a BBQ.

I missed him, as he was actually fun and always came to parties with several bottles of THE BEST booze and lots of great food......but no one else seemed to miss him, sadly. I hope he is happily dancing (he was good) on that island of his sister's with a large inheritance from daddy......and not letting any dogs pee on second floors again. And, since he must now be very old, I hope he got some curtains for his bedroom!

So Seldom

2009-06-18T00:34:00.000-07:00

I am fighting to keep my fingers from racing on the keys to a Shostakovich piano concerto...the only problem with having piano music playing in the background as I work. I just installed a lovely aol/cbs radio menu on my computer and now have a young woman named Mitsuko Uchida playing Beethoven. She is clutching her head on the album cover, looking every bit as horrible as I feel at the moment. The so seldom refers to the fact that I so seldom have writer's block, yet today I Have. I cannot seem to match any one of the thousands of nursery rhymes I know to the news stories of the moment, and I must have some and SOON. Nancy....and all the rest of the poetry group expect me to. (I am staying home the three weeks Nancy is gone to write and save up taxi scrip.) I even spent the greater part of the afternoon and evening listening to Dave Frishberg, hoping he would inspire me, as he usually does, but even that didn't help. Goodness, he is just up in Portland.....I would love to go up and see him play, which is about all he does these days, according to everything I read. He has written sort of a beginning of an autobiog. Maybe I could go up and help him finish it. What fun that would be. God....he is younger than I.....everyone is younger than I am, or else they are dead. I often wonder if I saw Dave in NYC, when he was just being a piano player....he played at Nicks and knew Condon and all the others I knew....did I just not notice him? Strange, as all the names in his memoirs ring a bell....Condon and Muggsy and Pee Wee and all the old Dixieland crowd. But I think he got there after I had left....he is great on piano, almost as good as my dear old James P.Johnson, my favorite of the whole crowd....well, Big Sid Catlett and little Ernie Caseras were my favorite people, but James P. was the best on piano. Ernie was sort of like my darling John Hartford, in that he could play almost anything with a reed, while John could play anything with strings. Of course they usually stuck Ernie with playing something no one else could play...or was playing that evening. He was such a sweet, kind little guy, and a lot better looking than most of the doggy looking musicians in NYC. Golly, I wouldn't tower over him today, I've lost three inches in height. I wonder why Dave Frishberg didn't get as well-known and popular as Randy Newman, they wrote similar songs, although Dave's are funnier. I adore "Peel Me a Grape" and "Van Lingo Mungo." I'm thinking of stealing the idea of "VLM" only with a different group. I have to get busy and come up with womething.

Now I'm nattering again, as I did to K....making less and less sense. Boy I would love to know what happened to him. We used to have such a connection and I have the feeling that he is gone, which I have never had before. Then I always knew he would turn up. Perhaps he is dead. Sad. Well, Peggo......have another dish of ice cream, wipe the tear from the eye and THINK. If I could just find a line in one of the news stories that sounded like a nursery rhyme, but they are all so damned stodgy that it is hard to make fun of them.

I have been most annoyed with Twitter. Every miserable person who signs in to 'follow' me is just there to sell something. I wish I could find someone from the old 'drinkers with writing problems' group....or those crazy nuts who used to meet in the Mission years ago and do silly things like handing out cookies shaped like bombs and say "bombs NOT food." Gosh, what was the name of that group.....they were such fun. I'll have to look in my files and find some of the crazy letters we used to paste pictures on and send out....stuffing envelopes at our meetings in local coffee houses. I've lost all my silly, outrageous friends and I miss them. I haven't talked to Connie in Chicago in ages.....I miss that old gang of artists from the Oak Park Art Co-op and the shows we did. I will never forget doing my silly chicken thing, reading "Time, time, time, time/ On a dime Gertrude Stein...etc." while 'playing' all the un-matched, water filled glasses everyone had brought in....and Gerry grabbing my hand as I came 'off-stage' and saying "Jeeze, Peg, you've got more guts than anyone I've ever seen!" I guess I was good, as one of the gals fell off her chair laughing. "Das Badde Art Showé" was a smashing success. I so wanted to buy Frank Cuda's "Night Over Miami beach," with its twinkling lights all around, and one in the eye of the flamingo flying overhead. He chickened out on his performance though, what was it to be??? Well, the kids in the Pell thing at UC/SF wanted me to go to one of the comedy clubs and tell some of my stories I told them.....odd that I should suddenly develop a comic trait and get rid of the stage fright at such an advanced age. Perhaps I should have been like Carol's Oak Park friend, who left home, husband and kids and became a comedian. Of course, Carol and John and I went to see her here, and she wasn't really very funny. Now that sounds like a shaggy dog story to me, so I think I am getting punchy......no more thinking or writing tonight. Good lord, it is 1:30am and I was up at 10am....Sylvia butted me, as she was out of food again. She is just eating too much....I can't keep up with her. And, I have to be up early again tomorrow.......Ah, well........

Useless Evening, but a Happy One

2009-06-14T22:19:00.000-07:00

I have spent actually a useless day, even forgot to eat dinner until after 8pm. But I am happy. The change from analog to digital TV caught me not thinking. I carefully called Comcast to come and add me to their long rolls, but neglected to think that I have something up against EVERY open space in my walls except for where the heaters are along the window wall. The man who came looked over the HEAVY bookcases and drawers full of STUFF that hold up my walls and said, "I'll just leave you some cable....see, you plug it into the TV here, then into the wall plug WHEN you find it!" So, I emptied out two enormous plastic drawers under my desk in the logical place for the plug to be....he said it was probably next to the phone jack. It isn't. But I managed to get some of my writing sorted and put into the boxes I had long ago bought for just this purpose. On pulling out the drawers, we found nothing, and nothing in back of the long file holding up my desk on which my Mac sits.....so I have no TV.

Why didn't I turn the damned thing off for good ages ago? This afternoon I sorted my mail for the last 3 days, throwing away most and this evening I turned on the radio. KALW, my favorite station, was playing their silly quiz game, so I sat back and listened, yelling answers at the radio like they could hear me. Then came Sarah Cahill with a lovely program of piano music. I almost lay down on the floor, as I did from the time I was two or three. I used to lie under Jessie's grand piano, happily letting the music not only fill my ears, but also thump into my little body through the piano. Now I must remember to add that story to my book about Jess...and the stories about her taking me to the symphony and other concerts and pinching me to make me remember. She was right about that -- I shall NEVER forget going to see Madame Shuman-Heink at an early age...Jessie could really pinch HARD. Her theory was: you always remember where you were if it concerned pain....you just didn't remember the pain.

She was right -- other 'pain' remembrances when it wasn't Madame Pincher: when my sister Betty Rae slammed the car door on my little finger. Because of that I shall never forget Niagra Falls. Or the obviously painful births (they did NOT want to come out) of my two children...I remember every detail, but not the pain, which was considerable, Dr. Gross told me later that he had to make some 30 cuts to get Whitney and her big head out, as she was already almost a month late. For Mark, he induced labor, saying he was not interested in delivering any more ten pounders from me. So we got an eight and one-half beautiful baby in Mark.

And so, having gotten off the track completely, as usual, I am sitting here, letting the nice classical music, still coming out of KALW, wash over me. Ms.Katt is furious with me, as she feels I am simply causing the radio to make a great deal of noise. Sylvia hates noise. I am HAPPY.

Also, for some reason I suddenly have a whole slew of people following me on Twitter....and one of them had a message from Guy Kawasaki, so I went to his site and 'followed' him. Don't know why I didn't think to do that sooner. He, of course, immediately sent a message he was doing the same. I miss seeing Guy.....miss Bud....who kept me up with SeniorNet and the people I knew there, although most of them are gone now, including Bud. Which reminds me of others.....

