Conquering Vertigo

Frost / Nixon

2009-01-03T19:21:00.000-08:00

Seeing the movie dramatization of the interviews David Frost conducted with Richard Nixon stirred a lot of emotion in me.
About Bush / Cheney.

At the end, when Nixon confesses to wrong-doing, I experienced a sort of catharsis greater than merely the release of tension or a well-done denouement. Mixed into the reaction is my desire for Bush and Cheney to have a public moment like this. To confess they've done wrong, and that they're sorry. I'd like to see the awareness in their eyes that they've betrayed us.

I'm not hopeful I'll ever see that. And my reaction overshadows a really good movie, which merits emotion-stirring in its own right.

Oh, but wouldn't it be grand to see and hear Bush say how very wrong he was? To watch Cheney take admit to lying and be soul-sick about it? Not for the sake of punishment and humiliation, but for the sake of healing. Our nation's healing, and their healing.

While I remember the actual Frost / Nixon interviews, I wasn't old enough to understand all the ramifications. Richard remembers his reaction to the last session -- the one about Watergate -- and said it was at that moment that Nixon became a citizen again, started back on the road to rehabilitation. Because that's what confession does.

If Bush / Cheney maintain their triumphant "we're right and history will vindicate us" stance throughout their lives, they're only reaffirming their basic weakness of character and fearfulness. Weak men need to be right all the time. Fearful men can't exist without the iron mask of bravado. And if they never confess, they steal their own opportunity for redemption. More over, they rob this nation of a season of maturity and strengthening.

With Obama coming into office, there is a temptation to say "Thank God, it's all behind us now." But it's not. We won't be through this until there is some public accountability. I wonder if Frost is up for another set of marathon sessions with disgraced American leaders...?

Pilgrimage

2009-01-02T14:06:00.000-08:00

I took this photo last year in Chartres, France; it's the common symbol for those on a spiritual pilgrimage. The seeking, the journey, the discovery. I realize I'm starting 2009 as a pilgrim.

Thena's America

2008-11-19T09:22:00.000-08:00

My friend Thena recently compiled a video montage for a song she has written -- America.

I am moved by her America video on a couple of levels. One of the things I have come to believe is that America lacks a true prophetic voice -- America as a nation and the prevailing culture of American Christianity.

Remember in the beginning of Acts when the disciples ask Jesus "is it now, Lord" that your are going to set up your kingdom here on earth? Jesus had to tell them again "you still aren't getting it" -- this is a kingdom of the heart, not an earthly kingdom where you're justified and empowered to tell others how to live and what to do.

I feel as though the bulk of America's churches are led by those disciples, who disregarded Jesus' words and keep trying to create something here that doesn't look at all like the true kingdom of the heart. Instead it looks like them instituting God's rule among mankind, with them in charge.

And because we as the Church are off track, because we don't have healthy leadership, we are failing (much of the time) to be the salt and light in our world -- with three consequences -- among many -- being:

* the body of Christ is broken, disconnected, and doesn't function in basic unity with the holy spirit or itself,
* the lack of the true, pure, humble, honest prophetic voice,
* people don't see the true beauty and freedom and joy of faith in Christ.

Not to mention that we don't do the simplest things that would help the poor, bring justice, feed the hungry, heal the sick, visit those in prison, etc.

Thena's song touches this intertwined bunch of things for me -- it feels like a piece of the voice crying out in love and compassion, not in judgment, and calling us to wake up, unite and change.

I love America and want our country to be the best it can, and I want the Church in America to discover her true calling from the Spirit and stop making up a religion out of our own ideas of God's Kingdom.

TroopTube

2008-11-13T14:55:00.000-08:00

Yes we can! (Obama!)

2008-11-05T12:32:00.000-08:00

Barack Obama 44th President of the United States.

Yes we can.

Voting at the Firehouse

2008-11-04T11:05:00.000-08:00

Early this morning, Richard, Bryn and I walked two blocks to the neighborhood firehouse, which is also our polling place. A friend from church greeted us -- serving as a poll worker today. There was a line with people of various races -- at least five distinct ethnicities. Bryn met a Dalmatian and we voted. Our red "I voted" sticker is in three languages.

Happy times.

Two for Dancing Queen

2008-07-31T21:16:00.000-07:00

Between us, the Man and I share a disparate taste in movies. Harry Potter, Harrison Ford, the ensemble casts of mockumentarian Christopher Guest... not what you'd call a strong thread of continuity there.

So would you figure I was straining at the leash to go see "Mamma Mia," and that he was more than willing to accompany? I'm not sure I even like Abba, or remember any of their songs except for the brain-gripping "Dancing Queen." But Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan singing Abba on a Greek Island -- gotta go!

We realize that if I can leave work on time today, we can make the late matinee showing of Momma Mia. It's a bit of a horse race though, and we jog up to the ticket counter in the very nick of time.

"Two for Dancing Queen!" I call out breathlessly. The man gives us our tickets and asks if we want popcorn or a drink. Distracted, I make Italianate hand gestures (the nice kind). "I mean, Momma Mia, two for Momma Mia."

He smiles, "I knew what you meant."

I don't think I was still for even one moment of the movie. Toes, knees, shoulders, head, vocal chords -- something was going the entire time.

In my imagination, I'm Meryl and the Man is Pierce. Gotta whisk him away to the Aegean Sea.

"You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life
See that girl, watch that scene, diggin' the dancing queen"

Hero of the Day

2008-07-31T11:53:00.000-07:00

Tom Sepa.

www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/200/07/31/BAPB1227KF.DTL

Officially listed as homeless, he holds down an internet sales job while camping out in Golden Gate Park. Tom has a car, a laptop, a cell phone, and a wireless card giving his laptop internet access even when he is out of wifi range (say, sitting cross-legged under the Eucalyptus trees in the park). He spends most days at the Zephyr Cafe, where Kristen and I have met to work on our erstwhile novels. He orders coffee, et al, puts on his headset, and starts work.

Tom is one of the increasingly stressed middle class. As do so many of us, he lived a couple of paychecks away from trouble. When he and his wife split (causes unstated; she left) he could no longer afford the rent on their house. After trying and hating some of the homeless-lodging options offered by the City, he decided it was smarter and safer to camp out.

He's on his way to saving $10,000 -- his goal before re-entering "normal" life. In San Francisco, it takes anywhere from $4,000--$8,000 to get into regular rentals, either apartments, flats, condos or homes.

If I directed an affordable housing and rent-to-own non-profit (one of my ephemeral goals) I would sign him up. Since I'm a writer, maybe I'll turn his story into a screenplay.

Tom, I may never meet you, but what you're doing really resonates with me. I hope your wife didn't leave because of anything sad, bad or scary you did. I hope you're a good guy, because I like believing in good guys. Regardless, I think your urban survival tactics are spot-on. I'm praying for the time when your tent will just be used for weekend getaways.

Comcast manipulating Port 25

2008-07-14T12:00:00.000-07:00

Returned home from a business trip this weekend. My mother-in-law passed away while I was out of town, and I was hectic and harried to get home, help my husband and step-daughter, and communicate information via email to others.

Couldn't send email. Not from personal account or work account. Not Sunday when I got home, not Monday. Called Comcast, my current (emphasis on the temporary nature of the word current) internet provider. Turns out they had blocked our access to Port 25, the main, commonly used email port for email "client" programs such as Outlook, Thunderbird, Entourage, etc.

Why had they blocked it without telling us? They couldn't really say. Maybe we were using too much bandwidth, many be were sending so much email it looked like spam to them. A good work-around, they said, was to "upgrade" from the residential to the business internet service. Yeah, it costs significantly more, but much less chance of a "sending blockade."

Um, yeah, I don't send that much email, don't download much in the way of audio or video files, I'm a pretty low-impact user. Unless a "spam zombie" has taken over one of our computers and is using it to channel spam, I feel like I'm being played by comcast. At the very least, they should have called us first. My phone number is on the account, next to the section where I pay my bill on time every month for "unlimited email access."

Since this is email, I'll be going virtually postal. As long as I can't send email, I'll be telling the world what comcast is doing.

I asked them to unblock port 25 so I can contact people, and then if there really is some problem, show me the evidence of a bandwidth activity report. Show me that I'm sending more than 1,000 emails a day, which is the threshold they list on their website for concerns. And give me a refund for as many days as this was blocked. They said their "escalation" department had up to 72 hours to restore access. What!?! And they aren't authorized to issue a credit since "something you did" caused the red flag. Right... I've been out of town for five days and my husband has been with his dying mother. Pretty sure we've not been home sending emails.

I'm bulldogging this. Don't shut off PAID service for a spurious reason, particularly without calling me first to let me know they think there is a problem. I've been romancing the idea of getting all my service via satellite anyway. The packages are cheaper and it looks like the product will be better. Comcast, you're about to lose a customer. And I'm going to share my story with others.

An outstanding work of remarkable intimacy

2008-07-01T17:33:00.000-07:00

I turned to the right, seeking to communicate "taken, uninterested, just browsing, please don't talk to me,' to the man approaching rapidly from the left. As he drew closer, I became enraptured with the clearance paperback bin ("no really I'm busy").

"Hi there," he said, undeterred by my body language, "what are you looking for?"

I turned only my head and smiled sadly to discourage him, "Just browsing," and began inching my gaze back to the unwanted bin.

"Looking for some light summer reading, or something--" he glanced at my hand "--for your husband or kids?"

I was in an odd intersection in the bookstore, kiosks and tables of random categories surrounded me, all grouped vaguely at the openings of diagonal aisles. Behind me beyond the escalators were periodicals and the attached coffee shop.

He persevered, "I can help you find what you want..."

I succumbed to a conversation, "What I really want are the books I left at home. I'm here on a business trip and forgot to pack them."

He began to suggest books he had read, books he wanted to read. His enthusiasm was palpable and unwanted. Before I disengaged, he recommended a book with jacket blurbs shouting "groundbreaking," "extraordinary," "remarkable intimacy!"

Unsold, I returned to my own quiet and enjoyably aimless wandering. I didn't want to read an extraordinary book. I wanted something less work than groundbreaking. Something entertaining and well-written, yes, but remarkable intimacy? No. Remarkably intimate and extraordinary books take a high level of engagement. Groundbreaking books usually push you to think or care. I just wanted something pleasant to read while falling asleep in my hotel room.

Come to think of it, I'm not sure I even want to WRITE a remarkable book. I'd like to write an entertaining and briskly-selling book, something enjoyable for all of us. But extraordinary feels like a lot of work. Groundbreaking would require vigorous intellectual investment. And remarkable intimacy? Wouldn't that reveal a little too much of me to my readers? I don't think I want to be that well known.

En Cee Double El

2008-03-22T11:26:00.000-07:00

As Duke University's men's basketball team takes to the floor for this year's NCAA "March Madness" tournament, they're missing one of their most faithful, fervent fans: my grandmother Lois. Ever since the 1960s, when my uncle played saxophone in the Blue Devils' marching band, Lois has attended, watched, cheered, exhorted, couch-coached and grieved for the team.

In later years, Lois became so anxious and disgusted over close games that she would stop watching rather than risk seeing them lose. In her estimation, when the ball left a Duke player's hands, the only logical conclusion was the interior of the basket. And anything less than a ten-point lead was unacceptable.

I inherited this loyalty, and this year I'm celebrating my own NCLL tournament (the Ls in honor of Lois), complete with Coca-Cola, the official beverage of Lois' life, and her constant support during the games.

Living in California, it's difficult to catch all the Duke tournament games, since regional teams often get preference in the broadcast schedule. But Thursday I was lucky to see the end of the Duke v. Belmont game, a nail-biter which Duke won by one point. And today I get to see the whole of Duke v. W. Virginia.

Currently, Duke is leading by seven. If they advance to the next level on the bracket, Richard is going to enhance the celebration with some home-made pimento cheese, which we'll use to make open-face cheese toast during the next game.

I'm popping the tab on a little mini-can of Coh-Cola, as she said. Lois, this one's for you.

Truth from the Man

2008-03-19T15:04:00.000-07:00

I made a lunar announcement to The Man last week.
With humorous face and voice, he responded:
"But where is the weeping and accusatory language?"

Ever catch a glimpse of yourself in a mirror when you weren't expecting it?
Oh yeah, baby :-)

Complaints Department

2008-03-19T14:39:00.000-07:00

The hound often hounds the man when the man is in His Office (the kitchen). The man has another office (the dungeon) but it holds not a place in His heart.

So Richard and Bryn are putzing around The Office, and Man turns to Dog and says: "Do you have a complaint? Remember, all complaints must be in writing."

I've been laughing silly about this all day.

Turns out her water dish was empty.

The complaint department said to Bryn
Turn it in with pencil or pen
Bryn looked around
One thoughtful hound
And bribed the man with a Zin

The Bread of Life

2008-02-28T09:51:00.000-08:00

Dateline: Paris, France, any one of a kajillion small boulangeries filling the streets with the aroma of baking bread and pastries.

Real French croissants, made in France by a boulanger with the secret ingredients of the ancient Celts, are deceptive for first timers. It looks so big, yet as you bite into it you encounter cascading layers of air and love, kissed with a soupcon of butter.

Mmmm... the warm soft fresh croissant implodes on itself as artisan love fills your soul. And your mouth, belly, all the way down to your tired little toes.

And the baguettes and ficelles. Ahh, it is all about the crust, baby.
Stop in on your way home, and pick up the genuinely inexpensive but a bargain at any price fresh loaf. The man or woman behind the counter smiles with pride and joy as they select a warm baguette for you, twirling a small nearly transparent piece of paper around the middle -- the way to hold it as you walk down the street, inciting the lust and admiration of all Parisiens.

Do your best to refrain from eating it while you walk (but there is no shame, as half of Paris eats in the streets, carrying their freshly made food in one hand, their cell phones in the other), so it arrives home in one piece. Finally home, break it open and raise the steaming middle to your face, inhaling the love. Then scoop the soft yeasty innards out and sneak them onto your husband's plate, leaving the thin crust for yourself. Hallelujah!

If you think this is purple prose, exaggerating an experience, well clearly, you haven't been to Paris.

All my life, I've heard people quote -- in fact, I think I've preached on it myself -- John Chapter 6, wherein Jesus repeatedly describes himself as the "bread of life." He had to have been talking to the French, for only they can understand what he means.

French bread is life. It sustains, fills, pleases, encourages, satisfies like nothing else.

Walk down the cobblestones in the morning, stopping to call out "Bonjour Madame!" as you pick up your morning croissant.
Lunch, take the metro to a patisserie or boulangerie and get a baguette fresh out of the oven -- eat it plain or perhaps with tomatoes, cheese, basil and an olive tapanade.
Dinner? A fresh grana ficelle, a bottle of wine, really what else do you need?

And the French miracle, thanks to thousands of steps a day on streets and metro staircases, is that you lose weight while crunching bread and quaffing wine. I am so moving to Paris.

So back to Jesus. I think the French, despite their fiercely, proudly secular state, have the best chance in the world of becoming sympa with Jesus; only they understand bread as life.

Did I tell you I'm moving there? They need pastors, I need the bread of life. 5% flour, 5% butter, 90% love. Amen.

