EXXUENDO

Fried Day

2011-10-21T20:33:00.000-07:00

Whew.

I don't know when Friday turned into Fried Day, but I suspect it was some time when my kids were growing up. But I don't really remember much - all I truly recall from the Eighties is Michael Jackson and crack. Oh, and shoulder pads and teens wearing safety pins as bling.

Twenty was, like, get off from work, pick auntie up from the airport, drop her off with Mom, meet friends for some cheeseburgers, go on a movie date with some guy I met, meet friends who got off late in the parking lot at work, pile into somebody's car and ride through town with the radio blaring (Is that a disco? Whaddya mean you gotta pay to get in? How come we don't know any dudes with money?), and if I hit the hay by 2 a.m., I could pop up at 7 for an early shift after coffee with Mom and my auntie.

Fast forward - but not too fast - to fifty four.

Fifty four is, like, get off from work, fall asleep on the train, wake up in Baltimore and then . . .

FREEDOM! Whoo! I can drink coffee after 9 p.m. and it won't matter. I can tie up the bathroom as long as I want. Let's see now, do I drink coffee and write in my blog first or do I read on the toilet? I can't decide . . . surprise me!

And then, it's over. Thud. Klunk. Pfffft . . .

In middle age, we learn that Fried Day occurs weakly.

But really, that's all I can handle anyway.

ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz . . .

Jesus Christ, Superbowl

2011-10-16T11:07:00.001-07:00

Like many others, my family replaced the still in the back yard with a swingset during my lifetime. Somehow, that exponential increase in sophistication determined for many that a sufficient degree of wisdom had been achieved to change public policy with regard to prayer in school.

My beliefs, whether conformist or controversial, are presumed to be safe in my head. If I choose to pray, to calculate the odds on a sports event, to recall Robert Frost or the speeches of Martin Luther King, to devise a grocery list or to fantasize about sex, I can use my silence with the same aplomb with which I am guaranteed my freedom to break it.

Through courtesy taught by my elders, I share my rights with my neighbors.

Unlike the assistance many citizens need(ed) to pursue happiness in the physical realm, I do not need a law allowing me to capture happiness in my mind.

Why, on earth, should students who believe in Buddha or Allah, in the infallibility of the Pontiff, the ultimate wisdom of their rabbi or in Absolutely Nothing, and are able to get along together and to receive an education at the hands of teachers who may emphatically believe in something different, be compelled by any means to focus on Jesus Christ at public school or at sports events?

A gladiator two thousand years ago may appropriately have offered supplication to his god(s) that his life might be spared at the end of a game that typically resulted in the death of the loser. Modern day children, whose parents may have bestowed a tolerant spirituality upon them that allows them to thrive in a secular educational environment, should not be forced to trivialize one of mankind’s most elegant and enormous concepts in anticipation of or regarding the outcome of a vulgar approximation of bloodsport.

WWJD? What makes me think I should interrupt the education or the leisure of my civil and tolerant neighbors and force them to polish my ego while I pretend to know?

Uptown Blattidae Night

2011-09-22T19:36:00.000-07:00

The air is very balmy - it is one of those nights where, if I was eighteen again, I'd be wishing I had a honey to blow in my ear and walk around the neighborhood holding hands.

All six of them.

This has got to be Exoskeleton Week in Baltimore. If you crunch when somebody steps on you, it's your party. While I was perching near the Transit Authority's posies at the train station, I kept seeing these huge black things with thick, long antennae. After a moment or two, I realized they were just really big crickets. But LOTS of crickets. Everywhere.

I got off the bus uptown, where I live. No crickets. Instead, there were "waterbugs". Doesn't that sound way better than American cockroaches? They were in full force. Fortunately, these tanks prefer to live outside. They were so large and so numerous, they made a tinny, percussive racket scattering as I walked toward them.

If you've got six legs in this town, you are in da zone. I think they heard about December 2012 and decided to take to the streets early.

So that's what's going on here. Anything bugging you these days?

The Embrace

2011-06-26T13:43:00.000-07:00

My mom passed away last month. I'm more bewildered than anything. Where did she go?

I have introduced my beliefs in earlier blogs, but I know that if there really is an afterlife, Momb will find a way to launch a message. Her beliefs were really different from mine and she will find the way if it is there.

You can imagine the ramifications if she is actually able to pull it off.

You never saw anyone more hopeful that their beliefs were wrong! My mother's passing has put me in touch with the longing that leads so many people to embrace and defend traditional teachings.

Last night rocked my world. I went to bed at midnight after a day that started at 6 a.m. It was difficult to sleep, and I felt myself going through some unpleasant sensory experiences, such as smelling smoke that wasn't there, and losing control of my body while my sensibilities drained from my mind. This was probably no more than falling asleep in slow motion and experiencing the shutdown that usually takes place too quickly to examine. But I was conscious enough to wonder if I was dying.

What happened next was not really linear, but I found myself in the great hall of an old house. It was pitch dark. No windows, no moonlight. Even so, I could see the glint of a great white fireplace. Mind, I could not see it, but in a dream, you often know the lay of an environment you cannot actually see. I saw fingers in front of me, and felt them with an explosive sense of recognition. I had Momb by the hands! Both of them! I pulled her to me and squeezed her so hard. I have never been a hugger, and Momb had always been a more emotional being, so I often felt in life that I was having gestures of affection extorted from me. Not last night, though - I had a sense of joy that was better than any earthly pleasure I have ever had. I would have checked out without so much as a goodbye, and run off with my mom . . . to do what? I have no idea! And the dark mansion itself was not a place of beauty or joy, or even importance. And I never saw more than her fingers.

I woke up unable to stop crying. My husband, whose sleep I had disturbed, put his arms around me. I wasn't sad - I mean, could I possibly be any sadder than I already am? Maybe they were tears of joy, but my emotion was so extreme, my body cannot differentiate. Did I want the experience to continue? Of course I did, but the embrace had ended before I awakened. My awakening did not shorten it. I woke up crying, but realized I had received the entire message. The word I spoke into my pillow was "awesome" and by 2:00, I was recording it in my diary because I never want to forget the dream that left me feeling awed and grateful. Believer or not, it honestly feels like she came back to me for an instant. I can't help wondering if a mixture of emotions attached to my mother and menopause are messing with my tear ducts. I know that was a spoiler. I'm not sure I care right now.

So was it only a dream?

Since the dawn of Man, dreams were not television in one's head, but an arena of alternative realities. But if these scenarios were any sort of reality, why should such phenomena occur only at night? I am reminded of a conversation where someone explained to me that even the stars shone during the day. The aurora borealis, all celestial wonders, were present during the day. We simply could not see them because of the sun's presence.

Of course, it is possible that night, once we lie vulnerably and relinquish control, is the only time it is quiet enough for the mind to go seeking or to receive a message with one's whole being.

Monkeys and Shooting Stars

2011-05-03T20:34:00.000-07:00

If I could wear a string of vacant lots around my neck like pearls, I probably would.

I sold Bonvenon (Esperanto for "welcome"), the one I purchased first, and have gotten over my pang of loss, as I could not possibly keep it groomed, prevent dumping on it, and work full time.

At the end of 2010, I purchased Melinn (my stepfather's pronunciation of my mother's name), driven to inch closer and closer to the neighborhood where I went to kindergarten. I still don't know why I am drawn to it. Melinn has an odd shape, as a portion of it was sold many years ago to satisfy a lien. Someone suggested the sold portion might have once been a privy, although I think the land's early occupants had plumbing. I do, however, find myself looking out of the corner of my eye to see if there is any nine-foot-tall mint growing anywhere. That would let us know for sure.

Today, I put in an offer on another lot. If accepted, this would be the first time I owned more than one. This lot is gorgeous - deep, green, and cool - it's in very nice neighborhood called Govans, and Patootie and I could see putting a small home there if things don't work out elsewhere.

Maybe it's an only-child thing, but I name every property I have ever owned. The house I currently live in is "Ouistiti" (pronounced wee-stee-tee). A ouistiti is actually a type of monkey, but I chose that name because it is the French equivalent of "say cheese!" when you are about to take a photo. Enunciating "ouistiti" forces a francophone to smile. Although we have not had time to upgrade the house and it's still a little run down, I've had plenty to be happy about while in it.

Back to the new lot. I have named it Stjarnfall. STJARNFALL is the Swedish word for shooting star. A missionary asked me how I met my patootie, and I told her that I was out walking one night and a star got caught in my hair, and it turned out to be him.

Ask Me . . . I'll Tell

2010-12-11T20:38:00.000-08:00

I have only two words for gay and lesbian troops serving in the U.S. Armed Forces.

T H A N K Y O U.

Swatting at a Superbug

2010-08-15T07:02:00.000-07:00

We are now to understand that the NDM-1 superbug lies in wait to assail us. Now that we have overhauled our food service system in the wake of e coli poisonings, innoculated ourselves against swine flu, and been at the mercy of hantavirus and MRSA, we are once again having to shutter the windows. Well, at least we're talking about bacteria this time.

In the interest of full disclosure, I admit my doctors do not condone this idea, but once in a while I add two caps (CAPS, not cups) of bleach to my bath water, taking a "bleach bath." When I was a teenager, I swam frequently and noticed that my facial acne was better after swimming, due to the chlorine in the pool. Years later, it became known that chlorine kills HIV. Due to these facts, I decided to try to help an occasional bout of dermatitis by taking a spiked bath now and then. This will have no effect for bacteria which has entered one's system, which should be addressed immediately, and is no substitute for a doctor in any case. My personal rule: if one or two such baths over several days doesn't help a rash, I make an appointment with my physician. I would say that a bleach bath or two has at least delayed the worst of a skin eruption, making it possible to make an appointment that didn't inconvenience my employer and then wait for it with a higher degree of comfort.

But one experience I wish to share is my dunk in Sol Duc Hot Springs, at a hotel on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. You may have grown up, as I have, hearing occasional anecdotes about miracle waters . . . perhaps miraculous waters were featured in folklore or old movies, the reminiscences of elders or old travel documentaries. One year, I took a dip with my friends just for fun but, to my utter amazement, I emerged from the hot spring pool with smooth skin.

Sol Duc publishes the chemical makeup of the natural spring, which includes chemicals we commonly find in ointments to treat stubborn acne, such as sulfur. If I recall, one or two radioactive elements were listed - in low enough quantities to be safe, of course.

Some swear by a bath spiked with simple table salt or even Dead Sea salts. I wonder when a spa will offer artificial hot springs treatment to approximate the miracle of natural hot springs with the right mix of chemicals. Maybe YOU will be the entrepreneur or innovator that we allergic, low-immunity, rash-prone neighbors need.

In any event, it is possible to have a cheap, low-tech, first line of defense against bacteria, since cowering under one's bed (tried that, too) isn't effective.

The simple, unvarnished truth is that when these assailants to our health first make themselves known, the doctors are not ready. I find it emotionally valuable and of some physical use as well to have a first line of defense under the sink while doctors catch up. Because for many of us, allergic or not, the first symptom of superbug infiltration is not a skin eruption. It is fear.

She's The Retiring Kind

2010-03-22T19:31:00.000-07:00

Damn straight.

Last weekend, we looked at an apartment building in Baltimore where I am told condos had gone for as much as $200K, but the housing market was very unkind to Baltimore, and the 2-bedroom units (with washer and dryer in unit) are now going for $30,000.

Of the 3 units that were attractive to us, one needed repairs, and two of the three had never been lived in. The tax load is based on the original assessment, but I imagine that might be expected to change when a sale changes the tax base. The condo fee is reasonable. Since occupancy is low, the buildings, even though rehabbed and"new," were on automatic pilot long enough to where I suspect there may be a special assessment down the road.

The neighborhood, Reservoir Hill, is up and coming. Well into the Twentieth Century, it was a wealthy enclave and entry point to Druid Hill Park and the Baltimore Zoo. Some of the architecture is stunning. Gertrude Stein lived in a house three blocks from the condos. Not long ago, the area was full of drugs and crime but started changing a few years ago, so it still isn't "there" yet. You may recall that Ms. Stein's comment of there being no "there, there" was about Oakland, California, not Baltimore.

Are you still afraid you can't retire? Even if Baltimore is not a place you would want to retire to, there will likely be opportunities elsewhere for anyone who was able to hold onto a job during the meltdown.

And maybe for some who were not able to hold onto a job - but can somehow get the money together.

Or others who dream of owning their own time and, still having to work and expecting to work, can afford to at least seek a job they really like without the salary being a priority, since a mortgage would be low or nonexistent.

Now, of course, those last few lines were my opinion. Nothing is perfect - you must still embrace any faults in the area or in the plan.

But why not take a look? Stay at the Hopkins Inn and take the #3 to the Harbor to eat crab cakes. The Inn is provincial rather than hifalutin', so if you need glitz, stay at the Harbor. However, if you are looking for a place to live, Hopkins Inn is in a residential area, and you will go home with a better idea of what you really want to do about the situation, if anything.

If you ask me, Baltimore can always use more redhats, housecats, and wicker!

To Cameroon With Love

2010-03-19T20:12:00.000-07:00

I went to Cameroon!

In a nutshell, my time in Cameroon ranks up there with the trip to Cancun to see one of my sons get married. I am genuinely at peace with marrying my patootie. I now understand the gifting protocol and some of the things I once complained of or judged. The little I grasp of their system – a mixture of French and tribal – works where it is.

It is impossible not to address the poverty because it pervades Westerners' view of Africa. Although the images of poverty and filth we have all been raised on are factual, they need to be taken in an African context. In an American context, people who live like that also have high crime, to name only one problem. In fact, there is not much crime among the locals. Cameroon has at least 250 tribes and is typically peaceful. When you see the poverty in person, you realize that it is not necessarily crippling. There is little crime, as I mentioned, among regular folk. There is no anger on the streets. Women come and go as they please. Children are well behaved. It is true that Douala, in particular, is especially dirty because there is not regular trash pickup and, if there are any pollution laws, they cannot be enforced. Douala is dirty enough that I went to bed nauseated from breathing the air while we were driving around. However, the dirt is generally outside. With the exception of one or two vagrants, I did not see anyone who was dirty unless they were currently doing dirty work, such as the farmers still moving their merchandise into the market. The homes I went to, often unannounced, were swept clean. I did not see any unkempt children. They are well groomed and wear shoes. If you are standing among people - who do not often have deodorant and other western hygiene products - most will not smell at all, and those who do will smell just like anyone here who bathes daily but forgot to put on deodorant.

There is laundry hanging everywhere, even on guardrails next to the road. My first day, I had a typical western thought that "laundry is everywhere because the people have no machines." Within a day or two, I realized that, no, there was laundry everywhere because Africans are clean.

There is junk everywhere. However, after a day or two of acclimation, I realized that since Africans don't waste much, much of that junk was being used as bbq pits or other items that were useful to them. However, when you see photos of these things and only know what that signifies in America, it is difficult to understand that the problem not always what we think it is.I did not see any bugs, except a few flies. I wondered if maybe I was missing something, until I realized there were also few birds. The homes, which are generally made of cement, do not support mold, rodents or bugs.

The big markets are extremely dirty in appearance. However, I went there after being acclimated to Douala's dirt (Yaounde, the capital, is remarkably clean). Since I knew to expect trash ground into the soil, old wood and corrugated metal everywhere, the first thing I noticed about the big market was not its homeliness. The first thing I noticed was that . . . IT SMELLED GREAT! The fish counter smelled like only brine. Even the poultry area, despite poultry's fame for its stink, was ok until I got to within five feet or so of the coops. In the chicken area, fragrant wood was burned as incense. So, even at the large market, you either smell fresh merchandise, fragrant wood, the amazing spices, or NOTHING.

Most people in Douala do not have private vehicles. You will not see many, if any, buses. Few bikes. I saw no one riding any type of animal, such as a donkey, even though a cattle drive is not rare. Most will be on foot. Of those on foot, many still carry loads on their heads. Something like a shoe may stay put on a bare head; a tray of fruit or a sack of something will generally rest on a fabric collar that stabilizes the load. Women who do their marketing carry large bags. Although we see many handcarts for men carrying loads like firewood for sale, there are no grocery carts like the ones we see here among shoppers who do not have a car.They drive on the same side of the road that we do.There were many "motos" or "velos" (small motorcycles) in Douala, sometimes holding up to four people, including the occasional European. Traffic jams of hundreds of cars at intersections are common, and air pollution in the form of cars burning oil and the gritty exhaust of the motos is normal. There are few stop signs or lights, which are mostly ignored. Everyone has good brakes. Pedestrians generally remain exactly where they are when vehicles pass within less than a foot, because everyone is accustomed to cutting it very close. Lanes, which are generally not marked anyway, are for guidance only, as a third lane may be created based on need. This sounds like a joke, but ad hoc lanes may be necessary to avoid potholes or to accommodate a line of drivers who need to get around other obstacles.If you have the means, you can hire a cab. Since all cars are imported, automobile travel can be expensive. The taxis, which are yellow, are usually dented, many comically so. Inside, most will have an appearance of being regularly cleaned. Some will have a name or slogan painted on the rear window or bumper, although I do not know if the name, such as "Prudence" identifies the driver or the car itself, like naming a ship. Taxis can be hired by the timeframe, such as an hour or a half day, or you can share a ride with strangers. We generally hired our own cab at a cost of perhaps 5,000 CFA (central African francs, pronounced "SAYfas", which works out to maybe $5). The roads in Douala are not maintained. My patootie advised me that you cannot go around potholes, you can only choose the one that will damage your car the least. This is true. There are ridges and potholes a foot deep or more on most of the roads we crossed, including neighborhoods of the relatively well off. The small, unpaved roads going into Joe African's quarter are even difficult to negotiate by foot. I was there during the dry season, so I can only speculate that the wet season offers its own particular difficulty.

So, the first impression of an American riding in a cab in Douala may well be "what am I doing in this bomb?" By the second day, you develop a great deal of respect for the "taximan" who negotiates these roads with acute skill and the talented mechanics who keep the bombs running.

The Cameroonian version of Greyhound is the Guaranti. We had a great ride on a modern, air conditioned bus, to Yaounde. This was a three-hour ride each way and the round trip probably cost $50-$55 for two of us, so it was not cheap by Western standards. The riders appeared to be mostly business people. The Guaranti station we used had comfortable sofas and banks lining all the walls. Instead of a vending machine, there was a guy outside selling sardine and egg sandwiches on French bread, and the station set in a line of market tables where you can buy bottled water and sodas, phone cards, and other items typical of a market. Halfway between Douala and Yaounde, the bus will make a potty stop. You probably already know that there is no potty at the potty stop. Motorists also stop at one or two points where people are selling refreshments, which they hand up to you through the windows if your windows open. On the way back, the Guaranti itself offered a mildly sweet, heavy bread-cake and Fanta (orange soda) as part of its program.Although Africa is known for cpt rather than punctualness, the Guaranti generally runs on time.