I guess I am more sad than happy to have taken down all of K's photos, in spite of all the nice comments from my friends, and put up dragons....lots of lovely little dragons. I now have 12. I am left wondering if K is dead or merely deserted me. He always said he would never do that, and when I said that as he moved from place to place, how could I ever be sure. He told me that he was going to put a note in his safe deposit box to be sent to me if he died, but that was probably just another story, about as valuable as the letters on my screen were. But it would be sad to think that he cared so little as to let me think so badly of him. And yet....law'sy me, I turned right around and made friends with another younger man....well, what else, all the men my age that I have known are dead and gone. I was hoping I would have another friend not only to write to, but also see once in a while. But ah, no, this one does not like to write letters over a sentence long, or even use the phone. But it has been a lovely, useless, happy day. Ah, well.....

Goodbye TV

2009-06-13T00:36:00.000-07:00

Midnight, and goodbye to TV, at least for a while. I didn't listen to all the advice, but called Comcast, figuring it would be easier just to have them come and plug me in. However, they came and couldn't find the plug, as every inch of my room is covered with bookcases and desks. So the giant with the arm full of cable simply attached two pieces together, put a plug on the end (oh, if only it had been so easy to work with when I was building electronic equipment for Bert!) and told me to keep looking and just plug one end into the TV and one into the wall. I emptied out two whole drawers of my writing, moving stuff to boxes I had bought for just that, pulled out the drawers under my main desk, where the phone jack is located -- Horrors, no cable jack!!! So, now I must ask our manager if she knows where the cable jack is, or I must start pulling out everything and look for it myself. I haven't the strength for that, having moved all those boxes full of typing paper (no, they call it something else now...computer paper or something) one day and helped my home health care worker turn my mattress the next. Isn't life jolly? Well...I'm not missing much, as the summer TV is absolutely the worst batch of sh*t I have ever seen. I shall miss the PBS afternoon news and Craig Ferguson, but that is about it. I shall now have Terry Gross with my dinner and the BBC news all night on radio and Fiona chatting with Dougie MacLean on Saturday. If I hear of anything spectacular on TV, which I doubt, I can go watch it on a friend's TV. The best part of it is, however, that I now HAVE to write in the evening, the time when I am the most creative, and when Ms.Katt is snoozing and leaving me alone.

But am I writing any of the things I SHOULD be writing (family stories, poetry, short stories, half-completed novels?). Of course not, I am working hard at procrastinating, as usual. So with that said, I shall say goodnight and go to bed, as tomorrow is an early day. much too early. Ah, well.......

In Memory of Jessie, my mother

2009-06-08T04:15:00.000-07:00

And Who Are You?

“Where is Betty Rae?” she’d say,
Or, “Are you Georgie?”
She so often called me
By either of my sister’s names.

It had little to do with who I was,
For she had mixed us up
Since our early childhood,
And we’d laugh at the confusion.

This was nothing new for Jessie,
Calling out a name, then,
Asking why we had come,
Then asking where the other was.

It was funny then, when we were young,
So how could it be a tragedy
Now that both of us were old,
And she was simply confused--as usual.

Peggy Cartwright, 6/8/09

An Evening of Delight

2009-06-08T03:37:00.000-07:00

I have just spent the evening watching the "Tony Awards," and discovered that I knew two or three of the people who died this year, but then, at my age that is to be assumed. I spent the evening laughing and crying, as I usually do when watching the superb cast of Broadway actors and actresses, some so familiar, others quite new to me. Almost made me miss living in NYC, and being able to attend the theatre... although I don't know that I could afford it now. When I lived there I had friends in most of the shows and had comps a great deal... then I could afford it.

I am so fond of the Tony's, as I spent several years as a kid working with the Pittsburgh Playhouse ... primarily backstage, but our director, Mr. Burleigh, forced me on stage a few times, where I almost died of stage fright every night. Regrettably, my family would not let me go to the U of Washington at Seattle to theatre school, in spite of Mr. Burleigh's approbation that I study to become a director, as I worked as his stage manager when still in high school. But no, I was to become the family artist, said my parents, always before so proud of the way they allowed us to make our own decisions. Well, I seem to have passed the artist gene on to my middle grandchild, while turning to my mother's hobby of writing as my final career.

The big thing that made me elated tonight: The win of the revival of the musical that I recall made me... and a good deal of the country... feel that maybe, just maybe, things were looking up for a tired old US. I think that for a few of us that feeling is back, and "Hair" is the perfect revival for us. Being a sort of older hippy myself at the time of "Hair"... and having spent the 'summer of love' in San Francisco, I remember the feeling of so many people that this was the dawning of the Age of Aquarias... and that change was coming... that things would 'get better'... I think that the final days of the bush administration had people holding their breath in the same way, waiting for the bush gang to leave, and praying that we would have change and a better life as we all chanted "Yes We Can"... But it is going to take time to rebuild a country that those guys had eight years of work at ruining... and Amuricuns want instant and perfect change. It will come... and in the meantime, at least they can go and see "Hair" and relive all that joyus nonsense.

Ah well..... as the songs all say so well: I am what I am.... before the parade passes by...... kiss the day goodbye and point me toward tomorrow....... let the sun shine..... let the sun shine in...... the su-un shine in. C|:-)

Birthdays

2009-06-06T21:37:00.000-07:00

Today, June icks, as she used to say as a baby, was my older sister Elizabeth Rae Cartwright Rodd's birthday. Many in my family seem cursed with being born on days when never-to-be-forgotten things happened. Betty Rae, the name by which I knew her best when we were young together, was one of them, her birthday became D-Day, and her birthday never to be forgotten by any of us. Every year, as the radio, TV and papers are full of stories about D-Day, I can only think of my dear older sister and wish that I could pick up the phone and call her to wish her a happy birthday, as I did every year when she was alive. I have been remembering the last birthday celebration I spent with her. It was in Morgantown, West Virginia, where she and all of her seven children lived. They had all migrated there to join my nephew Tom Rodd, and were all at that birthday. We sat outside, and I cannot remember which house she was in then. P.B. Burgwin had come down from Pittsburgh, and the kids had gone out to some farm and picked strawberries, and I think I can still taste how delicious they were right from the farm...buckets full of them. I have never been able to understand people who put sugar on strawberries, and those would have been ruined by sugar. They were ripe, sweet and perfectly delicious. We had perfect weather for an outdoor party that day, but then, we almost always had perfect weather for Bets' birthday. Well, what else for the one person in the family referred to as "The Saint." She was that, I can only remember her being cross to me twice in my life, and I deserved both. So, Happy Birthday, Betty Rae, if I never told you how much I loved you.....well, I do now.

As to the other two who had the bad luck to have been born on historical days....my poor son Mark James was born on the day that JFK was shot, November 23, never to be forgotten. I can still remember walking along under the el in the rain in Chicago on that fateful day, long before Mark was born, so upset and confused that I hardly knew where I was going. And I was born on another miserable day, long, long before the events of that day, on September 11. I don't need to tell anyone the kind of reaction I get when I tell anyone my date of birth. No one ever forgets my birthday, at any rate. Funny, I have never used that fact in a poem, perhaps this year...ah, well...

Single payer health care

2009-05-23T20:29:00.000-07:00

I just spent half the day writing to Obama, Biden and the people in the administration asking me to be a team leader to promote the health care insurance that now seems to be their new plan.

Well, it is NOT MY PLAN. I am not pushing for anything but SINGLE PAYER health care system. We should have the same type of health care that every other civilized country in the world has. No matter what the republicans say, there is no more 'long waiting time' in Canada or G.B. than there is in this country...if you need immediate surgery you get it. This I know because of friends in both places. If you can wait, you may have to because of the people who need immediate care.

