No, Thursday's Out....

My friend had a book launch party a couple of months ago, and I felt I should get dolled up to attend. I called her and said, “I want you to know, I am so happy to be going to your party that I’m drawing on eyebrows.” I had visible eyebrows until a couple of years ago, and then the pandemic came, and while I wasn’t looking into the mirror much, they faded into obscurity.   Also, in my makeup-wearing youth, Statement Eyebrows weren’t in fashion, so I have little practice drawing them, learning to avoid both “Oh my GOD! and “We need to have a word.”   Anyway, my friend replied that she was wearing LIPSTICK for the first time in forever, and I said, well, FINE, I’d wear some too, and I’d even comb my hair, so THERE! And I did, and Presto! My mom appeared in my mirror.   I let out a yelp, I admit. I hadn’t seen her coming. Since then, she’s has shown up several times. And I’ve decided on a very small, very specific New Year’s Resolution.   I’m not going to get ...

Much white stuff on the ground outside. Not a sheet of ice. Not falling like snow, but falling like sand, tiny, hard pellets, shoosh, shoosh.   Apparently, ice crystals falling from the sky are sleet. I thought sleet was wetter than snow, but tboth Google and Rick say the stuff outside right now is sleet. Good to know! I put on my Microspikes, so I could walk out and move the car. I love many things with a pure devotion, and my Microspikes are in that category. I know, people like those rubber Yaktrak things, and they are cheaper. But I was given Microspikes for Christmas years ago - a gift I mistakenly thought lacked romance – and the first time I used them, I was smitten. This is that original set, still, so if you amortize it out.... But the main thing is, ice no longer worries me. (My British daughter-in-law wants Americans to know that there is NO connection between Christmas and tartans, and that table runner is not "the Christmas runner.") I moved the car because it ...

My favorite TV show, the January 6 Committee Hearings, had a final episode today.  Without new witness testimony, it was a bit bland, but the outcome was a pleasure – Trump and others referred to the DOJ. Whether anything will come of it remains to be seen, but sufficient unto the day are the small wins thereof.  Also, small wins are lots better than nothing. YouTube is showing me videos of terrible grunge deep inside washing machines and dishwashers.  The narrators use the same strange phrasing, warning me that “millions of mold and bacteria” are growing inside my own appliances.  I absolutely refuse to be cowed by copywriters who don’t know that the plural of “mold” gets an “s.” In other online news, I am beseeched by potential Facebook friends, all of them male, all of them veterans, all of them using the same line: they love my writing, and they tried to friend me but it didn’t work. They are not real humans.  I’m also getting tweets from imitation-peopl...

Last Monday, I went to the doc because I’d taken a big fall, and got an x-ray of my wrist (sprained), and my foot (a broken bone). The doc gave me a wrist brace, and said the Medical Equipment people would contact me about a walking boot.  I went home and dug a very large and clunky old walking boot out of the attic, to tide me over until the Medical Equipment people called. They didn’t. I really hated that boot. It came up to my knee, weighed a ton, stuck out in all directions, and felt slightly unstable. I was sure that since I’d worn it, walking boots had improved. On Thursday, I called Medical Equipment at 8 am, and they said they had no order for me. At 10 a.m., the doc said that the order had gone through, and the Medical Equipment people were “working on it.” They weren’t.   Today I called around again. The Medical Equipment people don’t fill those orders anymore, but outsource them. I called the supplier. He was very distressed, said he couldn’t fill the orde...

Good news, West Coast crew! Some freeways along the I-5 corridor may be usable after the “Big One.”  (Photo courtesy of WSDOT) No, really! Merry Christmas from the seismic modeling team at the University of Washington! (Apparently, many I-5 bridges were built to more than the minimum specs. Pretty cool.) Unlike those sturdy bridges, I fell down on Saturday, on the way in to choir practice. Wrists, knees, foot, ouch, ouch, ouch. Choir pals helped me up, and I bathed my poor knees (but they still stuck to my pants, ouch.) And I was late to practice. I hate being late to practice.   A couple Sundays back, I left super early so I could hit Freddy’s, which carries a brand of stuffing without which my Thanksgiving is missing something. I see a lot of homeless folks early on Sundays. This time there was a man sitting on the sidewalk, wrapped in a white duvet.   My errant-thought-generator mused that white is a terrible color for sidewalk living. The guy said, very softl...

