No, Thursday's Out....

The Dean of our Cathedral is leaving us soon. We all fervently wish him well, and we are dealing with the looming goodbye. Some of us are determinedly saying “New Beginnings for Him, New Beginnings for Us,” while others are, you know, sighing.  Both of which are perfectly okay. Me, I keep identifying with things, a little Life in Review, even though this, like so many other things, is actually Not About Me.   For instance, Nathan gives terrific sermons , beautifully crafted and layered, often both funny and deep. When he announced his departure, he said that he had reached a point where he was constantly looking at his life and interactions as sermon-fodder. I flashed back to Daily Themes, an ancient* and terrifying writing class I took sophomore year. We had to write a scene from a story, preferably dialogue, every weekday, for a semester. I took it partly for the thrill, but mainly because my boyfriend said I would never make it. And I ran out of ideas pretty swiftly, ...

My paintings were rejected today from a forthcoming show at a local church (NOT Trinity), for having an insufficiently spiritual backstory. It’s hard to overstate how pleased I am. A generous friend heard about the opportunity first, and invited me to submit my art along with his. The arts committee responded by turning me down flat, but telling him that he could try again next year, perhaps punching up his spiritual side. I can’t stop grinning. In their defense, I submitted no backstory at all, just four paintings – take ‘em or leave ‘em.   They left ‘em. I suppose I might have guessed they’d want verbiage, but they didn’t say WHAT they wanted, just samples of my work. Not that it matters. I don’t have an artist statement that stresses my spirituality, and I’m just not in the mood to craft one. Plus, what if I DID submit one, and they said Yeah, still not good enough, but thanks for trying…. Rejection is such an art form. This particular rejection letter was sniffy enough to...

When my parents were preparing to throw a party, my dad would contribute to the house-sprucing efforts by cleaning out his fish tank. On the one hand, the entryway had not much to see but that tank, and everybody had to walk through it (dim, but for the tank lights), and then around the giant book case that blocked off the front room. Once you passed the fish tank and jogged around the book case, you emerged into the bright, picture-window front room, which looked out at Lake Washington and Mt. Rainier and the hangars of Boeing, across the lake and below the mountain. Ta-daa! So yes, Dad knew that every guest would pass the fish tank, and maybe he felt that if there was a bit of green algae on the inside glass, they would be grossed out, or he would be embarrassed.   On the other hand, tank-cleaning was a production that took hours, with hoses and buckets and exclamations of dismay when a bucket overflowed because he’d wandered off – a not uncommon occurrence.   Cleaning...

Most of the students in my PSU class this term are pre-law, or pre-government; it’s a 400-level Poli Sci course. If they aren’t prepared to discuss the reading when they are called on, their grades drop. It’s like the movie version of law school. The students are idealistic, smart and likable, except for one self-appointed provocateur . He opposes child labor laws, for instance, because poor families need money! He’s that guy. He isn’t named Redwood, but close. I wonder if he is rebelling against hippie parents.   Thursday, we had twenty minutes set aside for election discussion, and Redwood grabbed the floor: “Calm down! Everything is fine! People keep saying Trump is HITLER, and he ISN’T, but if he WAS Hitler, then you ought to TAKE HIM OUT. Why aren’t you doing that? WHY? Because you know he isn’t Hitler! If you really thought he was, you’d be storming the capitol, you’d ICE the guy! Why aren’t you ICING him? Why are Democrats so WEAK?!?!” The prof handled it firmly but cal...

On the morning after Trump won the 2016 election I lashed out at a couple of old friends who hated Hillary. I apologized later, but … anyway, I still miss them. A lot. My goal on this Wednesday was not to lose anybody. So far, so good. Sometimes I am in a state I call “not fit for human consumption,” and I go into seclusion, but that didn’t happen. I had a good run of commiserating, consoling, distracting. Some wise people offered wisdom. And I addressed two small annoyances. I fixed the clock in my car. Be impressed. The little knob is finicky. and I drove over to Kitchen Kaboodle to get a plastic scraper for the cast iron pans. (Do not plastic shame me. Not today. I mean it. I haven’t made it to bed yet, and it’s the Wednesday after Trump won. I could go off LIKE THAT.) At Kaboodle, I saw this charming dog-peeing-on-a-fire-hydrant novelty sponge set. The place was nearly empty -- me and two angry clerks. Feelings were high in Portland today. One clerk was nearby, and I gestured at ...

The flag had 36 stars for a couple of years after Nevada gained statehood. I saw this one on our drive to Las Vegas.  In other news of our nation... I phone-banked, which was new for me. Here are answers to your frequently-asked questions: • YES, we only called Democrats. Do not panic. This phone bank was about “ballot curing,” calling people whose ballots had arrived at the Board of Elections office, BUT … (the ballots) were in some way messed up or incomplete, and would not get counted. • I figured if ANYONE might appreciate a call, it would be someone who had already bothered to vote, but whose vote wasn’t going to count. • Mostly, I left voice mails. No one who answered was hostile. In the debrief session one guy said he’d reached a woman who complained that too many people had called. He said, “If you fix it, your name will come off the list!” There’s a man with clarity. • The first shift, 500 of us were calling Ohio voters. I had some technical difficulties and so did the org...