I now have to disagree with our President. We must get rid of the insurance companies who are ruining our health care system, and go to single payer. I don't care that you feel that you cannot 'start from scratch' and therefore can't change the present system. You can END from scratch..... end the dreadful way they treat the people who are paying outrageous sums of money for poor care...for 'care' that is getting worse every day. The only way I can explain is to show the difference between the 'care' given to my daughter, who supposedly has one of the best plans -- and her friend in Canada, who has government health care.

My daughter Whitney had breast cancer approximately a year ago. The doctor actually botched the operation and had to open her up a second time to get the last bit of cancer out (anyone else would have sued, she didn't). She had only three (3) days in hospital... that seems to be all they allow except for someone who can't get out of bed or is dying. She went back to work almost immediately, during her chemo and radiation.... why... because there was no coverage for REST (how DARE she do that!) and she needed the pay to pay off the $30,000 she had to pay out of pocket for something that wasn't covered, of course. She is still pale, wan, thin and tired, while her friend in Canada is back to her old self, feeling fine, because she was COVERED.

I will not rest until the nurses and doctors and patients who want SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE are heard at the same hearings where ALL the INSURANCE COMPANIES and partisan republican organizations ARE HEARD. American Heritage indeed!!! They were there... with their one-sided argument, of course. Haven't the insurance companies built themselves enough buildings and over-paid their executives enough?

Difficult day

2009-05-23T19:47:00.000-07:00

Yes, Barry, life is not fair. That phrase was said to me so many times by my old friend Barry... whose death occurred (as I drove by the town in which he died) the year I moved to California in my motor home, hoping to find him out here. All of my old friends here were long gone. Today I discovered that my friend Chuji from my SeniorNet days is gone...just a short time after the death of my darling 'big brother' Bud. Now I have just written an email to another old friend, and I am praying it doesn't come back as so many have. 'Where have all the flowers gone?'

My darling 'housekeeper' spends a great deal of time consoling me. I'm beginning to feel like my dear little mother-in-law (who was SO much nicer than ANY of her children), who loved to dance. She used to go to a ballroom in Chicago and dated younger and younger men as the old partners died off....I think she was down to one in his late 50s when she died at around 90, still dancing. They said they found her in her bed....I can't believe that -- she died dancing.....

I'm not dancing, but I have to keep moving, Jessie was a great believer in the "keep moving or they might catch up with you..." school of thought, and taught us to run along side her as she moved speedily through life. Must have really upset her to spend her last year with me sitting in one place most of the time. Just as it upsets me not to be able to find so many of the SeniorNet people. I know my friend Evan is gone. He died just as I found out that he had gone to Ashville, N.C. So I just missed him also. Seems to be the story of my life....people go as soon as I finally find out where they are. Wonder if anyone is looking for me, and I will go just as they find me.

Goodbye Grandma Joan, Evan, Chuji, Bud, Jessie, Barry and all the rest.....I miss you a LOT! ah, well.........

'I Get Carried.....Yes Carried Away....'

2009-05-15T22:16:00.000-07:00

And now just musings and nonsense and politics oh my......

Amusing NYTimes headline in ‘Business’: ‘Weekend Without Bernie” (pic of Madoff)

Also interesting in article in same about healthcare:

<<< Mr. Luntz advised Republicans to show they “understand and empathize” with voters’ concerns about soaring health costs. “You simply must be vocally and passionately on the side of reform,” he wrote.

He urged Republicans to argue that the Democratic plan would “deny people treatments they need and make them wait to get the treatments they are allowed to receive.”

Mr. Luntz recommended this language: “If you have to wait weeks for tests and months for treatment, that’s a health care crisis.” >>>
(you will not find this in Canada, no matter what 'they' say....my daughter owns a home in Canada and her friend who had breast cancer at almost the same time that she did had much better care, faster service, and longer stay in hospital then she did....and paid nothing for it, while my daughter, who had "excellent healthcare" through her company, paid over $30,000 of her own money for her op and care.) This 'excellent' care failed a bit. They left a tiny bit of the cancer in, and had to operate again, shortly after her first operation. She worked all during the chemo sessions she had after the op, and during the radiation they recommended, as she had to pay off that $30,000. Oh, and she had to wait some time for the operation (probably longer than her friend in Canada).

And here are the final sentences of an article entitled: ‘Democrats Uneasy Over National Security Policy ‘:

<<< “This is going to be a problem from now, through the big bill, through the next year,” he said, adding that discontent will grow if the situation worsens in Iraq or Afghanistan or if there are further events like the killings of five American soldiers by a fellow American that underscore the severe strain on the troops.

“The public is not focused on the war at all,” Mr. Murtha said. “But they are going to be focused on it if it goes bad.” >>>

Then this, close to my feeling.....the ‘gun lobby’ scare hell out of me
“Whose Senate Is This? “ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/opinion/14thu3.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

And do read this one: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/opinion/15Francese.html?em
About diploma Latin -- not the Latin of my or your childhood. Fun.

I have a few things to say to Garrison Keillor, Op-ed contributor, whose article is “We Are What We Are”.........
My dear mother had one thing to say about old men, when, after my father died and her friends urged her to get out and meet other men:
Jessie: “Really, I cannot stand OLD men, they cough and spit!” Somehow I cannot see Noel Coward doing that....but that’s just me. And I do prefer younger men....or those who MUST know everything....they are my favourites.

Of course, I can turn to ‘Broadway’ and all the comments on the Tony Awards. Ye gods....”Hair” has been revived. And “Mary Stuart” and “The Norman Conquests” -- and “Waiting for Godot?” Sometimes I do wish I were back in NYC....but I should have to BUY tickets, while when I was living there so many years ago, I simply had to call someone I knew who was in the cast. ("Waiting for Godot???")

I found an ancient “Best Plays” volume recently that listed plays in which at least ten of my friends were working. I guess I just miss them...Perry, you never should have quit! ah, well.

Same Day, My Later Look

2009-05-15T18:36:00.000-07:00

A good cry is good for me, but in the end, I am the eternal optimist. Things have to look up, they can't go much lower than at the end of the worst administration this country has ever had. Granted, cheney seems to wish that, but old uncle dick is out of power now, thank god.

I listened to Andy Stern, union leader, on Charlie Rose's show the other night. Sensible man, and I agree with him. Why can't we do it the Japanese way and pay the CEO (who often is not doing the company any good) the way they do, by indexing pay...so that he can only make so much more percentage- wise than the employee with the least pay in the company. Of course the percentage will be in hundreds or thousands.....but not the billions it is now. Not like the more and more billions each year that the WalMart heirs make, while the people who toil in the stores are still on minimum wage. I guess I am basically a pure Socalist and believe in evening out the pay scales. As I doubt that many people will read this, I don't worry about being attacked. Remember, I said PURE, not greedy, or communist, etc., etc. Look it up...go ahead!

At any rate I, the optimist, wrote the following in December of 2008:

MY Turn?

There it was...coming fast,
The Turn of the Century. The 21st Century
Weren't we all doing well? Everyone,
Working, buying homes, living it up,
Let the good times roll --Le bon temps roulez,
As though the good times would never end.

Then came the sharp turn into 2000.
Right into the meanest and cruelest
Eight years of slowly going downhill,
Swamped in times of misery:
Technically, politically, we were being bled dry.
We suffered, wondering if this new century
Could break hearts, minds and lives.
Our once great nation was beseiged,
Broken by a needless, unholy war,
The silent, secret greed of our 'leaders,'
We were locked in a miasma of ignorance
That saw the laws of our Founding Fathers,
The wisdom of the Constitution,
Thrown aside and trampled,
While those who loved our Republic
Despaired.

Now I feel a rise of hope, the spirit of "Yes We Can."
On January 20, 2009, we shall have a new chance,
A new turn for our New Century.
Now a chance to leave the old, bad years behind
Together to revive our besiged country,
To rebuild our tired nation in a real New Century.
It will take hard work from all of us,
Our leaders and all our citizens.
I can only hope we are all as ready as I
To work, perhaps to suffer, for our country.
For now it is MY turn, Your turn...Our turn
To rebuild Our country in our New Century.