We were out at the Rich People’s Nursery, which was chockablock with gorgeous Christmas trees and wreaths and swags and garlands and festoons* and pots of paper whites - not to mention Rich People - and Rick pointed at a wreath. I wasn’t sure what he was getting at, and I said, “Do you want to get that one?” He said, “No! It’s $85!” Behind me, I heard a loud gasp. A beautiful Rich Woman, overhearing him, had clapped her hand to her heart. She wasn’t gasping at the price. She gave Rick a baleful “you utter Scrooge” glare, and then said, as if in support of me in my role as poor, mistreated Bob Cratchit, “’Tis the SEASON!” I grinned at her.   She meant well. We didn’t burst out laughing until we were driving away. Anyway, I’ve been chuckling and declaiming, “’Tis the SEASON!” in accusatory tones.   It’s kindof fun. * "Festoon" is fun too. It can be both noun and verb, news to me.

We got out so many pans for our Thanksgiving blowout, from so far back in the bottom-most cupboard, that I ended up lying down on the kitchen floor to put them back in the Very-Very-Back, once they were all cleaned. And then I rolled over and sat on said floor, saying to myself, "I can get up any time I want to."  And eventually, I did.  My friend Patty insists that getting down on the floor every single day is the key to a long and limber life. You should see Patty. She may well be right.  As for the pies, the cherry and pecan were hits. The pumpkin, not so much. And absolutely no one cared at all, or said a word. It was a grand holiday.

Mostly, I'm irked when I see that a foodstuff is marked organic. I'm fairly sure the lemons I eat that aren't marked "organic" are still organic, and not made of mica, or steel.  Anyway, I bought the organic pumpkin puree, which required me to add my own spices, evaporated milk, and so forth, rather than the premixed "pumpkin pie filling."  It was THERE, in a big display.  I bought it because my pie-making friends won't make it to our Thanksgiving this year, convinced it will be a super-spreader event even though all are vaxed and boosted and will test before they come. It will still be a lot of people in a small house. But since I'd lost my pie-makers, I of course felt I had to make pies. I could have gone with storebought, but no, I had to make them myself. Four of them. Two pumpkin, a cherry, and a pecan. In brief, the organic pumpkin tastes a lot squashier than the pies that our friends bring. I dropped them a note to say my pies tasted weird...

But at my back I always hear Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near....                                                             - Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress Our boy Andrew is saying that Life is short. Make the most of it. Gather ye rosebuds (same poem)! We'll all be dead soon. Also, urging his coy mistress, he’s saying: Let’s get it on right now, shall we? It’s a great poem. At one point, he says that if they only had forever, he would be more patient. If time weren’t a-wasting… My vegetable love should grow Vaster than empires and more slow. His vegetable love! He’s so good. I share with Andrew the sense that life is fleeting (though he could learn a thing or two about consent).   I t...

It was billed as a spare room, but I think it was his bedroom. He answered neither of my messages before I arrived. He buzzed me in. He asked me who had buzzed me in.  A folding screen was across the hall, separating my bedroom and bathroom from the rest of the space. Only we shared the bathroom. The tub wouldn't drain until I reached down and drew out wads of hair n stuff. My finger will never be clean. I was not to pass the folding screen or speak to him, but texting was okay. I was good with that. The floor was exquisite, inlaid teak  but pieces of it came loose and had to be put back. This happened less in socks.  There were two rules: Do Not Touch That Switch and Do Not Touch the Thermostat. The thermostat was turned to its highest setting .  There was a bar downstairs. 

 Didn't mean to leave you in suspense. It exists. It is an "adventure," she said, euphemistically, but it exists. New Haven is grand, and pizza is everywhere. I'm staining everything with drips, but it's not like I get here often. I went out for a slice lateish, and on the way home, I passed a street guy calling to the sky, "Would you like a coupon for $7 off your next purchase?" I said, "No, thanks." He focused down on me and said, "Not YOU."

New Jersey is really pretty, and I didn’t even take pictures on the first couple of days, alas.  Northwesterners will never know the joy of walking through a deciduous forest when all the leaves are down, but not soggy. It’s a rush – you can see forever, though you can’t see a trail. They have to mark the completely covered trail by painting the trees or the higher rocks. I played hide-and-seek with a deer today, and it wasn’t like he (antlers - he) couldn’t hear me coming – I was making a huge racket, and loving every minute of it. In addition to not seeing trails, you can’t tell a covered driveway from a covered yard. I saw Uncle Bob today, and I hope I parked in his driveway.  He’s 98 now, and doing well, thanks. He wishes Trump (“Godzilla”) would evaporate, but he’s cheered that the election wasn’t a giant Red Wave. He thinks the country might survive a few more years. We caught up on all members of both families, and then sat around talking about books and finishing each ...