Yap le boom!

2008-02-20T15:50:00.000-08:00

Just returned from two weeks in Europe. I haven't blogged in three months, and there is so much to tell, including my grandmother's death, about which I am still in deep grief.

So, let me tell the happy European Vacation "making the waiter blush" story.

Dateline: Paris, France, early February:

Ambience: Cold, sunny day, in the 6th Arrondissement, Rive Gauche, narrow cobblestone streets, the groaning stones of two thousand years plus of civilization leaning all around us.

We'd been at the Cluny museum and were heading towards the new Orsay museum, and Zut! were we hungry. Walking down the Rue des Saints-Peres, we spied a clutch of cafes. We had passed innumerable cafes and brasseries, but one of these seemed particularly inviting for lunch.

First, people were crowded around the sidewalk tables, laughing, drinking wine, working at laptops (many of them MacBooks, hooray!) -- always a happy sight. (The French pronounce wi-fi as "wee-fee" which charms me to no end.) Second, the inside looked equally convivial. Third, it reeked of a neighborhood hangout, not a touristy place -- so, real food for a decent price.

We ducked in and yes, everything we hoped for was true. After a brief wait, we were seated and served. Richard ordered a Croque Monsieur that bears no resemblance to the American fakes foisted evilly upon the unsuspecting US masses, and a frothy, wheaty ale drawn on tap. Robin had the veggie quiche of the day with fresh micro-greens and hot tea. Manna in the form of the Bread of the Gods (I'll write the French Bread of Life post later) and jazz music accompanied the simple, delicious meal.

While basking in the happiness and discussing our next stop (the gorgeous museum at the former Gare d'Orsay), we realized the chalk board on our left wasn't what -- at only a quick glance -- it might appear to be. In somewhat formatted handwriting there was a list of headings: Lundi, Mardi, etc., with brief descriptions following in a scrawled chalk-writing. But it wasn't the specials of the day, it was a narrative of riotous living.

We were able (particularly Richard, who is quite fluent in French) to decipher the slang-ish descriptions of too much drinking, hang-overs, the embarrassment of no money and the need to hide at home, etc. But the last two entries for Saturday and Sunday eluded even The Man. "Yap le boom!" it read for Saturday, and then again for Dimanche.

After counting out our Euros (and Robin's second visit to the WC, which we'll discuss in our forth-coming monograph on French Toilets), we prepared to depart. Richard called out with a musical parting in French, and I lingered at the beaten metal (copper, possibly, or zinc) bar. My spoken French had advanced to the point that this conversation was conducted in basic French. With brief exceptions, I render it in English as follows:

Robin: Thank you sir, and a question if you have time, thank you very much. (The waiter was ringing up a bar customer while saying good-bye to us)

Waiter: (A compact, rather handsome young man who seemed to love his job) Thank you for your patronage, Monsieur and Madame. But of course, Madame, what may I answer for you this afternoon?

Robin: We understand the chalkboard above our table except for the descriptions regarding Saturday and Sunday. If you please, what does it mean, 'Yap le boom?'

Waiter: (Thrown into great confusion, much blushing, while the bar customer bows his head in a newspaper and starts laughing.) Oh, ah, Zut!, ah, I ah, well, uh...

Robin: (Watches quietly, wondering if she should blush or go get Richard and let this translate mano-y-mano.)

Customer: (Playing with a coin) Five Euros ... indecipherable ... the lady.

Waiter: (More blushing and ignoring the customer) Well, ah, no, yes, ah...

Robin: (Inspired) A possible understanding of "Le Bons Temps..."

Customer: (Much laughter and nodding of the head)

Waiter: Yes, very true Madame, the very good times!

I walked out to Richard, who had been following the exchange via semaphore through the glass windows. "Did he tell you what it means?" he asked, amused.

"Not really, lots of blushing and stammering, finally an agreement of le bons temps..."

"Do you know you're blushing, too?"

"I'm sure I am! Look, when a Frenchman blushes, you know something's up!"

We still don't know what it means, but I have suspicions.

[pan] handling anger

2007-11-13T14:34:00.000-08:00

The man, the woman and the dog went for a walk this morning, stopping for coffee (and innumerable foreign smells).

As we settled around a sidewalk table with our coffee, a panhandler was hooting, singing, shouting, dancing his call for a sandwich: "I'm starving," he yells, clapping his hands, "I need a sandwich, someone please give me a samdwich, hoot hoot, holler holler!"

Richard has a firm: "I can't help you" policy.
He'll give the shirt off his back to someone he knows who needs it, tithe-plus to the church, or spend a kajillion dollars making meals for the ill and/or homebound. But come up to him on the street, jab him in the chest and demand money... and he "bows-up" and says, "You want some of this? 'Cause I'll give you some of this..." which causes all sober and semi-sober panhandlers to flee. (There was this one time on Market St when he beat the be-jezus out of a scary man, but it was the scary man's fault for grabbing me and then attacking Richard and I'll blog about it later.)

I'm with Richard, via the long and tender-hearted winding road. A lifetime of giving to panhandlers has left me with the sad assumption that people asking for diapers, a sandwich or gasoline, are really asking for drug money. This is based on going and getting diapers for the lady asking for them, only to be told: "Oh yeah, well, really I need money for special diapers for my baby," as she refuses the diapers I offer her.

Multiply that by 1,000 different encounters, and I'm finally on Richard's page.

So, we're having coffee near the hooting man.
We're trying to talk to each other, but LITERALLY I can not hear nor process Richard's words because of Singing Sandwich Man, who keeps shouting and dancing.

In the time we're there, here's what happens:
* a woman gives him a fresh muffin from the bakery, and he says "oh yeah, well, if only I had something to wash this down with." Totally dissing her.
* two men give him coffee, and he says, "I'm hungry man, I'm starving, I need a sandwich!" (Hello, doesn't this help you wash down that muffin?)
* a woman pushing a baby gives him money -- a wad of bills -- and he says, "Is that all you're giving me?"
* rage builds in the robin

I want to jump up and beat this shouting, dancing scam-artist to the ground, saying "You @#$%&!! poser! Get a job!"
Does this mean I'm becoming a Republican?

Post your caption here

2007-11-07T06:57:00.000-08:00

Chef Sucks would be one title, if I didn't love him so much, and if he weren't such a good chef.

When Ricky found out the church's food pantry was running low, he went to work. (Our church has a commercial freezer intended to hold home-made meals for people who are ill, recovering from an accident, grieving, or otherwise in need of a quick and easy reheatable meal.)

Our normally busy Italian Kitchen became a super-busy Super-Tuscan Commercial Kitchen. Meals were debated, recipes were tested, storage and re-heating options were explored. A trip to Kamei Restuarant Supply (bow worshipfully, please) was undertaken, with pomp, circumstance and success.

Finally, everything was assembled and a large quantity of new potatoes, pureed dill carrots and home-made Italian Meatloaf (Aunt Ida Large's recipe, I believe) were created. For our vegetarian friends, this is not the meal for you -- however, the delicious carrots are veganific.

The final steps were the creation of full-cover packaging, including digital photos of the finished meal, a USDA-approved ingredient list and the all-important re-heating instructions. The finishing touch? Richard with a straw in the freezer-lock baggie, sucking out all the air to create a vacuum that protects the food from icy freezer burn.

I'm maried to a genius, but we knew that.
Kitchen Paoli strikes again.

Ah, Dumbledore...

2007-10-24T07:43:00.000-07:00

...we hardly know ye.

I guess the napkin ring in his beard should have tipped me off.

Or maybe the fact that he had such a wide stance.

As usual, the LA Times scooped me:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/movies/la-et-showbiz7-23oct23,1,4293482.story?coll=la-headlines-entnews&track=crosspromo

I have a history of tuning out gaydar, though.
I think I'll let this inform my Nanowrimo novel.

November is NaNoWriMo

2007-10-24T06:53:00.000-07:00

Otherwise known as National Novel Writing Month.
http://www.nanowrimo.org
The deal is you start fresh on Nov 1, on a story you've never started, and write throughout the month.
No editing, no polishing, no angst.
As the sponsors say, December is for editing.

If I can write 50,000 words in November, I'm officially a winner.
Woo-hoo!
Very Colbert-esque of me, I'm more focused on winning than content :-)

My user name on the http://www.nanowrimo.org website is ConqueringVertigo, no spaces.
Please join me, buddy me, read me and encourage me.
I've promised Richard that when he wakes up on Dec 1st, he'll be married to a novelist.

Enter the A.G.

2007-10-18T14:51:00.001-07:00

Once known as Governor Moonbeam, Attorney General Jerry Brown enters the fray in the ongoing Ed Jew saga. This link also lists a chronology of stories about the exciting, maddening, sad-assed saga of the Man Who Would Be Supervisor.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/18/BA8BSS9FG.DTL&tsp=1

My Daily Jew Fix

2007-10-10T20:58:00.000-07:00

No, it's not Jon Stewart, although he is The Man.

It's Ed Jew, San Francisco Supervisor-in-Limbo. Every morning I open the paper, eager to read the latest chapter in the saga.

Jew is the Accidental Politician, elected due to the screwy "ranked choice" voting that beleaguered our City's last election. Faking a residence in our neighborhood, Jew registered to vote and run for office in San Francisco.

Some men are born to greatness, others have it thrust upon them. Still others steal it, then abuse it.

Once in office, with power over others, Jew hurried to shake down the owners of the "Quickly" tapioca shops. Jew is Chinese, and he leveraged, one might say quickly, the fears Asian immigrants held regarding beaurocracy into an $80,000 extortion scheme. The Tapioca Tsars didn't get off the boat yesterday, though -- they went to the FBI, then wore a "wire" to the next meeting with Jew. Ultimately they gave Jew marked bills the FBI later found in Jew's house -- his house in Burlingame, CA, not in San Francisco.

The FBI investigation exposed the faked residence, the fraudulant voter registration and other illegal legal documents. With court cases pending on every level (from Federal down to City), he keeps maintaining his innocence. I understand he has a cultural imperative to save face, but if I were him I'd be more concerned with saving my ass.

Time to plead out, Mr. Jew.
The Chronicle tells the story better than I can. A quick search on their web site reveals 55 stories in the last 30 days. Apparently, I'm not the only one Jonesing for Jew.

If you're interested, here are some links:
This first one is a chronology:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/09/26/MNABSE0U6.DTL&hw=Ed+Jew&sn=020&sc=580

The next links are twists and turns in the story:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/06/BA81SKN5O.DTL&hw=Ed+Jew&sn=007&sc=483
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/09/27/BAC9SEJ9A.DTL&hw=Ed+Jew&sn=015&sc=277
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/09/26/BA8GSE4MV.DTL&hw=Ed+Jew&sn=024&sc=371/09/26/MN0FSDULR.DTL&hw=Ed+Jew&sn=019&sc=790

News you can't use?

2007-09-12T12:06:00.000-07:00

While traveling on a business trip, I was beset by reverberances from the news, to wit: Sen Craig and his airport men's room pickup strategies.

No, to my knowledge, no one tapped the special tap for me. Maybe it's a gender thing? But in all the airport restrooms I've visited so far, I've yet to find any of them conducive to love. Or even a quick roll in the...stall?

When I think of all the times I've innocently handed toilet paper to a fellow traveler by passing it under the stall divider... Quel innocent!

And Jesus wept

2007-09-07T21:31:00.000-07:00

Growing up in church camps, we played "sword drills" or "bible drills" where the first person to find and recite a scripture won a freeze-pop, or whatever. Scripture memorization was interspersed between swimming and archery. My clever uncle mastered John 11:35 -- "Jesus wept" -- so he'd always have a scripture at hand.

Later in life, Jesus weeping meant a lot to me. Showed me reality, compassion, empathy. Still later, I began to wonder what else Jesus was weeping over. Jesus told us "they will know you are Christians by your love one for another." Yet rarely do I recognize Christians by their love one for another. Particularly when we judge, exclude, divide, and use him as a prop when we go to war.

I've just started a study of the Qur'an, and I'm wondering what I'll find. How much will teachings in the Book of Islam resemble the ways in which I see it being practiced?

I wonder what our world we be like if Christians actually were recognized and renowned for only one characteristic -- their love for other people. Would poverty and suffering fade? Would war be a distant memory? Would people walk up to us and say, "Wow, I'd like to be like you?"

Would Jesus still weep?

Quoting Seinfeld

2007-09-05T21:21:00.000-07:00

The waves were higher, the current stronger, the undertow more severe than I have yet experienced.

It wasn't so much swimming as aqua-fighting.

The best moment came as I trudged up the sand to Richard, after a good, long aqua fight.

"The sea was angry, my friend," I said, "like an old man trying to send back soup at a deli."

Quoting a Seinfeld episode is a silly happiness, and we laughed all the way to the car.

Mooning Transamerica

2007-08-28T12:51:00.000-07:00

The lunar eclipse this morning (last night) started around 1:30 a.m. I arose in the middle of the night, but alas! our house wore a crown of fog, and I didn't see this shot our man Frederic Larsen of the Chron snapped as the moon turned red just past the Transamerica Tower.

Makes me want to play pool. Yellow ball in the pocket corner!

Dog paddle

2007-08-24T21:32:00.000-07:00

Today, two big labrador retreivers swam out to me and communed for a moment. One sniffed and talked, the other just seemed to want to be petted. Their fur was so warm...

Steam yields to sail

2007-08-23T21:30:00.000-07:00

And hopefully sail yields to arm.

So, let's list the hazards of swimming up here:
* Rogue sea lions that bite, nip and chase swimmers
* Agressive elephant seals
* Lost humpback whales
* Sketchy water quality
* Undertows and rip tides that sweep surfers and swimmers away
* Enormous tankers and car carriers coming into port
* All the other watercraft, ferry boats, tour boats, sail boats, fishing boats, Bubba Gump...
And....
* all the brilliant kiteboarders and windsurfers.

Watching a kitboarder rise out of the water on an air current, spin three times and land flawlessly on a wave is amazing.
Trying to stay out of the guy's way when you're a swimmer and he's going a gazillion times faster is anxious. Lots of head-up swimming, treading water and then a sudden frog-kick away.

I love watching them, and the longer I watch the more I see myself participating. Starting with the windsurfing and then--when I master that--advancing to kiteboarding. Yowza! One of the windsurfers wears a Batman wetsuit, complete with little bat ears on the hood.

But right now, I'm the slow swimmer they dodge around as they swoop in and out of the water. No doubt thinking to themselves, yikes! Watch out for the red cap over there!

The swim training lesson was good, more info later.

Brrrrr!

2007-08-22T20:33:00.000-07:00

I've been so high on the sheer joy of this, that I may have overlooked the one real drawback: swimming in cold water wearing a thin wetsuit.

The worst moments are just before and just starting. I kiss Richard before heading into the water, and can't help but notice how toasty warm he is in his fleece jacket. I turn towards the water and remember how cold it is. Then I step into the surf and memory becomes fierce reality.

My new ploy is the run and dive (successor to the bend and snap). Even if I'm still in two feet of surf, if I'll hurry and get in the water and start moving, the shock begins to fade more quickly.