©2009 Peggy Cartwright

Anti-war Better Than Mine...

2009-05-15T17:44:00.000-07:00

I never particularly liked Bob Dylan...always felt he was just imitating Woodie Guthrie (they all copied Woodie) whom I adore (love Arlo also), but this song is one I wish I had written:

With God On Our Side

Oh my name it is nothin'
My age it means less
the country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I's taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And the land that I live in
Has God on its side.

Oh the history books tell it
They tell it so well
The cavalries charged
The Indians fell
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
Oh the country was young
With God on its side.

The Spanish-American
War had its day
And the Civil War too
Was soon laid away
And the names of the heroes
I's made to memorize
With guns in their hands
And God on their side.

The First World War, boys
It came and it went
The reason for fighting
I never did get
But I learned to accept it
Accept it with pride
For you don't count the dead
When God's on your side.

When the Second World War
Came to an end
We forgave the Germans
And then we were friends
Though they murdered six million
In the ovens they fried
The Germans now too
Have God on their side.

I've learned to hate Russians
All through my whole life
If another war comes
It's them we must fight
To hate them and fear them
To run and to hide
And accept it all bravely
With God on my side.

But now we got weapons
Of the chemical dust
If fire them we're forced to
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God's on your side.

In a many dark hour
I've been thinkin' about this
That Jesus Christ
Was betrayed by a kiss
But I can't think for you
You'll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side.

So now as I'm leavin'
I'm weary as hell
The confusion I'm feelin'
Ain't no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
If god's on our side
he'll stop the next war.

© Bob Dylan

So I leave you in tears of rage, with no one to blame for we are all to blame, I fear, for who is so perfect as not to be at some time? Not I.

Spring, Ah Spring

2009-05-04T22:47:00.000-07:00

Good heavens, here it is May already. Oh to be in England sped right by...I must have missed it. Yep, I made the mistake of signing up for certain political articles from the New York Times -- here I sit, reading the articles, then looking over at the OpEd, follow that to the original they are writing about....and on and on, as more articles pop up every time I go back to the mailbox. Why can't the writers at the NYTimes just write a bit slower. I cannot keep up. I have now fallen in love with several of them. Why? I suppose because they always agree with me. And I thought I was getting even more radical than Jessie...or has the whole world fiinally begun to 'get it.'

But why are our children not back from Iraq? Another CA boy died yesterday. It is not right...well, yes it is because of the 'right.' Those nasty old members of PNAC who planned this horrible war way before they put their little patsy into the White House,, using the far right wing, the religious right and the right-wing talk shows. They are all weak now -- why can't we just end their war and bring home the children, so that a whole generation of poor unfortunates are not wiped out.

A cab driver told me a very sad story today. He said that his brother-in-law bought something in a convenience store for $6.50. Needing some change, he gave the kid a $20 bill, a dollar and fifty cents. The kid looked confused, so the man said, "Just give me $15 in change." To which the kid replied, "I don't have any fifteen dollar bills." That story and Jay Leno's "Jay Walking" when he interviews kids on the street, asking them questions anyone in my generation would laugh at if we were asked...and they don't ever know the answers. They can't identify a photo of Bill Clinton, or any of the Senators...yet they can sing any of the current 'cute' advertising jungles. Oh lordy, how I hope Obama can fix our educational system. Anybody out there know a kid with a high school education who can name all the states in the U.S.? I used to make up special homework for my son....and he could! His teacher let him get away with naming five--not me.

I take cabs quite often and am impressed with the use of the English language by all of the guys from all over the world who drive the cabs. Yet our children can barely speak their own language as well as these immigrants. Many of them speak several languages. I love sitting on a bus in SF and listening to all the different languages, and hope that the children are learning the language of their parents. I remember years ago talking to Kaye Ballard (whose parents came from Italy). She told me that when she was a kid she was ashamed of their speaking Italian and constantly told her mother to speak English. Sadly, when she grew up and had the money to travel, she had to go to a school to learn to speak Italian. "I coulda learned at home," she wailed.

I did rather badly in my years of French classes in school, primarily because I didn't like the teachers. I was one of those kids who made a C or below when I didn't like the teacher, and straight As when I did. But, when I did finally get to Europe and went to Paris, the Frnech found my dreadful attempts to speak to them quite charming, and usually simply switched to English to speak with me -- after all, they had all had English lessons in school. I lived in the Netherlands for six months, where I found Fielding's (travel book) comment about the Dutch very true: "Every man, woman, child, dog and cat speaks and understands English." And not just English, they also speak French, German, Spanish and often many more languages.

Finally, yesterday was Pete Seeger's 90th birthday. Happy Birthday, Pete. I was in tears often as I listened to a radio tribute to him on KALW, our local Public Radio station. Here's my take:

"When Will They Ever Learn"

I have wondered the same, Pete,
As the tears trickle down my cheek,
Caught by the tenth damp tissue,
Listening to you and many others
Sing and lecture and sing, sing, sing
Even I, who technically cannot sing,
Find a tiny voice inside of me
That joins in, becoming louder
As always when I hear you and
Arlo, Bruce and so many others
Sing out in protest, the protest
We have sung and talked about
Since both you and I were young.
Tomorrow is your 90th birthday
And maybe, just maybe, we have
A man in the White House, someone
Who finally must have listened to us
Well Pete, Happy Birthday at 90
We can only hope, can’t we?

LOST really lost.....

2009-04-22T22:37:00.000-07:00

I was a big fan of LOST on ABC-TV since the beginning. But now I am furious with them. For the last couple of weeks they have been advertising an "All NEW episode of LOST on Earth Day, April 22! Yipee! At last. After watching show after show full of patches of new once in awhile, but a lot of stuff I'd seen over and over...finally, a new show. So what was it.....simply a COMPLETE RE-RUN of old stuff I had seen at least once and some more than once. If they have no writers or no new ideas, perhaps they should simply ask the listeners/watchers for some ideas. Or HIRE NEW WRITERS! I am considering giving up completely.....if I could find the island, I'd just blow it up. Who cares -- hey, maybe that's what they will do on their last show this year, coming soon. But I suppose we will have to watch a complete recap first, so I may just miss it entirely.

No sense trying to tell ABC-TV about my feelings. They have a cute little line that says 'contact us' but when you hit it, it tells you to go to ABC-TV.com, which then goes back to ABC-TV 'contact us.' I have never been taken around in so many circles as I have at ABCTV.

Is Everyone My Age Dead?

2009-04-16T22:10:00.000-07:00

I was listening to Terry Gross a couple of days ago, and she was talking to and about Margaret Whiting...and I wondered if she is alive still. She and her manager used to come into my restaurant in Old Town, Chicago and drink coffee and eat ice cream.. I did make great ice cream things.... I had New York style hot fudge, so I got all the New Yorkers....dark, dark chocolate. The midwestern people like milk chocolate...yuck! Everyone also loved my chocolate-mint sodas...no wonder I am a rather large person now....dark chocolate and mint ice cream....ummmmm. Have another of those 'Bliss' chocolates....don't mind if I do. No wonder Margaret W. loved singing "Too Marvelous For Words"....anyone can sing it....even I can sing it...and I can't sing. Never could sing poor Whitney to sleep.....she used to say, "Don't sing mummy....please don't sing, it hurts my ears." And I know the words to every song from WWI to date...no, I wasn't around during WWI, but Aunt Nellie and Uncle George had an old wind-up Victrola with dozens of records and I played them over and over all the time I was visiting there. Used to go up to the 'ballroom' on the top floor and slide around the lovely smooth wood floor.