I went on a Comeback Tour in April, 2021, driving to Seattle to say hi to old friends and meet some pandemic babies. I sat on porches (we weren’t going inside much) for brief hellos, and they were a treat. On the last day, I was driving down the freeway when BANG! Something - likely a rock, but we never found it - shattered my moon roof, and I was covered with little squares of safety glass: in my hair, down the back of my neck, all over my lap. I didn’t pull over, just drove to my last scheduled stop, where my friends kindly shop-vacced the car, taped cardboard over the moon-roof-hole, and sent me home. Today, I’m off on another adventure, my “NEW” comeback tour (nicknamed for stops in Newark, New Providence (New Jersey), New Haven, and New York). I’ve been fretting - what if I get sick; what if the sketchy AirBnb in New Haven doesn’t exist? The fretting segued into a wee-hour highlight reel of Mishaps From Travels Past:   the keys flushed down the toilet, the purse lost in En...

Our neighbors brought us a Special Halloween Cocktail last night – extra from some they had taken to a party, in a cauldron (dry ice, lots of stage effects, very impressive). It had four kinds of rum and was bright orange. They said it would go flat if we didn’t drink up. It was good! I observed to Rick that I thought its potency would “put me down,” and he said, “like one of those famous German battleships.” This was apt. We love the neighbors. They are young and funny, and they bring us leftover birthday cake and other treats, and invite us to their covered porch, and in return we loan them tools or the classic cup of sugar for foodies ( Do you have any Japanese rice wine? You bet! Come on over! ) and everybody thinks they got a good deal. Before the Special Halloween Cocktail, they brought us a pie plate they found on a journey to Texas for a reunion. Mrs. Wagner’s Good Pies! It’s a keeper! And Mrs. Wagner’s Pies had BETTER be good, because if those marks in the bottom are cut...

On my way to choir practice this morning, 8 am on Sunday, I drove by a guy getting dressed outside his tent on Burnside. Nothing untoward – it’s just hard to stand inside a tent, and he was almost done getting spruced up to go to work. Black pants and shoes, white dress shirt. He was working on his tie. I thought he was probably a waiter who’d be working the brunch shift today. Sobering, like all such things these days. Be nice to your waiter. Tip well. I had a whole pile o’ feelings, including sorrow and helplessness, but also gratitude that I am not getting dressed for work from my tent. It’s tricky, right? It’s tricky to be grateful for what we have - in comparison to what other people don’t have –in exactly the right way. It’s tricky to be grateful without being a little bit … off about it.* Anyway, at the 10 o’clock, we sang a haunting, beautiful piece – Caroline Shaw’s “… and the swallow,” a setting of Psalm 84:   “The sparrow found a house, and the swallow a nest, ...

I tried to get Zoom to use a photo of me, for times when I don’t want to be on video, but I don’t want to be a black box on the screen. Zoom used to do that for me, and then it stopped, and I was trying to get it to go back to the old way, but no dice. I did, however, rouse its slumbering attention, and now it sends me emails asking if I would like to be more productive. Hmm. I probably SHOULD be more productive. I definitely COULD be more productive. But do I WANT to be more productive? I don’t. I tried to un-register for a volunteer gig, because I’d double-booked myself. The website couldn’t believe I was canceling. Was I sure? REALLY sure? When it finally caved, the success page said, “You have removed yourself from your opportunity.” This seemed like weird phrasing, but maybe they talk that way to anyone wanting to be less productive. Best of all - I got suspended from Twitter. Only for 12 hours, but I’m strangely proud. I got suspended for inciting violence, which in thi...

I've seen this bumper sticker twice now, the latest time just a few blocks from my house.  If I see it three times, I'll know it is stalking me.   I can't decide if I would really LIKE this person, or not....

One of our pals likes to love on our dog, scratching him and crooning, “You’re a good dog. Yes you are. I don’t care what anybody says.” We all enjoy this, the dog because he is getting loved on, the humans because it’s an old joke. (But you need to deploy it carefully, if you want it to become an old joke.)  I recently co-hosted a gathering for a Yale staff person who was visiting   Portland. I went to Yale. (There is disagreement about whether it’s possible to say, “I went to Yale,” and not sound like a jerk. But personally, I think people who say “a liberal arts college in Connecticut” also sound like jerks. Your call.) You may have negative feelings about Yale. I am fond of it. And liking Yale is akin to liking Portland, in many ways. Like Portland, Yale gets a lot of bad press. My pals send me links. Reading about the Oath Keepers trial yesterday, my husband called out, “Hey, Stuart Rhodes went to …” and I yelled, “No!!”   (But Rhodes went to the Law School, ...