I'm going to an "open water swim training" clinic tomorrow night. It's held at the Sports Basement, so the most difficult thing will be getting out without buying anything.

Swimming San Francisco Bay

2007-08-21T06:11:00.000-07:00

The Straits of the Golden Gate and San Francisco Bay are part of a deep underwater canyon. 528 billion gallons of water flow through the narrow straits every six hours, creating giant underwater "sand waves." The combination of strong winds, tides, water flow and variable atmospherics (fog, etc) creates a challenging and exciting water-sports environment.

Since before we moved here, I've envisioned daily swims in this ocean. While swimming underneath the Golden Gate Bridge is some of the fiercest total-body exercise imaginable, it doesn't seem like exercise in my mind -- a key factor in my work-out success. Looking back on all the bicycle marathons and racquetball games, I'm aware that if I'm having fun with exercise, I work harder and am in better shape.

So we move here. While planning a kayaking-swminning double-threat, I break my foot running up the Baker Beach cliffs. In the long recovery, as I lose any physical edge I ever had, I still think about swimming in the ocean and bay.

Finally, action! I find a thin, cheap wetsuit. The 1-mm triathlon wetsuit is a super-thin layer of insulation between me and the cold water, but flexible! For swimming, flexibility trumps insulation, even in the chilly coastal waters.

Amidst the sailboats, windsurfers, tankers, cruise ships, and marine life, I wade into the San Francisco Bay at Chrissy Field, just east of the Golden Gate.

The sea floor is intensely ridged and drops off abruptly. The choppy waves slap my body and I submerge quickly, hoping to get the freeze over with quickly. Yikes, it's cold!

The water is brackish and the current is strong. I start swimming, glad for the silly red swim cap and amber goggles. Really glad for even this thin wetsuit. After a few minutes, the only truly uncomfortable coldness is in my hands.

This is a gorgeous day. The water is about 60 degrees, the air about 68, the sun is shining and the fog is still an hour away. I flip over on my back and look at the bridge, ready to dodge the windsurfers all around me.

Richard is on the shore, giving me a thumbs-up, while Bryn runs in the surf. She'll go out only so far, then race back onto the beach. I didn't reckon on the other dogs, though -- the Labradors who swim out to retrieve me.

The gamble has paid off -- the decision to get the 1mm suit instead of a 4mm -- I'm cold but not that cold, and as flexible as if I'm in the pool at the Y.

But I'm not inside, paddling down a lane shared with four others, the smell of chlorine and chemicals clinging to my hair, suit, skin. I'm outside in the Bay under the sun, and it doesn't feel like exercise at all.

The Bend and Snap Wetsuit Workout, part 2

2007-08-18T17:50:00.000-07:00

Act 2, Scene 1.

Place and Time: Sunny Sausalito Saturday morning.
Location: The Harbor Dive shop.
Specific Location: The small, airless, hot dressing room.

Richard is propping the door open, letting in a breeze but blocking the view, as she inches the fourth wetsuit of the day (8 total in two days) up her body. There are products that help wetsuits go on quickly and easily, but you can't use them until you buy the suit.

His foot still against the door, he helps with the final "ootching" and zips her up. "Well," he says, "what do you think?"

Robin reaches for the ceiling, makes a windmill, then touches her toes. She looks back at the first of the day's herculean efforts, the super-thin triathlon wetsuit. It's the Xcel Xpedition 1.5/1.0/0.5 TriDensity suit. The arms and legs are 0.5 millimeters, between 1/8 and 1/4 inch thick, 0.0196850394 inches priecisely. Over the torso, the neoprene and titanium increases to 1.5 mm, just over a 1/2 inch thick, helping reflect heat back towards internal organs.

Most wetsuits range from 1.0 to 9.5 or 10-mm, so the Xcel is one of the thinnest suits on the market, suitable for tropical scubadiving or triathlete swimming. Janine scubadives in a 3mm and 7mm, and Justin swims in a 4/3 (4 torso, 3 arms and legs).

She points to the thin one: "I like that one best, it's the most comfortable, has the most flexibility, and is the cheapest. But the guy helping me says I'll freeze in these waters."

Richard puts the point on it: "But you're the one who has to wear it; what do you think?"

Robin thinks she'll be okay, but then she's an optimist. They put the 1-mm suit on hold and return the next day, leading us to:

Act 2, Scene 2: Sunny Sausalito Sunday, the dive shop.

Robin has talked to Richard, Janine the scuba-diver, and others. She's ready to gamble that constant swimming in the thin suit will keep her just warm enough.

Suit and booties in hand, Robin returns to the Pathfinder, man and dog waiting inside. It's off to the beach! With a stop for lunch.

The Bend and Snap Wetsuit Workout

2007-08-17T19:51:00.000-07:00

(grinding disco music pumping in the background)

Bend pinch pull snap!
Bend pinch pull snap!

Ever tried on four wetsuits in a single evening?
Oh, the horror.

"Does the crotch fit? Push it waaay up into the crouch. Make a smiley face down there, that's right! We'll get your husband to help you for a while."

"What about your arm pits? Pull the sleeves up, I need full motion for her pits. All the body grooves should be filled. How are your breasts? Supported, feel good?"

"How's your rear, you're not saggy in the rear are you?"

I've lived here almost 2 years and keep meaning to buy a wetsuit and swim in the Bay or Ocean every day. I think this is why I keep putting it off for hiking, biking, swimming at the Y, sleeping late, etc. The agony of all the wetsuits.

My favorite from tonight was an "O'Neill" surf suit -- not as heavy as a wet suit. Like the model here except for a woman. He's not so much sporting the smiley face, but I damned sure was.

It's on hold at the Sports Basement. I'm going to try some more on tomorrow, God help us all.
Bend pinch pull snap! Works every time...

First fruits

2007-08-15T06:48:00.000-07:00

The tomato plants are ripening -- much of the fruit is small, but some of them are getting big. This is our first experience growing "Fog City" tomatoes in the foggy city. We put three seedlings in a large bucket-pot a couple of months ago, and the plants have grown larger and broader than we expected. The plant is intensely aromatic. Not sure what the fruit will actually taste like (Richard's concerned the first crop will be tough and sour), but this first little one is beautiful.

Bryn likes the way it smells.

Seminary to teach women - only - to cook and sew

2007-08-13T07:04:00.000-07:00

If only the Apostle Paul had known how to sew, he could have worked as a tent-maker and helped spread the gospel in marketplaces and market-oriented cities all across the ancient world. If only Paul had known how to sew, he could have written about the importance of everybody contributing to their own upkeep, and then demonstrated how to live that out by preaching and teaching about Jesus while making tents. But alas, Paul was a man and therefore banned from learning to sew, and was never able to spread the gospel while he worked, or even to spawn the term "tent-making" to describe the way missionaries can use practical job skills as a way to spread the good news about Jesus. Why? Because men are barred from a seminary course on textile design. His kingdom, lost for the lack of an awl.

If only Jesus had known how to cook, he could have made a meal for his disciples after his resurrection, helping them understand important truths such as serving others and that fact that he had a corporeal body. If only Jesus had understood "meal preparation," he might have been able to multiply loaves and fish to feed thousands. If only Jesus had understood "the value of a child," he might have been able to welcome children, call them to him, and embrace them. If only Jesus had understood "the value of a child," his disciple Matthew might have been able to write something like: Jesus said, "Don't stop children from coming to me! Children like these are part of the kingdom of God." But alas and alack! Jesus was not allowed to take a three-hour seminary course of "the value of a child," nor the seven hours of "nutrition and meal preparation," and so the children went unvalued in his kingdom, and the hungry went unfed.

Why oh why must the rigid Baptist seminaries give only women the tools to make the keys of the kingdom? Men are consigned to the degrading role of preaching, which scripture tells us is a snare, while women only are taught the skills and values that make it possible to show the love of God. When will these feminazis relinquish their stranglehold on the Southern Baptist seminaries of America and allow men to begin to practice publicly the things that Jesus and Paul taught?

Let those who have ears to hear, hear my irony. Actual news story follows. Google it if you don't believe me.

Baptist seminary to offer homemaking for women only
By Rose French, Associated Press
http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2007-08-11-homemaking_N.htm

NASHVILLE — The Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary offers coursework in Greek and Hebrew, in archaeology, in the philosophy of religion and — starting this fall — in how to cook and sew.
Southwestern Baptist, one of the nation's largest Southern Baptist seminaries, is introducing a new academic program in homemaking as part of an effort to establish what its president calls biblical family and gender roles.

It will offer a bachelor of arts in humanities degree with a 23-hour concentration in homemaking. The program is only open to women.

Coursework will include seven hours of nutrition and meal preparation, seven hours of textile design and "clothing construction," three hours of general homemaking, three hours on "the value of a child," and three hours on the "biblical model for the home and family."

Seminary officials say the main focus of the courses is on hospitality in the home — teaching women interior design as well as how to sew and cook. Women also study children's spiritual, physical and emotional development.

Yet the program is raising eyebrows among some Southern Baptists, who say a degree concentration in how to be a Christian housewife is not useful, and a waste of seminary resources.

Seminary President Paige Patterson, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, which has its executive committee headquarters in Nashville, said wives of seminary students asked for the homemaking courses. The program was approved by seminary trustees in the fall.

"We are moving against the tide in order to establish family and gender roles as described in God's word for the home and the family," Patterson said at the denomination's annual meeting in June. "If we do not do something to salvage the future of the home, both our denomination and our nation will be destroyed."

Terri Stovall, dean of women's programs at Southwestern, which has its main campus in Fort Worth, said the purpose of the program is to strengthen families.

"Whether a woman works outside or strictly in the home, her first priority is her family and home," she said. "We just really want to step up and provide some of these skills."

Stovall said the homemaking degree is one of 10 women's programs at the seminary and is "only targeted to women whose heart and calling is the home."

A description of the homemaking program on the seminary's website says it "endeavors to prepare women to model the characteristics of the godly woman as outlined in Scripture.

"This is accomplished through instruction in homemaking skills, developing insights into home and family while continuing to equip women to understand and engage the culture of today."

The Rev. Benjamin Cole, pastor of Parkview Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, and a frequent Southern Baptist critic, wrote about the homemaking program on his blog.

"At first it was almost incredible to me," Cole said. "I thought this is not happening. It's quite superfluous to the mission of theological education in Southern Baptist life. It's insulting I would say to many young women training in vital ministry roles.

"It's yet another example of the ridiculous and silly degree to which some Southern Baptists, Southwestern in particular, are trying to return to what they perceive to be biblical gender roles."

Patterson took a leading role in the 1980s in a successful campaign to oust moderates from leadership posts in the Southern Baptist convention. While he was president of the convention from 1998 to 2000, Southern Baptists issued a statement that women should not be pastors and that wives should "graciously submit" to their husbands.

In 2003, when Patterson left his post as president of North Carolina's Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary to serve as Southwestern's president, he was asked whether women would teach in the seminary's theology school under his leadership.

"The New Testament is crystal clear that pastors are to be men," he said.

In March, a former Southwestern professor filed a federal lawsuit against the school and Patterson, alleging she was fired from her tenure-track position because she was a woman.

Professor Sheri Klouda was hired in 2002 and was the only woman to teach at the School of Theology. But last spring, school officials informed Klouda that her contract was terminated because she was "a mistake that the trustees needed to fix," the lawsuit states.

Patterson's wife, Dorothy Patterson, is the only woman faculty member now teaching in Southwestern's theology school.

David Key, director of Baptist studies at Emory University's Candler School of Theology, said part of the reason why the seminary may be introducing the new homemaking program is in reaction to the Klouda lawsuit.

"Women continue to make more inroads into traditional male bastions, which could be provoking Patterson to do this," Key said. Patterson is "trying to draw the line in the sand of where women need to be."

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, also offers programs for women, including a 13-hour certificate of ministry studies. Required courses cover child-rearing, "God's plan for marriage," and managing a budget.

Key said neither seminary will allow women to be pastors, but notes that Southern hasn't "articulated homemaking like Patterson."

"Southern at least appears to realize the realities of modern day life — that often times husbands and wives must both work outside the home to support the family," said Key.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Soccer dog

2007-08-05T05:24:00.000-07:00

Franklin-Simpson High's Austin Perkins has the ball taken away by a black Lab during a soccer scrimmage in Franklin, Ky.

Lucie Aubrac

2007-08-02T21:38:00.000-07:00

It's a must see.

A Pastor's letter to President Bush, Part 2

2007-07-16T23:06:00.000-07:00

In this multi-part series, we're making a couple of risk-free assumptions. We're assuming:
• I've emerged from my sabbatical and am working again as the pastor of a Christian church.
• President George W. Bush has chosen me as his pastor.
• Mr. Bush values my counsel so deeply that it informs his decision-making processes.

The last one, of course, is the kicker -- in other words, what I say potentially has the power to change both his actions and perceptions. With that in mind...

Mr. President, through your confession of "Jesus as Lord," you have embarked on a life-long journey of growth and change. Some people call it discipleship, others call it sanctification. Here at our church, we describe this as practicing the habits Jesus practiced, valuing the things he valued, and making the choices that conform us to His character. To help you get started, I've customized a four-week course.

Week One:
Memorize this: we believe what we do, not what we say. Your words are still important, but no matter how eloquent and heartfelt, or contrived and stumbling, they will never reflect your character and purposes with the unerring precision of your actions. What you do and don't do -- the choices you make, the actions you take, the things you leave undone -- tell me who you are. The homework for this is: While you're in Crawford or Camp David this week, make a list of the things you've done and not done as President. Then open your New Testament and read Chapter 4 of the book of Ephesians. When we meet together next week, be prepared to compare and contrast your actions and decisions with the instructions for Christian living found in Ephesians 4.

Week Two:
Other people see truths about us that we might not know or are trying to hide. Confronted with the cognitive dissonance and psychological tension of hearing that others see us differently than we see ourselves, our strongest temptation will be to dismiss, downgrade or even demonize the other viewpoint. But consider this: I don't hear your thoughts, I see your actions -- and as we just learned, your beliefs are communicated through your actions. It's possible that my outsider's view of you may bring a new truth to your understanding of yourself. The more clearly and accurately you see yourself, the better able you are to make choices that reflect Jesus' values. Your homework for this unit is: First, choose six people outside your current administration -- mostly non-Republicans -- to give you feedback. Examples of ideal respondents would be former Fed chair Alan Greenspan, newsman Ted Koppel, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Ask the six people to describe to you how they experience you -- what they think of your character and beliefs, whether or not they trust you, and why or why not. Listen carefully and explore what they think and feel about you. Accurately record the information and bring it to our next meeting. Also, read Luke Chapter 4 this week.

Week Three:
Current reality -- we can't reach our goals unless we understand our current reality. One of the main reasons people don't reach their goals is that they are confused or deluded about their starting point. Also, we can't change course until we know the difference between where we are and where we want to be. What is your current reality, Mr. President? This week's lesson builds on last week's lesson, since other peoples' observations help us understand what is true about us. Your homework for this week is three-fold. First, read all of your campaign speeches from 1999 and 2000 and pull out the statements that describe what you promised to do and how you promised to behave as President. Next, turn these statements into a bulleted list and then compare and contrast them with your actions over the past 7 years, PLUS the feedback you received during Week Two. Here are two examples you can use in your finished homework: While campaigning, you promised to "be a uniter, not a divider." What is Ted Koppel's candid opinion about that? Do other people believe you have presided over the most partisan (divided) period in modern politics? Example Two: You promised an administration full of integrity. What does it mean that people in your administration have lied and have broken laws? Third, read and meditate on Matthew Chapter 5.