All the rest of them.....all gone.....Langston Hughes, who put up with all the questions from a silly little girl; Ned Travis, who didn't, but wound up my friend later; Max Showalter who hung out at our house when he was in "My Sister Eileen"...and the adorable Greek kid who was one of the 'Brazilian Navy;' all the artists (whose names I have to search in dusty corners of my mind to remember....who encouraged me to keep drawing and painting...after all, I presented a lovely drawing of a penguin to Admiral Byrd when I was five; Gladys Schmitt, who encouraged me in my writing, while I typed "David the King" for her; all the crazy people from the Pittsburgh Playhouse...strike parties with Gene and Fred Kelly teaching us dance steps...Mr. Burleigh barking out orders and me throwing up before going on......and they are all gone now, leaving me alone, like the last person alive...even Barry and Jan gone, both a year younger than I.

Well, I guess that's what happens when you get dropped. even if it's not on your head....all the people from your past go marching by saying, 'Well, what did you expect....got yourself into it didn't you.....nobody's fault but your own..........' am I blue...you'd be too..... Ah, well...........

Neglecting again...

2009-04-07T21:51:00.000-07:00

Here it is April...that overdone month...April in Paris....Oh to be in England, now that April's there ...and on and on. But I shall never forget getting on the BOAC plane at Ohare in the snow and slush and looking down as we went into Gatwick at the green everywhere on April 1...then gazing out as we took the tube into the City at all the green lawns and gardens before we rushed into the tunnel. London even smelled like Spring that year, and was so beautiful to see again that I cried...but then, I'm one of those weepers...sad, happy, whenever. Sometimes I'm not even sure.....

Ah, and I at last beginning to find and join websites that might help me in my writing...that are in some way related at least. I joined Twitter, although I have no reason why and my only 'followers' are people who are selling something or themselves (as in Tony Robbins and other similar types). I did find Mark Bittman at the nytimes.com website...I LOVE that man. I am going to make crackers ....he taught me how. He cooks like I do...combining all sorts of things he has in the fridge....well, maybe he doesn't and just puts his there, but that is what I do. I just pulled a piece of frozen salmon out of my freezer, opened up the aluminium, added a sliced up small onion, some herbs scronged from neighbor's gardens, a bit of soy sauce, some Maggie sauce and some wine, wrapped it back up and put in the oven, while on the stove I was cooking some fresh noodles and carrot slices given to me yesterday. Put them both into a big wide, flattish bowl, so the sauce blended into the noodles and congratulated me on the great meal, just as Mark Bittman does. As my old nursemaid Mary Phykos used to say: "Mine gott, how I can cook!" We old types in this building are so lucky, we are constantly given all sorts of food.

Well, to get back to the topic....I found another great blogging area that seems to be for creative people. I was led there by a dear little girl who is a new knitter and making sox has her knitting feverishly. I am on the writing site WEbook, but a couple of days ago I found another interesting writing site...eScribe. There is not enough time in the day now, as I am looking madlly at the knitting sites, beading sites, writing sites.....and on and on, and no time to actually DO anything. ...and I really must make something for the grandchildren, who are going to have birthdays very soon.....all three of them. I shall have to work very hard and get something done. I promised Bella that I would make her a beautiful purple sweater, and I MUST do it. Then I have to make something for the other two, or they will be upset with me.

Of course, I am also in sort of a state of depression, as my guy has disappeared once again, without a word, of course. I realize that he is going through hell....lost job, lost savings that were in his 401k,,,,lost house, as court must have been on the big lawyer's side...but he should know that I don't care if he is penniless...I love him, not his STUFF! I guess guys never realize that.

I also found a free place to look for new friends (mine are dying off or disappearing fast) that is called 'plentyoffish'....so I put a bio in for fun. Actually, I have been trying for YEARS to find a writing partner.....or even someone who could write and perform music for my poetry....or one who could illustrate my books.....which is really something I should be doing for myself, but I am getting so lazy....and writing all alone is often such a chore. I shouldn't say that, as I sometimes feel that someone is writing through me, as it comes out so fast and furiously when I sit down and start to write. I've had no trouble writing the 3-day novels for Labour Day....although I am no good at throwing in f**k you....or other lovely phrases every page or two. I seem to be able to write a whole novel without swearing at all.....I guess that is boring to the younger generation, but I don't really write for them.....hell, I write for me. There....a swear word in my blog!

And with that I shall end this one, and perhaps get down to work for a change. Ah, well...........

Yes, M'am, I am Keeping at It!

2009-03-23T03:54:00.000-07:00

Having finished off the cashew nuts, I am no longer interesting to Sylvia Katt, so she has gone to bed, as should I -- oh, dear, there is that 'should' again, the word my psychiatrist friend says not to say. Well, I'm obviously not going to do it, as I am still here typing. Ah, yes, to think I started my working career typing "David the King" for Gladys Schmitt (who actually praised my work), and now I end up typing away daily at the end of my life. I wish I had Mrs.Schmitt here to cook for me. She was a wonderful woman and a great cook. All of the Schmitts were tall and thin, in spite of the fact that they ate like hungry wolves. I ate half of what they did, but I was always the last one at table, as I am a very slow eater. Guess it was my grandmother's fault, she insisted that I CHEW.

I really started out with something to say, but I cannot remember what it was. I had a nice note from the Geek Goddess today...she said her book has a lot of things that are Mac useable. I must get a copy and see. I am still angry with Apple for charging for the basic office stuff with the new Intel chip computers. Also, I cannot use my favorite program on my new Mac (PageMaker) as they didn't upgrade it to System 10. Quite unfair. Happily I could transfer my AppleWorks to the new computer or I would have been up the creek, as all my writing is on this. It is nice though that there are many free programs that one can use. Though I do miss SuperPaint also. Ye gods, I am stuck in the 90s....I, who taught so many people to use the Mac, am suddenly in need of someone to help ME out. I do wish Connie, whom I taught to use the Mac over long-distance to Chicago, would come out and teach me all the complicated things she now knows.

Well, now as I lie in bed, hoping for sleep, I think I shall discuss the next plans for what I am to do -- with myself, of course. I have discovered a great many craft sites online and have a longing to get back to making and designing new things with my healed hands. But I really must get all my books catalogued before I expire. My darling Elvira, who comes to take care of my household on Tues, Thurs and Friday, has been doing a magnificent job of 'finding' things I had forgotten I have, and is such a great help to me, as is my dear Ana, who comes on Sat. and washes my hair. Sylvia doesn't like her, probably because she fusses over me. SylviaKatt hates most people tho, as she is a rather nasty, spoiled brat. Ana doesn't give a damn, luckily. Ah.....well......

A Few Foolish Notes.....

2009-03-19T00:16:00.000-07:00

I just finished skimming a few "Why start a blog" notes from someone who blogs constantly. Have to go through them (long, long) later and find out why. I still don't know why I did. But then, I have said most of my life that I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up, and I am an ancient person. So, as Craig Ferguson always says, "Well, what did we learn tonight?"

I learned that I cannot STAND condi rice, who is nattering on to David Rose behind me. I should just turn then off I suppose, but let her continue to tell him how brilliant she is...I know she isn't in SO many ways. I love all her 3 and 4 syllable words, though. Anyone who can stare someone in the eyes and say georgie-poo is a brilliant man, has either a rather small brain or really knows how to lie easily.

I learned about a type of knitting I did not know about...and I have been knitting since I was about six years old -- but then, I think I try to learn something new every day, and usually do.

I learned that Pocahantas means a rotten, spoiled, annoying little brat, and that the woman we know as Pocahantas (if that is the spelling) had another name, but her father renamed her. I guess she annoyed him greatly. However, I further learned that she was a big wheel in her tribe, and her father was training her for greatness. Seems that the native Americans were much more sensible than we civilized people, and believed that women had brains and could become leaders. So there....and there were quite a few women who were tribal leaders. God knows we are tougher than men....they could never live through having a baby, after all.