To get from Baltimore to Douala, budget maybe 30 hours each way, including layovers. But first, a joke: Two pilots were in a lounge, talking about a colleague who had died in a plane crash. The first pilot asks, "Do you think he went to Heaven, or to Hell?" The second pilot responds, "Doesn't matter. Either way, he has to go through Atlanta."

I took Air France, a partner of Delta, from BWI to ATL, which takes about as much time as getting to OAK from SEA. After a layover of several hours, I took the transatlantic flight to CDG (Charles de Gaulle/Paris). This is where you stop hearing much English spoken, although everything you encounter will still be in accordance with your First World expectations, and probably slightly better. I mentioned before that the food was to die for. First, all of the food and drinks, including alcohol, are included. During the transoceanic flights, the food is of the quality the French are famous for. Breakfast might be pain au chocolat, a yogurt, fresh fruit, a cheese, bottled water and coffee, tea, juice. We had two transatlantic meals. During the five hours in the Paris airport, I ate more great food and did some souvenir shopping after passing through security. In order to shop or get some refreshments, I had to exchange a traveler's check at a Travelex so that I would have Euros. CDG is enormous - even with the airport train, you need to budget 40 minutes to get to your gate because the signs can be confusing even if, like me, you read enough French to take the most basic care of yourself. Paris and Douala are in the same time zone, so the 6-hour journey to Douala did not add to jet lag.

But this is where things get weird. Douala Airport (DLA) was a zoo. There was not the maintenance or the order we are accustomed to. That doesn't mean it was "every man for himself." Rather, the Camerounais are very polite and orderly in and of themselves. But it was a crush of fantastic proportions. One thing that worked well is that every airport I encountered more or less funnels international travelers toward baggage claim and Customs. My sweetie and our friend, "D.", also from Cameroon, prepared me that there would be young men who would insist on carrying my bags. D. gave me an idea of appropriate payment for them. I did not have the right currency but, in the airport, they will take Euros and dollars.Two young men swooped down on me and, since I was carrying an extra bag weighing over 60 pounds to give to D's mother in Douala, I was grateful for their help . . . until they demanded $50 to help me through Customs.

Quoi? I got my bitch on and told them that I was tired from my flight and had no patience for nonsense. I demanded that they hand my bags to the customs official and let him tell me whether I owed anything - I would pay them for carrying my bags, and that's all. I could speak to them at length because they were not about to leave - I was their opportunity and they weren't going anywhere. The chaos around the customs table was actually helpful because the customs official simply did not have enough hands to do everything he wanted to do (although he did open two of my three bags) and, unable to negotiate further or do anything else, the guys and I spilled through the airport's front doors a little like Jonah being hucked upon the beach.

After a minute or two, someone called "Pom?" and a cheerful face in front of me identified herself as my sweetie's sister. I chattered to the baggage guys that my people were here and somehow, her grown sons got my luggage away. I pressed $6 into the hands of the ringleader of the customs scam and thanked both men and I got away - to their consternation - but not before squeezing their hands and thanking them for their patience. All they could really say was "you're welcome, Madame."

They say you can't bullshit a bullshitter, but as much as I'd like to take credit for outwitting the scammers, I escaped the situation by a combination of chaos, their own deference to my age, and the quick and knowledgeable wits of my prospective sister-in-law's family. Speaking of which - two carloads of people were there to greet me! I would not walk alone, dine alone, or sleep alone during my entire stay. In fact, a couple of nights, we slept three to a bed because that's where there is to sleep, even in a Western-style hotel. And what about being there? You've doubtless seen either a bumper sticker on an old jalopy or a joke about such a car with the message "Get in, shut up, and hang on!" Once in Africa, that's how you deal. Get in, shut up, and hang on!

On the day of my return, the same chaos greeted me on my way into the airport. Two cars of people accompanied me to the front door - only this time, I knew them, I loved them, and I cried at having to leave them. Not much time to dry my tears - because of security, Monsieur A., a friend of the family, pushed me through a couple of doors after failing to charm his way in to accompany me. I was not able to turn back to thank everyone again. I went through my checkpoints and noted that I was required to pay an airport tax in order to leave. Good thing I had reconsidered emptying my pockets in the hotel. So, I had to line up behind others who did not appear locals and pay my last 10,000 CFA note - perhaps $25 - before I was allowed to complete my checkpoints.And the rest of the trip was the reverse of getting to Africa. I had heard that Air France uses its crappy planes for the Africa runs. While the food on the way from Douala to Paris had dried out a little, it was simply great French food that had dried out a little. I had no complaints whatsoever. To celebrate my successful journey, I actually drank the champagne and cognac on my return to the Occident!

I left my American things with my sister-in-law, my pantyhose and Neutrogena soap, a ruffled skirt and an unused water filter cup I thought I would need. (I did not visit any villages, and drank either hotel water or bottled water elsewhere.) This allowed me to bring home a load of African clothing, Cameroonian coffee and spices, merchandise from the French supermarket in Douala, called Casino, and souvenirs from the Paris airport, and even the glycerine soap "Joe Cameroon" buys from the open air market for next to nothing.

Souvenirs were difficult for me to find in the territory I covered. There is not enough tourism for the types of baubles we find in the First World. I wiped out the hotel's last 19 postcards, which cost a fortune. When we went to the Post Office, the clerk needed special permission to send the cards to the U.S. However, those postcards cost less than a quarter each to send and made it to their destinations!

Every time I travel, I unlearn many of the ideas that drive many Westerners. A lot of what we know or think we know simpy are not relevant that far outside America. I sincerely hope you enjoyed my impressions from the week I spent meeting my prospective inlaws. While there is not much to do that is Western - for example, I didn't see movie theaters, skating rinks, a McDonalds or dance club - I think every American should travel to the second or third world, if possible. When we see what others are happy with, our lives can improve immeasurably because a culture that does not have our material well being can show us what is really important. Now, contrary to what you may be expecting, I'm not going to be a dork and stop there, hoping you'll see my earnest expression and the mist in my eyes. Heck no. I say TAKE THAT CRUCIAL KNOWLEDGE and layer it on the material wealth we have here, and see what a swell life is possible when you got it going on inside as well as out.

Selective Service and Women

2009-08-23T15:45:00.000-07:00

Young men are required to sign up for Selective Service in order to obtain many entitlements that are open to women without this commitment. I think this is unfair to men.

While I'm just an old windbag with sons now, I did try to enlist in the 1970s. 'Nam was over, but the Armed Forces were still recruiting. The Cold War had not ended. I felt that if women like me who actually wanted to join did so, perhaps men who did not want to go could be spared. I did well on the Army Battery and was finally told that I could not join because I refused to lose fourteen pounds that would put me in line with the Army's actuarial chart. I pointed out that many young men who went to basic training were actually rotund. Further, fourteen pounds lighter at that point in my life, I was actually less distinguishable as female. I had once been called "sir" by someone approaching from my rear who apparently focused on my broad shoulders. Sure, the military was sexist and Miss Mouth was obviously a poor fit for military service. A friend of mine recently remarked that it was a blessing in disguise. Be that as it may, I tried to sign up because it was my belief that if I was equal, I should enlist.

Women have since succeeded in volunteering for combat, and their take on the issue would be instructive. But even without their opinion, women are now in a voting majority and can vote for war that, generally, men must enlist to fight. Also, according to Wikipedia, 90% of positions in war are non-combat. I would not be the first to look at that particular statistic and stress more heartily that our daughters should also sign up for Selective Service. Call me old school, but even if we, having failed to make war obsolete, drafted women into positions as medics, Clara Barton style, we would at least be putting our money where our collective mouth is.

As for war in general, we have all seen and heard how women and children suffer during war. Over and over again. Decade after decade, war after war. No one has shown them how to defend their homes, or given them the tools to do so. What if the next war is fought here, with American cities being occupied by foreign infantry? Should we settle for being the sitting ducks that women usually are in wartime?

Of course not.

How to begin? We should bring Phys Ed back to high schools and offer a mod that resembles boot camp and teaches the basics of military science, certainly including real life/death film footage, Driver's Ed style. My guess is that such a program will empower women if or when directly involved in war. It will give the boys an unromantic view of war. While it may teach both sexes to cope with the inevitable enlistment that will follow, it may also spur both sexes to work harder to make it obsolete. No matter how that part of the program pans out, I suggest a permanent program whereby high schoolers give voluntary public service to veterans, who are currently underserved in all aspects, even including simple care that high schoolers could give, freeing older volunteers and paid staff to deliver skilled care.

Like many people and certainly the vast majority of women, I despise war. I am embarrassed to face the next generation with the knowledge that, having failed to settle our differences in a mature fashion, we still send our sons out there to die for problems their elders should have solved, coped with, or not made in the first place. Sacrificing our daughters will not change this, but war itself has already changed in ways that have resulted in less loss of American life. Note that we no longer get news only that "so many hundreds of American boys" were lost - today, sufficiently fewer soldiers are killed in battle that newscasters tell us their names and interview their loved ones.

Better without a doubt, but still unsatisfactory. Let us all shoulder the burden until the burden is no more.

Adam And Steve Are OK By Me

2009-06-14T12:32:00.000-07:00

I think that, by now, I have heard all of the arguments as to why homosexual women and men should not be allowed to marry. While I am not much interested in what gay people do one way or the other just because they are gay, I do think it is a poor reflection on the rest of us to be haters. Here are my thoughts on some of the arguments I have heard.

For one, how does the gay couple across the street undermine the sanctity of their straight neighbors' marriage? Straights are responsible for the 40% illegitimacy rate, the 50% divorce rate, most domestic violence, and it is generally straight people who produce juvenile delinquents; indeed almost all deviant citizens are born to straights, as homosexuals produce children with far less frequency. It is my opinion that gays cannot undermine the sanctity of marriage because we (straights) have already done so.

Why is it believed that gays perpetuate sex crimes? Even prison rapes are said to be generally perpetrated by men who are actually heterosexual and using rape as a tool of power, controlling their victim through humiliation, as they would in a heterosexual assault. Homosexuality is not pedophilia. Many haters do not seem clear as to who they are hating. Gays are not responsible for making such people ignorant.

Within my parents' lifetime, there were instances of one church or another refusing to perform a marriage where it was known that the spouses could not bear children. Many Americans today would find such a practice reprehensible. However, is there really a logical explanation for marriage to be only between men and women when child bearing is an option rather than a mandate and, further, when many involved hetero couples don't seem to be as interested in marriage themselves? How is any of this a problem for an Entity that, being a spirit, has no gender and can create people by only expressing the desire that they exist?

I have certainly heard it said that gay couples are an abomination before God. Oh, so God DOES make junk. So much for belief in God's infallibility. Any religion that requires a believer to turn his or her brain off should, as a matter of responsibility, require them to turn off their mouths as well. How can anyone who truly believes in Jesus ignore the message to love one's neighbor? I find it a stretch that an omniscient and perfect intellectual power really suffers from the limitations many believers ascribe to Him.

Although Jesus wore long hair, robes and sandals, that was not cross-dressing at that time. Likewise, most gay men are, well, men. They dress and act like men. And most of the women dress and act like women. So, it is not always possible even to tell that an acquaintance is gay. Not that this should require concealment in this day and age - my point is only that one can be gay without being weird.

It is true that gays are not capable of Biblical marriage. That is because neither are the rest of us. God did not appoint our spouses, with or without taking a rib. (I make my fiance laugh; perhaps I was created from his humerus.) We do not go into a cave and "know" each other and come out married. Men and women who are able to bear children and choose not to, demonstrating defiance toward the divine mandate to be fruitful and multiply, are not deprived of participation in marriage by either church or state.

Marriage has evolved into an institution that, while perhaps a sacred journey among partners who are focused enough to handle the responsiblity of keeping the journey sacred, is largely secular with obligations to society and to the state.

My simple argument is that in a society where we are all deemed equal, we must all have equal access to civic institutions. This is why the state should not interfere with homosexual marriage.

Capistrano in Baltimore

2009-02-17T18:06:00.000-08:00

This weekend, I was drawn to the street where I lived when I was a kindergartener. Not remembering where my school was, I knew that if I had been allowed to walk to school alone at the age of five, it couldn't be a complicated route.

I started my walk around the block, noting the properties where a friendly lady raised cocker spaniels in 1962, the lilac and walnut trees no longer at the house I actually lived in, the storm drain where I would swing my legs if no one was looking. I found the largely unchanged monolith of Public School 87 with its gothic archways and, from there, walked to the approximate corner where my mother and I lived the first time my parents separated. I remembered it as an enormous Dutch Colonial covered with shingles that had an apartment on each of three floors. I noted the time, subtracted three hours, and dialed my mother in California to ask for the exact intersection.

She didn't remember! Characteristically, she commanded me to get my duff home and tend to my patootie.

But why was I drawn there at that time? After all, I had had almost a desperation to go to that neighborhood - I had shrugged and left my patootie in front of the SciFi Channel.

My mind coughed up another question, perhaps to answer the first one. That is, how does a migrating bird know he has reached his destination?

Pursuing the theory that the birds might be drawn by a magnetic field, I wondered if I felt a sense of "equilibrium" on Woodhaven Avenue . . . as though I had been calibrated to that magnetic vortex as a five-year-old.

My honey postulated that I needed to return to a place where I had been happy.

Since I always thought of Mountlake Terrace as my happy place, my view of Woodhaven Avenue in Baltimore is more like the place where I lived before I became conscious of complications.

And really, maybe that's close enough.

My Thoughts on the Election

2008-11-16T16:21:00.000-08:00

Some friends (though certainly not most of you) were hinting that I should comment
on Obama's election, not that my opinion is particularly unique, lofty or important.

However, I'm happy to oblige because, as you well know, I am a windbag.

Sure, I'm happy. I was a Hillary supporter, but it should surprise no one that I
preferred Obama over McCain!

Few people realize that I have never been a Democrat. I chose to be unaffiliated
rather than be taken for granted, back in those days. Later, I identified as
Republican for several years because I got the Holy Ghost one day while ironing in
front of the television during a Reagan speech. I was broke, close to being
homeless, and disgraced. Mr. Reagan made me feel like I had the power to do
something about it. I viewed this against a more Democratic message that I should
wait for my ship to come in. In real life, as you well know, most people will find
themselves doing a little of both, regardless of party.

I was even laughed at because, on the East Coast, at least, Republicans are usually
very well heeled, and I didn't have a pot to piss in. Single moms were supposedly not Republicans because "conservative" women who were not widows did not have fatherless children, and any number of circumstances that applied to me at the time, and since. But Mister Reagan was talking to ME, and although I do not recall a word he said, I do recall standing there nodding my head and promising to work it. I'm pretty sure I pressed those pants so they were fit for Mr. Reagan himself to wear.

My spiritual affiliation with the GOP ended when, during the Gingrich years, I saw the the most ungracious mentality surrounding the Contract with America proponents, not the Party of Lincoln I naively identified with, and I went back to being unaffiliated.

As for Obama's election, once the excitement of the moment was past, people went
back to their lives, although I see happy people of all colors. Even in Baltimore
and DC, Obama's victory is not just a black thing. Because of the demographics and
the polarization here, I was surprised to see Obama being "shared."

Frankly, Obama is, like any candidate, only the better of the two that made
it to the finals. The most important aspects to his victory are, for me, first that
America is finally what it always said it was and second, a kick in the pants for
the many idle people still not putting forth effort because they are minorities.
Honestly, since DC and Bimo are both over 60% black, anyone who is whining about
being black here has to be a total pinhead.

But look again. The election of Mr. Obama should also serve as a kick in the pants for not-so-well-off whites who are not putting forth adequate efforts to rise. After all, if he made it to the White House, what considerably less lofty goal does a white person find it too difficult to attempt? Note that I said "attempt," not "attain." Black, white, or otherwise, sometimes it really isn't your time.

My younger son, who teaches in Thailand and expected better treatment in
general overseas because of Obama's election, reports that Thais he meets on the street are actually effusive about Obama's election.

Hopefully, better times are ahead for everybody.

Hail To The Plan

2008-09-22T17:56:00.000-07:00

A year later and almost to the day I rolled up into this town, the plan has delivered. I am the proud new owner of an 88-year-old row house that has been remodeled to inhabitability. As the previous occupant was elderly, the house appears to never have had cable. Many electrical outlets had receptacles for only two prongs. The house has an old smell to it and only one bathroom for its three floors. However, it has been gussied up with new electric service, new ceiling tiles – the foam ones like you see in offices, new appliances that are a little beat up, and new carpet and vinyl flooring. The plumbing works flawlessly. There are new windows and a good roof, and one ceiling fan, two window air conditioners, tall windows and a porch off the back bedroom, to address the stifling heat. The oil tank is three quarters full. The transoms have all been covered, but can certainly be restored. French doors rest in the basement, possibly to be reclaimed and reattached to the dining room entrance.

At closing, I promised the owner I would love the house, and indeed, I do.

My modest plan delivered a bonus: a sweet patootie. My gentleman friend, who is foreign, believes that a house already has a spirit before a new resident moves in. When my pre-move exertions appeared hollow to him, he excused himself, went downstairs, and in spite of his recent bath and clean clothes, he knocked down eons of cobwebs that were almost as thick as string. He did this throughout the entire basement, which runs the length of the house, and later told me he had been communicating with the house spirit that we were here now and would care for the house.

Cost of Baltimore row house: $109,000.
Value of Patootie: Priceless.

From Shorthand to Shorthanded

2008-07-13T12:27:00.000-07:00

It has been said that a middle class American with average household technology plus a computer was the equivalent of a slave owner with over 200 slaves. Today, however, technology has become the new slave driver. How did this happen?

The first time I saw a computer, in 1976, I would not have known what to call it. I was a sophomore dropping off keypunch cards that, if properly punched, would mine demographic data for a class I was taking. The gatekeeper to technology at that time was a rather surly upperclassman whose job it was to take my punch cards, perform some ritualistic magic to obtain a printout containing the data I was assigned to acquire, and perhaps vacuum bugs from the far regions of the machinery. The environment was hot and noisy, not much unlike working in a rather refined garage.

My printouts always contained zeroes. It goes without saying that I did not do well in the class.

Later, personal computers actually did my bidding, saving hours of typing previously done by several people, as well as replacing the matronly head clerical person who proofread our work. The typing pool shrank, and those of us who remained required less and less education, considering our fields, to manage the reigning technology.