Week Four:
The fruits of the Spirit. One of the bedrock principles of the life of Jesus is that what is true inside shows on the outside. Others will know we are Christians by the love we show, not by us saying we're Christians. This week's lesson is to examine Galatians Chapter 5, particularly the fruits of the Spirit, and compare and contrast with the fruits of your Presidency. Please write an essay about your responses -- and your adminstrations actions -- regarding the following things, and compare and contrast your actions with the fruits of the Spirit: The Iraq War, Katrina Aftermath, Campaign Trail rhetoric, Global Warming, the collision between Science and Ideology in your administration, and your torture policies.

I look forward to our meetings, Mr. President, and am convinced that as you pursue discipleship in Christ courageously and diligently, you will wind up being the kind of President you promised to be.

A Pastor's letter to President Bush, Part 1

2007-07-15T23:11:00.000-07:00

Hello, Mr. President.
I haven't seen you much since the Supreme Court ratified your first term.

The Presidency is a fairly consuming office, I know, and there is a lot of brush to clear in Crawford. I was just wondering how you're doing on your dual goals of growing as a disciple of Jesus Christ and leading this nation as a uniter, not a divider.

Something you said -- twice -- during a recent press conference has reminded me to ask you about that trauma counseling we discussed in September of 2001. In referring to al-Qaida terrorists, you said "They are a threat to your children, David," to NBC's David Gregory, following it up by saying: "It's a danger to your children, Jim," to Mr. Rutenberg of the New York Times.

We all need help dealing with trauma, and the American people as a whole need help placing attacks in context and not letting terror build and grow. As our leader, it's important for you to guide people with courage rather than harangue them with fear. Indeed, I remember you saying you wanted to use the terrorist attack as an opportunity for healing and unity, that you wanted to strengthen America and her liberties.

Yet, as I observe your actions, Mr. President, it seems to me that you used 9-11 as an excuse to go to war and as a bogeyman to scare people into weakening America and her liberties. The New Testament says that the indwelling Christ does NOT give us a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind. Why are you leading this nation with fear, rather than love, strength or sanity? Again, I recommend counseling with someone trained to help you parse traumatic events.

As you may remember from my earlier letters, I am dismayed by the harsh partisan words and actions of your administration. The outpouring of a Spirit-filled life and mind is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Yet these are not the qualities displayed in words or actions by you or your administration. Have you decided to be discipled by Mr. Rove and Mr. Cheney, sir, rather than Jesus?

Mr. President, the road of discipleship under Jesus can be difficult, I know. Many of the pathways are counter-intuitive, and all of us have wandered astray, each in our own way. I pray, Mr. President, that you will not harden your heart, but that you will invite the Spirit of the Living God to fall fresh on you and awaken a new desire in you to live and act like Jesus.

You like stories, sir, and in fact that was one of the things you have always liked about Jesus -- he spoke truth in parables, or stories, to better connect with his listeners. I'd like to borrow this format and tell you a true story about a Texan who used to pray for you.

A certain woman from Texas never voted for you, but she prayed for you. She had been brought up in the sort of evangelical congregation that prays for national and world leaders, whether you agree with them or not. So she prayed for you faithfully. And she took Corinthians to heart, where it says love hopes the best, believes the best. She practiced believing the best about your motives, even when she was moved to doubt you.

During the immediate aftermath of September 11th, 2001, she hoped that in the crucible of the terrible tragedy, your character would be formed by your reliance upon Jesus. She hoped you would set aside political agendas and work with all Americans to help America grieve in trust and safety. She hoped your identity as a man and leader in Christ would flourish, that you would speak with truthfulness and act with integrity.

Now, when your voice breaks into the news on her radio, she switches stations. When you hold a televised press conference, she leaves the TV off and waits to read the transcript later. She believes you have lied to us and betrayed us. She feels this sense of your betrayal so strongly that she's unwilling to listen to your voice. She tried, year after year, to believe the best, but learned that the only safe thing to do was fear the worst from you. Whether she is correct or not is irrelevant -- this is her experience of you, and therefore it is her truth.

It is on behalf of the Texan who used to pray for you, that I write to you today. Mr. President, what if she's right? Are you enough of an honest leader, and humble Christian, to listen to people like her, and consider they may be speaking truth to you?

I don't know if it is too late to repair the breach of trust the Texan feels, but I do know it is not to late to change course in your life, your relationship with Jesus, and your presidency. The two questions are: Do you have the courage? Are you willing to change? You have always struck me as a man of discipline, Mr. Bush. Exercise and sobriety being two of your more public displays of self-discipline. If you are willing to change, and have the courage to change -- I know you will have the self-discipline to see it through.

I'll write again next week. Remember, book that appointment with a counselor.

bambi's puppy love

2007-07-10T07:18:00.000-07:00

This photo graced our morning paper, with the following caption:

Dear lick: A mountain feist named Candy kisses Kelsey, a fawn born to a deer kept by a family in Durango, Iowa.

The mountain feist is a member of the extended yet still rare family of pre-Revolutionary War "cur" or hounding dogs of which Bryn is a member. Bryn's breed -- the Catahoula Leopard Hound -- is also known as the Catahoula Cur, and is traced back to the brindled hunting and herding dogs who landed in the 1400s and 1500s with Nordic and Spanish explorers. The Feist breed pictured above is mentioned historically by George Washington and others, including Lincoln. Curs were vital to pioneer families, hunting wild boar and other game, herding domestic stock, and protecting the family. Puppies were a prized gift, often carried in baskets or in the arms of children as pioneers headed west from the east coast and the thirteen original colonies.

Bryn has seen a couple of deer. Sometimes from the car on a country road, twice out hiking.
In the wild, she grew preternaturally still, sniffed the air, focused and "pointed."
The first time we grabbed her collar and the deer crashed off into the brush.
The second time we all just waited, deer and dog looking at each other. We went our way, Bambi went his.

Cattle, Bryn herds.
Horses, she shares space with, staying out of kicking range.
Dogs, she plays with or fights.
Gophers and squirrels, she hunts.
Deer, she observes.
Us, she protects, particularly when children are with us.

Sociologists of all stripes posit that sentient beings carry ancestral memories in our genes. Watching Bryn react to different mammals, I can believe it.

Now if I can just figure out the whole dragon thing.

the pink martini hookup

2007-07-09T12:18:00.000-07:00

Richard and I did something waaay out of our "box" last week --
We went out with another couple we met on the internet.
Sound creepy?
Actually, it was great -- but a warning, kids, don't try this at home!

I was in charge of getting tickets for one of the kick-off concerts for "Summer in the City," where the SF Symphony accompanies jazz and other groups. The start of this summer's season was a Fri-Sat night double-header of our favorite group Pink Martini. (www.pinkmartini.com) They went on sale two months ago and - doh! - I kept forgetting to order tickets.

When I finally hopped on the symphony website, both concerts were sold out. Double doh!
So what's a girl to do, where is she to turn?
Craigslist, baby!

Several people were advertising tickets, but pretty expensive ones. So I wrote a post -- help save our marriage -- wife forgot to buy tickets -- husband threatening to withold garlic -- et cetera.

I was contacted by three people within about an hour. First two were all: drive to San Jose and pay extra for my tickets, chica.
But the third response said:
Marriage still need saving?
Newlyweds ready to help.
Sister and bro-in-law had to cancel, and we have two extra tickets, if you don't mind sitting next to us.
Let me know, and stay together!
Carrie

Doesn't that sound nice? And safe? We thought so.
I contacted Carrie and we agreed we'd all four meet at Absinthe, around the corner from the symphony hall, an hour prior to the show.
Nice young couple, married less than a year.
I told her this was the first time we'd ever met up with people via the internet, and she said,
"I can't tell you how relieved we were to see you -- you both look really normal."
A shame that looks are so deceiving.

notes from the grove 7-8-07

2007-07-09T12:17:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago we went to the opening of the Stern Grove concert season.
Outdoors in a natural canyon-based ampitheatre in San Francisco -- happy times.

We went with the Rudds, dog, children, lots of picnic goodies. The gopher from Caddyshack kept popping up in front of Bryn, hungry for the nasturtiums. A moment of bliss -- My head was on the dog, the baby Killian was on my belly, husband and friends nearby, some champagne being popped while the band played on. Then Killian wanted his mom, and Bryn wanted the gopher. But still, being left with Richard, Rudds, champagne outdoors... not so bad.

At one point, Judah (3-yr-old) said, "Mommy, what's that?"
Sniffing, Mommy said, "That's marijuana, honey."
Then we realized Judah was pointing to the gopher.

We went back yesterday to hear the symphony play. Arrived early and nabbed a great spot. Watching people in silly shoes sliding up and down the hills (sometimes almost into us) reminded me of a youth trip I sponsored about ten years ago. Behind the wheel of the newest church van, armed with the church credit card, two cell phones (thanks, Harry C) and tons of brio, I set off for the Jesus Go Fest with a dozen very cool teenagers.

Picture Woodstock with praise and worship music, in the red clay of East Texas. We pitched our tents, we set up our stoves, and we went off to the increasingly slushly mosh pit in front of the stage. Throughout Friday night and Saturday, the rains came. Saturday morning, we stood on a hill in slickers, taking bets and cheering while Volvo station wagons tried to get up and down the slippery red roads. I can hear us now, "Turn, turn, now floor it! GO!" And then the Volvo and its dispirited occupants would slide back down to the bottom. Really, it was cruel.

I thought of that wet red hill at Stern yesterday, as chick after chick tried climbing in 5-inch stilleto heels, while guy after guy lost their flip flops. Thousands of people weathering sun and fog, steep hills and gophers, pot and holes. This is my paean to the indomitable human will -- outdoor concerts in the summertime.

there be dragons here

2007-06-24T21:49:00.000-07:00

So what's with dragons?

They show up in almost every ancient culture and some modern ones as well, not to mention best-selling novels. The Welsh fly a dragon flag (pictured at right), and no self-respecting Chinese festival lacks a benevolent, if fire-breathing, dragon. Dragons show up in both the Old and New Testaments, and even the Inuits have dragon references.

Dragons are on my mind thanks to Harry Potter and my sister. Jules inspired me to dip back into Book Five of the canon (Order of the Phoenix) before the movie hits the theatres this summer. Reading five led me back and forth to 4 and 6 for context, and thence to dragons.

What real creature gave us the dragon? Did dragons give us dragons?
In the East, they're usually good; in the ancient / historic West usually bad; in the Americas they are gods or god-like; in the mid-east, including Judeo-Christian, they generally oppose God. Satan is described as a dragon in the Book of the Revelation. Modern fiction gives us many varieties of good, smart, bad and ugly dragons, filled with magical powers.

I'm neither anthropologist nor archeologist, so my research is facile at best. One scientist says humankind has a primitive imprint of fear against predator raptors, so we all "know" dragons. Others have formulated the "dinosaur skeleton" theory, but really it holds no water. Dem dry bones didn't lead to the spontaneous and somewhat independent formation of dragons who fly, guard treasures, have magical powers, fight, speak, etc.

Aiding and abetting my dragon flights of fancy is science itself. Here is a link to a story about a newly uncovered "Gigantoraptor" (really): http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/06/14/MNGUTQESS41.DTL
My favorite quote is: "When I went back to my geologist colleague Lin Tan's lab to check the skeleton, I was shocked," Xu wrote in his e-mail. "I said to Tan, 'It is not a sauropod, it is not a tyrannosaurus, it is a tyrannosaurus-sized oviraptor. We have a gigantic chicken!' "

A gigantic chicken. Here's the artist's rendering:

But this gigantic chicken isn't my dragon. This is not the dragon of the Norsemen or of King Arthur, whose surname was Pendragon. Who were the real dragons? And where are they now, these fierce beings, hidden deep underground in caves in the Caucasus Mountains, guarding ancient treasures?

and on the fourth day

2007-06-21T20:37:00.000-07:00

God set the sun to rule over the day, and the moon the night.

When I worked as a pastor, I drew some fire for talking about the role of mythology in the bible. Although myths are neutral, in the sense of being either true or false, many people heard "myth" and thought "fairy tale." When really, I was trying to bring a nuanced approach to understanding the truths of the bible. Mythology truth, historical truth, narrative truth, etc.

All this comes to mind as we experience the summer solstice, the day in the northern hemisphere that has the most sunlight.
As people gather around Stonehenge in England, celebrating the assumed sun worship of earlier cultures, I am reminded of the first chapter of Genesis, where the first creation account (there are two in Genesis) tells us that the sun rules the day.

In 2007, we are the inheritors of thousands of years of biblical history and interpretation, paired with modern scientific fact in an often uneasy pas de deux. We forget the ancient nomadic tribes, telling and retelling their oral history around the campfire. One generation passing along the story of creation -- and their place in it! -- to a new generation.

The fire flickers at a crowded oasis, as children gather to hear the stories. The Creator God making the heavens and earth, separating seas from dry land, and setting the sun to rule over the day, the moon to rule over the night. With such heady stuff, is it any wonder people all over the world celebrated the sun?

From temples in the Andes to circles in Europe to ziggarauts in the East, people knew that the sun ruled the day. They trusted it, counted on it. And often not knowing names like YWHW or Adonai, they gave the sun names and worshiped it. Our concept of the twenty-four-hour day comes from Egyptian Sun worship. The Egyptian Sun god, Ra, traveled half the time through the twelve domains of the underworld and half through the twelve domains of the day. Three thousand years before the birth of Christ, Egypt began using a 365 day calendar based on the solar year.

I take the bible seriously enough to believe in a connection between the ancient Hebrew creation myths and the fact that cultures from all over the world tracked, celebrated and worshiped the sun. According to ancient beliefs, the Japanese royal family is descended from their Sun goddess, Amaterasu.

Then God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth"; and it was so. God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day. Gen 1:14-19

Happy summer solstice. Want some spf 40?

Hang on little tomato!

2007-06-08T18:24:00.000-07:00

Budding tomatos
Dangle among spreading leaves
Fragrant summer smell

The Man planted three "Fog City" tomato plants in our back yard, fighting with zucchini, cacti, limes, lemons, parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme for precious soil and sun. One day it is 53 and foggy, the next 80 and sunny. Amazingly, all the flowers and plants thrive.

I've participated in many a summer harvest, picking or eating what others have planted. This time I'm helping with the whole process. The day I saw the first little green guy swaying under his leaf, I could taste the caprese salad Richard is going to make with the mature tomatos from the crop: Warm from the sun, sliced, sluiced with olive oil and fresh basil, sprinkled with mozzarela di bufalo. Can you tell it is dinner time out here on the coast?

"Hang on little tomato!" is the name of a song from the album by the same name, from Pink Martini. Inspired by a 1964 Hunt's Tomato Catsup advertisement from Life Magazine, they crafted an ode to the pluckiness of enduring the rain and dark in order to achieve the fullness and beauty of life. Or catsup.