Local ice creamery Salt & Straw has set up shop in New York City, and the food critic of the New York Post is not a fan . He takes particular issue with their Pastrami on Rye flavor, which has a butterscotch base, and too much mustard. I don’t blame him! Salt & Straw flavors are almost universally Not For Me. I’ve liked two, ever. I only go into S&S when some visiting friend insists. Also, the aroma of baking cones blankets an entire block of Division, which is intrusive. I do love the tiny gelateria just up the street, run by two Italian brothers passionate about their nocciolo – so passionate* that in their first year, they shut down and went home to Italy during the hazelnut harvest.   Hazelnuts may be the Oregon State Nut , but Oregon hazelnuts are not noccioli. Having just received my voters’ pamphlet, I have several other nominees for Oregon State Nut, but that’s another story. Anyway, speaking of things that are intrusive and not to my taste, I had a...

The Uffizzi is full of breathtaking art, but this hit me just as hard. We left off with me at the Ukrainian church in Florence. I took a news vacation during the trip, but the Ukrainian church reminded me that things are brutal in Ukraine right now. And in the Middle East. And in Sudan. And .... Avoiding the news couldn’t protect me from reminders of conflict and oppression and violence, past or ever-present. Most people don't get news breaks.  In Trieste I was haunted by the stumbling stones placed at the "last voluntary address" of Jews deported to the concentration camps in World War II.   (I shudder that we are discussing “mass deportation” from the US, these days.)  And I was unsettled by the gorgeous Miramare  Castle, where Maximillian and Charlotte/Carlotta lived before they decided to go rule over Mexico, a bit of colonial arrogance that ended badly, as such things do.   (Here's Rudyard Kipling, from my visit to the National Portrait Gallery in Londo...

My 22-day itinerary in the UK and Italy went like this: Belfast and nearby; Bristol; Pisa; Florence; La Chiara di Prumiano (tiny settlement up in the Tuscan hills); Trieste; London. But I’m relating my news in no particular order. Food: In a seaside restaurant called The Shack on the Northern Irish coast, my daughter asked what was in their “Shack Salad.” Our waiter, stumped, made some elegant hand gestures and said, “It’s a … collection of … leaves?” We grinned. Did she think we didn’t know the word “salad?” But three weeks later, in a posh London restaurant (where the exquisite bartender recited bits of Romeo and Juliet to me, and yes, I was not the first, but still) I looked at the menu. And the house salad was described as “a collection of leaves.”   (Cantucci, with lemons for scale) In news of Italian cookies, biscotti and cantucci are much the same, but cantucci are smaller and generally have tooth-cracking almonds. When I asked for biscotti in cantucci territory, and e...

 Along the Columbia River, where US Route 97 crosses Interstate 84, lies the “unincorporated community” of Biggs Junction, Oregon, population 5. Biggs is a truck stop at the junction of two major routes (N-S, Yakima to Bend and beyond; E-W, Salt Lake City to Portland).  It boasts gas stations with fried chicken, and an old, low-slung motel. Other than the motel family, the workers of Biggs must live somewhere nearby – maybe 5 miles down the old Oregon Trail Highway in Rufus (pop. 258), or 20 miles west in The Dalles (pop. 15,711).   Biggs is the nearest settlement to where Rick fishes, at the mouth of the Deschutes River. We make runs there to Dinty’s Market, a convenience store augmented with fishing gear and a tremendous ice cream counter.  I’ve patronized Dinty’s since when it was festooned with signs (signs you could purchase for your own home or camper!) threatening to deploy My Dog, My Gun, and My Wife against intruders. The signs are gone, but there are still ...

My friends took me to the Museum of Illusions, in Seattle, and it was both cool and slightly sickening. The (well-curated) illusions start off with textbook classics, like: Oh Look, These Two Lines Are the Same Length, Amazing! They move on to mirror stuff and color stuff, and then they start to spin, and it gets more intense. By the time we left, we were a bit weak in the knees and the lobby floor, which had been  stable when we arrived, was rolling, gently. So I woke up at 2 am thinking, “For a grandly-named Museum of Illusions, those were just OPTICAL illusions, or Optical that set off Vestibular. Are there illusions for the other senses? Are there taste, touch, smell, sound illusions? Or are those called hallucinations?”  And I noodled on that thought for a while, because why sleep when you can ponder in the dark? And then I moved to: Are there illusions that aren’t sensory at all? I vote Yes, as exemplified by the common illusion “Other people have it together.”   ...