Over the last three decades, tech and its master switched places. It started in little ways - employers counting keystrokes, pages produced, files created and, ultimately, wastepaper, an indicator of sorts of whether the typist had a lot of false starts or errors. As accuracy improved, waste was considered the lesser evil. As the workplace became less hostile, keystroke counting stopped. The statistics I once needed to present keypunch cards to obtain could be obtained from the Internet. Keystrokes and waste paper became unimportant. Questions answered with accuracy and events recounted with professional flair became more important for those once evaluated on the basis of typing speed. It might be said that in a manner of speaking, the digital age required fewer digits.

I am astonished to realize that the calculations necessary to craft the atomic bomb were sometimes performed by housewives with adding machines - each worker would take part of the lengthy calculation, and subsets of data were compiled later. Today's computers can easily calculate such numbers. "Easily," however, has become a relative term.

Today, so much work crosses the desk of a secretary that it is sometimes difficult to remember, at the end of a particularly busy day, what was produced, even if we are held accountable for a limited amount of liability regarding our product. We crank out documents that we are, on some level, expected to understand and at times edit, while the volume of work makes it difficult to glean much meaning from the task. Indeed, most of today's managers did not come up through the typing pool, where almost anyone can tell you it takes a different skill to pump out production typing, as opposed to conceptualizing the content of the document and improving its message. The secretary has become the typing pool, as well as one or two layers of management, copy editor, content editor, and paralegal; sometimes a programmer, vendor, librarian, or accountant.

To the extent that a secretary may be instrumental in maintaining her employer's book of business, he or she often has a relationship with clients, who often know the secretary by name and may rely on him or her.

And over time, the secretary became not only the master of two hundred workers, but a slave to the requirements now standard due to technology's promise of productivity. A slave to many masters, the secretary has come full circle to become the futuristic embodiment of what s/he was in 1970.

It would seem, then, that in spite of pervasive sophistication and also because of it, the old ceiling has become the new floor.

The Lepismatador

2008-07-06T08:10:00.000-07:00

I saw it near the ceiling, the harmless yet dreaded lepismatidae. Must have heard from the cockroach, tobacco beetle, gnat colony, and bedbug that I am a lousy shot.

Eyeing the silverfish, I waved my sandal and told him frankly that I wanted him to come down so I could give him an ass whupping the likes of which he had never seen. He had sought the protection of the cable pipe near the ceiling, but his visible antenna poked a wee Morse code into the air:

e a t m e

Then, I was hit by a thunderbolt of genius. The scythe!

After all, I've now had a little practice. Not only that, I reasoned, but how different could this be from picking up a single grain of rice with chopsticks?

I bore down on him like Ujio from The Last Samurai. If all went according to intention, the little interloper would not have time before his skewering to point out that Ujio would have been on horseback, wearing a horned helmet and yelling something bloodcurdling in medieval Japanese. Channeling Ujio, I opened my mouth to voice something I had heard in a rap video.

Oops. My charge became a stagger as I put on brakes, realizing both that it was 1 a.m. and all-out warfare might be disturbing to the neighbors below, and also realizing that without Ujio's horned helmet, I ran the risk of inadvertently flipping my adversary into my hair with the weirdly curved scythe blade.

Couldn't risk it. Now what?

Aha. Waving at me enthusiastically, my leaf rake got my attention from the Rubbermaid yard tool caddy in the corner.

Mindful that we were within ten minutes of more than a half dozen universities and a lot of residents in my building have an advanced education, I asked the doomed creature if he was aware of any statutory rake laws that might give him recourse.

He knew I was playing him. More braggadocio from the exposed antenna . . .

Now battle ready in a shower cap and goggles from the tackle box I use as a tool kit, I used the rake's menacing tines to chase the invader to a point where, likely cut off by accumulated paint, he made a run for open wall space.

His last stand is marked by an elegant fan of upside-down L's from the rake's accumulated grime.

Catching my breath after the kill, I allowed my sense of propriety to assert itself. I grabbed a paper towel and delivered a brief battlefield eulogy for the fallen arthropod:

"So long, you little bastard."

An American Race

2008-06-07T19:27:00.000-07:00

Obama, aybama, bama bama oh . . .

After many hosanas, Barack Obama is now poised to be an American superstar.

My vote was for Hillary. You can't get my address from this website, can you . . . good. Whew, that was close. My desire to see Hillary Clinton in office was not my gender talking loud. Rather, we have a worldwide mess here and she is a proven battle axe. I love her. I fear her. I love her some more. Are you SURE you can't find me?

My profile and previous postings make it no secret that I look more like Mr. Obama than I look like Mrs. Clinton. However, I remember when Barack Hussein Obama was not quite black enough for the brothas. Now, of course, he is one fly dude. A journalist whose name I wish I had written down commented that Mr. Obama, as an immigrant, probably has more in common with many whites who came to this country and certainly many whites who happily voted for him. Black America has to understand that that isn't bad. The black experience in America has become more diverse.

While Mr. Obama is as American as apple pie, probably due to his Midwestern roots, he is, unlike most of "us," literally African-American. Capitalizing on the traditionally singular identity given to people of Negro descent in the United States, Black Americans have decided to embrace him and ride his coattails even when their welcome of him into the fold was somewhat grudging. After observing this, I think Black America has as much to learn about inclusiveness as to celebrate about being included.

At last, Hillary Clinton has conceded victory and ended her quest for the current presidency. Many have remarked that she stayed at the fair much too long. I did not elbow my way into any of the conversations I overheard where this opinion was supported, because I disagree heartily. In my view, one of the unusual burdens carried by both history-making candidates was that no matter what they claimed to have in common with the rest of us, or what we collectively believe they have in common with each other, both needed to demonstrate an unwillingness to back down - a complete and unapologetic commitment to standing up to a force they were facing on behalf of generations of hopeful Americans. Their impasse was uniquely and painfully awkward when the timing of their competition pitted them against each other instead of a common foe.

How convenient it would have been for Mrs. Clinton to run in 2008 and Mr. Obama in 2012! However, the luxury of such neat timing was not to be had and,somehow, they pulled it off. Although Hillary was the apparent loser in this competition, both she and Barack Obama have successfully blazed a path for absolutely anyone to follow all the way to the White House. The result? We all win. Even Mr. McCain's supporters. How? Because the absolute proof that a woman or black can realistically set a goal of becoming POTUS means that our political parties, branches of government, and media can cease using up most of their juice defending, promoting, or dancing around racial issues. I don't know about you, but I am tired of having my time wasted and would like to just get on with being American. I think the presumed Democratic nomination, and particularly a Democratic victory, would reset America's emotional register about race once and for all.

In any event, I am enjoying seeing history made in this manner. Perhaps now, many Americans - "us," "them," "we," and "they" can get over racial poormouthing and get on with restoring America's greatness.

Pickles and Ice Cream for Dad

2008-04-04T13:15:00.000-07:00

Thomas Beattie, a transgendered man still in possession of his female reproductive system, and his wife, who has had a hysterectomy, have decided to become parents by having the husband inseminated. He is expected to give birth vaginally in three months.

And I am having trouble wrapping my head around it, but not for the reasons one might think.

I accept the surgically transgendered as being who they say they are. By the time they have gone through surgery and the years of counseling and outing that precede surgery, they have demonstrated a commitment that I find completely convincing of their sincere belief that they were misassigned to the wrong gender at birth. Intellectually, I don't consider it too far outside the realm of correcting a severe cleft palate or separating twins - that is, something that got off track in utero.

Some critics of the Beatties' decision seem to worry more about whether the Beatties' is really a gay relationship. I'm not sure that's even relevant. As a parent, I feel that Mr. Beattie has actually sacrificed his life dream of finally being a man to take over the traditional reproductive role that normally accrues to the wife, and I understand why he would do so. Many parents do whatever it takes to create, or preserve, their offspring.

I might hazard a guess that the couple was looking forward to Mr. Beattie's final surgeries but feel that the timing of the pregnancy is a gift. If the train had already left the station, as it were, they would have been left with the option of acquiring a child with no genetic bond to either of them. A child acquired by any means is a beautiful gift, but I understand the somewhat tribal desire to have a genetic bond, at least until the child gets here and you learn that it wasn't as important as originally thought. After all, parenthood really happens between one's ears, not between one's legs.

Having said all that, I believe that once Thomas Beattie declared "I am a man" and, in my reasoning at least, secured the legal entitlement to be treated as a man in civic life, he irrevocably undermined his credibility as a man by becoming a mother, at least openly. If I had been in a similar position, a legal male with ovaries, I might quietly have donated my egg to a surrogate and let this be what it is for many couples with reproductive issues, that is, no one's business.

A Gorgeous Day in Charles Village

2008-03-19T15:23:00.001-07:00

It is pleasantly rainy today and in the sixties,
comfortable and mild. I have the blinds up and a grey
view of the gables and slate rooftops in a
neighborhood of rowhouses called Oakenshawe. It is
surrounded by dramatic old trees that have not yet
leafed out.

In the middle of the city, I actually
wake up to robins and an owl. There are rabbits in
the yard, five floors below! Neighborhood birds are
most typically crows, sparrows, starlings, and
something I have not seen yet that cries "peter,
peter." I think it is a titmouse. Also, I spot more
cardinals here than out west.

Although the weather cannot make up its mind to be
cold or not, we did have some real winter a few weeks
ago. Soon after, I saw a family of deer poking around
the brush while riding the can to my job in DC.

I planted some dogwoods and blueberries on my vacant
lot, although the plants were so small, for many,
single wisps. It will be years before they inspire
poetry, unless it runs something like this:

My stick is stuck like a wick in the muck not one
berry not to worry there's no hurry they're stilettos
in the ghetto I mean plot. They'll soon be twigs but
not big how 'bout berries wish they'd hurry I'm too
old for this wait and it's late in my ghetto I mean
yard. Yes there'll be branches big as ranches maybe
peaches bright as noon hope it's soon count the blooms
in my ghetto I mean orchard. Nature has blanketed my
street sugar sweet rest your feet smell the grass
gorge on berries children smile in this ghetto I mean
heaven.

Mami Kokua

2008-02-25T03:55:00.000-08:00

I love being fifty. In fact, when I have the opportunity to state my age, in writing, I prefer to write the number out. F-I-F-T-Y. Even in my fuzzy penmanship, that one thing is perfectly clear.

But I wasn't ready in Florida, two months ago. I had taken one of my mindless glee tours just to be able to say I have finally seen that state. When someone in a market called me "Mami," I had no idea they could be talking to me, and I ignored them. Graciously, they let it pass. Since I had never heard the term before, it never dawned on me to respond, even though they were apparently close enough to want my attention for some reason. Slowly, it sank in that no one else responded, making me realize they might have meant me.

Then, yesterday, someone passed me on the street in Baltimore, looked right at me, and said, "Mami, you're about to drop your loaf of bread." This perfect stranger tenderly corrected my grip on my grocery bag so that my oversized baguette did not tip out onto the sidewalk. Obviously, my advancing years placed me in dire need of hands-on kokua.

"Kokua" is another thing I learned while running amok. In Hawaii, "please no dumping" might read "kokua no dumping." Signs on the bus remind good citizens to have kokua. To heed; to care. To pay attention; to have caution.

To give a damn.

How well I recall how rude people sometimes were to me as a young mother. Not much kokua there! I played by the rules of the day and married first. I also spaced my children almost five years apart, and stopped at two. But it wasn't good enough. Young moms - with or without spouses - were considered kind of a drag. Held in contempt even by elders who considered children to be a nuisance or motherhood to be an obstacle to educational attainment or economic parity, I eventually came to realize on my own that as a mother, I stood at the threshold of an extraordinary universe rather than the end of a dirt road. Not many people seemed to get it or understand the logic of building mommy kokua until, according to my theory, middle aged women at the top of their game started trying to have children and while doing so, were simply not taking any guff from people who didn't get it. They were no more interested in the welfare of young moms than anyone else had been, but I believe that by demanding respect for their class, they caused a residual effect that netted a little more civility toward others.

So, while "the new thirty" is pretty exciting, I haven't much use for the old thirty. Been there, done that.

Today, I look beneath my feet and am pretty certain that's a cloud of red carpet I'm standing on. No need to twist my arm - I'll take it!

Looking toward a golden future, I have been eyeballing older women on the street. You see, in three months, I will be fifty-one. And by then, I'm pretty sure I'll have it down pat. Perhaps you will allow me to practice on you sometime. In any event, I'll be on top of it. That is, when someone in the grocery line addresses me as "Mami", I will know exactly what to say:

"Hi, Hon!"

The Scythe's the Limit

2008-01-28T19:42:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, the temperature was in the forties and I was finally ready to grab my new scythe in its canvas sock and get over to the lot to see how big a fool I really am . . . and demonstrate this fact for my new neighbors.

It is actually very difficult to get the swing right, and in the right direction. However, when the correct stance has been achieved, it feels right, and I’m sometimes able to connect with grass for two or three swings before I inadvertently begin tilling instead. I filled three bags with debris before my back told me that was enough for a first workout, maybe an hour and a half. If I had scythed competently, I might have mowed a third of the property in the same amount of time and filled twice the number of bags.

Unfortunately, I met a very troublesome neighbor. He started out friendly and coherent,but within two minutes, I realized he was both mentally unstable and a tad inebriated. He kept saying the property was his, or his mother’s, or his and his mother's; that he would marry me in twenty seconds . . . give me money because he was rich . . . intercede with God on my behalf because he was really a priest. Every few minutes, he would ask my name and tell me his. Since he is boyishly cute and has no speech impediment, I had made the mistake of getting too friendly, so it was tiring, but survivable under the circumstances. Then, things changed. He started spitting loogies on my property, and I asked him nicely not to, keeping my cool . . .

Until he went over to the fence and peed.

Oh hell no.

I yelled at him to go home. He got in my face with that looming posture men have when they have not made a decision to harm you, but plan to remain in violation of your boundaries and see what you are going to do about it. This made me really angry rather than intimidated, which surprises me in retrospect. At a level where I don't usually have to function, I was the law, and strangely prepared for it.

In retrospect, I am also amused. Instead of standing there like a member of my father's family, trying to explain to this clown the Constitution and my inalienable right to pursuit of happiness, I reacted more like one of my mother's people, blowing a gasket and grabbing my musket from the mantel.

Something got through to him because he changed his ploy to "helping" me, and he reached for my scythe. Bad move. I grabbed the handle, lowered my voice to a more authoritative pitch, and started barking at him like a Marine, and I kept it up until he left. He is not afraid of me, but unless he is also retarded, he may understand and remember that I don’t want to be bothered by him. At last, some woman who had dominion over him, perhaps his mother, perhaps a neighbor, spoke sharply to him on an unrelated matter. This distracted him enough for me to change to a position where I could appear to ignore him and, hopefully, lose his interest and escape further engagement.

Of course, even if this had not been a particularly distasteful encounter, I would still have to establish that the lot is private property so that people would know they could not deposit refuse, whether loogies or liquor bottles. And as much as I love my privacy, the best way to do this is to be out there showing my face and having people know my name, my car, etc., to say nothing of letting them hear me yell at someone who crosses the line.

Moving on, I returned home and emailed the City to remove a dead cat from the property, and plan to divot another patch on my next day off.

Already, I'm humming " . . . and on her lot, she had a dead cat and liquor bottles, EIEIO . . ."

After I get the hang of scything, I'll pull out the rechargeable weed whacker my Seattle friends sent me, and offer this guy some help finding another place to whizz.

The King Who Would Be Man

2008-01-26T05:52:00.000-08:00

This is an era of falling icons. Television, our information highway and society's negotiation of these tools have allowed us to see for ourselves and interpret, with or without the assistance - or sometimes only the appearance of assistance - of advanced education or experience.

One of America's fallen angels, Bill Clinton, is reinventing himself as a man who would give America its first woman president, Hillary Clinton, in an amazing tour de force that, if followed to completion, would have each of the Clintons riding each other's coattails to the White House. Nonetheless, Mr. Clinton's absence from the pedestal he once inhabited is likely permanent. This is the natural result of a fall from grace.

A more universally revered icon, Martin Luther King Jr., must evolve in memory and myth with no further action on his part. And today, I witnessed such a transformation that I would never have imagined.

As you probably have noticed, the media has recently become interested in Dr. King as a human being rather than an icon. MSNBC recently interviewed photographer Bob Adelman, who is responsible for many of the civil rights photographs and archival footage we are familiar with. I want to share with you two things that I found extraordinary.

While Mr. Adelman was describing a well known firehosing scene to his interviewer, he said ". . . when I gave this photo to Doc, . . .."

I had to back up the video to make sure I had heard him correctly.

"Doc."

How many hours of the Old Guard's stiff-upper-lip reminiscing has been cut to the quick by one affectionate nickname used by an old white guy remembering Dr. King fondly?

That's not all. What intrigued me more than anything was Mr. Adelman's comment characterizing Dr. King as the last general of the Civil War.

I have never heard anyone wrap up MLK's role so succinctly. Nor can I easily recall the return of an icon to manhood without a loss of grace.

Assisted Childgirth

2007-12-28T19:10:00.000-08:00

Born in the late nineteen-fifties, I was fat during a significant part of my childhood. However, that was not the norm for children in those days, yet it has become regular only decades later.

This is not a blog on the worth of fat people. I am fat and enjoying my fifties more than decades where I weighed significantly less. However, while fat people should liberate themselves from self esteem issues and get on with life without needing permission, a body that limits play is simply not liberating to children. I found myself wondering with some alarm what happened to make obesity the current norm among kids. Here is what I came up with.

It is my opinion that the single, overriding problem that tethers the others is a lack of supervision brought on by the economic impossibility, for most families, of having an adult able to stay at home with the children. This in turn leads to two subordinate problems. First of the two is that there is no place to play safely in neighborhoods that are depopulated during the day, and second, long commutes and adult absence has eroded the norm (or belief in the norm) of sitting down, as a family, to three square meals. These events have changed our culture in other ways that are further down on the list.

How is there "no place to play?" In my childhood, even city children were expected to go outside and make themselves scarce until lunch or dinner. For most, it was presumed safe to do so. Even girls were allowed to roam somewhat, even if they had to check in more frequently, come home early, or bring a younger sibling with them. By the time my children were of an age where I would have checked on them less frequently in another era, even the parks no longer seemed safe. They had been taken over by the occasional drug dealer, drunks, even teens not really bothering anybody, but of an age where I was not ready to explain their busses or other behaviors to my young’uns. Neighborhoods effectively supervised by parents very likely have fewer such people coming out of the woodwork. And no matter how well tended a park is by a city’s groundskeepers, if there is no safe place to play, there is no place to play. As a result, latchkey children are confined for their safety. Daycare children are confined for their safety, both as a physical issue and as an issue of legal liability of caretakers.

We have changed the norm of three hot meals and the idea that you don’t spoil it with a badly timed snack. While the norm may have had to change because we needed two incomes, suffer long commutes or multiple departure and arrival times, it appears we never developed a healthy replacement for the simple norm we had for managing the feeding of a family. Dinner together, whether at the table or together in front of the idiot box, disintegrated into an everyone for himself enterprise. This has also led to less intergenerational interaction and a dissipation of some social skills.