I highly recommend listening to all three of their CDs. Current favorite song is "Hey Eugene," again, from the album by the same name. We saw them live in concert at the Warfield last year and are lining up for a summer concert in the City.
http://www.pinkmartini.com

RFK in memoriam

2007-06-06T12:44:00.000-07:00

Bobby Kennedy was murdered 39 years ago.
His assassination is one of my first memories.

As a young child, I lived with my grandparents. My grandfather was a pastor, a calm and loving man. He had given me oatmeal and a banana that morning. Something caused him --perhaps the morning paper-- to turn on the black and white TV in the den. A newsman was reporting the shooting, and my Grandfather ran through the house, waking everyone else up and saying, "Kennedy's been shot, Kennedy's been shot!" My mother remembers confusion, thinking, "But he's already shot," reliving President John Kennedy's assassination.

I stayed alone in the den, with the oatmeal and banana, with the images of death and grief, sounds of wailing and pain.
I don't know why oatmeal is comfort food for me today -- it didn't help me then.

For some people, it is popular to libel Bobby Kennedy, smearing him with his brothers' adulteries. I don't know if he was faithful to his wife Ethel. I don't know what sins he may have committed. The man I remember was a pastor during the Martin Luther King assassination, sharing the grief and helping calm the riots. The Bobby I remember traveled through Appalachia and swaths of poverty where education, health care and justice was non-existent. The public figure I remember listened to children, immigrants, the disenfranchised. The RFK I remember called America to rediscover her moral core and lead the world with justice and truth.

And so he was murdered.

Here are some of his words, and a story from Salon.com.

Our gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strenght of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worth while. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.

Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change the world which yields most painfully to change.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1952393,00.html

Jury Duty, part three

2007-06-04T23:45:00.000-07:00

Four weeks, maybe longer.
That's the expected trial length.
I've asked for and received a deferral.
(sigh)

I would enjoy serving as a juror for this case, but spending June at the courthouse is unworkable for me. Too many client responsibilities, and at least one out-of-town business trip if not two during the month.

Mercifully, there are enough alternates to take my place, and the judge deferred my jury service until later in the year.
I can manage a week away from work, but not a month.

I wonder what will happen during this trial. What testimony will be given, which facts will emerge.
Other than finding the case interesting, and observing the ethnic balancing act between plaintiffs and defendants, I had drawn no conclusions about the case, and was eager to hear the testimony and hopeful of helping to render a fair verdict based on all we would learn.

Maybe next time.

Gorge-ous

2007-06-03T11:30:00.000-07:00

Portland road trip, post deux.

Once in the City of Roses, we drove east through part of the Columbia River Gorge, hiking here and there amongst waterfalls. The Columbia is one of the rivers Lewis and Clark explored during their trip to the Pacific, and there are at least 77 waterfalls on the Oregon side alone of this section of the Columbia.

In case Speaker Pelosi is reading, we solved all the nation's pressing problems while on this road trip. Our solutions for war, peace, employment, immigration, enhanced journalistic freedoms and powers, poverty, global warming and the pursuit of happiness are offered free to you today. Call now before I write a book and charge $19.95!

Later, crater

2007-06-03T10:29:00.000-07:00

The lovely sister and her leige are in the midst of a 10-day visit here at the manse. They are such good guests that it feels like 10 hours. Come back, J&J! Move here.

This weekend is a fast and furious road trip to Portland, both couples and the Hound from the Pound.
Bryn de la Pyn is exceeding our already high expectations for her good behaviour, and The Man is exceeding the speed limit.
No news here.

On our way to Portland, the city of Free Municipal Wi-Fi,
(Free Wi-Fi
Free Wi-Fi,
Hooray!!)
we detoured to Crater Lake, pictured at right.

Wow. A gorgeous site on a gorgeous day.
It's June, but there is still plenty of snow in the mountains. In fact, much of the loop road around the lake is closed due to snow.
This is Bryn's first experience of snow (as far as we're aware) and she loves it.
She immediately began to dig slightly and eat -- how smart is that? Break through the possibly dirty crust and eat the good snow below.

Richard began playing faets with her (fetch-and-eat-the-stick) and she treated the snow like cold sand, leaping and sliding through it.

Happy times with the family.

Jury Duty, part two

2007-06-01T11:50:00.000-07:00

Boom BOOM,
da da da daa daaa...

The old-school Law and Order Theme, in case my musical phonetics need translation.

Despite the whole:
"we're going to call you sometime this week, so don't make any firm plans"
way SF asks you to be available to come for possible juror selection on any unknown day of a specific week, I approve of the way they handle jurors once you're there. I'm proud to be a citizen of this city-state. I don't even mind paying state taxes, but that's another blog.

So we're sitting in a courtroom, hearing the details for the case: two black men suing a well-known white bread corporation and one of its managers (a man of Jewish antecedents) for racial discrimination and harrassment. The lead attorney for the plaintiffs is a well-known SF lawyer, a woman from a prominent Italian family, the daughter of a former Mayor. The attorneys sitting at the defense table are: one white woman, one black woman, one black man.

The majority of juror surnames are Asian, and it looks as if the jury is going to be a marvelous slice of San Francisco: every possible combination of demographic is percolating into the jury box, with a pretty even distribution from the population.

I'm going into the racial and ethnic demographics of the people in the case because it seems like an episode from a televised courtroom drama to me. Two people from Ethnic Group A accuse Ethnic Groups B-C of harrassment and discrimination. B-C hire A lawyers to defend them, and the A plaintiffs hire a well-known D attorney to prosecute the case. Meanwhile, the jury is A-F, with male, female, transgendered, whatever.

Here's my personal opinion: I think the B-C defendants deliberately choose A lawyers to offset the A plaintiffs charging racial discrimination. But I don't think the A defendants distinctly choose an Italian female attorney -- I think they went for the sharpest counsel they could find. And knowing a little about Ms. D, I think she saw a meaty case.

Interesting stuff, folks. Stay tuned...

Jury Duty!

2007-05-31T13:22:00.000-07:00

So I'm in Jury Assembly Room 007.
Paoli, Robin Paoli.
Licensed to serve.

As I walked in, I could see and hear part of a scripture verse from James, chapter 2:
Mercy triumphs over judgment.

(In context, verses 12 and 13: "So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty.
For judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.")

Jury service in San Francisco is user friendly. Lots of information on what to expect and how to do what citizens should do. Room 007 is a large comfortable space with padded arm chairs for readers, listeners and quiet waiters, plus a spacious middle area with tables and power outlets for us laptop people.

Whoops, they just called us back in.
Reporting live from the courthouse...

Newscycle Haiku

2007-05-30T17:54:00.000-07:00

This voracious world
Records ev'ry and no thing
Lights, cam'ra, action!

Ricky is a news camera magnet. We go somewhere, a news camera appears, and someone says "Excuse me sir, could I interview you about the rising cost of gas?"

Last week, my sister and brother-in-law were in town. The happy sight-seers came home in the early evening and asked about the wayward whales, wandering 'round the bay. We turned on the TV in time to hear a breathless news-muffin say the coast guard believed the whales were heading for the Golden Gate bridge and freedom out in the Pacific.

What a lark, let's go walk the bridge in the cool evening breeze and scan the sea for "Delta" and "Dawn." (I know, don't blame me, I didn't name them.)

We pull up to the GG bridge parking area, take ten steps from the car and suddenly News Muffin #2 appears, whips her camera around to Ricky and says, "So did you come to see the whales?"

The Man, holding The Dog, provides an erudite, clear, engaging reply. We walk the bridge in the falling light, evening bringing ever-colder winds, haunted by the news cameras. I see a coast guard cutter preceded by two dark shapes in the water. Excited, I run. Excited, the camera tracks me. They are seals, not whales.

Cold and invigorated, we go home to warm pasta and room-temperature wine.

Next day, we take the Pathfinder in for routine service and our favorite automotive guru says, "Were you by any chance on the Bridge looking for whales last night?"

Powerful TV
Broadcasts random citizens
Chasing seal shadows

I married an altar boy

2007-05-26T15:45:00.000-07:00

While we were dating, some of our most vigorous conversations were about religion. Not so much spirituality or the "conversation with Jesus," as Richard puts it, but church-based organized religion. When I say vigorous, I mean the spirited discourse where two people engage fully on thoughts, feelings and values, where worth is NOT an issue. Disagreement was usual but never threatening, a hallmark of of a healthy relationship.

I came to the conversation on my arc of raised-southern-baptist-ordained-minister-non-denominational-pastor-and-woman. He came to it from his arc of raised-roman-catholic-culturally-tasted-the-spiritual-buffet-wound-up-in-a-methodist-church-cook-man. With two such divergent backgrounds, the surprising thing is how much we agreed upon.

So here we are married and participating in an Episcopal church in San Francisco. We're called one night and asked if we want to join the altar guild, i.e. lay people who help serve communion and carry some of the accoutrements for the 11:00 a.m. service. Richard is enthused, as I am, so we go through training.

Although we have asked to serve together, while we're novices we're serving separately so as to reinforce the learning from more experienced partners. This Sunday will be his first "live" service, and he's going to make a great altar boy.

My new laptop

2007-05-24T17:52:00.000-07:00

My office-provided Dell Inspiron 8200 laptop melted down on a business trip. CD-ROM won't work, USB ports recognize nada, the hard drive keeps trying to re-write one particular groove. What's an ethernet port, dude?

Sad times for the Dell. And, I thought, for the Rob.

24 hours later, the MMI tech guy hands me this. Wow.
Yay MMI.

They are a threat to your children, David

2007-05-24T17:46:00.000-07:00

Here's the question from NBC's David Gregory: "Mr. President, after the mistakes that have been made in this war, when you do as you did yesterday, where you raised two-year-old intelligence talking about the threat posed by al-Qaeda, it's met with increasing skepticism. A majority in the public, growing number of Republicans appear not to trust you any longer to be able to carry out this policy successfully. Can you explain why you believe you're still a credible messenger on the war?"

Bush's reply: "I'm credible because I read the intelligence, David, and make it abundantly clear in plain terms that if we let up, we'll be attacked, and I firmly believe that. You know, I -- look, this has been a long, difficult experience for the American people. I can assure you al-Qaeda, who would like to attack us again, have got plenty of patience and persistence, and the question is, will we.

"I believe I have an obligation to tell the truth to the American people as to the nature of the enemy, and it's unpleasant for some. I fully recognize that after 9/11, in the calm here at home, relatively speaking -- you know, caused some to say, well, maybe we're not at war. I know that's a comfortable position to be in, but that's not the truth.

"Failure in Iraq will cause generations to suffer, in my judgment. Al-Qaeda will be emboldened. They will say, 'Yeah, once again, we've driven the great soft America out of a part of the region.' It will cause them to be able to recruit more. It will give them safe haven.

"They are a direct threat to the United States, and I'm going to keep talking about it. That's my job as the president, is to tell people the threats we face and what we're doing about it. And what we've done about it is, we've strengthened our homeland defenses. We've got new techniques that we use that enable us to better determine their -- you know, their motives and their plans and plots.

"And we're working with nations around the world to deal with these radicals and extremists. But they're dangerous, and I can't put it any more plainly. They're dangerous. And we -- and I can't put it any more plainly to the American people and to them. We will stay on the offense. It's better to fight them there than here.

"And this concept about, well, maybe, you know, let us kind of just leave them alone and maybe they'll be all right, is naive. These people attacked us before we were in Iraq. They viciously attacked us before we were in Iraq, and they have been attacking every since. They are a threat to your children, David. And whoever's in that Oval Office, better understand it and take measures necessary to protect the American people."

None of which, of course, answers the question. Offered a chance to address the seminal challenge facing his presidency, Bush chose stock phrases, straw-man arguments and an appeal to fear. And then he got personal.

"They are a threat to your children, David," Bush said.

Over the past six years, the intelligence has been wrong or twisted or both, while Bush's predictions about the Middle East have been almost uniformly wrong. But we're just supposed to trust him again because he says so?

So: Bush describes himself, when not calling himself "The Decider," by saying: "That's my job as the president, is to tell people the threats we face and what we're doing about it."

I thought the president's job was to govern, lead and inspire.
NOT be fear-monger-in-chief.
FDR told us "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
Bush started saying "Boo!" six years ago, and has built his rule and reign on fear. He was my governor when I lived in Texas; I've been voting "anyone but" ever since.

Batter Up!

2007-05-21T21:02:00.001-07:00

With Ricky, this could go either way:
sports blog...
food blog...
cake walk!

You never totally know someone when you marry them, and they never totally know you. There are some conversations you never get around to having until they happen.

Saturday lunch time, we were in the middle of a church retreat in the California wine country (Russian River valley), when one of those unknowns hit the mound.

But first, an anecdote!
Later that day, one woman remarked to several of us during a wine tasting event:
"This is why people hate us."

"Which us," asked a man, swirling his Chardonnay, "Americans? Episcopalians?"

"No," she replied, "Californians. Here we are in the mountains on a beautiful afternoon, swilling wine, discussing the finer points of cilantro pesto vs. red pepper pesto, and none of us know quite where our children are."

But back to lunch. Many options await us (free time is big at our church retreats) and Richard says: "Come on, let's go make fools of ourselves on the softball field."

So we head out to the softball field in the blazing near-summer afternoon heat, where Dan and Sandy have us divided on teams by birth year -- Evens (Skins) versus Odds (Shirts). Which puts me and Ricky on different teams. (We were going to be the Christians and the Lions, but our Rector said that would offend genuine Christians and lions.)

Softball is new to our marriage. We've never discussed it, never discussed playing it, liking it, being good or bad at it. And now we're playing publicly. Are we really going to make fools of ourselves?

Suddenly, Ricky is playing 3rd base on the opposite team, his cap pulled down low, dancing lightly in shorts and hiking boots. More suddenly, my team mate hits a line drive straight down the third base line. Long, tall Ricky jumps and shoots one glove-bearing arm out into the ether, snagging the smoking ball and retiring my side.

Yum. Who knew he could play, and play well? I want to give him many sons.

Now we (the Shirts) are in the outfield, and I'm tapped to pitch. Ricky looks at me sideways, not sure whether to trash talk or be gentle. He doesn't know I can pitch, because we've never discussed softball.

Editor's note: We're talking slow-pitch church league family softball with big soft balls and the implicit connivance of adults that if one of the 6-year-old children hits the ball, they make it to first base. (It's fine to throw them out at second, but let them get to first.)

Three batters later, Ricky realizes he can trash talk, because I can pitch.
Three innings later, we all quit. It's just too darned hot to play any more, particularly when swimming pools, shady cabins and wine tastings stretch before us.

The Shirts took the Skins, 15 to 12. Father Jason said to Ricky, walking up the hill back to the cabins: "So what's it like to go home with the winning pitcher?"

The Man smiled and said, "It makes losing a little easier."

Duke part 2

2007-05-21T19:46:00.000-07:00

When I was six, Duke the furball German Shepherd arrived. He was tiny, furry and oh-so-young.