I learned that sending my housekeeper to Costco for a large container of instant coffee is a very good idea.....well sending her there for wine and cashew nuts and almost anything is a good idea. She has managed to save me quite a bit of money recently, including today.

Now I shall click off Condi and David, and turn to good old Craig, whom I adore. That lovely Scotish accent, although not Edinburgh like my family, sounds so luvly. Goodness, the computer accepted 'luvly!' It didn't like Pocahantas and redlined it. As usual...AH well......

Monday, poetry group, Tues. St. Patrick's Day

2009-03-17T02:47:00.000-07:00

But I, I fear, am an Orange(wo)man, so I shall simply review the Monday poetry group...and perhaps my aging, drooping eyes, which bother me, particularly on a late night such as this one.

At the poetry group I read my poem with the longest title ever done there or by me. It wound up being nine lines, but not longer than the poem, as one I did was. I think that was the one about the Scarlett Pimpernel (always loved him). Poor Bristol is being talked about on the news behind me. I suppose I should write about her, but I cannot stand those Palin white trash.

When I was quite young I met many writers and poets through my mother and her wide circle of friends...I think the one I remember best was Langston Hughes, whom I adored. He wrote out one of my favorites of his poems for me. It is called Epitaph and is very short and funny:
Tell all my mourners to mourn in red
'Cause there ain't no sense in my being dead.

He was a dear, sweet little man and I loved talking to him. He was also very kind to spend so much time chatting with a most unsophisticated sixteen year old child...but he did.

Another of my favorite poets was Eve Merriam...here is my favorite of hers (from 1943):

The Coward

You, weeping wide at war, weep with me now
Cheating a little at peace, come near
And let us cheat together here.

Look at my guilt, mirror of my shame.
Deserter, I will not turn you in,
I am your trembling twin.

Afraid, our double knees lock in knocking fear
Running from the guns, we tumble upon each other.
Hide in my lap of terror, I am your mother.

Only two, and yet our howling
Can encircle the world's end.
Frightened, you are my only friend

And frightened we are, every one.
Someone must take a stand
Coward take my coward's hand.

I dissolve in tears each time I read this. I somehow, from somewhere, memorized the last two stanzas of this poem long ago, and it took me years to find the rest. Now it is engraved on my heart, all of it. I have written many anti-war poems, but none as perfect as this one. I wish I could have met Eve Merriam, but sadly I never did.

New Day, New Year, New Life?

2009-03-07T22:59:00.000-08:00

Funny, I felt that when Obama walked into the White House, it would be the real beginning of the new century, and a wonderful change for our country, not thinking about any new anything for me. Yesterday, however, I came to the realization that March day was the beginning of a new life for me. I have been foolishly going along in my life for the last seven years, thinking I had found a new life, but that seems to have ended yesterday. Now I'm alone, on my own and I had certainly better realize it and shape up to it. I have foolishly lived on wishes, wants and dreams, hopes and promises, but they disappeared in one tiny note yesterday, but not the Beatles yesterday. I shall not ever depend on anyone else again. I think I have learned my lesson.

Unfortunately, learning seems to have made me not only quite ill, but also vaguely agaraphobic. I do not want to leave my apartment, nor do I want to do all of the things I 'should be' doing. I'm a writer, but I don't want to write; I'm a knitter but I don't want to knit; I'm a crocheter with a huge unfinished afghan, but I don't want to crochet; I don't feel like eating; I can't seem to sleep; the sun was shining all day, but I sat here staring at my computer; I can't even google any of the things I usually want to know about. Forget the 'should do'....I can't even get to the 'must do.' Is this then a return to depressioor simply me acting like a silly teenager. I may never know.

In the meantime, I shall attempt a poem to cover the moment, and just quit.......

HOW CAN I HURT YOU, LET ME COUNT THE WAYS...

The promises swirl around my head,
The memories so strong in my mind,
The big, beautiful voice saying “I love you...”

The sweet, long, loving daily letters,
The sincerity of each precious word,
The adoring signature saying, “I love you...”

The coming together in delighted love,
The words that followed so excitedly,
The now new signature saying, “I adore you...”

The disappearance from my world,
The subtle change, less wording weekly,
“Hi’ not “Dear” -- “Bye” not “I love you...”

The short unhappy note and then gone,
The final nothing, “I’d better get to work...”
Oddly enough, a signature saying, “I love you...”

Now isn’t that just the joke of the century?

Can't resist answering this post

2009-03-04T02:47:00.000-08:00

I found the following post on an AOL 'News' board supposedly on Iraq war:

But don't you see, Erik? It wasn't Bush's recession. Or Clintons'. Or Reagans even, it was the work of the supposably 'smartest guys in the room' that ran roughshod over our financial institutions for decades. A house of cards that just happened to come down when it did. It was the world's greatest Ponzi scheme and the perpetrator walked off with billions. Legally! And throwing good money after bad is just going to sink us deeper and deeper. Its' going to be horrible.

My answer to this and other things she wrote that were similar and/or anti-Obama:

I am absolutely fascinated that ANYONE could imagine that Bernie Madoff is responsible for the horrible crash of our once great country. He just managed to steal all the money he could from a bunch of loyal and appreciative fellow Jews who thought they were getting a 12% return on their money. Small part of the larger market, I'd say.

The REST of the ruin of the country is certainly not anything to do with Barack Obama, who is trying desperately to rebuild a country that was DELIBERATELY RUINED by the bush gang and all their friends in PNAC. Go take a look at the PNAC directives, and you will see what their plans were. They were formed during the Clinton administration to 'get' Bill Clinton and turn the country back over to the repoops. They carefully chose a patsy with a name and a family they knew they could get big funding from and with, those rotten bush people. cheney, wolfy, rummy, kristol and all the rest (you'll find their names on their papers in PNAC, if you have the wits to read all that junk--I doubt that, I know bamma can't understand any of it). The idea, as you can see if you do manage to read their stuff, was to RUIN the country, all the while making sure that laws went through to get most of the money in the U.S. into the hands of the top 2% of the money people here. You know the kind of thing...no more taxes for the top money people...that sort of cute little idea, plus all the rest of the stuff snuck in during the bush gang's admin. As that rotten administration walked out of the White House and into that helicopter -- a lot more rotten than Nixon, too -- they laughed as they left the new administration with the worst mess we have ever had in our country.

Surely you don't think that the mess was 'made' suddenly during the first few days of the Obama administration. SURELY you cannot be that stupid (although DOLwhatever seems to be...his English and spelling are not those of anyone with an education -- about the same as bamma's) -- how long has Obama been in office? MOST of what is going on in Washington was done LONG before Obama came into the picture.,,.it was carefully planned primarily by cheney, kristol and wolfowitz even before they had chosen their patsy, bush, to run in that illegal election (well the finish was illegal). First and second.....thank god most people won't use those lovely touch- screen machines in elections anymore.

So, stop being so stupid and READ a bit more about what is going on in Washington and you will see that the present administration is trying as hard as they possibly can to rebuild a country that the bush gang deliberately RUINED for fun and profit. If you think it was a fun admin, more the pity for you, as you are not (I KNOW) one of the 2% who now have their filthy hands on 90% of all the money in this country. It is their fault, and that of the bush gang that the stock market is going crazy and the country is in the toilet. Let's hope that Obama and his INTELLIGENT FRIENDS can get us back on track or you too will be out on the street begging for scraps from the tables of the super wealthy.

And this is from a descendant of one of the Founding Fathers who has never had a moment of being poor and discriminated against -- but who, like the Roosevelts, has a love of her country and its people and wants to see everyone happy, healthy and well fed. Thank god Obama came along when he did, or we would certainly have fallen and become that third world nation. Now shut up and get out there and volunteer -- and let's get this country back on track again. I'm old, but I'm still volunteering.....and working like mad to help others.