Mothers engaged in any type of wage producing work, even at home, do not have time to supervise children. Since the era of traditional housewifery is over, we tend to romanticize it. In truth, even our mothers, engaged mostly in keeping their own homes and socializing within them, did not keep us under solid, hands-on supervision. Rather, they were available if anything serious happened, and we were more or less tethered by norms of orderly behavior and dread of punishment. With no one at home, even that is gone, and the state manages needs and behavior that used to be handled by the community.

As a culture, we are fond of blaming fast food, but I believe this flourished as a contributor to obesity because of confinement. After all, our diets "back in the day" were before lean meats and light cuisine - often high in fried foods, overcooked or canned vegetables prepared with animal fat or butter, and lots of bread. Many parents might be willing to cook or turn cooking into a quality time experience, but fast food enables children to feed themselves who are not allowed to cook, sometimes for reasons of kitchen safety or a working parent’s late hour of return to the home. Further, children who are not allowed to play for unscheduled amounts of time can be sent on timed errands, often to obtain food. This may be an absent parent’s best method of relieving confinement and maintaining control from a jobsite.

Some food additives are accused of bringing on younger puberty and also making us food addicts. While these important accusations bear on our health and need to be investigated, I feel that from a standpoint of girth, the supervision and confinement issues are key, and food additives go beyond the scope of this blog entry. Without those key issues of confinement due to lack of supervision, we would most likely have thinner children with earlier puberty and cravings for French fries.

The final word on food is that in spite of our current norm of larger food portions, we have absorbed the Depression Generation’s admonitions to clean our plates, very good advice at one time, but worthy of retirement now. After all, the Depression Generation itself now asks for doggie bags.

Video games have taken a lot of blame for childhood obesity. Obviously, these games are instrumental in confining children whose lack of supervision prevents them from gaining parental approval to go outdoors or have guests. While I agree that video gaming is typically sedentary, I also note that teen pregnancies are falling. I suggest that blasting space aliens has snagged many a young romeo.

The health industry itself, while not deserving of blame for making people fat in the first place, does make a mistake I think should be addressed. I believe the reason many diets do not work is that when people are constantly choosing among books about diets, infomercials about diets, food labels and exercise programs, they are still obsessing about food, and that obsession is being institutionalized because it is profitable. Obesity is becoming the new tobacco.

So now what?

Astounding as it may seem, there may be a partial remedy already in the works! A natural demographic shift may actually finish the work started by the government, educators, health professionals, and individuals to combat obesity.

The baby boom is graying, and most baby boomers will not be taking cruises, playing golf, or draining Social Security with orders for take-out pizza. Even the jet set will eventually return home to putz around in the yard. Perhaps this massive aging will repopulate neighborhoods, allowing children to play in increased safety under a casual, neighborly vigilance, which may also restore orderly behavioral norms that most boomers remember. Many boomers will be reabsorbed into younger nuclear families or at least living among them, perhaps defining the new 19th hole as a nutritious dinner and a stroll around the block with grandkids in tow.

In the meantime, there really is more of your kid to love. Just remember to withhold the extra scoop of rocky road, not the extra hug.

Agape for Everyone

2007-12-22T06:57:00.000-08:00

I have a number of religious friends who continue to send me religious emails. Of these friends, one was respectful enough of my beliefs to stop, while being very open and candid about defining herself, not an easy feat for someone who is very strong willed and even pushy, like having a tornado outside your window that chooses not to break your glass. Another is very controlling and I don't consider that sharing - he was the same way when he didn't self-identify as Christian, so I'm of a mind that religion has mostly given him a new vocabulary and a new set of friends to wrestle with for control. Among these, my dearest friend sends emails I will not even open.

This brings me to a recent friend who doesn't know what I believe. I still open her emails. And today, she sent me a gem. It was "the best prayer she had ever heard."

Even I had to agree that it was a beaut.

It made the cut because every last one of us encounters this daily and must choose between irritation and magnanimity. Further, no matter whether or who you worship or where you believe our gifts came from, we are our brother's keeper and responsible for keeping the agape flowing. If you are a Believer, your belief system contains a reward for doing this. If you believe that what we see is what we get, then we are the ones responsible for saving the world by our own hand.

And here it is, the best prayer, unedited:

Heavenly Father, Help us remember that the jerk who cut us off in traffic last night is a single mother who worked nine hours that day and is rushing home to cook dinner, help with homework, do the laundry and spend a few precious moments with her children.

Help us to remember that the pierced, tattooed, disinterested young man who can't make change correctly is a worried 19-year-old college student, balancing his apprehension over final exams with his fear of not getting his student loans for next semester.

Remind us, Lord, that the scary looking bum, begging for money in the same spot every day (who really ought to get a job!) is a slave to addictions that we can only imagine in our worst nightmares.

Help us to remember that the old couple walking annoyingly slow through the store aisles and blocking our shopping progress are savoring this moment, knowing that, based on the biopsy report she got back last week, this will be the last year that they go shopping together .

Heavenly Father, remind us each day that, of all the gifts you give us, the greatest gift is love. It is not enough to share that love with those we hold dear. Open our hearts not to just those who are close to us, but to all humanity. Let us be slow to judge and quick to forgive, show patience, empathy and love.

The message ended with:

Working for God on earth doesn't pay much......but His retirement plan is out of this world!!!

While I, like many of you, do not believe this in its supernatural sense, I do believe in the lasting benefit of good works.

As many of our values as believers and non-believers intersect at important points, I propose that regardless of religious identity or lack thereof, we absorb the lesson of one of Mankind's best known prophets and "proceed Jesusly" through life.

Proceed Jesusly?

wtf?

Well, why not? After all, we wouldn't hesitate to quote Ben Franklin, Confucius, or Luther. For agnostics, freethinkers and brights who believe that the lack of religious association occurs because they/we are smarter than the others, is it not smartest to embrace wisdom from any quarter?

Beauty and the East: Designing Woman

2007-12-08T10:02:00.000-08:00

Are you familiar with Google Earth? Google Earth is a free program that allows you to get an aerial view of any address.

How close a shot, you ask? Well, not as clear a shot as viewing homes on the same street from the twentieth floor of an office building, but not far from that realm of visibility, which is pretty amazing. For example, you may see that your neighbor's yard is lush, but you may not be able to tell whether Neighbor is an avid gardener or the absentee landlord of an overgrown plot. You can see the swimming pool, if he has one, but will not likely see Neighbor himself or discern the make of his car. It isn't the close up views of Will Smith on the run in "Enemy of the State." The photos are stills.

Google Earth's pictures come from NASA, via satellite. Those aerial photos are not always current - I've heard that the pictures are only updated anywhere from every few months to every few years. However, I have a plan that I think will be fun: I have purchased athletic field paint, and plan to paint a large, simple design or message on the lot, while it is still vacant, in hopes that the satellite will photograph it! If it works, the photograph will be available for anywhere from a few months to a few years.

It snowed the day after my purchase of grass paint, so the unused spray cans are sitting on my dining table, casting beams of inspiration like little lighthouses, and NASA, far from being in de cole, cole ground, may one day take my message out to sea.

If the scheme actually works, maybe I can rent the lot as ad space . . .

. . .or space ad!

Beauty and the East: Lucky Me

2007-12-01T09:36:00.000-08:00

"Lost Dog - advanced mange, missing one eye, right ear chewed halfway down, walks with a limp. Answers to the name 'Lucky.'"

That's me!

Settlement is over, and I am the happy owner of an overgrown lot - I mean future lavender farm - in the bowels - oops, I mean heart - of Baltimore City.

The property comes furnished with a mattress, a tire, and plenty of firewood for a wienie roast. A bike was dumped there last week, but it was gone today, most surely attesting to Baltimore's reputation as the country's fittest city.

Gee, if someone would dump a recliner and some buckets I can use as end tables, I could entertain. In fact, if someone would dump a tarp (Santa, are you listening?) I could entertain INSIDE!

So, I have finally gotten to the tricky part where such satisfying and elaborate visions must give way to action.

Not surprisingly, I'm not quite sure what to do first, other than alert my insurer that I may need liability insurance in case someone goes down in a hail of bullets on my property.

The dreamer isn't quite beaten into silence yet, so I plan to celebrate by strutting into Home Depot with horns blaring and virgins scattering rose petals or, better yet, first slinking in undetected to surreptitiously learn the names of gardening tools before strutting in and showing off. After all, when you do not garden, hoes, rakes, and spades are people. Awl is what my ex used to drain from the caw.

Oh, please pardon me, that was rude.

. . . did you laugh?

I thought so!

Beauty and the East: Blessed Evenings

2007-11-02T19:32:00.000-07:00

Before I left the west, I was dogged by a feeling that I was spending too much time keeping up but not really feeling accomplished at a deep level. The Northwest, only recently becoming urban, is not a complex place to live, as big cities go, and yet I had a faint intention that when my relocation forced me to pare down and start over, I would position myself in a hurricane of city life and establish a home that was more like the eye of the storm. In such a monastery, I might pull in sophisticated ideas as they whirled around me, ponder on any I liked at my own pace, and get in touch with whoever I had become.

In some ways, this process has begun simply because I changed enough to get here and get going. In other ways, I realize that Seattle is unmistakably a haven for exercising one's creativity and intellect, and need never surrender the stage to Baltimore and DC on those issues.

Nonetheless, I wanted a big city's more ubiquitous complexity to fuel a sense of accomplishment. The complexities surround me like an aura. On the other hand, the accomplishments so quickly promised on my arrival were not so hastily brought to fruition.

First, the lovely house did not work out. After that, once I started working in DC, my commute (on public conveyance) topped two hours each way. Calming, simple, time for reflection, certainly, but no time for self-care, errands or house hunting. To simplify matters immediately, I currently have an offer pending on a plot of land in an improving neighborhood. I joke that if this goes through, I will have my own plot to pitch a tent on if my economic situation tanks. Hopefully, I can build a house in complete accordance with my desire to work at will sooner than my former life would have permitted.

Having so little time does not leave room for many interests. I leave the house at 7 or so, and arrive home at 9 p.m. Between Saturday morning and Sunday night, I must do all of my laundry for the week, and any cooking. I eat out daily in DC but at home, I have no microwave, and my little gas oven is a scary relic I have not learned to use. This has led me, not to load up on convenience foods, but to simplify my grocery shopping to easily prepared foods that keep all week, freeze well, and are nutritious. Choosing foods I do not easily tire of, I end up consuming a lot of dark German bread with butter, various cheeses, soup made mostly of chicken and kale, and mashed potatoes on which I can pour dal, an Indian dish consisting of lentils and curry. I have a Mexican malt soda nearly every weeknight, and fortify myself with a milk break on weekday afternoons. A hole in the wall down the street from my job provides the best cheeseburger I've had on both coasts. I have given up my reliance on pizza, as my tastes have changed to prefer those available in the Northwest.

The train station's steep stairs provide a workout, and even doing my laundry involves a brisk trot, as my apartment building takes up much of a city block, placing the laundry room farther away from me, in the same building, than my car used to be when I went grocery shopping in Everett.

My favorite pastimes are having coffee with my father, walking around Charles Village, and going to the movies. Laugh, but in my neighborhood, that seems to be where all the white people are. Baltimore, like Washington, is mostly black . . . until you go to the movies. I haven't figured out why.

The sophistication ideal I was chasing turned out to be a mixed bag. While people here are certainly more "citified," the backbone of Baltimore is the working class, including many openly religious folk. Many bus drivers greet the entire bus when starting their shift - in such instances, riders greet back in unison; and many a driver will wish a departing rider a "blessed evening." My agnostic heart appreciates the good will. Indeed, with or without dogma, my evening has indeed been "blessed" by the kindness of a stranger in a city where rather widespread goodwill often takes a back seat to coverage of crime and urban blight. As complex as big city life is, there are some ways in which Baltimore is quite easy to live in. Blessed evenings are a good example.

In Seattle, I was often a person who came on too strong and often felt very worldly. The culture difference and sophistication quotient are quite significant not only between schnooks like me in Seattle and schnooks like me on the East Coast, but also between DC and Baltimore. In DC, I am the small town "gal" who must learn how to assert herself to get needs met and try to keep up. I talk slow, think slow, don't seem to know much of value, and let's not even talk about the technological gap I must cross - indeed a shock, as Seattle is Microsoft country!

When determining whether I should return to the region of my youth, I worried at one time or another that both towns were much too staid for my tastes - as the daughter of professionals, I was brought up with a lot of admonitions that I thought applied to everyone, such as, what will the neighbors think?

My gracious, what if they should!

Phooey. Now that I'm old and can do what I want, I am enjoying being in the mix and not having artificial limitations. Being well heeled can be every bit as limiting as being poor, I can say now that I have been both. But that's another blog on another day.

Have a blessed evening.

Beauty and the East: The Test

2007-10-28T11:40:00.000-07:00

As everyone surely knows by now, I had blithely acted upon a friend's jest that as long as it took me more time to drive to the home of my married, older son than it took me to get to an airport, I may as well move to Baltimore.

The Plan underwent its first test when I was summoned back to Seattle for a family emergency when, a week ago, my younger son returned ill from his overseas post. He is now resting comfortably with his brother and sister-in-law.

My trip to Baltimore's airport involved the bus, train, and free shuttle, taking no longer than it took to drive from my old home to Seattle's airport. The return trip involved securing an online reservation in a shared van at 2 a.m.

These tidy logistics were not enabled by the Plan. The key, of course, was that my married son and his wife had remained in the Seattle area and had room for us others. Having moved, I was not able to be my son's first resort, although I'm sure he would have pressed on to Baltimore, if that had been necessary.

However, the Plan did lend a hand in a small way. Although I could not provide a home base for this emergency, I found myself in the position of making more money and needing less of it to live on. Because of the chain of events leading me to my new home, I was able to send money and also to return west to lend a hand. Travel between major airports was not difficult, although it was necessary to wait a day longer than desired to get a reasonable price on the flight.

I have returned now to my new home in Baltimore. It is worth noting that while it was a major relief to respond to the emergency in a loving and familiar place, I was just as happy to get home to Baltimore as I would have been to get home before I lived in Baltimore. As soon as I emptied my mailbox, I took the elevator up five floors to my efficiency, grabbed a Mexican malt soda, and sat down to check my email before crashing on my sleeper sofa. As much as I would prefer to be up the road from my sons in this type of situation or, better yet, providing room and board, the feeling of finally being home struck me well before my face hit the pillow.

Someone very astutely observed that life is a teacher that gives the test first, after which we learn from the exam.

Will it work as smoothly if there is a second event? I don't know. Who will be available to assist me if the second event is my own emergency? That is also something to think about.

One thing I can say is that my friend's jest was put to the test, and at least in this instance, it worked well enough.

Beauty and the East: Fitting In

2007-09-11T11:23:00.000-07:00

Not.

In spite of Baltimore's "muscle," Baltimore is actually a friendly town, except for the parts of town that are generally miserable in a city of any size. People say hello (and "ma'am" and "hon") and drivers let me in front of them as often as they did in Seattle - maybe more so because the traffic is more complicated here and you need more slack. Because Baltimore is also a very assertive place, you can also learn more about a stranger's displeasure than you had planned to.
I am enjoying making more of my feelings known because of the selfish pleasure of release in a pool of inhabitants raised with the same rules of engagement. While that pretty much goes for anyone who is returning "home," that is not to say that I fit in. My opinions are generally West Coast opinions delivered with a little East Coast wind. While I approve more of Seattle's easygoing temperament and civilized discourse, Baltimore opinions are more likely to reflect the availability of broader opportunities for observation and/or experience.

Unfortunately, there is plenty of prejudice in this town - maybe even more than in Seattle - but the demographics support my dealing with less of it and others dealing with more. While that is not fair, I will not miss swallowing the disappointment of having an acquaintance or two catch their breath in a restroom or laundry facility because they see so few blacks, they are startled until they recognize me. In Baltimore, I do not experience this with perfect strangers.

To my surprise, I am finding that I based my big move on more than one fallacy. A major misconception I had is that my transportation woes would ease in a sufficiently large city. I am finding Baltimore's transit expensive, painstaking and confusing. There are three train systems! You really do have to know the city to get around efficiently. I am covering that ground, but I was expecting New York or San Francisco, both old cities with old train systems, and so far, I seem to have my old Northend woes with more grime and fewer smiley people on the bus.

It is important for me to be up front about one thing. Whatever big city vibe I felt Seattle lacked, Seattle was at least firing all pistons. Plus, the altruist community drives a lot of Seattle's projects and defines a lot of Seattle's integrity, and it shows in a low crime rate and high quality of civility on the street, as well as earnestness and square dealing "above the street". Conversely, I see many educated people here who don't seem to be solving many problems in spite of their opportunities, and a lot of money not being spent where it is needed. Maybe in time, I will learn the ins and outs and correct my impressions. Maybe not. In spite of Baltimore's significant peace community, I can feel the dearth of idealists almost everywhere I go.

In the meantime, I am most certainly getting the challenge and excitement I came for. There is indeed more to do, more to see, more to be. I believe the economic calculations I made regarding prospects in Baltimore were spot on, and available to anyone making the crossing with their savings from the West Coast and a willingness to suffer a long commute to DC for wages that might pay off a home more quickly.

Seattle is the earnest sister who looks both ways before crossing and never forgets to say "please." Baltimore is the experienced sister whose past has made her cynical. My most useful work here will be maintaining Seattle's high threshold of integrity and general cheeriness and bringing these attributes to the relationships I cultivate in Baltimore.

Beauty and the East: Real Life Begins

2007-09-08T20:14:00.000-07:00

After about two weeks, the shine started to wear off of having googobs of unstructured time. The transition to normal was not without its rough edges. I still have another week of leisure, bringing my total to two whole months without having to work(!) but I do have a job lined up in DC.

With a few exceptions, I am having a fabulous time. Not in the men dropping dead at my feet kind of way, but the plan has been successful, and I am very gratified to have made it this far. If the plan never goes beyond this point, at least I have no regrets, and I thank all of my friends and family for their love and support.

I don't know if I mentioned it, but my condo closed while I was on the road. This took some trust on the part of my Everett realtor. Unlike my Maryland contract, my Washington (state) contract did not provide any compensation if the deal didn't go through or I became unreliable once I was out of sight, but my realtor, Patrick Johnson of Century 21, was a gem.

My Baltimore rental worked out and my father showed me where to buy furniture and get some needs met. The Internet had already furnished me with an apartment, a grocery store, Honda service center, and dentist.