Fast forward three years. I'm nine, a terribly sophisticated, wise beyond her years nine, who had read "Gone With the Wind" and "Tender is the Night." I understood GWTW, but TitN went way WAY over my head -- what's with the confused timeline in the narrative?

So anyway, fast forward to my ninth year. The Jules is born. The wonderful, marvelous Julie. People were afraid I would be jealous, but actually I was delighted -- I had my own live person to play with, talk to, change her diapers. Sister, daughter, finally blessedly friend. What a wonderful blue-eyed hellion was the Jules.

When she entered my life, she also entered Duke's life. He better than I understood her fragileness. He left my bedside to sleep under her crib. When she threw bottles (or pacifiers or bears or Humptys) out of the crib, Duke picked them up very tenderly and carried them to us (me or Mom).

Hey, he said, holding the bottle with furrowed brow, the baby needs you! We would take the bottle from him (Mom sometimes sterilized it if Duke was carrying it nipple first) and go check on the Jules, handing the bottle to her as she shook the bars of her cage - I mean crib - and danced on bootied feet.

Duke loved her the moment she was born, and protected her as long as He was with us. No wonder Julie loves dogs; she was brought into the wolf pack at birth.

I can see Duke now, stretched beneath her crib, listening watching waiting. He was my playmate. Her protector.

Alphabet of Grace

2007-05-17T16:27:00.000-07:00

Frederick Buechner, author and pastor, wrote the following devotional in his book, "Listening to Your Life":

Life itself can be thought of as an alphabet by which God graciously makes known his presence and purpose and power among us. Like the Hebrew alphabet, the alphabet of grace has no vowels, and in that sense his words to us are always veiled, subtle, cryptic, so that it is left to us to delve their meaning, to fill in the vowels, for ourselves by means of all the faith and imagination we can muster. God speaks to us in such a way, presumably, not because he chooses to be obscure, but because unlike a dictionary word whose meaning is fixed, the meaning of an incarnate word is the meaning it has for the one it is spoken to, the meaning that becomes clear and effective in our lives only when we ferret it out for ourselves.

As a writer/editor, I want to clean up his syntax and sentence construction. But as a spirit, all I can do is applaud. The alphabet of grace. What a marvelous name for one way God communicates with Creation.

Would that we all employed the Alphabet of Grace in our interactions with each other. How would life be different?

Spiritual manipulation #461

2007-05-17T12:32:00.000-07:00

When I hear people -- usually pastors -- talking about ways to steer "regular" conversations into "spiritual" conversations, I remember a line of dialogue from a movie called "The Big Kahuna":
"Because as soon as you lay your hands on a conversation to steer it, it's not a conversation anymore; it's a pitch. And you're not a human being; you're a marketing rep."

I wonder how many pastors, mentors, coaches and other spiritually-associated leaders are aware of the manipulation that occurs when they "lay their hands on a conversation"? I wonder how many don't care and/or shrug it off because they are divinely anointed manipulators?

I wish people would respond honestly and transparently to inherent spiritual components. Rather than manipulating the conversation to be about whatever they want to discuss, spiritual leaders could respond openly out of his or her own bias. This honors the other person and allows them to be a full partner in the conversation.

Some people teach that we globalize out of our experiences, that we impute our thoughts, reactions, desires, habits, actions, decisions into and onto others. For example, Mr. Ex doesn't like helping people move, so he assumes no one wants to help him move.

Sometimes I globalize, sometimes I don't. Most often, I globalize the good things ("Everyone wants to help") and I personalize the bad things (I'm embarrassed but you're not").

But here is a negative globalization: I think most leaders, particularly spiritual leaders, attempt to manipulate conversations as part of a larger manipulation to force people to think like, act like, believe like them. When I was a pastor, I was aware I feared this and I did everything I could NOT to be one of the manipulators. Not saying I never screwed up -- saying I never consciously attempted to manipulate the people around me. There is a huge difference between true honest leadership and manipulation, and most "leaders" manipulate because they find it easier to force the results they want.

But as soon as you lay your hands on a conversation to steer it, it's not a conversation anymore; it's a pitch. And you're not a human being; you're a marketing rep.

Jingle Jangle Bryngle

2007-05-17T07:04:00.000-07:00

Some sounds have universal meaning for domesticated canines. The soft vacuum-released"fooomp" of a refrigerator door opening; the krinkle of cellophane; the clang of fork on plate; the air brakes of the FedEx truck.

But surely none is more galvanizing than the jingle jangle of keys.

Keys!
Car-keys, house-keys,
fun-keys, mon-keys!

Bryn Tin Tin can be sound asleep outside on the patio yet hear a key sing even the smallest duet with another key from inside, upstairs, across the house. Zoom! Cheetah-dog leopard hound is right beside you, 2 seconds later. Where are we going? I'm ready!

But no dog was as key-oriented as Duke the German Shepherd. What a noble beast, my childhood friend, protecting me from everything except thunderstorms, which sent him fleeing into my closet.

The slightest key-like sound sent him racing from person to person, front door to kitchen door, waiting for the glorious crack of air that he could exploit for freedom. Milk bottles to overturn, fences to jump, clothes to pull from lines, willing females to meet. Push, push the door open and run!

Duke was Christmas present to the 6-year-old me. When I was scared, Duke guarded me. When I curled up in a cubbyhole, with blanket, flashlight and book, Duke curled up with me. Sometimes he was the pillow for my head, sometimes the wall at my back. As a young puppy, he explored the Hundred Acre Wood with Pooh and Christopher Robin. As he turned two and then three, we went to sea with Captain Hornblower, and walked the streets of London with Mr. Holmes.

He would lie stretched out on the shag carpet while I put little wooden "Fisher Price" people on him. (That's me on the right, the blond girl in the blue suit.) He was the mountain they lived on. They walked across his ribs, slept between his paws, looked out on the world from between the peaks of his ears. And I guess I did, too.

The jangle of keys meant so much to him. Finally, it was the way we said good-bye. We had moved to Texas and our back yard was too small for him, my parents said. They gave him to the Canine Corps of the Houston police department, lying about his age so they would take him. The Officer came to our door -- complicit in the deception -- and jangled a huge set of keys. Duke jumped into the back seat of the patrol car, sniffing out crime like a good Watson, and I never saw him again.

The Officer called twice. Once to tell us he was setting new records for the high jump and climbing courses (could have told him that), but that he didn't like gunfire (ditto - thunder!). A second time to say, he's doing well, we've bonded, he lives with me and my family, he's great with kids.

I could've told him that, too.

Rutting, again

2007-05-07T06:32:00.000-07:00

Imagine the worst road you've ever traveled. Was it unpaved, rocky, steep, precarious, one-lane? (If you've never driven a really bad road, imagine one of those Jeep or Hummer commercials where an improbably shiny vehicle bounces up and over a mountain top as the driver drinks Mountain Dew.)

With your mental picture firmly fixed, magnify the "worse-ness" of it exponentially -- maybe to the tenth power. Welcome to the canyons along the North Fork of the American River.

I have traveled rough roads, from Ethiopia to Texas, but Saturday's journey from Weimar, California (the western edge of the Sierra Nevadas) down to the North Fork of the American River may have been the rockiest of all. It is not so much a road as a narrow collection of ruts formed by rain, erosion and a tiny, crazed bull-dozer.

Ricky gave me a book -- "Best Hikes with Dogs, Northern California edition" -- that featured a hike through part of the American River canyon and up to Codfish Falls. We spent the weekend in the general area, and were enthused to have the opportunity to try the hike. It is an off-leash area for well-behaved canines, and Bryn behaved beautifully. What a happy hound, leaping from rock to rock, scaling canyon walls, climbing down to the river for a drink and then racing back up to the trail.

The man and I were pretty happy, too. Gorgeous day, gorgeous scenery, and just enough of a challenge to give us a work-out, without punishing us.

The guidebook had warned us that the road through the National Wilderness Area could be treacherous. And it was, deeply rutted, narrow, cut out of the canyon wall. One lane of huge rocks, deep holes and blind curves, snaking down to the river below.

Our Nissan Pathfinder will have been in service 15 years this coming September. A rear-wheel drive manual transmission, we treat her as if she were a combination race car and 4-wheel drive dune buggy, and some how she thrives. But we drove this road in first gear, braking and praying the whole way.

Two things kept us going -- one, the promise of an excellent hike; two, the Toyota Prius that started down ahead of us.

We kept looking at each other as we bumped up, down and sideways -- "A Prius?!?" No doubt great cars, but not known for their ground clearance or off-road prowess.

Richard was driving, his customary brio tempered by the awe-full awfulness of this road. And each time we reached a seemingly impassable point, the Prius kept us going.

Finally, the road flattened out alongside the river, near two trailheads and a lovely ancient one-lane bridge crossing to the other side. A half-dozen old SUVs and pick-ups were parked on the canyon lip overlooking the slight drop to the river. We parked between the Prius and the bridge, and stepped out to greet the couple in the little hybrid.

"Helluva road," said the Prius' driver, laughing, climbing out from behind the wheel.

"We kept thinking, if the Prius can make it, so can we!" I replied, shaking his hand.

We enjoyed a marvelous hike. Late spring-time turning to hot summer, the wildflowers still blooming, the rivers and creeks still carrying snow run-off.

After the hike (and successfully navigating the climb back up the mountain) we went to a winery and had a picnic. A friendly group of visitors introduced themselves to us as "wine sluts," but that is for another blog.

Kidnap!

2007-05-03T22:29:00.000-07:00

The man's birthday is approaching, so the dog and I have arranged to kidnap him. Off we go, early tomorrow, north across the Golden Gate and into adventure.

He has borne the secrecy so much better than I. "Simply tell me what to pack," says he, while I yearn to spill all the beans.

"Pack your hiking boots," I have instructed, "and food for the dog, for she comes with us. Bring your appetite, a corkscrew and two good books."

I want to tell him about the national forest, the hiking trails, the vineyards. The solitude of the mountain in whose shadow we will sleep while the hound lifts her head as the deer rustle past to the creek.

Living l'eat-a loca

2007-05-02T22:00:00.000-07:00

Our decision to take the Locavore Challenge (purchase and eat food -- ideally organic food -- "sourced" within a 100-mile radius of your house) has turned into the Geography Challenge for Robin.

Ricky has embraced this with his usual enthusiasm for good food, and already seems to know more about it than anyone else. Truly, the man is a quick study. But he grew up in Europe, eating local, seasonal produce.

So here we are in Farmer's Markets and local grocers, inquiring as to the provenance of the asparagus. Reading the back of a bag of rice, I murmur to myself, "Is Fairfield between here and Sacramento?" Yes it is, so in the basket the rice goes.

We've bookmarked farmer's market web sites in Mozilla, and I'm starting to get the sense that anything you could reasonably want is in California. Not just in CA, but within a 100-mile radar sweep of San Francisco. Of course, Ricky's been telling me this for years.

The biggest hurdle is not finding the food locally -- or even educating Robin about what might be growing in Suisun City -- it is staying within the food budget. Organic grapes coaxed from vines along the Russian River by vestal virgins at midnight ain't cheap.

I've eaten peaches fresh from the tree on a warm day in Texas, picked an apple from an orchard in North Carolina, and shelled peas on a Kentucky farm. They tasted like the sunshine and rain were still inside them, not leached away by cans, processing, chemicals and long truck rides.

Trying to live the locavore way reminds me of an old Peanuts cartoon. Linus (I think it was Linus) is about to eat something, but pushes it away because the box say it is full of "ingredients."

Which brings us to the pet food trauma and another blog entry. Final note: The Times recently reported on a young East Coast locavore who strained sea water from the Atlantic Ocean to produce salt. I'm not there, yet.

Ramming speed!

2007-05-01T07:19:00.000-07:00

As an experienced kayaker -- two oceans, a gulf, several bays and numerous rivers -- I thought a row boat excursion on Stow Lake at Golden Gate Park would be a walk in the park. So to speak.

Ha!
Luckily, Ricky crewed at Georgetown and had small craft experience in the Navy, so Robin's struggles didn't doom us.

If you're unfamiliar with Stow Lake, it is at the top of a hilly ridge in the vaguely central area of Golden Gate Park.

The lake encompasses an island with a tall-ish peak and several smaller islands, and features marvelous bridges, a water fall, a pagoda, lots of wildlife, and a boat house. Even in fog or rain it is beautiful.

The boat house sells concessions, rents an interesting variety of bicycle surreys, and rents boats -- paddle boats, motor boats, and row boats. You're allowed to take dogs (and picnics if you wish) on the row boats, and so on Sunday, the man, the dog and I set out for Stow Lake.

As we stood on the little pier, boathouse workers were winching a motor boat up out of the water -- it had sunk to the bottom just before we arrived. Yet another vote for rowing!

We threw a couple of flotation cushions into the row boat, then I stepped in and sat down in the stern. Bryn jumped in after me, and Richard tossed me the dry bag (camera, wallet, fleece, water bottles, cookies, etc.) before settling himself on the middle seat and picking up the oars.

With deft, sure strokes he propelled us away from the pier and out into the lake. Sitting with his back to the bow and therefore unable to see where we were going, Ricky relied on me to say "starboard," "port," and "paddle-boaters ahead." Spying a small island with a partly submerged tree stretching bare limbs at a convenient height, we tied up the boat and relaxed for a while. Water, cookies, book, crosword puzzle. The dog desperately wanted all the ducks and sea birds paddling by, but she doesn't yet realize she can swim. So she stood alertly on the bow and "pointed."

Before too long (the boat rental is charged by the hour), we unhooked and set off again, Richard still rowing. We passed through one of the arches of a "Roman" stone bridge, then entered the part of the lake where you can see the waterfall on the main middle island.

The cold wind was whipping small waves, and we switched rowers. Immediately, I realized this wasn't like kayaking, and the ease with which Richard had piloted us was based on college crewing and Navy experience. Knowing how to row a boat well is very different than kayaking, even kayaking on the open seas or through river rapids.

And genuine rowing about is nothing like the rowing machine at the gym. We didn't hit anything, anyone, or overturn. In fact, we avoided an out-of-control rowboat and successfully passed under another bridge. But fifteen minutes into my stretch of the rowing, after having spun us inadvertently into yet another 360 circle, I was nearly crying in frustration at my inability to do this well, and ready to switch back.

Richard was very kind. Lots of: "it takes time to learn," "you're used to kayaking, which is very different," and "really, you're doing quite well." Once I was back in the stern seat, and Ricky was skimming us masterfully along, I realized two things:

1. It looked so easy when he did it because he's good at it. (And isn't it a pleasure to watch someone do something well, particularly someone you love?)
2. Next time, I'm bringing a little drum I can beat as I chant "stroke, stroke" while Richard takes us up to ramming speed.

No wet suits needed, Justin, but we did wear fleece.

My new office chair

2007-04-22T22:10:00.000-07:00

Is a yoga ball, bright blue.
Why, you might ask, have I traded my deluxe, executive, pleather arm chair for a ribbed rubber ball?

Posture, my friend. I love my big, comfy arm chair, but all this laptop writing has me becoming the Hunchback, Outre Dame. Particularly on the days I eschew contact lens, I found myself increasingly slumped over the keyboard, drawn in to the flickering light of my work. Poor posture brings with it so many companions, including the nagging of loved ones.