There is a g reat piece in the NYT this morning (" A Public Health Success Story ") about how - at long last - Black and Hispanic death rates from COVID are no higher than white death rates. The Biden administration deserves huge props for prioritizing the delivery of vaccines to all neighborhoods, including those underserved when vaccines first appeared. (There is a slight difference in death rates if you adjust for age, where now Hispanics and Blacks are doing a bit better than whites, because guess whose elders aren't quite as vaccinated and also trend (not unrelated) more Republican? Apparently, this success story is not getting as much coverage as it should because a) good news isn't news?? b) guess who doesn't want to say anything good about the Biden admin, and c) liberals are afraid saying anything good about COVID rates will suggest to people that the pandemic isn't serious any more (???) Oh, I don't know. Let's take the win, shall we? Plea...

There was a moment on the choir tour when I got very snippy. The choir was migrating from the crypt, where we rehearsed, up to the quire, where we sang services. (YES! Yes, the choir sings in the quire! Is that not the best thing ever?! Also, if you play Scrabble with me, you can play the word “quire,” and I will not argue.) And right at that migration-upstairs moment, one of our handsome young choir rock stars came up to me and said, “Ma’am, would you have any ibuprofen?” (Pause.) I have told this story half a dozen times now, and each time, I stop here, and the other person gets it. They frown and   say something like, “As if you were a stranger?” or “Not even facial recognition?” I am wildly gratified that other people get it right away, because it makes me feel like my getting snippy wasn’t totally uncalled for.   Unlike some, I don’t mind Ma’am from strangers, nor from checkers,   salespeople, or the occasional Boy Scout. I am solidly into my Ma’am years, a...

My choir got to sing at St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle just last month, so seeing it today felt strange and wonderful. We were granted an impromptu tour before we left, and the dean showed us which stone would be lowered down, when Queen Elizabeth died, to an area of underground passageways. There she would "rest," before she and Prince Philip, who had been "resting" down there since his own committal, could be interred together. Apparently, it was important that they be buried at the same time. I was there for the music, of course, but I just watched that stone go down, with her casket on top, and I remembered how much I liked the Dean and enjoyed his tour guiding skills. One of the choir folks asked him if he could tell us exactly where, below us, the Prince was, and he said, "The short answer is Yes, I could. The long answer is Yes, but then I'd have to kill you."

The only part of my COVID experience that was interesting was the taste-and-smell bit. I’m sharing it for you Biology types. I don’t know when I lost my sense of smell. My nose was so blocked as to be useless. But in my occasional moments of nasal breathing, I found it surprising that I could be feverish, sweaty, and unbathed, but not stink AT ALL. (I was by myself, and none too bright. That’s my excuse.) On about Day Four, I heated up some grocery-store Thai Chicken soup my daughter had dropped off. It had almost no taste. I thought: OH! There’s that loss-of-taste symptom! Unless… unless maybe it’s just bland grocery-store soup? But then I noticed that although I couldn’t taste any hot pepper flavor, (or chicken flavor, or anything), my tongue was burning. So! I had lost some sense of taste! The soup had water chestnuts in it. They had no flavor (not that they ever have much), but I was overly grateful that I could appreciate their texture, and the sound of them crunching. (Ov...

"Insomnia" is the name of the coffee shop where my paintings are hanging for the month of September, and I think it's a great name for a coffee shop.  It also neatly describes how I felt, in the two days before the show went up, when I was racing around trying to get everything prepared, and to remember what I'd forgotten. Prices? Labels? Contract? Artist Statement? (A "woeful genre," as Peter Schjeldahl writes in the New Yorker.) Cards? Stickum? Tape? Levels?  If I hadn't spent an extra week in England, isolating with COVID, I would have had nine days to prepare, and I'd pretty much left a bunch of tasks for that stretch of time. But then in the event, it was two days. Yikes. The night before I drove out there, I wrapped all the painting in brown paper, and numbered them, and put them in totes (except the really big ones, which were just stacked together) and ... one was missing. A big one. Too big to be hiding anywhere, and yet I still searched und...