Speaking of the dentist! I am reeling from my first encounter with the Waterpik my new dentist prescribed for me. It pretty much chased me around the bathroom. I managed to turn it off, noting that not only were my glasses wet, but so were the walls, the mirror, and the floor . . . but not my teeth. This spastic and unwieldy tool was unable, on first attempt, to actually promote the health of my linguals, but I have unwittingly discovered a foolproof way of managing my next cat.

As blase as I may seem about the plan, I am amazed that in two weeks, I have campaigned for an acquaintance running for City Council, attended a Shambhala seminar in my apartment building, attended a dinner for 500 given by my father's organization, and dropped a skirt size, walking all over the place, because in a nutshell, old cities were built to be walkable and it's too hot to cook.

My insteps are now veiny, and the arches remind me of Roman aqueducts. I am starting to look a little like a deflating balloon. In spite of those successes, my first week in town was challenging. My eldest relative had died the day before I reached Maryland. Two days after moving in, I went to his funeral where, not having seen this branch of cousins in 30+ years, I did not recognize them and sat in back until a proper time for introduction. Everywhere I went, I got lost. There is no free parking within a half mile of my neighborhood. But you should hear me cuss! I rock.

The plan I had come to Baltimore with worked like magic in a very short time. My biggest surprise is how much help I had at this end, as I had planned to go it alone. First, my job in DC was the direct result of a transplanted Tacoma friend kicking my resume up to her H.R. department. They were hiring, and we were a pleasant fit. The same week, through one of his friends, my father located a 3 bedroom house with partially finished basement, repainted first floor, refinished hardwood floors and well-kept yard for - please sit down - $85K. That is not a normal price - the seller wants a quick sale. The kitchen is not functional, but Home Depot has a nice package I am interested in.

I am actually learning to drive in the big city. In fact, I go where I please - except of course when I am lost. When I lived in a bad neighborhood back in California, I learned that the rule of the street is to get out there and establish a presence. This is what the bad guys do; it is also what the police do. Therefore, there are few neighborhoods where I would not be willing to drive or walk alone, at least during the day. Believe it or not, I actually consider it an investment in my safety rather than the opposite, and had it pay off a few days ago. Pranksters often turn street signs around. On one block where such aprank occurred, I turned the wrong way into a one-way street. I am fond of saying, "most bad men are men first, bad second." Indeed, a cadre of idle men in a marginal neighborhood ran toward my car, waving me back -basically old fashioned men helping a lady out.

And what about my immediate neighborhood? Baltimore is a city of old stone churches every few blocks and elegant brick row houses with turrets and Victorian appointments, among other things good and bad. I am across the street from an old-money neighborhood called Guilford. Up the street are Johns Hopkins University, Loyola, Notre Dame, and a number of private schools, including a few established in the 1700's and 1800's. So you can understand my attachment to the location, Charles Village, even though my apartment itself is quite modest.

As much as I would prefer to spend autumn hanging around the apartment naked and talking to myself while drinking coffee, I will soon start work in DC. If they called you, thanks for the nice things you said about me.

What surprises me is that even though Maryland is now the wealthiest state in the US, the streets in Baltimore are quite bad and the trains are not well maintained, even on the run to DC. Since people drive mostly nice cars, I cannot imagine whythey are not lined up around the block to give their alderman a kick in the pants over these bad streets, which must cost them plenty in unnecessary auto maintenance, and that after payment of significant taxes. Some of the ridges and potholes are so bad, I halfway expect my air bag to deploy!

So, while Maryland is definitely the shizz and Baltimore is a blast, it ain't everything all the time. Seattle provided better roads, cheaper auto tags and a cheaper commute without charging an income tax. My first commute to DC for my interview was $20. However, I am learning to bundle services to bring the price down, and my employer will offer a subsidy.

At the risk of speaking too soon, as there are still plenty of things that could go wrong, I do hope that others will be inspired to try to mastermind a comfortable retirement instead of making do in those instances where they would rather not. Baltimore -and certainly any retirement alternative preferred by schnooks like us -could always use more redhats, housecats, and wicker.

Beauty and the East: The Agony of De Feet

2007-09-05T17:04:00.000-07:00

Driving the 3000 miles was a slam dunk. But there was a terrific challenge ahead - once I rolled into Baltimore . . . er . . . how would I find my apartment? The west to east passage was elementary. I could make sure I got my veggies at any supermarket I encountered and shower at my hotel, if I could get to the front desk without setting fire to anything with my armpits. Even the car only needed $2.81 worth of brake fluid at Little America, Wyoming.

I had no clue how to meet such basic needs in my new home, or how to get to my new home or anywhere else once I passed the Baltimore city limits. Stalling, I busied myself taking a walking tour of sweet little Cumberland with its scenic steam train, old churches, stately Washington Street, George Washington's hewn log headquarters, and evolving Canal Place. And was I happy! The Amtrak station was across the street from my hotel, and the morning offered passing trains.

At my latest opportunity, I entered the cool, attractive, and pristine Allegany County Library in Cumberland and Mapquested the route to the rental I had secured online, sight unseen.

My little car passed through the Maryland Panhandle's little mountains, densely coiffed with lush green trees. I noted the loud, relentless buzzing and rattling in the trees, which are typically silent in the Pacific Northwest. People here are so accustomed to it, they do not wonder what it is and did not know when I asked. I believe it was cicadas, even though I do not believe this to be a "seventeenth year" when they are expected. That buzz animates the trees in Baltimore proper, as well.

My efficiency, a one-room apartment, was quite large, and included as much closet space as I had in the two-bedroom condo I had sold! My realtor was able to wrap the sale up while I was on the road, and I had checked my bank balance from the enormous network of ATMs while I traveled. "One room apartment" is a little misleading, in this case. The living area is roughly 11 feet by 18. There is a foyer, a microscopic kitchen and dining area, a dressing room and full bath. I would guess the unit's footprint to be between 400 and 500 square feet. A window air conditioner is able to cool the entire dwelling to survivability if not complete comfort. That is, however, where the luxury ends.

Management and the maintenance crew are friendly, hardworking, and considerate. The location is to die for. However, the building is old and very worn. Pest control is regular and necessary. I cleaned my apartment and realized my water was not getting very dirty, considering how schmutzy the unit appeared. White tile and marble (yes, marble) were actually grey. Then, I realized that the unit had indeed been cleaned, but was so worn that even well scrubbed surfaces still appeared dingy. The shower comes on unbidden, and the tub seems to absorb the ring. Well, that was part of the adventure. It took quite some time to get over my fear of my little gas range and to stop looking over my shoulder for pests, which have not appeared anywhere in my apartment even though I did see one blattidae emerge from the firebell near the elevator.

Parking is expensive, even in front of the building! After two weeks and one parking ticket, I got the hang of where I could park, although I will likely have to pay for a space when I am no longer at home to observe the various time limits.

I spent most of the time on my feet, learning my way around Charles Village and elsewhere. In spite of its dreariness, my building is located next to John Hopkins University, an old-money neighborhood called Guilford, and the area is dotted by old architecture with scrubbed brick and turrets. Old stone churches abound, even in the city, because the city is, after all, several hundred years old. Up the street are Notre Dame University, Loyola, Friends School, Calvert School, and other institutions. It is very relaxing to walk there, and I trust you not to tell my elders that I do walk alone at night through Guilford and Oakenshawe. You may know already that hot nights are very beautiful and stirring. It is a waste to be indoors when the night is calling.

With no television, internet, or knowledge of neighborhoods, I found myself walking most of the day, even in 90 degree heat, and have dropped a skirt size. The loose skin under my arms has tightened, my bras fit better. I have library cards, allowing me to meet librarians, at least, and use public internet. I would go to bed with sore feet and legs, which do not bother me any more. I feel fit and beautiful - well, down to my ankles, anyway. My feet have become veiny and more arched. They look like they have put in a long day. Indeed, they have and do.

Well, that's enough about my veiny feet. I have a sweet potato pie from Giant, and it is calling me - I can barely hear your screams at all.

Beauty and the East: Mindless Glee

2007-09-01T11:24:00.000-07:00

My trip from Seattle to Baltimore along Interstates 80 and 70, even in 100+ degree heat, was a most satisfying and fantastic journey, from start to finish.

First, my peeps had treated me like gold. My friends and coworkers filled my baskets with love and good wishes; my Korea-based son had helped me pack up before he shipped to his next teaching job; my Seattle-based family members had loved me to pieces. My eldest son and his wife woke up early with me, and we had coffee before I hit the road.

Anyone who has driven with me knows my history as a terrible city driver. If they lived. How would I avoid getting lost, someone asked. My response was that at the cellular level, the cells know that if it is morning and the light is in front of you, you must be heading east. Only once or twice did I need to determine in this fashion that I had exited a rest stop in the correct direction. The signage and road layout were almost fool proof. No circadian rhythms necessary.

As soon as Oz disappeared from my rearview mirror, I was happy in the most simpleminded way imaginable. The plan was in motion!

I passed through the northeast corner of Oregon, through Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, and West Virginia, before entering Maryland through the town of Cumberland, which I had researched online and was really looking forward to seeing.

What did I like best? It's hard to say, but there was so much to see, even without really sightseeing. Even the things I didn't really enjoy, such as Oregon's laborious yellow hills, gave me a view of a world I had never imagined.

Throughout Idaho, I found my curiousity piqued by the many, many dust devils rolling across the flat acreage. At one point, I saw a conga line of them stepping one after the other!

Roy, Utah, was very friendly, and the hilly communities were sometimes picturesque.

Wyoming's quirky rock outcroppings gave me more than one belly laugh, and my stop at Little America was a fantastic respite from a road that was both hypnotic and tedious.

Kansas, long the butt of jokes about boringness, was a standout. Without air conditioning, I kept my car's windows open. Kansas's flat roads were easy driving after the West's unrelenting climbs, and I could smell everything I passed - mint farms, posies, sweet grass. Yes, that includes manure and road kill, in the 100-plus heat, but Kansas generally smelled sweetest most of the time.

I stopped to do my laundry in Byers, Colorado, which seemed barely a town, but just the right place at the right time.

St. Louis, knowing I would not have time to stop for a serious tour, moved its Arch so that it appeared I was about to drive into it.

Growing up with images of Kentucky as a harsh place of only miners, I trekked through both horse country and upscale residential areas.

West Virginia, "Open for Business" according to its welcome sign, showed me a restored Huntington and gorgeous scenes along the river.

What surprised me most? The generally hospitable nature of the road. I learned early on that truckers were almost uniformly safe and consistent drivers. We shared the road amicably. Rest stops were attractive, clean, and numerous. It was a complete non-event that I was traveling alone or that I am a person of color. Many people do not strike out on their own because of these issues. Statistically, anyone can experience rudeness, inconconvenience, or crime on the road, as elsewhere, but I arrived unscathed and aglow from a completely positive experience.

I stopped at hotels nightly, and kept a log of my mileage and gas. At a stop in Colorado, I realized I had only spent $120 in gas. The Honda Civic was indeed a gas sipper as well as a work horse. Plus, my AARP membership (you only need to be 50 to join) paid for itself at least five times over, in hotel charges alone.

My blogging is taking place at the public library, and my time is up!

Beauty and the East

2007-07-20T21:26:00.000-07:00

I lead a physically comfortable existence in a beautiful region. I live about twenty miles from Seattle, which is a great town to be a middle aged woman – a thriving literate community, lots of chick culture, high tolerance for personal idiosyncrasy, polite men, and a general live and let live mentality. In the two years that my nest has been empty, I have traveled internationally, even alone, gotten published, and joined friendly and interesting organizations that include intelligent men and women. Most international organizations one can think of have a branch in Seattle. But I am supporting significant debt in this process, and cannot afford to actually live in Seattle and support my future, and I want more economic wiggle room and time for personal growth now. I also have a very long commute from a nice enough exurb I can afford, but don't really enjoy living in.

My Northwest friends have given me a cheering section to rival that of any sports league. I don't care who knows I wish I could plan my retirement in Seattle proper and instead plan one or two months per year in Baltimore. The cost of housing is such that I must make this plan in reverse. If I didn't mind the commute and wanted to work a lot or live with someone, I suppose I could stick around. Those are very healthy ways of being able to afford a nice place, but those ways are not for everyone. Plus, I'm an East Coast native, and there are things you just can't get in Seattle just as there are things you just can't get in Baltimore.

I propose to seek a scenario that allows me to have time now, to pay off a home more quickly so that I can hope to retire debt free and also afford my own health care. I hope to be healthy, not dying from stress and lucky to have disability coverage. I want to be able to afford to take time off to tend to grandchildren, if I am lucky enough to have them, or take necessary time with ailing elders without it being a factor that such duty may bankrupt me quickly. The vast majority of people probably cannot support themselves long enough to max out the Family Leave Act. I wish to give myself the option.

My proposal will take me across the country to a city where housing prices may allow me to pay off a house more quickly, while being close to work with good pay. The target is Baltimore, Maryland, with the Washington, DC metro area as a likely employment target.

If the plan stalls, and if the plan fails, it is most likely I will return to the wage slave lifestyle I had before. While that is not an attractive possibility, it is actually a zero loss.

In fact, it is success that may not be pretty! I could actually have less money, because I left the great job. Even with email, there will be friendships that will collapse when a 3,000 mile span stretches them too thin. The neighborhoods I am currently targeting are only now starting to improve, and are not great looking places as they may have been in the past. The neighborhood I am leaving is at least beautiful.

At fifty, I am trying to balance an empty-nest desire for adventure and avenue for creativity, with the pragmatic need for economic security. Frankly, it remains to be seen whether this becomes the early retirement or purposeful stop-out I’ve dreamed of or just a long, expensive party that wipes out my sock money. I plan to videotape this experiment so that any interested parties may see for themselves what I do right or wrong so that if they are also feeling a little short on actualization or just not seeing anything useful in their retirement pipeline, they can see what I did, for better or worse, and make their own path.

I hope that anyone who is afraid they may not be able to retire on time or at all will take note of my plan. I am packing up my Washington state condo and plan to drive across the US in two to three weeks, and I promise to be candid.

The Most Peculiar Week

2007-05-06T21:00:00.000-07:00

My week was one of those stunningly successful weeks that schnooks like me think are enjoyed only by extroverts.

A local celebrity called me because I had written him a letter.

I gave my very first speech at a local speaking club I had just joined.

One of my best friends took me to the theater.

My other best friend had picked up her parents from the airport, and I spent an hour or so in some very sunny company.

My supervisor made a reassignment that lightened my load significantly.

Yes, indeed, I thought, this is one week where Wizwonk is too sexy for her hat.

And Friday morning, the bowl I put out for my cat had not been touched. My 11 year old, 16 pound cat could be counted on to push some kibbles around, at the very least.

I figured she was out getting some earscratch on the side. She had a lot of people skills and was probably out being neighborly or maybe watching the outdoors' awakening.

When I got home from work and the bowl still appeared untouched, I went looking. Two weeks previously, I had had to do this for my young cat, a total, world class knucklehead. That girl had the market cornered. I located her because she had learned her name and answered me from the tree where she had gotten stuck.

My old cat did not recognize her name, only the word "cat," but I could count on a loyal presence beside me instantly if she heard my voice. She would come from the next county if she heard me.

I was astonished when no faithful tabby materialized during my search. As I stood scratching my head, my neighbor greeted me. When I explained that I was looking for my cats, he showed me a look of concern. His immediate neighbor had witnessed a particularly violent chase in the early morning while she was getting ready for work. Some large grey cat had been chased around the property by two huskies that had gotten out of a neighbor's yard. This cat had been dragged to a particular location and done in. What relief - my cat was not grey.

Nonetheless, I followed the neighbor's clues to determine whether there was any evidence of whose cat it might be.

Sadly, it was my cat. In the dwindling light of the evening, she did indeed appear grey. That might have been the kind of light my neighbor was in that morning. I had to go all the way up to her even to be sure I was seeing her white socks.

I left her where she lay. I called the best friend with the visiting parents and asked her advice. Her vet was open on Saturdays. The next morning, I went to collect the body of my old cat.

As I lined her carrier with a bedsheet and a plastic bag, I rehearsed for the difficulties I might find - flies, stench, mortal injury - and returned to the spot where I had discovered her.

I had not prepared for rigor mortis. However, it made it easier to flip her over.

My princess was intact. There was an enormous U-shaped imprint. The huskies had not succeeded in getting both jaws into her. Indeed, it appeared the skin was not broken.

She had escaped! I took a fresh look at her orientation. The dogs could not have followed her to that spot. She had gone through a hole in a fence and was apparently trotting into the neighbor's absolutely stunning garden. I surmised her age, girth, and the horrific chase had caused her to collapse. Her position was one of repose. Had I seen her on a sunny day, I might have thought from several feet away that she was basking.

I bent her into her carrier, a strange sensation I had to steel myself through. Gratefully, I acknowleged that this was not a bad condition in which to discover one's dead cat.

Following my friend's advice, I drove her to the vet for proper disposal of her body, as her essence had moved on.

My friends have comforted me - one made a donation to animal welfare, I received hugs and even an condolence card. She was a sweet tempered cat who imparted a calming sense of elegance to a home that otherwise would not have had any.

She was my goil.

Knucklehead has still not returned. I circulated around the wooded areas calling her, but there was no responsive "meroo . . . " coming from the trees when I called her name. I circle the property and peek outside the door like a child waiting for a miracle.

The bowl keeps vigil outside.

Perhaps my little cat met a similar fate and didn't make it to the garden. Perhaps she is out being a knucklehead somewhere. She is microchipped, and time will tell.

In the meantime, I prefer to have the closure offered by finding the body of my old friend. I will at least have my memory of granny cat, with her pristine white socks and gloves, on her way to a beautiful garden.

Here, the Crash of Symbols

2007-03-17T19:18:00.000-07:00

A Tallahassee museum serves as a venue for an artist who has crafted a controversial piece showing "the proper way to display the Confederate flag."

That is, hanging from a gallows by a noose.

Not surprisingly, a local organization made up of the descendants of Confederates has taken on the museum, which is standing by the artist to promote racial dialogue.

While I will not, under any circumstances, defend the Confederate flag or the flying of it at public buildings, I do think the gallows display under the auspices of art in a public gallery treads the line of race baiting. After all, what if the offended organization did something similar with an icon respected by others?

Art is no stranger to controversy, nor is art obligated to be tasteful. Art is indeed a tool of activism as well as a tool for promoting beauty. However, in my view, the artist's rage is a tad late - his piece might have been timely before the Stars and Bars lost its place atop City Hall. Today, such incendiary art work should be in the political cartoon pages or, as a three-dimensional piece, in a more private setting. I would go as far as to say that this display starts the racial dialog with an invective.

When the Confederate flag finally started to lose face as a symbol of respectability in the South, that was a major accomplishment, not only for those whose suffering was represented by the flag, but for those who were embarrassed rather than harmed by its legacy. I don't know that anything further can be accomplished by rubbing it in.