So, off to the "Big 5" discount sports store, and the purchase of the blue yoga ball.

I have used them at the gym, and like them for stretching and such, but had (a) never sat on one for long, and (b) never pumped one up with the sad-ass little foot pump (seemingly made by hasbro or fischer price to inflate the tires on the little fischer price school bus) provided by the yoga ball company.

I have several things to report, dear reader, if you are contemplating this switch yourself.

First, Richard and I spent 30-40 minutes pumping up the darned ball. The f.p. bus could have gone to Hoboken and back on our air.

Second, you don't so much swivel on a yoga ball, or wear a skirt. I work using two keyboards and three screens (speeds up everything) and am accustomed to swiveling back and forth between the keyboards. My current direction changes are accompished with a fluid system of moves and grunts made famous by East German gymnasts. The squat and swivel has little in common with the bend and snap, just so you know.

Third, the ball is high maintenace. After a couple of 8-10 hour days, it needs a fresh infusion of air. I'm getting a better work out pumping up the ball than I ever did trying pilates with it.

Fourth, my posture seems to be improving. Score one for the big blue ball.

Now pardon me while switch to the other keyboard. Schnell!

This puzzling piece

2007-04-19T06:40:00.000-07:00

I’m looking again at this big, odd puzzle piece. It is frayed and discoloured, creased from being forced into the picture puzzle repeatedly in different ways.

Its shape no longer makes sense to me – I don’t see how it fits. The image runs continuously, like sidewalk chalk in a thunderstorm, and I can’t see how the whole picture develops because of where and how this piece is located.

I won an award for writing last week, and I’m not sure what to do with it. The award brings in its train this large, confusing puzzle piece: my self as writer. Process, motive, product, identity.

It’s not the Nobel I hoped for as a child, when I dreamt of becoming the next “great American writer.” A Hemingway or Fitzgerald for my generation. As that dream jostled shoulders with becoming an astronaut or perhaps a sports star, I aged a year or two and realized I was called to save the world (or at least America) through journalism. The award changed to a Pulitzer, as I dreamt of becoming the Woodward AND Bernstein of my generation.

Through a series of bumps and turns along the road, I became a writer. I even wrote for the Wall St. Journal, and something inside me rested. There, I thought, I’ve done it. I wrote a successful piece for a major gray lady, they asked me to write again at a nice price point, I’m that person I always wanted to be – a good newspaperman. (No gender implied) Not only had I received the recognition of my peers, my skill and experience had reached the point where I had peers, was accepted as one of them.

But that wasn’t the answer. If newspaperman was the look and shape of the piece, why do I live it part-time? Why do I rest in knowing what I can do, rather than living it out gloriously? I recognize that it isn’t fear – of failure, success, talent, lack of talent – it is something about the ill-fitting puzzle piece.

Writing is the lynchpin of my livelihood. I am employed for other things, too, have other talents and skills (num chuck skills, bow hunting skills). But writing is the Big Kahuna. More than that, writing is itself the continuing narrative in my life. I can’t recall a time in my life when I didn’t think something along the lines of “I’d like to write….” Whatever, a newspaper column, a mystery novel, a book of poems, a sermon.

This puzzle piece isn’t about a kind of writing, or even the drive to write. The ill-fitting piece is connected to identity. What does writing mean to me? Why do I do it and yet not do it? Why do I start novels and not finish them? Why do I write for other people yet not much for myself? And what about this blog?

If you could see the underbelly of my blog (I think they call it the “dashboard”) you would see more unpublished drafts than posted entries. It’s not that they’re hard to write, or not well-written, it’s that I didn’t choose to finish them. When I spend so much of my day writing for my living, the “me” writing of the blog falls by the wayside. Neither inclination nor time to sit at the computer – it’s time to see Richard, go to the gym, walk the dog, anything rather than another few minutes sitting at my desk.

So really, what about this blog? It is the closest I get to actually writing for myself. And the puzzle piece remains maddeningly obscure. There is something crucial here. If I can figure this out, I will solve something important about who and how I am, about what comes next and why.

Here is a clue to part of it, if only I can figure it out. The recent, second pet food recall is the exact food we feed Bryn. Alarm, dismay, vets, new food. A 76-year old Holocaust survivor gave his life to save his students during the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech.

What will my next blog be about? My new big blue ball.

Berkeley is shaking things up again

2007-02-23T16:12:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite things to do after a mild earthquake is visit the usgs.gov site to answer the "Did you feel it?" questionaire. You can see the results of today's minor quake at:
http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/shake/ca/STORE/X40193843/ciim_display.html

My office shimmied side-to-side for about 3 or 4 seconds, desk, floor, everything. Richard is home sick (pneumonia) and I jumped up to find him and ask: "Did you feel the earthquake?" He looked up slowly and said, "What earthquake? Who are you? You're nice..." So I left him and his bottle of codeine in peace and waited about 15 minutes before checking the quake web site sponsored by the US Geological Survey department.

Yep, there it was, the epicenter in Berkeley, which either means the Hayward Fault is breathing or the university students are protesting. Here's another data resource if you're interested:
http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/recenteqs/Quakes/nc40193843.html

If you've never been in one of these little quakes, they feel a bit as if a huge and heavy truck passed right by you, so heavy that the ground rumbles and shakes.
Except there is no truck.

Richard (sans codeine) is the king of realizing when we're experiencing the earth move, but the longer I live here, the more adept I seem to become at realizing what I'm feeling. So true, in so many ways.

iTalian

2007-02-15T12:39:00.000-08:00

Santa brought Richard an iPod Nano for Christmas. Ricky the Rapper has a new grove.

How much is that (reading) doggie in the window?

2007-02-15T07:18:00.000-08:00

One of our favorite independent book stores, Green Apple Books, is raising money for a youth literacy charity by asking people to sit in one of their bay windows fronting Clement Street and... read.

Yep, they provide chairs, coffee and $5 of credit to their store, for sitting and reading for an hour. They can accomodate two readers at a time, and literate, well-behaved dogs are welcome. I've been waiting for this all of my life. Being paid to curl up with my husband and dog, and read. In many states, these are better labor conditions most jobs.

Apparently, Richard's been waiting for this all of his life, too. I called to tell him we were booked (ha), and to say I was already planning what to read. Richard laughed and said, "I'm already planning what to wear."

More to come as this story unfolds...

Planes, trains and elephants

2007-02-05T13:32:00.000-08:00

I've ridden bicycles, ferries, horses, even an elephant on one occasion. But yesterday marks the most diverse series of conveyances in a 24-hour period. Journeying home from a business trip on a Sunday while Richard is off on his own business trip, I made tracks with:

a rental car (Kia Sportage)
a hotel van (Dodge)
two planes (737) through three cities (one of the joys of flying Southwest)
a bus (the Air Bart at the Oakland Airport)
a train (the four-car SF-Millbrae Muni that takes you from Oakland to SF under the Bay)
a cab with a failing transmission and a ton of cigarette smoke
my own two feet

It's a new personal best.
I've been travelling more than I've been home the last three months, and last night was the strangest homecoming yet -- the Man was in Florida and the Dog was at the vet getting her yearly shots and physical.

The house was quiet and cold, which is fine, but it was empty too.
No whistling, singing, jiving Italian.
No happy leaping Catahoula Leopard Hound.
Just three weeks of personal mail, voicemail, and email I haven't seen, read or heard. And hollow, echoing rooms.

Come home, Lassie, come home!

From the editor

2007-01-28T16:25:00.000-08:00

So the Man turned to me the other night and said, "I've been reading your blog."
I lifted an eyebrow, waiting for what was next.
"You're misquoting me," he continued. "It is Dog What Aug, not Dog-Wadog."

If you read the Ricky the Rapper post from October of 2006, you'll get my phonetic spelling of Richard's Rhapsody of Rap -- including favorites such as Bryn the Pin and the Hound from the Pound.

"A-u-g?" I asked, ever the faithful scribe.
"A-u-g," he replied. "She is the Dog What Aug."

I pondered that a moment. Aug. As in augur, meaning she will fortell events by divining the kibbles and bits? Aug as in augment, as in she makes our lives greater or more intense?

The Italian What likes Scallion fixed me with his renowned gimlet gaze. "Just Aug," he said, "The Dog What Aug."

I like names to have meaning, so I'm going with augment. Bryn de la Pyn is the Dog
What makes things better. She certainly thinks so.

Good Things Made With Lard

2007-01-04T09:47:00.000-08:00

Praise the lard and pass the bacon!

My Beloved often favors me with excerpts of his nightly reading. It's an eclectic compendium -- The Times, a mystery novel, crossword puzzle clues, recipe books, and so forth.

Recipe books are a recurring favorite, as if acid reflux were printed pages.

Every genre is represented, from Classic French (zut alors!) to Classic Southern (start with a pound of butter), and none is discriminated against. Ingredients may go bad, recipes themselves may be poor, but each culture's cooking finds a place of honor in Richie's Kitchen. And in his reading.

A book of old church recipes from Martindale, Texas, sits cheek by jowl with Julia Child. The Italians mingle with the Greeks, and vegans lean comfortably against veal.
To ring in the New Year, Richard pulled out an old chestnut -- a cooking text with which he occasionally threatens me, and I thought was a fatty figment of his imagination. Yes, we read from a slim blue volume entitled: "Good Things Made With Lard," compiled in the 1930s by the Institute of American Meat Packers.

Oh yeah, baby, how 'bout them arteries?

Chapters are divided helpfully into such categories as "Lard in Nutrition," "Deep Fat Frying," and "Miscellaneous." The Introduction is a piece of work deserving to be excerpted in full, which I do below for your edification and entertainment.

Two stand-out recipes are for a cookie called, in a triumph of terse headline writing, "Rocks," and an apparent family favorite named "Holiday Bacon," in which the eager cook learns how to add even more fat to bacon.

And now, since indeed the last shall be first, the Introduction, in its original and unedited form:

"The biologist states that life is built about hunger and love. This book has nothing to do directly with love.

"But some students of social trends have deplored the rapid rise of feminine emancipation, fearing that one of the most important functions of the modern home, namely the intelligent nourishing of the family, might fall into incompetent hands. Here is a subject worthy of the highest human ability.

"Food products are among the most complex of chemical substances and the changes involved in their preparation are of the most subtle known. Palatibility and artistic effect, although important, are not the basic considerations in preparing a meal. A practical knowledge of nutrition is essential and this science has made tremendous advances in recent times.

"Food has gathered a sort of sanctity down through the ages -- a sanctity which has been largely religious in origin. Offerings and sacrifices date back to Cain and Abel. Later the sacramental rites of feasting, the institution of grace before meals, and even the directions of Sir Kenelm Dingby for making tea, "...the water to remain unpon it no longer than you may say the miserere very leidurely..." all attest the religious exaltation which sometimes glorified the practice of bread breaking.

"But now to sanctity most be added sanity -- scientific sanity. This book hopes to contribute its bit by the presentation of a set of tried and true recipes, all calling for the use of lard.

"Fats have an important place in the science of cookery. They improve the attractiveness of foods and add to their flavor and richness. They are the richest sources of energy, and many fats carry important vitamins and nutritive essentials which the body cannot synthesize for itself."

And so I give you: "Good Things Made With Lard."

blogging the NT

2007-01-03T19:03:00.000-08:00

So, one of the editors of Slate magazine (a good read, on or offline) decided to "Blog the Old Testament." Calling himself a "lax but well-educated Jew," David Plotz reports:

"I want to find out what happens when an ignorant person actually reads the book on which his religion is based. " http://www.slate.com/id/2141050/

Well, Dave, been there done that. This ignorant pastor has read the entire Bible at least six times through, thanks to the "One Year Bible." Read it in three different translations, and I still don't get it enough to look like it.

Don't get me wrong, I love Jesus, and I think I love the Bible, but I'm like the "lazy but faithful" people you describe so nicely.

So, anyway Dave, you've inspired me to pick up the OYB again and I'm going to follow in your footsteps. Blog will start January 6th (Epiphany on the traditional western Christian calendar) and I think I'm going to call it Broken Hallelujah, by the Baffled King.

Punctualtion, punctuation, punctuation

2006-12-19T21:34:00.000-08:00

And some hhhaspirations, too.

Last Sunday I took a turn at the lectern during the 11:00 church service, reading one of the passages of scripture in the lovely "Lessons and Carols" advent, pre-Christmas program. No communion this day, a slight shock to the system of this slowly acclimating Episcopalian.

The week prior, I recieved an email with the designated scripture, along with instructions and guidance on how to read in public. As a long-time public speaker, I read the email with interest. They're right -- most people do read/speak too quickly in public (excepting Mr. Bush, of course), and treat punctuation marks as if they were speed bumps in the cereal aisle.

What we each need is a pocket-sized Victor Borge, willing to vocalize the punctuation in our speech (zzzzzzip pop!).

What I had was simply my own print-out from Zechariah, arranged in stanzas like oddly metered poetry -- and the toughest rehearsal audience in town, my husband. Overlooking for a moment (not that one can) his gesticulations, the crisis came over a humble word. More to the point, the word humble. In normal verb and adjective use, I drop the "h." Richard doesn't.

"HHhumble," he kept interrupting, "you're going to confuse the Greeks who have wandered in. They're going to try and serve us 'ummus."

"Hhhumble and riding a donkey," I said to myself, stumbling over the unfamiliar aspirate like a speed bump in the liquor aisle. I was trying to reflect, express, or offer in a spirit of deference or submission, a change of pronounciation for My Beloved.

"Hhhumble and riding a donkey..."

But up behind the lectern, in the glare of lights and vivacity of getting to say "Lo!" I dropped my aitch. That evening, The Man fixed me ummus, surrounded by holives.

Word, bird

2006-12-13T18:52:00.000-08:00

Word, bird.
That's the lede sentence from one newspaper's version of a Cox News Service story about great tits.

My favorite phrase from the news story is: "Great tits learn songs from each other..."
Something I've always suspected.

I don't think much about great tits, no doubt for the same reason Wilt Chamberlain really didn't think about being tall. But great tits are big on the brain for avian specialists and musicologists.

I give you:
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/world/story/A7D2ED9BF6984E708625723D0015457F?OpenDocument

A November Hallelujah

2006-11-20T22:20:00.000-08:00

Jeff Buckley (You can download his version from iTunes)

"Hallelujah"

Well I heard there was a secret chord
that David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do ya?
Well it goes like this :
The fourth, the fifth, the minor fall and the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah...

Well your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew ya
And she tied you to her kitchen chair
She broke your throne and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah...

(Yeah but) Baby I've been here before
I've seen this room and I've walked this floor, (You know)
I used to live alone before I knew ya
And I've seen your flag on the marble arch
and love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah...

Well there was a time when you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show that to me do ya
But remember when I moved in you
And the holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah

Hallelujah...

[Instrumental]

Maybe there's a God above
But all I've ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya
And it's not a cry that you hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelu...
Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelu...
Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah

Hallellllluuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuujjjaahhhh...Hallelllluuuuuujjaaaaaaaaaahhhh

The Call of the Wild

2006-11-19T12:58:00.000-08:00

Let's set the scene:

Soulful jazz is wafting through the house, accompanied by the aroma of some soulful cooking.