We hired a guy to install a handrail on our stairs back in February, and ... long story, but it is now July, and the project is not done, and the guy had nearly stopped returning my texts or calls. But I got ahold of him yesterday, finally, and when I asked him when he might get to our project, he said, "Can I be honest with you?" He is abandoning the project, which I think is for the best. I was VERY GRUMPY about it yesterday, but today I'm finding it funny because "Can I be honest with you?" is SUCH a dumb question. It belongs in that list of Things You Shouldn't Say, next to "Don't hate me for saying this, but...." and all its friends. Also, I'm laughing (wryly) because I'm remembering an even better home improvement failure/great line. My friend hired a guy to extend the heating system to a side room of her house that had no heat. Came the cold months, that room still would not warm up. So she looked into the crawl space, and there ...

In December, I volunteered for an Alzheimer’s study at OHSU, where they are gathering data on aging, both in people with no diagnosis (yet, haha), and in those who have been diagnosed with dementia. All participants are over 65. A bunch of my friends volunteered too. The study involves baseline tests in ten areas – verbal, memory, visual, spatial, organizational, and daily-life financial, bureaucratic, attention, and problem-solving skills.   Participants are tested once, then a week later, and then a year after that. If you did better after a week, will you also do better after a year? If you did worse, will you do worse yet, a year later? The comparison is only to one’s age mates. So I might decline in some ability, but if most of my age mates suffer that same decline, my score will stay the same. I could start the year being better than 57% of 68-year-olds, and if we all slip in parallel, then we all do worse than before, but I can STILL be better than 57% of 69-year-olds!...

Steve Bannon began serving his sentence for contempt today, said contempt being his failure to show up when summoned by Congress.   In my ongoing quest to enjoy every small win, I'm savoring this tidbit of justice. (I broke open a nonalcholic G&T in a can  in celebration, and I'm here to tell you - it's awful. But I didn't know that when I bought it, and now I do. So there's that!*) I've never envied Steve Bannon anything, but after reading this BREAKING NEWS short, I began to wonder if my supporters would show up for me, waving flags and ringing cowbells, should I have to go to prison.  I don't want to appear needy and greedy, nor to impugn my friends' devotion, but I'm not sure they'd do it. And I really don't think it's asking too much.  Just please bear this in mind, should the occasion arise.  * "That" in this case is just new information - now I know to avoid at least one brand of canned, nonalchoholic, G&T. You mi...

Today wasn’t ot or humid in Portland, and all the flowers were glowing, that perfect, overcast-June day. I missed my late friend Mary, a Midwest transplant, who used to complain whenever we had cool and cloudy days during what she thought should be summer. She would have complained, and I would have rolled my eyes.  Today was gorgeous. On my unambitious neighborhood stroll, I saw a tree that “IS CLIMATE ACTION.”   I know that, because it said so. It’s the tree-owner’s version of those “IN THIS HOUSE WE…” yard signs! Congratulations!Your t ree is doing what trees do, and in your house, you’re doing what decent folk do. These are not accomplishments that must be announced, or bragged about. (But then again, thanks for being decent in your house, and thank YOU for your contribution, little tree.) Things are reminding me of things a lot just now, like the climate action tree and the IN THIS HOUSE WE yard signs. Loose-association brain always happens when I haven’t had enough s...

School goes a few more weeks, but today was our last day for my volunteer reading gig for SMART. We always end before school does, probably because classroom activities peak at the end of the year.  My reader was a kindergartner we'll call Olympia (not her name, but it works). Olympia was a nice human, but she didn't particularly care about reading. She did have a lively inerest in art, which meant she noticed telling details in picture books. (She strongly objected to books without pictures, would sometimes pick one because of an intriguing cover, and then put it back, annoyed.) Mainly she liked to talk about colors, and to keep a straight face while detailing her unlikely escapades, for instance, riding bears. This is a picture of me waving excitedly to greet her as she comes into the room each week. As you can see, she favors dresses with large skirts. She's a twirler. And this is us reading together. Both drawings were on her Thank You card to me at our final session to...

After our visit to Washington, D.C., last month, we went to Philadelphia, and we had an equally great time there. As in DC, people were super helpful. One of us would unfold a map (our phone map apps had trouble finding us in Philly, so: paper maps). And inevitably, passers-by would stop and offer assistance. It came to me that we are now a Cute Old Couple, which is not entirely a bad thing Basically, the trip was a love fest. A dear friend took the train in from New Jersey and met us for an uproarious evening of beers. I obliviously cut in front of a guy at the bar and he was gracious as could be. Fellow guests joshed with us in the weird hotel elevator.  A waitress even inexplicably complimented my outfit. (I was in Haute Touriste : tennis shoes, a bag bandoliered cross-body, a huge (suddenly unneeded) rain jacket tied around my waist, a second, bulging bag over my shoulder, a strange hat. She said, “Oh, I LIKE your STYLE.” I mean, come on.) The only friction we saw was at ...