On a little bit of a tangent, several years ago, I read a work of fiction where the premise underlying a modern story was that the South had won the Civil War. In that scenario, the first thing the South realized was that in its devastation, it could not survive victory unless all hands were figuratively on deck and every Southerner completely enabled to use whatever natural gifts he or she had. The slaves were freed immediately. In the story line, the South did institute a separate but equal society, but it was actually equal, and all talent was utilized. There was no question of the black man's intellect or industry. Further, in a society where racial purity was prized, the most pronounced negritude, as a symbol of purity, was approved of. Now, this was only a backdrop for the author's "real" story, but it challenged my way of thinking.

Likewise, my line of thinking will challenge some readers.

Even in a wrongful war, it can at least be said that the soldiers fought bravely. It takes nothing away from us today to be truthful about the past.

However, truth does not need to be snide. The artist held that the Confederate flag was a visual symbol of terrorism. Who would disagree? Indeed, for many of the flag's proponents, that was the point. And now that the ordeal is fading, society is left with its nightmares. Fine. But wouldn't it be most effective to diminish its power by allowing it to become irrelevant among all but a dwindling cadre of anachronistas?

On both sides of this issue, we must all emancipate ourselves from debilitating anger. America cannot survive victory unless all hands are figuratively on deck.

Well, I declare. I guess the artist did foster some racial dialog after all.

In Defense of Spanking

2007-02-12T19:28:00.000-08:00

My roof's got a hole in it, and I might drown.

If you see the exaggeration in that statement, do you also see the difference between spanking (even vigorously) and beating a child?

I will tell you frankly that I despised giving spankings to my best friends. When I felt they were old enough to reason with, I finally announced that if they obeyed the rules or disagreed with the rules in a mature manner, there would be no more spankings. I admitted that I hated this type of discipline, entrusting my children with the knowledge that I did not enjoy it. They never took advantage of my desire to avoid corporal punishment.

Indeed, by then, corporal punishment had done its job.

For a child who is a full time pedestrian along busy streets because the family does not own a car, the belief that one should stay on the curb because a parent will suddenly materialize ready to strike is a much better reason than experiencing the real danger. In such circumstances, spanking is a substitute for much harsher consequences.

For a child living in a neighborhood where the first intervention for over the top behavior is not a psychologist paid for by Dad's insurance, but a policeman who means business, a spanking may stop the progression of behaviors that lead to punishments that range from intimidating to brutal.

Our family lived in those circumstances, once upon a time. We were not always Mensa members, writers, successful inventors, and college grads, an evolution that required twenty years. We were a poor family and, in that environment, sometimes hampered by unfair or foolish suppositions or practices of others, compounding any bad karma of our own making. In those circumstances, you use what you have.

Is spanking always necessary or successful? No. Nor is anything else. Families that were already Mensa members, writers, successful inventors, and college grads when their children were born have problems disciplining their children, too. Wealthy parents, parents with access to professional childrearing assistance, church-going parents, and parents who toe the line heroically in some circumstance or pursuit still must instill order in their offspring. While many children certainly do not need to be harshly disciplined, and many families would benefit from having parents learn disciplinary practices that do not include corporal punishment, there are still circumstances where spanking may be useful in any walk of life.

As much as we wish to caution children against risky behavior, it is of utmost importance to be understood, sometimes immediately. Until a child has the ability to understand the issue, nothing says "verboten" like a whack on the hiney.

Do even thoughtful parents overuse spanking? Certainly.

And still, it can be used intelligently, particularly if the parent has other outlets for anger and frustration and is able to separate those factors from discipline and keep the spanking brief.

Spanking did not save my children from perdition. My father even remarked that "our family generally doesn't tear up the streets." Some children are more easily disposed to orderly conduct.

In my view there was a time when spanking seemed the lesser evil and, for reasons that surely included luck, I was able to make use of it and discontinue my reliance on it as early as possible.

An Inconvenient Untruth?

2006-12-26T21:20:00.000-08:00

Look what we have done. Our war fatalities have now equalled those of 9-11.

However, unlike a terrorist attack, this has happened because we have made it so.

I do not believe our war is simple. There are many facets of it that are workable, unworkable, true or false. Any portion of it may have been an oversight, a bad guess, a political impulse, or the cresting of a momentum that could not have been stopped.

Having said that, how is it even remotely possible to declare war on the wrong country? Surely, we have too many checks and balances in place for that to have been accidental. A mistake, I am sure. An accident, I doubt completely.

Iraq, with an urbanization level of 77% and a literacy level of over 70% for men (45% for women), could be one of the wealthiest nations in the world, due to its oil. One reason that an American of average knowledge of that part of the world might not have thought of Iraq in these terms is that, at the very least, Saddam Hussein used a lot of the money to aggrandize himself; the squandered wealth was not evident in pro bono works or tourist attractions. However, as a man bent on self aggrandizement, President Hussein was not likely interested in breaking his bank by rattling the U.S.'s cage. This does not make him a better person or suggest that his people should not give him the death penalty. It does not mean that his doings are or were none of our business. But there have been other bad heads of state who have been responsible for horrible abuses that we have learned to live with.

Here is my theory: what if the theocrats who opposed him and his secular government toppled him - what if such an event was thought to be imminent? Is it possible that our government was afraid Iraq's wealth might then be directed to destroying the west?

If so, how would that admission be worse than the array of confusing distractions we have already been served as our leaders scrambled to devise explanations? What convenience has been gained? The government's spokespersons have long ago passed the point of being granted the benefit of a doubt over an error. Why not just come out with it?

Some of the administration's early supporters have made it clear they will not be made fools of, eroding the Republican support base. Many of us thought we knew better, much sooner, and were already laughing at the emperor's clothes.

We are all naked now.

While this is currently a partisan matter, things like fear, condescension, abuse of power, and human error are not partisan shortcomings, and we should not delude ourselves that this could only happen because of any failings that are easily tacked onto a political party that has lost face.
This is now a collective failure, and we must make sure that this does not happen again, no matter which party is in office.

Restoring the Integrity of the Game

2006-12-25T15:13:00.000-08:00

The latest arguments supporting restitution for slavery have been defeated in court.

Slavery as practiced before the Emancipation Proclamation should cease to serve as a perpetuating source of angst in Black America. While slavery has served as a source of pervasive hypocrisy in America, the problem we are actually grappling with today is not slavery per se, but the ensuing institutionalized racism that ran the gamut from outright persecution of Americans – many of whom are still alive today – to a systematic undermining of the constitutionally protected efforts of ordinary citizens to achieve even a minimum of well being.

The U.S. is starting to award professional credentials, war medals, and pardons, sometimes posthumously, to people of color who were unfairly punished or whose accomplishments were important but unrecognized due to racial prejudice. Old hate crime cases are being reopened so that justice can truly be sought. Black Americans’ contributions have been added to children’s textbooks. While these efforts seem puny at times, they will have to suffice because we do not have the ability to turn back the calendar. Also, these actions speak volumes about America’s desire to do the right thing today.

A presidential apology specifically for racial injustices allowed by the government, including slavery, would make a number of people feel that a satisfactory consciousness has been reached. Moreover, it would be very appropriate for heads of institutions to apologize for their institutions’ historical involvement in promoting racial injustice. The U.S. and state governments, insurance companies, banks and other businesses that cheated blacks and others, churches that vilified civil rights from their pulpits, etc. contributed enormously to a situation where many hardworking Americans today cannot meet their needs because of racist practices that, while taken off the books, continued to endure through what should have been their most productive years. Such apologies, while seemingly directed to blacks, benefit others as well. Included among the injured are Filipino veterans who fought in WWII for America’s freedom and are denied recognition, Italian Americans interned concurrently with Japanese Americans, Native Americans who suffered broken treaties of the U.S. government, etc. Certainly, people who were lied to should be able to count on an apology from a civilized penitent that claims to be honest! Even workers who claim to suffer from reverse discrimination would not have a point of reference without the original offenses.

It is time to clear our national conscience so that we can move forward.

A key source of anxiety for many Americans is that during the era now coming to a close, the abuses for which apologies are demanded had been exerted almost exclusively by white men, whose abuses were allowed and sometimes supported and even mitigated by institutions of both church and state. Therefore, an astonishing amount of resentment is focused on a singular group of people and, by extension, those who love them or try to be like them. I realize that blame is what many Americans are choking on that makes it impossible for the country to fashion an apology, even an institutional one.

While today’s apologies would rightfully be made by heirs to white privilege, oppression is ultimately a misuse of power that can accrue to people of any race. Indeed, one or another of the CEOs making an institutional apology might be nonwhite, female, foreign, or simply too young to have been part of the situation being addressed. The question of apology and restitution is, therefore, about the future as much as about the past. This is precisely why it should not be left behind or left undone.

An apology is not only free but would probably save a great deal of money. In America, however, payment is sometimes easier than apologies. While this should not be an either/or choice, why not offer monetary compensation to the super elderly? To address two of the pitfalls that are believed to preclude monetary restitution, many of the very elderly are “easily identifiable as black” due to segregation and predetermined social mobility, resulting in permanent cultural affiliations even among those who are not visually recognizable as people of African ancestry. After all, the “one drop” rule has been enforced in their lifetimes and still serves as a source of identity for many. Further, the stigma of being black, among many elderly whites, could be sufficiently strong to make fraud unlikely.

It is generally accepted that most elderly blacks were denied entitlements considered normal by others of their time and place, entitlements often unenforced in their behalf and at times actually abridged by law. It is true that normal entitlements for a bygone era are not always of determinable monetary value. Why not simply use the same amount paid to elderly Japanese, to whom an attempt was made to indemnify their losses due to laws specifically targeting them?

I doubt many Americans, even some Americans who strongly disagree with restitution for all, would question the sacrifice of the very old, or resent a sincerely penitent offering made to them. Since it is not possible to segregate white and nonwhite public funds, the restitution would come from all of us, including both the owing and the grateful, perhaps to African Americans 75 years of age and older as of a date to be determined, such as January 1, 2000.

Restitution is not an equalizer. If you are in an accident and your leg is cut off, you cannot get your leg back, no matter what. But even a generous settlement will not get you out of your chair and onto crutches if you are convinced that you can no longer attempt to stand upright because your one remaining leg is black. No amount of leveling of a field can offset a player who refuses to develop his or her game. The point of restitution is not to revive the few players who will not try to visualize their recovery, but to restore the integrity of the game by compensating the many who have been cheated by the other team and for whom a rematch will never be possible.

It is an error to present Affirmative Action as a stand-alone restitution for slavery. I read an article that said that 70% of AA recipients are white women and another 10% are veterans. If this is true and I have remembered the figures correctly, that leaves 20% for all racial minorities. Would not AA appear, then, to be atonement to white women for the oppression caused by white men?

Locally, I supported the vote against AA because, while I may owe my current freedoms to veterans, I determined that my one-in-several-millionths of the black portion of the remaining 20% of the AA pie was not significant compared to the opportunities I can generate for myself today.

Forgiving a large chunk of African debt is valuable, although I don’t think it should be tied to an apology for slavery. Unless Africans are still mourning family members who departed hundreds of years ago, American slavery is not the reason Africa is in difficulty today. Nonetheless, forgiveness of debt so that Africa can pull itself together inarguably demonstrates racial sympathy.

For those who argue that their families arrived too late for these issues to apply to them, I wish to make two points: one, few Americans arrived too late for slavery’s legacy, which has not ended; and two, all voluntary immigrants to America chose the costs of assimilation over what they left behind. This is one of those costs.

Throughout American history, people of many colors labored to enable today’s threshold of civility. It is in this environment that we should intelligently discuss institutional apologies for slavery (and slavery’s results) and restitution for African American elders still living who were systematically victimized.

While 9/11’s ramifications are without question our most important current issue, there will come a time when we’ll go back to being substantially who we were on September 10, 2001.

Letting N Out

2006-12-02T20:21:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite television characters had a meltdown in real life and used the word Nigger to insult an audience member while performing onstage.

While that is certainly repugnant, why does America continue to drop and roll every time such a thing happens? It reminds me of an article I read maybe fifteen years ago where a man in a bureaucratic job used the word "niggardly" and was severely censured by people who were apparently not erudite enough to understand his point.

Michael Richards' outburst was no misunderstanding. However, the outburst followed a statement from the audience that he was not funny. This was most certainly a humiliating blow to an entertainer in the middle of his act.

Does it make his outburst okay? Certainly not, but a fellow comic made an interesting point. Mr. Richards' fame from his television role as Kramer, on the sitcom "Seinfeld," did not pan out into other successes. Further, he was an actor making the transition to standup comedy. I accept that this seems to require more finesse than a transition in the other direction.

So what really happened?

I think Richards knew the audience was not responsive, lost face and blew his stack. If the so-called heckler had been white and obese, perhaps Mr. Richards' rant would have been, "If this had been five thousand years ago, we'd have your fat ass roasting on a spit!"

I present this sad event as an immature defense launched by an inexperienced stage performer who was deeply embarrassed but not necessarily a racist.

Nigger!

Look at the power it still has. While I appreciate the decisions expressed by black comics to rein in its use, and was particularly moved by Dave Chappelle's account of his astonishment when a young white fan used the term casually, presumably because of Chappelle's example, I do think the photo I viewed of Mr. Richards with Jesse Jackson by his side is a bit much. Surely the gifted and venerable Reverend Jackson has bigger fish to fry. It reminds me of the photo op of Bill Clinton holding his bible after the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal broke.

Perhaps some of us can better move forward by moving backward - by remembering the old adage about sticks and stones. Words that are insulting to blacks are no longer being backed up by lynchings and beatings. We need to reset it in today's reality. In many respects, black people, who are able to use this despicable word with few repercussions, now have greater freedom of speech than many whites.

We let many celebrities recover from much bigger mistakes. Mr. Richards has apologized, will have a mediation with the people who were insulted, and perhaps even make monetary restitution. This is not the LAPD, Marge Schott, or a parent or school teacher who could do considerable and widespread damage with a bad attitude. It was a performer of limited influence who lost his cool one time in an adult venue and is trying to make amends.

Let's move on and allow Mr. Richards to do likewise.

Giving No "Quarter" to Affirmative Action

2006-11-21T20:34:00.000-08:00

The Boston University College Republicans propose a whites-only scholarship to mirror race based scholarships offered under Affirmative Action. This is actually not the first time it has been done. I listened to the entire clip available to me of the recent interview between Tucker Carlson and the President of the university's College Republicans, Joe Mroszczyk. While the offer is not exactly in lighthearted jest, it was organized more to make a point than to help with tuition. The point being made is that it is hypocritical to have black or Hispanic based AA and not have the same program(s) offered to whites.

A student applying for the Caucasian-only scholarship is required to be 25% white, identical to the requirements of an on-campus program requiring 25% Hispanic ancestry. It should be noted that all Caucasians are not white in complexion. Since the interview did not mention this, it is my understanding that the terms "Caucasian" and "white" were being used interchangeably by the conversants.

The scholarship organization's view of race is certainly a complete break with history. Considerably less than 25% nonwhite ancestry (I refer to the "one drop" rule as an example) made one fully nonwhite under some of the laws that existed until Loving vs. Virginia superseded the miscegenation laws of individual states in the 1960's, the last of which actually stayed on the books until the Millennium. Further, a court case heard in the 1980's did not allow a black woman named Phipps, who had the appearance of being white and had only recently discovered her African roots, to list her race as "white" on a passport.

A requirement under the whites-only program that a candidate only be 25% Caucasian makes it apparent that the proponents of the program do not truly understand the issues being addressed by Affirmative Action.

One principal issue is what, at least for most people, is the visibility of their race, which is historically what civic entitlements have been based on. Many non-Caucasians, such as some Hispanic people and people of other darker skinned ancestry, are considered white in America, even though they are not white in appearance but certainly are not African-American. This seems logical in a society that generally doesn't have enough ethnic pidgeonholes to accommodate them yet where being nonwhite is stigmatized to some degree. Due to the historical fact of subjection of Negro women in the U.S., many black people can easily pull 25% Caucasian ancestry out of a hat.

Now that DNA testing is accessible, "What is white?" will become as current in racial dialogue as "What is black?"

While the organization seeks to defeat race-based Affirmative Action, Affirmative Action itself is misunderstood. Most recipients of AA's magnanimity are white women, not mentioned by Mr. Carlson or his interviewee. This is clearly an advantage for white men whose white wives hold jobs. In fact, you could say the program the Boston University Republicans are seeking already exists, clearly ending the argument.

In all candor, if the interview is a harbinger of AA discussions to come, I have no problem arguing that Affirmative Action has run its course and should be retired. Obviously, the generation coming to power now is starting to redefine race enough, even in an experiment like this one, to separate the practice of Affirmative Action from its intended beneficiaries. Further, some of the beneficiaries themselves do not really need the boost. Mr. Mroszczyk mentioned this, and I agree. Perhaps AA has done its job, building on mentors whose achievements predating AA have successfully secured a foothold for their descendants in a social class that enjoyed enough mobility or stability to maintain their own prosperity.

Nonwhite students who genuinely need AA as it is currently administered may indeed be from families originally left behind because of racial issues in the US, but it is my opinion that most of America, though not all, would not stop these students from taking their shot at the American dream. Whites from very poor or isolated areas of the US might actually find it harder to assimilate than nonwhites of average opportunity in a large city. In a large city today, you can at least choose whether or not to take advantage of opportunity - or relocate to do so. Television, transportation, and organized outreach programs make it difficult for an urban American of any background to be isolated from some thread of current knowledge or opportunity.

Academia has changed enough that scholarships can justly be based on financial need or the choice of a university to attract students with specific characteristics it desires. Just as some universities will offer scholarships to attract athletes or science majors, there may continue to be race-based scholarships, whether overtly or covertly so. My guess would be that institutions of higher learning increasingly view diversity as normal, or even essential, and will seek to attain social equilibrium by having a student body that views itself as regular. It just won't be AA any more, and nobody will have it forced on them. I think of it as the social equivalent of the laissez-faire market, now taking place after the discreditation of racism rather than before it.

Discussion of the whites-only scholarship had an effect that I found curious. It made white people recoil. The organizers at Boston U. may have known it would and hoped to capitalize on it, and Mr. Carlson actually shuddered when first discussing it. Even though the conversants had lost (or never had) a deep understanding of the problematic attitudes that made AA necessary, they had nonetheless absorbed the negativity associated with white supremacy and were trying to launch the whites-only scholarship idea without overtones of white supremacy, while still taking advantage of its presence in the back of people's minds.

The strategy was apparently to transfer that residual disgust with white supremacy and entitlement to remedial programs that appeared to put others into a similar category. However, since the others did not come from a position of supremacy and entitlement, the volume of disgust the organization is hoping for will probably only materialize among those who think the neighbors have stolen their toys.