Hmmmmm...

2009-03-04T02:08:00.000-08:00

Just spent some time working on my 'profile,' getting all the 'interests' in, then checking on others. I know, the backwards way of doing it, but, I just thought I'd check and see if there is anyone in San Francisco around my age. The old circle of friends begins to shrink as one ages, and most of my old friends are gone. Either dead or moved away or been dragged to some child's home, to rot without old friends. Not me -- they take me out of here in a very small box of my ashes, which will be placed in some Egyptian containers and handed out to family at the memorial a younger friend has planned for me (I wrote a lovely poem for her to read to my children and friends). Too bad I can't be there -- or as Woody Allen puts it, "I don't mind dying, I just don't want to be there when it happens." Gloria and I once planned a memorial for a friend of hers who was a comedian. We looked up all the funny quotes and jokes about dying and she read those. It was hilarious -- he would have loved it.

Carried away once more. After clicking on 'San Francisco' to see if there were ANY bloggers in my age group, I discovered a rather interesting thing: the average age of SF bloggers seems to be 22 -- definitely quite a bit younger than I -- and didn't see any over around 57. Yep, that's what I find on the street, in bars, everywhere. I've about given up...the younger crowd are not into chatting up an old lady, and older men are looking for all those 22 year old girls -- those fools.

Next I shall turn to 'interests' to see if there are any aging poets in the area, as my poetry group is dying off also, and we need some new blood...oh, we are not equipped with fangs....we are simply looking for a few new poets. We meet on Mondays at 1pm, and read in the beautiful Yerba Buena Gardens a couple of times in the summer during the Summer in the Park Festival.

Now that I think about it, perhaps I should be writing this in Craig's List...and I must remember this summer to invite Craig. He is literary I know -- I met him at one of the Litquake things.

How to be a Poet and Still Live a "Normal" Life...

2009-02-28T01:00:00.000-08:00

I suppose I could get rid of the cat,
so I don’t have her jumping on my lap
every time I attempt to use the computer,
but unfortunately she seems to think
that this is her house, and I belong to her.
I suppose I could just turn off the TV
but then I wouldn’t know what terrible
things the republicans are doing, or
what President Obama and Cabinet and
Rahm Emanual and all the rest of them
are doing to make them laughing stocks.
(Oh, right, they’re doing that to themselves!)
I suppose I could (and usually do)
just say ‘uh huh’ over and over to
the poor women who are making coffee
and tea and cleaning my apartment,
as they discuss all their woes with me,
or at least as they think they are doing so.
Can I disappoint all these people, pets,
and even politicians who natter on on TV?
No, so I guess I shall just sit here and look
terribly happy and interested and keep
stopping my typing long enough to pat cat
every time she meows to remind me to --
simply proving I can watch, listen and pat
and still get a poem written once in a while.

©2008 Peggy Cartwright

Who I support, and why....

2009-02-20T01:51:00.000-08:00

“Find a Charity You Can Trust” (Charity Navigator)
This website is a fascinating one. They have a pretty complete list of all charities, with ratings, info about their work, and, best, info on how much they spend on fundraising, and how much goes out to the people they say they are helping. Unfortunately a couple of organizations that say they are helping veterans -- are not! I give my money to “Vietnam Veterans Against the War,” a group my guy works with (he’s a Vietnam Vet). & I'm a pacifist.

My ‘fop favorite’ charities, to whom I give money as often as possible, and spread the word about what they do are listed below. I heard about a food with a silly name from seeing a documentary by chance on PBS, and it was so impressive that I checked on the charity immediately. It was 'Doctors Without Borders' developing ‘Plumpinut’ to save starving children. I immediately put them on a monthly withdrawal from my bank. I had sent them small amounts of money once in awhile, but now they are my favorite charity -- and I love the doctors and nurses who volunteer to go off to some of the worst war zones in the world to work and save lives.

The Episcopalians are impressive in their work also -- and they work not only helping the poor and ill people across the world, but also attempt to battle poverty in our country. They further do not ask if you believe in god before they help you, as they are there to battle poverty, not to convert people. I know that they work with the homeless here a lot.

There are many easy ways to help out in this world. I have a friend who orders an extra sandwich when she is out eating lunch -- then gives it to the first person she sees who looks like they need a meal (or to someone who asks her for money). She is saintly, but so quietly that few know how much she does for others.

At a memorial for a very wealthy man, his wife gave each of us a handful of money to give to the first person we saw who looked like they needed it. Another man gave dollar coins to each of us at a meeting and told us to give them to people and tell them to use it in some way to make money, then give twice as much to another person if and when they could.

Then there is CREDO, the long distance phone company to which I belong. They give 2% of their profits to a large group of charities. Their customers are asked to ‘round up’ their payment each month. i.e., if you are billed for $24.02, you round up to $25 or $30 if you can afford it that month. Then, once a year they send a list of charities, and you can pick the one you want your share of the money they have collected to go. You can even divide it and give to up to 4 different charities. A good company.

I hope that someone who has never considered giving to others, except perhaps in a very small way, reads this and then considers what he/she can do to perhaps change or save a life. I am very pleased that our new president has asked us to do what we can to help others.

Here are the descriptions of the two charities I like best:

Doctors Without Borders, USA (DWB-USA) was founded in 1990 in New York City to raise funds, create awareness, recruit field staff, and advocate with the United Nations and US government on humanitarian concerns. It assists victims of disasters and conflicts worldwide by supporting relief projects conducted primarily by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) affiliates. MSF is an international independent medical humanitarian organization that provides aid in nearly 60 countries to people whose survival is threatened by violence, negligence, or catastrophe, primarily due to armed conflict, epidemics, malnutrition, exclusion from health care, or natural disasters. In 2007, MSF-USA raised $152.1 million and sent 200 aid workers to work overseas.
from: http://www.charitynavigator.org/

Episcopal Relief & Development is the international relief and development agency of the Episcopal Church of the United States, guided by the Episcopal Church's principles of compassion, dignity and generosity as we work to heal a hurting world. Episcopal Relief & Development reached more than 2 million people in over 40 countries last year. Rather than impose one size fits all solutions, Episcopal Relief & Development supports local, long-term initiatives that address poverty, hunger, disease, economic development and disaster response where the need is greatest. Our partnership with the worldwide Church creates opportunities to serve communities in some of the most remote areas of the world, as well as in urban environments where extreme poverty persists. Also from: http://www.charitynavigator.org/

No MAN For Me

2009-02-18T03:03:00.000-08:00

Funny, I find McCain such a typical MAN. He would never be able to see a woman’s point of view, while I think Obama does, for he seems to have a softer sensibility somehow, and he is stronger mentally. McCain adores Hemingway, the ‘hero’ of “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” Of course. I dislike Hemingway and most guys who think he is the best -- they are usually basic wimps who would like to be the big tough MAN, as poor old Ernest did They have nothing to attract me.

As I read of all the great leaders, past and present (Newsweek, July 14, 2008), who admire Lincoln I realize that Lincoln was not like many of them (or Hemingway), but had a kinder, much more thoughtful nature and didn’t spend all his time being a MAN, or I should say, trying to be a MAN, for that is what most of them do. Not that I am throwing rocks at men in general, just at the false ones...and I certainly consider McCain a false one, along with ‘doc’ robo & philll of my AOL group, and Kristol, cheney, dubya, etc. of the PNAC and bush gangs, for they are the ones who would use power, superior strength, hubris, lies and false pride to try to gain what they want, particularly with women, when they even consider them. A big gun in the pocket or on the shoulder is more their speed.