It strikes me as much too soon to launch intentional whites-only scholarship programs without rekindling the association with the old fashioned racism that American whites were originally responsible for institutionalizing. Having said that, I did not have any trouble understanding the motivation behind the scholarship and separating it from the racism it seeks to mock.

I am completely convinced that Carlson and Mroszczyk are out of touch with the original causes of today's friction, and predict that their shadowboxing will spread among others who are also frustrated with the role of atonement. As adults left holding the bag, they are trying to take action that seems logical from their vantage point. I do not find such feelings unreasonable, but think that the gender and race-based programs they object to will not go away any time soon but instead, will divide us further, and with their unwitting assistance.

My argument is that it is more likely a whites-only scholarship will catch on because people seeking scholarships are, quite reasonably, focused on their own financial posture rather than on how their demographic group is perceived. My premise is that if the 25% requirement draws Caucasians (or even "Caucasians") who are not white in appearance, I would expect to see a backlash of whites, particularly males, who then decide to go back to basing race on visible whiteness to restore whatever they feel they have lost.

It was almost a good ruse. The conversants simply did not seem to understand that in spite of the entitlement apparently lost by at least the stereotypical American white man, white males still comprise the only demographic group powerful enough to make others limp when they shoot themselves in the foot. This is what I think is being accomplished here.

In that connection, Tucker Carlson and Joe Mroszczyk seem oblivious or unconcerned that by adopting the stance of people perceived as perpetually needy and forever hogging the mike with accusations of discrimination (or "reverse" discrimination), their plan may ultimately assemble a significant class of dead-serious Caucasian activists who didn't get the joke and are poised to ultimately supplant those who currently serve as the object of Messrs. Carlson's and Mroszczyk's articulately veiled derision.

Jesus, Saved

2006-11-19T19:01:00.000-08:00

The Marines recently rejected a gift of many talking Jesus dolls made to the Toys For Tots program by a toy company specializing in teddy bears. The Marines felt that the dolls were not appropriate because the Toys for Tots program also donates to children who are not Christian.

A feud erupted in the blogosphere - the usual tug of war between conservatives and liberals, an occasional attempt of a poster to make peace or infuse logic.

One poster asked why a teddy bear company did not instead donate thousands of teddy bears.

I think that was a very astute question.

Could it be that the intended market did not like the product? What else could account for such a significant surplus close to the holiday also named for the toy's namesake?

My personal stand on Jesus dolls is pretty old fashioned. Although I am not religious, I was instructed in religion as a child. Religious objects were worn and used, but respectfully. Toys, on the other hand, were to be played with.

In spite of my agnosticism, it actually bothers me that a Jesus doll might meet the day soaked in a toddler's urine or flung about by the family dog. And then what? Throw it in the washing machine with everyone's underwear and hang it over the bathtub to dry?

And then what?

How do you discard it after the eyes have been lost and an arm pulled out? Does Mother haul out her bugle and retire it like a spent American flag?

I think the Marines did the right thing for reasons well beyond their stated ones.

Was it a crass invention to begin with? Perhaps.

Was the ensuing feud foolish? Absolutely.

Begging Dave's Pardon

2006-10-09T11:47:00.000-07:00

A few years back, I made a pilgrimage from Washington State to my original home, Maryland, in the comfort and dignity promised by a well known bus company.

One night at 1 a.m., I stood on a street in Minneapolis, tired of confinement and disobeying the advice given to women everywhere. I headed toward some rock music on an orderly street populated mostly by men also seeking the music, and a single cop focusing on some paperwork in his cruiser. I saw no one obviously dealing drugs or laying out plans of mayhem.

But soon, I saw Dave. Dressed in a raincoat, Dave offered me a scroll. He would fill his raincoat, indeed several, and his scroll, indeed many, if all went according to intention. When they were full of writing, he would offer them to a museum.

Dave didn't hit on me, a lone woman out and about. Homeless, he didn't beg for money. Alone, he didn't invoke the kinship of our color. He did not give me any story except his plan to fill his scrolls and his raincoats with signatures of passersby.

I felt connected and thrilled when he invited me to autograph a scroll. Carefully, I lettered "Good luck" and my name.

Good.

Luck.

Good luck?

My trip was long over when it sank in that by memorializing visitors to this street in his town, this man of so few means had created a way of offering me – and all who encountered him - a sense of immortality. Immortality!

How many strangers had acknowledged this important gift with unwitting condescension, as I had?

How I wish I had written then what I am thinking now:

Thank you, Dave. Thank you and thank you and thank you. Making your brief acquaintance was one of the high points of my hajj.

The Genius of Geography

2006-09-22T22:37:00.000-07:00

Seattle has turned into a big city, and some are mulling over the culture of materialism that is now becoming pervasive in egalitarian Seattle.

People of a certain age or place of origin may remember being taught, back in the day, that whatever a black person had, whites had twice as much. For example, if my father had earned a bachelor’s degree, surely my friend’s dad had a Masters’. If my mother’s paycheck from nursing or an Avon business allowed her to purchase a Vega without my father’s wages or send me to Europe for two weeks, surely my classmate’s mother drove a Saab and sent her daughter overseas every summer.

Whether that turned out to be true about a few neighbors or many, such beliefs take on lives of their own. Beliefs often set standards. With this belief as a standard, black people in our pre-Cosby Show neighborhood sometimes were the Joneses, if not the Huxtables.

In a megalopolis where you generally cannot obtain raw materials to support your family, you provision your family by managing the perceptions of people who dispense the things you need in city life. This is why appearances are important in cities like that. If you were perceived as someone that nothing “should” be given to, for example, because of prejudice, it was important to be stylishly dressed or speak well, to balance things out. I’ve heard Northwesterners grumble about “pretentiousness” of easterners and I imagine it is because, since big city culture is fairly new to the Northwest, the grumblers did not understand a context for this behavior.

In the late 1980's, I arrived in Seattle with a mix of delight and bafflement. After my particular acculturation, I saw all these serene, happy people with few, if any, symbols of affluence that I recognized. Since I arrived with kids in tow after losing my shirt, I was immensely grateful. My children would not suffer because of our meager possessions, and we were able to blend into the woodwork. It was a gift in so many ways. It allowed me to rebuild my life without distractions that, once important, had become ridiculous.

Even after twenty years, this region reminds me of the song “One Tin Soldier,” where the most beloved treasure of a town pillaged by its jealous neighbor was a plaque that read “Peace on Earth.” That is certainly Seattle’s gift.

I’m grateful that my children grew up without envy. We were nearly destitute for many years, and my children now think I was some kind of genius to hide our poverty. Au contraire - we were fortunate to have landed here; the genius was geography.

The bottom line is that because of the time we have lived here instead of elsewhere, we have all learned to allow the Joneses to mind their own business without scrutiny.

Looking in Katrina's Mirror

2006-09-04T11:35:00.000-07:00

Right after Hurricane Katrina, I had dinner with a very dear friend, who is white. We discussed the racial issues being tossed about over the poor showing of aid to New Orleans.

Like many, my friend believes in some measure that New Orleans did not get fast, sufficient assistance because a majority of the needy were poor and black.

I do not agree.

While I believe FEMA and other organizations failed by not mobilizing faster and that the war diverted our resources, there is no precedent for a flood disaster on that scale. It was not possible to rehearse. Mistakes were made.

This is not to say that racism will not emerge at some point. Indeed, it has. Rather, it is my belief that the most debilitating racism has already occurred, when bad law and unfair customs created and maintained an artificially imposed underclass. Now a true underclass, the city’s poor have been unable to provide either personal or tax-based resources to deliver themselves from Katrina or its aftermath.

The lesson is that racism is costly. Since the rest of us must now pay for any remedy undertaken in the wake of this disaster, racism has finally been awarded its ultimate empowerment – to impoverish the entire country that let it persist.

Dr. Huxtable, I Have a Headache

2006-08-30T07:24:00.000-07:00

Recently, a woman I had known for years distributed an article comparing Katrina victims with the thugs who caused so much crime, a prominent Chicago housing project had to be shut down. When I emailed a retort to her blanket agreement with the article, she cited Bill Cosby to support the journalist's rather sweeping view.

In my entire life, east coast and west, I have not actually made the acquaintance of many people who live like the people Mr. Cosby rails against. I know they exist and have been in neighborhoods where it is suggested they live. I say "suggested" because most "bad" neighborhoods contain a majority of stalwarts who are not tearing up the streets and don't make it onto the news. I was one of them after my husband left me. Having said that, is Mr. Cosby right about the people who actually engage in the behaviors he repudiates? I believe so. Should he include whites who do the same thing? While I might like to see that, it isn't his responsibility to provide balance when merely airing an opinion.

However, since Mr. Cosby's opinion has risen in stature, I would like to put in my two cents.

Mountlake Terrace, Washington, has a white population of 78% and a fraction of the crime of Cumberland, Maryland, with roughly the same number of people and a white population of 93% (race stats are from ePodunk.com, and are rounded). This illustrates that a neighborhood that is more white is not necessarily a better neighborhood, addressing a fallacy on both sides of the color line.

Further, Huntsville, Alabama, 30% black, is 8 times more populous than Cumberland, and still has a lower crime rate (ePodunk.com). Everett, Washington, only 3% black, has 2.5 times* as many rapes as Baltimore, Maryland, which has a black population of 64% (*this crime stat is from homefair.com, using the Relocation Crime Lab feature).

I do not want to diminish the part of Mr. Cosby's message that I agree with, but I do think it is necessary to pique the reasoning powers of people who, perhaps not knowing any better, accept opinions dressed up as news from sources that take advantage of their willingness to do so. While all of us, black and white, expend a fair amount of energy examining why blacks have so many problems 25 years after Affirmative Action or 145 years after slavery, certainly valid questions, no one asks why we have a significant white underclass hundreds of years after Manifest Destiny.

Make no mistake. Black underachievement is a drag on black achievers. Black crime is a drag on the black law-abiding. Underachievement and crime from any quarter are a drag on everybody. However, Mr. Cosby's brush is overly broad at a time when negritude has started to become innocuous and Americans have begun recognizing that there is a great deal of diversity in Black America. This broad brush sometimes obscures a very important truth - that it is not bad to be black.

Is Mr. Cosby overreacting about the name thing? Although the names he cites as examples did not interest me as an expectant mother because I had the same attitude twenty-five years ago, I take exception to his attack on those names, because Mr. Cosby is behind the times in terms of both class and race. For example, out west, white mothers give girls names like Starla and Keesha. It is true that in the past, a "black" sounding name would result in fewer job opportunities. If my name could get past the resume reader and my accent could get past the receptionist, I had a good chance of securing an interview. But that was almost a generation ago! Today, Shaniqua is a news anchor, and Shaquille takes his status as a role model very seriously. I suppose I could have condensed this entire paragraph into a single word: Oprah.

Should Mr. Cosby tailor his message because remote or "conservative" whites may take him out of context, possibly fueling interracial prejudice? While I think Mr. Cosby should understand and convey that his tirade covers a minority within a minority, he is not responsible for the limited scope of unsophisticated whites any more than he is for the limited scope of unsophisticated blacks or of blacks who also use his arguments to fuel a lingering intraracial prejudice. What I would say is that, now that Mr. Cosby's opinion has become a cause celebre, he should understand that people take his opinion as fact and he should, therefore, present more factual arguments. $500 sneakers? Show me.

Should Mr. Cosby be censured? Actually, no. But like others who react to his message or adopt its arguments, he should be better informed so that we stop getting bogged down in simplistic questions that have taken on a life of their own, only to become problems like the realities they ostensibly attempt to explore.

As a comedian offering family-oriented humor for decades, Mr. Cosby earned the ear of mostly decent folk. In spite of the contaminating aspect of his current message, he still has the floor, and his message has appealed to some whose beliefs do not lend a grain of salt with which to take Mr. Cosby's claims and discern the boundary between statistical fact and frustration with a tenacious social problem.

In my view, now that Mr. Cosby's opinion has been catapulted to political status, he should take more care with and be more rigorous about his arguments, if it is his intention to be a spokesperson for black intelligentsia.

Loving the Skin I'm In

2006-08-17T21:31:00.000-07:00

After decades of disappointing treatment for bad skin, I learned that my regular medical provider has opened a skin clinic in the same building. I went for my first treatment this morning.

A new product has become available - a laser that works on dark skin. Earlier versions were not effective because there was not enough contrast between the regular coloring of dark skin and the damaged skin the laser wanted to zap. This is not a problem on fair skin with, for example, dark freckles. I will not go into any more technical aspects of the laser, but I admit it was expensive and uninsurable, with the entire course of treatment payable on the first visit.

As I sat in quiet expectation, something odd occurred to me.

It was respect for my bad skin.

Gee whiz, I thought. Why?

My skin is my first responder. When I break out because of exposure to an allergen or toxin, my throat doesn't close up and cause me to be rushed to the ER where people must heroically try to save me. I don't puff up to where I am unrecognizeable. I do not lose my hair, become confused or suffer stomach upsets when exposed to all these things I am allergic to. My face takes it all, allowing me to eat what I please and go where I dare. I am free, as long as I can deal with being ugly. In that moment, I became truly appreciative that there are much worse things to have.

Depression is one of those things it's much worse to have. The doctor had offered me Accutane, with the warning that it triggers depression in some people. I didn't need time to think about whether to accept a prescription instead of digging into my piggy bank. Depression is a robber. No matter how beautiful you are, depression steals this knowledge from you. It runs off with your ability to handle your business. If you are a leader, depression can force you to use up your juice instigating pointless conflicts. If you are a follower, depression will surely point you in the direction of a random mentor or guide, if not a despot.

The review of my skin continued.

The skin on my face is like a car. A nice car will show off your taste, your class, your ambition, your hard work . . . unfortunately, my skin isn't at all like THAT car!

However, the highest calling of the most beautifully crafted car is not to be beautiful, but to absorb the violence of an accident so that the driver has a good chance of walking away. When my skin absorbs the violence of a particular allergen, my routine is rarely interrupted, unless a camera is detected in the same zip code.

Further, I am proud of the life I have been able to live even though I look like a talking asteroid. I actually got to marry someone I liked. My children are perfect, like yours, and did not inherit my skin. Although I am shy, living behind a face full of rosacea, acne, folliculitis, allergies and old damage forced me to develop a lot of poise I would not have had to develop. Happily, I get to keep that if I can clear up my skin.

These were the thoughts that occurred to me while I waited for my first laser appointment, and I asked the doctor to put it on a setting that would not cause too much risk. I have learned how to be happy behind my face; I don't wish to treat my skin so severely that I must now learn to be sick.

I needn't have bothered - this type of service is provided with patient preparation and great caution.

Nonetheless, it surprised me to have this eleventh hour experience of respect for my bad skin.

Write Access

2006-07-31T19:43:00.000-07:00

A friend recently asked me why I was taking so much time getting published. Not to be a drag, but I have not been successful in finding representation, east or west. Make sure you are holding onto something, but in the Northwest, where racism is a lot milder than elsewhere and shut-ins actually think it doesn't exist at all, I have actually been told that race was a problem, and more than once, certainly surprising me in this day and age!

Even today, a mention of racism among friends of differing races is sometimes a conversation stopper. Get over it. This isn't the racism of my parent's generation blocking access by door and window by any means necessary. The Internet gives me the door and window. As a writer, the most frustrating aspect of racism in the industry is that I cannot get the feedback to know the strengths and weaknesses of my product. Only a seasoned professional can give me feedback on commercial writing. Therefore, the cost of racism to me has become more sophisticated with society's advance in general.

There are certainly enough valid reasons not to have found the right fit. Most writers who are white and male collect enough rejection slips to wallpaper their dens. In fact, an obstacle clearly originating on my side is that my attempts have been sporadic, limited to occasions when I had a little time or money left over for promotion. This is why it is so shocking when a professional doesn't even take the time to dance around a racial hangup.

Surprisingly, I am not angry. I used the time to "practice my letters," as some oldsters used to say, and, if all goes well, I may be in a position to bankroll a more modest project, in no small measure because of the doors and windows that are no longer blocked.

In retrospect, I would not have been prepared for success any earlier. Ultimately, the market will tell me whether I should have bothered.

Racism is no longer costly only to me. If my writing is marketable, it will represent money that professionals could have made from becoming part of my upline.

Matthew's Conflux

2006-07-28T06:50:00.000-07:00

In these days where there is so much war and grief, am I the only one sensing a momentum of confluence forming?

Even nonbelievers are stepping up their dogooding. Further, people discuss ethics who probably grew up associating ethics with a simple group affiliation. In response to some invisible force, people of affiliation have become people of action. People whose grandparents were considered nice only because they drove Buicks are now offering rides to the elderly in their SUVs; women who were coasting on the beauty quotient of merely being naturally blonde are now moisturizing.

All jests aside, there is a very serious cultural movement that I think is part of this confluence - the informalization of the Bible. I remember the "stir" of the Good News and the readability of the Bible distributed by Jehovah's Witnesses, both novelties in my experience during the sixties and eighties and, just as we had “folk mass” in Catholic church in the sixties, and jazz service is offered today in downtown Seattle, there is now a church in New York that has a hip-hop mass.

Here is a newly crafted passage that is nonetheless easily recognizable even to culturally aware nonbelievers:

"The Lord is all that, I need for nothing. / He allows me to chill. /He keeps me from being heated /and allows me to breathe easy. /He guides my life so that I can /represent and give shout outs in His name. / And even though I walk through the hood of death, /I don't back down, for You have my back. / The fact that He has me /covered allows me to chill. / He provides me with back-up/In front of player-haters, / and I know that I am a baller and life will be phat. / I fall back in the Lord's crib for the rest of my life."

I’m not sure whether the Aussie Bible, recently released, will receive the same acceptance. Here’s Eve heeding the snake: “So she took a good squiz and then a bite and passed the fruit on to her bloke. Right then and there, they’d realised what they’d done and felt starkers.”

We all know that Eve and her bloke didn’t go on to be ballers with a phat life. This is why we have player haters today.

Considering these translations along with, for example, the Klingon Bible, I was mostly amused until my amusement gave way to a provoking thought.

Regardless of how little else I find believable, I am nonetheless convinced that we are witnessing a full flowering of Matthew 24:14.

Hail to The Redskins . . . For Now

2006-07-08T18:40:00.000-07:00

As a person who has weathered bad ethnic jokes and stupid comments followed by excuses of "oh, but we don't mean YOU," I sympathize with those who find the Washington Redskins' moniker offensive.

However, I remember talking with a friend who is proud of her Irish heritage and loves being affiliated with the Fighting Irish. And that's when something occurred to me. People often argue that the "Fighting Negroes" would be offensive because it is racist. I don't think it's that simplistic.

May I suggest that, among "fighting Negroes," the Fighting Crips are not the Fighting Zulus. I think many would appreciate the difference like my Irish American friend - in the context of a sports team name, the Fighting Irish are not presumed to be drunks in a bar, they are presumed to be honorable warriors. My friend knows that and digs it.

I grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland, and the Redskins, as a football team like any other, had that same kind of authority, not the put down that some people complain of. In fact, I once heard someone say "Hail to the Foreskins!" While that statement may appear out of place, my point is that, even in the crassest of moods, race was not invoked. For at least the two generations that I have watched people watch football, the Skins have been free from overtones of race issues concerning American Indians.

Nonetheless, "we don't mean YOU" won't cut it. The Capitol Region does not have an Indian presence like my present home in the Seattle area. Here in the Northwest, Indians have a presence like other minorities do elsewhere. They are neighbors with feelings, not symbols. If Native Americans are not making the Crip vs. Zulu connection and embracing the "Fighting Irish" idea, I say let's quit being a bunch of dorks and change the name.

Warming to Global Warming

2006-06-26T21:25:00.000-07:00

I went to see Al Gore's documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth." I am not a tree-hugger or lover of Mr. Gore, but I found his presence gracious and his message worthy of consideration by all, regardless of political stance. "An Inconvenient Truth" was an intellectually accessible and good humored - not funny, but not button-pushing in style - presentation on global warming. If you want a coherent introduction to this matter, whether or not you are sure it exists, I highly recommend seeing the movie. It was not a venue for bitterness over the election Mr. Gore lost. Politics were mentioned in the context of policy, and Mr. Gore does not pretend there are/were no politics, but I didn't pick up any partisan message in particular. I take the view that some issues are too big for one party to save or lose. I also think that there will be support - and nonsupport - in all major parties.

In fact, in the interest of balance, I have been surfing for articles that disagree with the global warming theory. There are a number of them out there, and indeed, news of at least one growing glacier.

There have been a number of issues in our lifetime where data from both sides of the argument could be used for support. As much as I want to eradicate any portion of global warming we are responsible for causing that could hasten our doom, I also want to be aware of the opposing view. Just as I would not change my life based on merely liking Al Gore, I surely would not refuse to listen to an issue of this magnitude from any speaker simply because I did not like a particular one.

Therefore, if you take a strong stand one way or another on this issue - or any - my only suggestion is to choose at least one article from an opposing viewpoint and consider whether you think it is reasonable. In most controversies, as in this one, there will be enough opinions to choose from that you may actually discover a mind that works like yours even though the author sees the issue from another vantage point.

The mark of a strong mind is the ability to entertain a second point of view without being threatened by it.

I'm pretty sure I didn't remember that verbatim, and I do not recall the author, but it’s close and I hope everyone adopts it as their mantra.

Women at Work

2006-06-18T11:39:00.000-07:00

After all these years, people are still debating whether mothers should work or stay at home.

What I have learned in all these years is that every point of view is right for someone. My mother did me a huge favor when she went to work. I did my children a huge favor when I stayed at home. When my husband walked out, I had no choice but to return to work as soon as I was offered a living wage because, as you probably know, almost nobody out there really gets child support. I went to a government workshop intended to get welfare recipients labor-ready. I had always worked before my stint as a housewife, and even had an interview lined up as a bank secretary, but had to attend the workshop instead as a prerequisite to being granted day care assistance. I came to the class with a resume. During the class, we were “taught” how to fill out fast food applications. As a direct result of this experience, I do not have a high opinion of Welfare Reform in its current iteration.

My children are now grown. For years, I have been a legal secretary and although it pays well, I can truly say that work is not necessarily more satisfying than family life, which we all had to give up because I had to work all the time until my income hit a certain threshold - and by that time, it was too late for the class of services we normally think of a stay at home mom providing. I had become a dad.

I wonder how many of today's housewives are credentialed professionals who can choose between rewarding work and rewarding home life, and how many are from other socioeconomic classes who are mostly between a rock and a hard place, as I was long ago. The dialogue is probably vastly different among pockets of women with different means.

I was an only child, and my mother went to nursing school about the time I was in kindergarten. Since my father was an executive, we did not need my mother's wages, and I understand the social and emotional advantages that pro-work women desire and are entitled to. My childhood predates the era where women felt entitled to the pursuit of happiness apart from men. Between being old enough to observe society's sea change and having lived as both an executive's daughter and a discarded wife and welfare mother, I am able to understand, first hand, nearly every point of view I have encountered on these issues.

Having grown up with a working mother and a father who had a feminist streak, I have met many stay-at-home women whom I would have considered lightweights in years past. That is one of those “judgmental” labels that don’t go over well with people, including me in this day and age. Thirty years ago, however, homemaking had become devalued and I was being raised to think of achievement in different terms.

I had a lot to learn. Many of those “lightweights” are volunteering, keeping the neighborhoods secure with their vigilance, and working very hard – often significantly harder than I do at my job, for much less appreciation. Indeed, look closely at both your benefits package, if you work, and the curriculum of your child. Many of these schedules contain services that were not offered fifty years ago - not just because certain attitudes or technologies did not exist or were not yet mainstreamed, but because personal, controversial, or problematic issues were delegated to the ubiquitous homemaker. Let us not be fooled as to the value of these overlooked generations.

For women of modest means in particular, keeping an orderly home is beneficial on many levels, especially in the small and substandard housing many families must live in. So many such housewives provide daycare for other working parents, special needs family members, and emotional support for other family members in a world with disintegrating ties. In a home of modest means, mundane, difficult, or unrewarding tasks cannot be delegated to local businesses. In the “work skills” class I described above, a woman that my pre-poverty peer group would have dubbed a “welfare queen” made the most astute point – that she provided daycare to all of her grandchildren so that her children could seek legitimate employment. I would go as far as to say that boosting grants for poor homemakers who are actually achievement oriented (volunteering, home schooling, etc.) might be far more economical than supporting the myriad interventions available through the state for dysfunction that might have been lessened if we had invested in the family.

Since I was given a much more sophisticated view of the world due to my mother’s employment in the 1960’s, I have spent most of my life agreeing that women should work. However, to whatever extent supply and demand applies to homemakers, I must also concede that since most of today’s family women must work outside the home whether they want to or not, we no longer have the glut of squandered women suffering from "the problem with no name," and the relatively few who are able to stay at home should be valued much more than in the past.

Atheists for Jesus

2006-06-15T22:07:00.000-07:00

I think the evolved term for an unchurched do-gooder is "secular humanist," but for years, I would tell most people I was an atheist. I still do. But is that really true?

What do you do when something’s going down, you want to contribute, Catholic Relief is mobilizing, the Lutherans are having a food drive, the Baptists are digging their steel toed boots out of the garage to throw into their luggage for deployment, and the Kingdom Hall is collecting blankets . . . but Atheists Against Hunger doesn't have a phone listing, and Agnostics For Justice isn't aware of its own existence outside the heads of a few individuals who think they are going it alone?

Are we secular humanists only good for writing checks? Are we doomed for Purgatory, God’s skeptic tank?

Although I don’t generally believe Bible stories, I am inspired by the concept that Jesus wants us all to love one another. I absolutely dig it.

But what do you do with religious people who view their neighbors with suspicion because of their appearance? How did an infallible God fail to assemble the neighbors correctly?

Surely, the staged ebony-and-ivory photo ops between celebrities should prove convincing. Okay, maybe not. After all, why would a factual Holy Spirit be decades behind "flaming liberals" or a normal friendship in this day and age?

Why would a disfavored gender be given the ability to carry life and sustain it? Even in the story, was Eve not duped and Adam, who supposedly knew better and disobeyed anyway, guilty of the greater transgression?

I am reminded that many believe in Creationism, even in a country where slavery and its legacy have weeded out many who might have had a more fragile countenance, perhaps suggesting, to a certain class of thinkers, some limited proof to the contrary.

So, maybe I am not an atheist at all, but someone who is tired of some of the limiting messages and (not so well) buried integrity issues often promulgated under the umbrella of faith. Maybe all I did was opt out of receiving intellectual spam.

Admittedly, on either side of any ideology, you can only believe what you find believable. And it is highly subjective and important – even to people like me - because believers or not, we must ALL put up with each other every single day.

The truth is out there. Jesus may be real, or Jesus may be mankind’s most elegant intellectual fabrication. Either embodiment is enormously valid, with global ramifications that, in spite of our increasing technology and sophistication, are not becoming obsolete.

Finally, wrap your mind around this: just as there are Jews for Jesus, do not be surprised if you should one day encounter an atheist for Christ.

Please

2006-06-15T21:05:00.000-07:00

An act of kindness was visited upon me a very long time ago, and I wish to memorialize it.

In the mid-1980s, we were flat broke. I no longer remember whether it was before or after my husband had walked out on us. I decided my boys and I would hit the streets for an afternoon of adventure. We would ride Bart to San Francisco.

We found ourselves in Union Square. I was looking like a fright, with my hair tied up, and wearing flip flops. My youngest was in a disintegrating umbrella stroller. A year or two previously, I had worked in San Francisco myself, but my fortunes had changed for a variety of reasons. I surely had not dressed for any occasion. In those days, had there been any occasion, I would have been unable to dress for it. Rather, I looked like a poor housewife airing out with her kids, which I now was. We had seen our midnight strike when a car became a shopping cart and glass slippers became house shoes worn as street shoes.

My eldest, who was five or six, spotted the glass elevators. Could we ride one?

Oh, my.

Would we be shooed from such a prestigious hotel? I’m sure I hesitated.

But I was a twentysomething mom who had not yet been knocked all the way to the ground, and I decided we would try.

We entered the lobby. My children were at the age where ‘we always ask permission,’ and I showed my son the concierge. The concierge at this expensive hotel regarded us with alertness. Embarrassed, I started to blubber that my children had never ridden an elevator – I had meant to say “glass” elevator. Somehow, I got my bumbling request out.

With a graciousness I would not receive again for a very long time, the concierge indicated the glass elevator with a sweep of his hand and the only word I would ever hear him speak.

“Please.”

Old Rush

2006-06-09T20:48:00.000-07:00

In late May, I became a forty-niner.

I don't care who knows how much I love getting older, but you do have to watch what you feed your head.

For example, I have taken to eating two fish filets for breakfast. It makes a difference in how I handle the day.

To give you an idea of how beneficial fish is, please kick your shoes off and step into my mind. The entire room is covered in corkboard, and every square inch of that corkboard is covered with stickie notes that say "411." This is the bus I have ridden to work each day for four years. For four years, I have had to remember to get on this bus.

Come back tomorrow after breakfast.

* * * * *

Good morning!

Eh eh eh eh eh . . . shoes off . . .

WOW! Can you believe the difference? Those nine-foot characters, a four and two ones, painted from floor to ceiling, are a testament to the power of protein and fish oils on an aging mind, to say nothing of saving a few trees.

When I step off the 411, the world is mine.

Wizwonk, In The (Digital) Flesh

2006-04-13T07:20:00.000-07:00

Chick Alors

2006-03-29T06:55:00.000-08:00

I have just returned from a week in Paris, where I went alone.

My week was HAAAAAAARD. It rained every day, my French was terrible, I got lost on the train, the Louvre was closed when I got there, and it took a few days to figure out how to obtain food (even though there are restaurants and bakeries on every block). I actually lost weight! My first two days, it seemed that there was nothing to eat but bread and art. Bread! Everywhere! To a foodie and major carnivore like myself, Paris was turning out to be a House of Pain.

And you know what? It was precisely the experience I wanted. I also got to do a bunch of things normal people consider fun, not just my die-hard busman’s holiday. I also figured out how to eat, and ended the week extremely happy.

It was a helpful city - I could go wherever I wanted – it was very safe, even when I had to cross a demonstration line to find my friend’s hotel. There were thousands of students protesting the new labor law. Also, I walked all over the ghetto. It was poor, not angry.

Even though most of Paris is flat, particularly in comparison to Seattle, I stayed in the Sacre Coeur neighborhood, where I encountered steep stairs everywhere (I must have climbed 80 to get to Montmartre). The street layouts and fast traffic do not accommodate the unfit. Bus service is only along big streets. You do see a lot of elderly women with canes who walk everywhere just like everybody else. It’s a lovely town. I declined a date, phone number and certainly anything shaken, not stirred. For some reason, people who asked about my origin assumed I was British. Honestly, my French would have been loads better if I had been English!

Nonetheless, I was completely tapped out by the time I dragged myself back to de Gaulle Airport. As I waited to present my boarding pass, I was near tears with exhaustion and grateful that as soon as I set foot on Flight 45, I would no longer be a foreigner.

So what’s the big deal about Paris? I guess like anything else, it’s whatever you make of it. Imagine self-possessed Seattle when it gets comfortable as a big city, beautiful DC without its underpinning of racism, and hard working New York in slow motion. Paris is a little of all of that, but mostly experience overlaid with pride, maturity and grace. At the end of the day, however, even Paris is still only Paris.

We Don't Know Squat

2006-03-12T11:11:00.000-08:00

My mother retired as a geriatric nurse just before her 70th birthday. This is the miraculous person who threw down her cigarettes at my age and started jogging. I never caught up to her, even in a car.

Many years ago, she shared with me the observation that patients who "kept their legs" had a longer life and better quality of life.

I happened to ask the younger of my two sons, a linguistics graduate who spent some time in Japan, what keeps elderly Japanese from breaking down as we do. His answer was Japanese toilets! Apparently, if a Japanese family still has this type rather than the type familiar to us, which is also available, one must still squat to use it. And of course, we have all seen or surfed past television programs where people living in Asia, even in an otherwise westernized environment, sometimes sit on mats instead of sofas. This is a physically demanding custom for westerners.

What can we do now to get good legs in our later years? Squatting in the lavatory actually does not take up a lot of time, but is impossible in western bathrooms. I wonder if my fiftyish, sedentary peer group might be interested in something simple like walking to the bus stop instead of driving, alone, to the local park and ride - an innocuous habit to build into one's day.

I am fat and don't really mind it. I belong to a demographic group that doesn't generally punish women at as low a threshold of obesity as women of other backgrounds. The gamine-like image that some of my friends desire is not the only standard of beauty in diverse America, and I am rarely hit over the head with it. But I've encountered it enough to see why someone well over pleasingly plump who must compete with that image finds it easy to give up because "it would take me three years to look like that." But that's another blog on another day.

Thin people fail to keep their legs, too. My simple proposition is that we find an equally beneficial activity in our culture and faithfully build it into our routines. Just another part of the day and no big deal. Walk to the bus stop two blocks away. Take the single stairwell to the company cafeteria. If it is not possible to slip an innocuous task into your routine, why not do five or six mid-squats, even holding onto dining room chairs, before work and again before bed?

Keep your legs.

Because, whether the weight stays on or off, the luckiest among us will be old one day. My friends and I will be oldish rather soon. Fat or thin, wouldn't you rather be old on your feet?

Warrior Blossom

2006-02-18T11:11:00.000-08:00

I was a tomboy warrior
Commanding dark green resin men
My mother beckoned from the hearth
My father beckoned from the den.

Honor sweet like fragrant cake
Duty grand on polished wood
Beckoned to me from the realm
Beyond my father’s mounted sword.

His wisdom flew from anchored mind
To join maternal admonitions
Lost to the lusts of green battalions
Rehearsing now with sharp munitions.

The coaxing twixt pubescent mind
And early freedom did give rise
To warlike fantasies that now
Took place in a world Samuraized.

From downy fawn to bushy doe
The changing in me did devise
A sensei of exquisite arts
Passed to me through his Samur-eyes.

The combat went on winter long
Through spring and the ensuing season
My troops did overcome the heat
Restored by leadership to reason.

Old skirmishes make way for new
Each scrimmage promises its prize,
A woman lives her bushido
And blossoms into Samurai.

Wizwonk on Politics

2006-01-22T21:55:00.000-08:00

I don't care much for politics. That's not to say I don't care about them. They surely permeate most of what we do. However, the last presidential election exposed a lot of things that surprised me about people I thought I knew. I didn't want to know who was a race bigot. I didn't need to know all the outdated fears people still had left over from thirty years ago. I truly do not wish to know what neuroses people suffer from when tweaked by politics - particularly the fear-mongering kind pandered to people who are already afraid of the neighbors.

It is truly the loving kindness we show each other at much closer quarters that will determine our quality of life. It is almost the only thing. The material both in my face and in my inbox made me truly sad. I hope to never experience it again.

But my loyalties, which I have not defined, are not set in stone. I would like to see a female president. If Hillary Clinton and Condi Rice ran against each other, I would truly feel that I had been marched into a round room and commanded to sit in a corner. I am really at sixes and sevens about it.

I give up. My brain won't take it any further, although some time ago, I had some thoughts that presented themselves to me in this manner:

Is there any law keeps Hillary from making her man veep?
Can you hear the masses cheering, can you see the black man weep
With ecstatic joyful teardrops that may nevermore abate
In ’08 when Rodham runs with damn near any running mate.

Learned Doctor Condi will repudiate advice
That slavery still binds us, if you dare look at it twice
Where even literati starve to fickle men entice
Few might elect a powerhouse who’s, after all, Miss Rice.

Games of Strategy

2006-01-09T20:37:00.000-08:00

Petals fragrant and serene
Velvet lifting up the day
Gathered round the fragile shoulders
Coursing waters warn of danger

Ferry leaves cross urgent brook
Breaking news of loud report
Alarms are spread by waving grasses
Heed advices of the stream

Vibrations of advancing menace
Unseat stones and trample earth
Acorn shells to hide among?
Yearn to reach the safer bank

Scurry up the farther shore
Fibers bruise in haste and madness
Wings untried and spirit bound
Startled by the yeoman’s lance

Conscription sweet conscription bitter
One square forward never back
No retreat when facing terror
Sure of step to serve the King

Satisfy the Bishops’ bidding
One step sideways captures love
Serve at once the (K)nights’ demands
No step possible when blocked

Capitulate capitulate
And velvet promise petals wear
Conceive upon the monarch’s cushions
Subjection becomes sovereignty

Conceive unfailingly as well
The Queen fears neither rank nor file
Life plays above the checkered board
Survive the strategies and win.

In a Honda Zooming Haiku

2006-01-08T21:10:00.000-08:00

Hello,

I am Wizwonk, and for the new year, I wanted to bootstrap myself from Blognoramus to Blog Naif. This is my first posting on my first blog. No opinion today, just a haiku inspired by some concurrent malaise my son and I were experiencing some time ago in our social lives. Fortunately, that's over! Today, we're laughing.

In a Honda Zooming Haiku

in a honda zooming
mother and son
talk
about how people suck

bombing up I-5
the generations
churlish, scathing, heat
D-FENS