And to the men who claim that ‘war is good,’ or ‘God does not hate war, after all there were good wars in the bible,’ or other fundamentalist’s arguments for war, I say this: Most of the real men I know have grown enough, studied, and learned enough to realize that religion is a crutch and man-made thing, that the great prophet of ‘Christianity,’ Jesus, did not believe in war (read the NEW Testament, dears, not the folk tales of the Old), and no war in history has ever been a ‘good’ thing. Those who still argue for war should listen to, and hear, Dylan’s song “With God On Our Side,” one of the best arguments against war I have ever heard.

Meanwhile the bright men in my AOL group; my dear friends Colin, Mel, Bud, Bruno, John and Mike; my darling son, and my own love, K, use an innate kindness, inner strength and intelligence to reason and figure out the correct solution to problems and do not immediately sweep in with a pretend sword or a specious argument to attempt to kill their adversaries before they even know what the problem is. And so, they are the ones I turn to, or even argue with once in awhile, for I know I will be listened to and my argument treated fairly. For this I give thanks, and for this I also have hope for MANkind.
Peggy Cartwright, 7/2/08

Poems mentioned earlier....

2009-02-13T02:50:00.000-08:00

4:44

four forty four
the afternoon sun drifts down
toward the shining afternoon sea
four forty four
time for afternoon tea and cakes
and tiny sandwiches brown and white
four forty four
children screaming their return
from the often worthless work at school
four forty four
the weary cable car driver watches
for his very late replacement
four forty four
the rhythmic beat of food being chopped
for dinner in Chinese restaurants
four forty four
and my eyes blur and head nods
just a tiny nap before dinner?

© 2009, p.c.

Welcome, Oh Large One

I suppose there always has to be
Someone who is number two,
For I am number one you see
And then behind me, well, came you

Lumbering up on heavy hooves,
Snorting and stamping today
All of the people up on their rooves
Rushing and trying to get away

Easy does it you big old ox,
I’m ready to leave for my nest,
This year is when you open the box
So, stop all that noise you old pest...

© 2009, p.c.

and there is so much more.....ah, well....

Wednesday, as I wait for "LOST"......

2009-02-11T18:01:00.000-08:00

Ah, 'compose' -- write of the boring day? or the rain? or missing K? or precious grandchildren? there must be something of great import of which to speak, but it does not come. So mayhap I should simply add some of my fairly recent poetry to fill the space. Ah, but when, I ask myself, have you been short of words? Seldom, I answer, but today is one of those days.

I overslept today again, something I find myself doing more and more. Seem to need more and more sleep, the older I get, rather like a novel I once started about people sleeping longer and longer, and the lights going out in cities more and more. Perhaps I should dig it out and try to find a resolution for the book and for me. Sad to say, I now have three unfinished novels -- and two of them were rather good ideas, I just deserted them when I found myself a bit weary of the characters. I loved the characters in the books I finished, perhaps I could start over and make friends with the new people in the story. I do find that if I like the characters, they help me and seem to take over in the middle of the book and practically write the rest themselves. Although, I have always had the feeling that someone is simply writing through me. I do know that I often do not remember writing some of my poems and when I find old ones and read them, I find myself saying, "My, that's a very interesting poem." (surprise, that's my name at the bottom!) Although, with most I am quite like Matisse, who was not allowed into some of his own exhibitions, as he always carried paints and a brush and made little corrections or changes on his paintings -- nothing was ever 'finished' for him, nor is it for me. Even when I am reading a poem to a group, I make little changes....nothing is ever finished.

I spoke of waiting for LOST -- I wonder if other people are as lost as I am, this season. Too many people, too many wild ideas, too many past lives to remember, confusion reigns. But I still like watching it, as there is so little of interest to watch on TV these days. That is, after watching all the foolish CEOs of financial institutions try to cover for all their greed and mistakes. They are as reluctant to admit mistakes as old georgie-poo. And, as eager to throw lots of money to the people who really don't 'need' it. Unfortunately the 2% of the people in the country who have most of the money still seem to believe they NEED more and more and more. I was interested in some things someone was talking about the other day. He said that the people who gave the most money to charities that used the money to care for the halt, lame and really poor were the middle and lower classes, while the really wealthy gave money primarily to get tax relief...and the money they gave usually went to organizations who were there to entertain them, such as symphony orchestras, museums, theatres, etc. After reading a couple of articles in 'Forbes,' I realize that he is right. Just take a look at what the Walmart family supports. Not the poor who spend money at their stores, that's for sure. And collecters are now building their own museums.

My daughter, the Christian, constantly tells me about her Christian attitude about 'tithing'... granted, she is overly-generous in her giving, but does not understand that I, the dreadful atheist give at least 10% of my retirement income to various charities and non-profits. I have always supported the museums in SF by becoming a member each year...but my choice for a monthly amount that I know will be used well is "Medecins sans Frontieres" or 'Doctors Without Borders' one of the most selfless and caring groups in the world. I was so impressed with their work on a food for starving babies that they call by the dreadful name of 'Plumpinut' that I immediately signed up to have money sent from one of my credit card companies every month to help with the program. One of the things that impressed me about them, and still does, is that they send me thank you letters often....and not with any mention of my giving more.

And on the news -- a short take of the latest exhibit at the deYoung: Tiffany and Lalique. Guess I should get out there to see it. Will undoubtedly wear me out.....Ah, well.......

2009-02-04T02:58:00.000-08:00

I shall now spend the next hour weeping, as I have just lost four wonderful paragraphs of writing. I cannot believe this. I went to Preview, then tried to go back, as I wanted to format them as they should have been formatted and 'poof' -- gone!

There is no way I can possibly repeat. Well, I shall instead write that this was not a good day. I have no fear of MY death, but getting old is getting harder and harder, as I keep losing my friends to death or Alzheimers or being snatched away by children who do not deserve them. I plan to stay in my apartment here until they take me out in a very small box and I no longer know or care.

Today I lost one of my oldest and best friends. His sister called me to tell me of his death and I did very little for the rest of the afternoon but cry, and it is going to take me some time to recover. My daughter, who adored "Uncle Bud" called me and was as shocked and upset as I. Tomorrow I will have to call some of our writer friends to tell them. It's going to be hard.

We women last longer...and I will probably last a lot longer, as I am descended from a tough Lancashire Lass...and a mean little Scottish grandmother, both of whom lived long lives. And, I am almost a vegetarian, and keep the blood pressure down. Boring life, but undoubtedly long.
Ah, well.....

I guess there is a first time for everything...1/29/09

2009-01-29T03:31:00.000-08:00

After years of writing emails to friends and lovers, arguing politics with strangers on AOL, reading others intimate thoughts on everything and being told I must have my own Blog...I now have my own Blog. So, at last, at least my two children and spouses and my three grandchildren will have a place to read my thoughts. The friends, the few still living, can join them and perhaps add something once in a while. When one is is old as I, the number of friends still around wanes... sad that they are not made of the tough Lancashire stock from which I came.

Now that I have been home recovering from two dreadful attacks of first very bad flu after a long plane trip, then an apparent attack of the "peanut whatever" which laid me low for a terrible long weekend, I have had time to get back to my writing. After all, there are only so many conversations one can have with one's cat. Granted, my cat Sylvia is very bright, but she is no Siamese, so her conversation is somewhat limited. However, her purring is quite loud.

And...the food is hopeless, particularly for someone who is an excellent cook and a gourmand. Rice cooked in thin broth and dry toast with gingerale does not strike me as a lovely meal, but it seems to soothe my gut after a terrible experience of almost living in the bathroom and tossing up bile all weekend, so I put up with it. Even added a bit of my own apple butter to the toast this morning....very tasty, but no eggs Benedict. Oh, are the days of a porterhouse and buttery mashed potatoes just a memory?

But at least the sun shone in the tall, tall window to my left, Sylvia sat on the back of my chair in the sun's warmth, and three little hummingbirds came to drink in the nectar from the tiny red trumpets that have blossomed again outside my window. An early Spring in San Francisco... perhaps something to do with global warming or whatever they are calling it now. Ah, well.......