Richard in the kitchen (natch), Robin in the living room pretending to understand the new cable tv system (she hasn't read the manual, natch), and Bryn the dog is settling down with a rawhide chew (oh the joy).

The tv tunes into one of the three local pbs stations, five minutes before "Masterpiece Theatre" is to start. It is the end of a National Geographic special called "Christmas in Yosemite," and wolves are howling because their baby has been found, alive but hurt.

Suddenly, Bryn drops the rawhide and stares at the TV. This is new behavior. As the howls continue, her head tips to one side and she rises to a half-crouch. She takes two slow steps toward the screen, watching as a wolf family reunites. Bryn crouches transfixed, until the scene shifts. As the howls fade and snow becomes the visual focus, she loses a little interest. Finding her chew again, she settles closer to the TV, and when the howling starts again, she's there.

I can't wait to take her camping.

Reason #274

2006-11-14T22:35:00.000-08:00

How do I love him?
Let me count the ways, which brings us to #274.

We're at the front of the post-postlude line in our church Sunday, enjoying the Greeting of the Priests and moving towards the Coffee in the Courtyard. As Richard hugs Father Jason, he lays a hand on Jason's shoulder and says, "Listen, if you know someone who doesn't have a place to spend Thanksgiving, let us know. We can seat a couple more people around the table."

The joy of being married to a man who welcomes strangers to our table, glad to cook for them. I've waited my whole life for this.

Plus, he talked to me about it first, and asked Jason knowing we were in agreement about welcoming people we didn't know. AND, before that, Richard had said, "Let's invite your family, and which of our friends might want to celebrate with us?"

Uncle Mark can't come, but both Janine and Michael can, plus friends Bill and Larry. I'm looking forward to see who joins us from church, giving thanks for the family and friends around our table, and for a husband who is eager to set another place.

I love paper ballots

2006-11-07T15:52:00.000-08:00

In San Francisco, we have paper ballots. And seven-digit dialing...even from cell phones! I love living here.

Last year, I voted early in Texas before the marriage and move, so couldn't vote in California. So today was my first election as a Kalyfornyan.

The picture is from the SF Chron's web site, of college students waiting in line to vote. The scene was much the same at the Presidio where I voted: sandals, sneakers and backpacks, although the median age was about 50 in my line.

In Texas, most polling places seemed to be churches, schools, libraries, etc. Here, almost any place can be a polling location -- cafes, coffee shops, car dealerships, art galleries. Our new polling place will be about two blocks from our house -- a fire station.

I'm not sure what my favorite part of the ballot was...

the option to choose Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Gobernador (or not)
the tri-lingual iteration (English, Chinese, Spanish)
Proposition J, which reads, "Shall it be City policy to call for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice-President Cheney?"
the fact that it is still paper, and not some evil hacked vote-stealing Diebold machine

I think my favorite part is that it's paper. As I handed it in to the Blessed Elder, who had just been telling another poll worker he was born almost 100 years ago in China, I felt tears stinging my eyes. Despite the atrocities perpetrated on our civil liberties and the ugly, ridiculous partisan fighting, people still come to America and vote. This time, I felt as if my vote counted.

Ricky the Rapper

2006-10-06T07:17:00.000-07:00

I’ve heard people claim they were country when country wasn’t cool (sort of like boasting you wear double-knit). In a similar (but better) vein, my husband knew hop was hip, before any brother ever hip-hopped.

Ricky the Rapper regularly busts the rhymes.

I’m not just Robin, I’m the “Girl with Allure,” and when I fell on my bottom, I bruised my “hiney-pahniney.”

This summer, when I dreamt I was an adopted child of mixed race, he composed – on the fly – the little “I’m a Mulatto” ditty I still can’t erase from my mind. Without revealing all the lyrics, let me just say “I like Gelato.”

Everything is fodder for the Rhyming Machine in his brain, with the dog perhaps bearing the brunt of it.
She’s not just the dog, she’s the Dog-Wadog, the Hound From the Pound, Bryn the Pin and Bryn-Tin-Tin.
She’d be the Killa from Manila if someone else had not beget that sobriquet.

The flan hit the fan, though, with the feeding “toy” we give Bryn, which Richard variously calls the Hong Kong Bong Dong Gong Song. It’s really a “Kong,” but that never achieved mind share with Ricky. What stuck, nay lodged and sunk tap roots, was “Bong.”

Richard never tried drugs, so he’s not having a Summer of Love flashback. It’s just that “Bong” resonates for him, echoes even, and so that’s what he calls it. Which is fine, charming even, until I caught it too. And so there I am, in the dog park, surrounded by dozens of playful canines, chatting with a Dog Trainer. He was interviewing me about the Hound from the Pound, how we were training her, etc.

“How much do you feed her,” he asked.
“Oh, about three Bongs a day,” was my casual reply.

Even in San Francisco, that’s a whopper.

Richard’s linguistic linguini doesn’t end with rhymes, it extends to concepts. All summer, we kept talking about going to see “An Uncomfortable Reality,” which Mr. Gore might term an inconvenient truth.

We finally saw An Inconvenient Truth Monday night, and I hope indeed it does not become a terribly uncomfortable reality. I’m helping facilitate a screening and conversation about the movie this Sunday at church.

As Episcopals in San Francisco, we’re already doing things like recycling, riding mass transit, etc. I think the challenge of this dialog in our community is taking it far beyond personal response to group action. For me, environmental stewardship is not a partisan political issue, it is a moral and spiritual imperative.

And now I’m confessin’
As my husband is pressin’
Thus endeth the lesson.

Slip sliding away

2006-06-18T19:34:00.000-07:00

Today Richard, Bryn and I joined more than 10,000 humans, a thousand dogs, and approximately 16,000 cases of wine, helping to kick off the 69th season of Stern Grove's Sunday-in-the-Park concerts.

Where to start?
Well, the over-arching attraction (the meta-desire, one might say) is a picnic and performance at an outdoor ampitheatre--for this, I am a sucka.

In Houston, it was the blessed Miller Outdoor Theatre, marred only by the LifeFlight helicopter flight pattern directly overhead, giant misquitos and even giant-er folding chairs. Dammit people, if we all sit on our quilts, we can all see. Sure, there were occasional turn-offs like the couples making out two blankets over...in every direction...but basically Miller was A Happy Thing.

SF has several options, with Stern Grove being a natural cliff-and-valley-based ampitheatre the ancients can only have dreamt about. Some days the concerts are rained-out, and some days the fog over the Sunset is so impenetrable the music barely pierces it. But other days were like yesterday, bright, clear and freakishly hot. The only haze o'er the Grove yesterday was marijuania, to which I say legalize it already. Sheesh.

So if the general lure was "outdoor ampitheatre...mmm...forbidden donuts," the specific lure was the headline performer "Aimee Mann," a singer-songwriter I really enjoy. I have the soundtrack of Magnolia -- featuring Ms. Mann -- and I want to take a moment and say Magnolia the movie should -- like Sophie's Choice -- be rated "T" for "Traumatic." But back to Stern Grove, and the groove of Aimee Mann. Lovely.

All the concerts start--officially-- at 2:00 p.m. Plenty of time to go to church, loll, assemble the picnic, loll, right? Wrong.

First, The Man. In all his glory, organizing the picnic supplies Saturday night, telling me we would have to leave straight from church and therefore take the dog to church and hurry Robin if you want a seat.

Well, I'm used to The Man's "ooch, ooch, hurry up," mania, arriving 16 hours early at the airport, etc. So, I think, he's just being Him. Well, I'm starting to get used to being wrong, too.

We find decent street parking and walk towards the park, cooler and dog in hand. It's 1:00 p.m., we're an hour early, and we hear roars from the thick wall of trees ahead. Huge crowd roars, enormous hoardes of people roars. Richard gives me The Look which means, "Who was right about getting here early?"

Dogs aren't allowed on the "Concert Meadow" immediately in front of the stage, although you can bring them if you make your picnic on the hillside (I heard people calling it the mountain) or over in the West Meadow, where you can hear if not see the stage.

We entered at the top rear of the Grove, the highest point straight out from the stage in this natural ampitheatre. A thickly twined mass of eucalyptus trees, nasturtiums, people, dogs, baby strollers, blankets and coolers greeted us, hanging on for dear life on one of the steepest most precipitous slopes in all of San Francisco.

It's a great way to get to know people-- just slide down into their Sauvignon Blanc.

The near-constant winter and spring rains turned Stern Grove into a mosh pit of mud, and helped erode the hillsides. The festival organizers and The City pitched in moolah to reseed the grass, but the Giant Steep Slippery Cliffs of the grove are still steep. And although it's been dry enough that they're not muddy, you still slide. Helplessly, like a downhill skier in slow motion.

So, we stake out a place right at the top of the hill, with an actual view of the stage. A comedy ensues, like an old silent movie, wherein we keep helping each other to stand, and then back up the hill, as we spread out the blankets, and then slide and pull and slide and stop to catch our breath.

Bryn the dog is the happy camper, balanced carefully near a tree, eyeing the dogs, children and food spread around her.

Richard lunges mightily towards a tree, and pulls us all up to the trunk.
Hoping its roots have found some purchase in the eroding soil, we cling to it as we finally make camp. This is the hardest I've ever worked for a glass of wine in my life.

We meet the people around us (can't help it, we're all sliding in to each other), and settle in. The wine is uncorked, the homemade pita crisps are unziplocked, the glop (another blog) is shared around.

Warm sun, cool breeze, the music wafts up the hill.
What an infinitely pleasant day.
Despite the continuous wedgie from sliding down the hill, despite the sudden appearance of 16 bugs from Jurassic Park, what an infinitely pleasant day.

As we leave, The Man turns toward me and says, "Next time, we get here earlier."

Ricky O!

2006-05-01T06:48:00.000-07:00

The Man and I both had business trips to different locales recently.
He went south to Beverly Hills and I went east to Texas.

We share a similar affliction -- our sunglasses meet with sticky ends, crunched under car tires, sat upon, drowned in oceans, permanently residing in the land of lost socks, etc. So, we shared a similar mission for any downtime we should have: buying new sunglasses.

I wound up with no time. Richard, however, succeeded spectacularly and came home with sunglasses once owned by Jackie Kennedy Onassis, seen above right.

Notice her trademark shades, large and in charge.
Hello, Ricky O!

The wearing of these glasses speak volumes about his manly confidence, as the only other man I remember in Jackie's shades was Truman Capote.

When I asked Richard if Jackie's estate wanted the glasses returned, he said, "Shut up. They cover my eyes."
Yes, dear, and your entire head.

Even his colleagues at work are razzing him about them. Between the general derision and the cheap price from a roadside vendor, I bet he winds up keeping these for years.

In the meantime, I'm off to find some shades of my own.
In keeping with family harmony, I'm hunting for early 60s Ray Bans, as worn by Jack.
If I pay more than $30 for them, they'll die a painful death within a month.
If they're $5 and ugly, they'll become kryptonite and live forever.

a mommy moment?

2006-04-22T20:28:00.000-07:00

The tears began once we were back outside by the car.
Richard hugged me, laughing in the nicest way.
I buried my face in his shirt and he said, "Are we having a mommy moment?"

Of a sort, yes, we were.

***

Richard and I both travel in our jobs. Not constantly, but enough to have favorite airlines and car agencies, and a comprehensive list of NPR stations and WiFi hot spots. Our travel schedules have been easy enough to manage, but now we have a wrinkle in the equation = Bryn the dog.

I work from home, so in the month since we adopted her, Bryn has had a lot of companionship. Visibly, she has bonded to us and to our house, and has become a part of our lives. We take her for walks, play ball with her, and Richard washes her when she has rolled in pungent effluvia. I take her out over lunchtime, and in the afternoon she sleeps in the sun outside on the back porch. She's a good dog, a happy errand buddy who waits patiently at the coffee shop and an ever alert guardian who hears strangers two blocks away.

She's three or four years old. We don't know anything about her early life, save that the SF pound took her in after she had been abandoned with a litter of puppies. The pound treated her wounds, her puppies were adopted, and from there she went to the SPCA where we found her. "Rescued her from durrance vile," as Richard puts it.

***

And then comes the two business trips at the same time. Richard heads south while I go east, and we don't know our neighbors well enough yet to ask them to care for Bryn for several days.

So we decide to board her at the vet. Twenty caring staff members, clean kennels and outdoor dog runs. Kind strangers and metal kennels, a combination Bryn has lived before.

There is no way of telling Bryn that this stay in the metal kennels with the kind strangers is only for a couple of days. No way of telling her this is a sort of doggie vacation and we'll all be home together soon. She looked panicked when they led her away. Her confused and imploring eyes locked with mine as the door closed between us.

And so here we are at the car, about to go to the airport.
It won't be as bad next time. Next time there will be a track record - she goes off to the kennel, people are decent to her, and she comes back home to play ball on the beach with Richard.

But this time it hurts - I feel as if I've abandoned someone who's only be faithful to me.

Sorting the threads

2006-04-11T12:33:00.000-07:00

One of my cousin Janine's many gifts is her magical reweaving ability -- clothes, not hair.

If you bring her a sweater that has holes or snags where the weaving has clearly come apart, she slowly, persistently, magically works it all back together.

A dozen years ago my sister Julie gave me a green cable knit sweater I have worn to pieces. With my ridiculous abundance of clothing, I continue to wear this damned thing! But this old green cotton sweater sums up everything good about winter. And reminds me of the Beloved Jules. So year after year, I beg Janine for another Christmas Reweaving Miracle -- it is after all the Season...

With this blog, I'm trying to do something somewhat opposite -- isolate a thread from the weave of my life, and pull it out just a little on its own. Find the humor and joy in the daily pages of life, and spin out something perhaps funny, fragile, absurd.

I'm serious about conquering my vertigo, but I think humor helps win the fight.

If I'm going to write about the more serious things... well, that seems to call for another blog. Enter
http://m25.blogspot.com/
stage left.

In May, I'll be going on a trip to the UK to learn -- among other things -- about the pervasive practices of human (sex) trafficking and gender crimes. The trip won't be all sad times -- there will be dinners with friends, worship with artists -- good nourishing things.

I don't know where this trip will lead, or what I'll wind up doing back here in San Francisco because of the trip. But this seems a journey worth taking, and worth chronicling.

And who knows, maybe next Christmas I'll bring my two blogs to Janine instead of my sweater...see if she can find a way to weave the threads back together for me.

Up the down staircase

2006-04-10T12:55:00.000-07:00

I've been wondering when I would fall.
Mercifully, all I hurt were the gluteous maximus muscles, and they have a protective cushion.

I have vertigo, and stairs of almost any description are a problem for me. The stairs in our townhouse have a dog leg -- you head east for four steps before reaching a landing and turning north for the remaining 16. There is a bannister on one side and a wall on the other, which helps my balance.

But still, I am the slowest one down the steps, often placing both feet on a step before going down to the next one. Between the telescoping motion of the steps and the multiplication process of vertigo, I have trouble figuring out where to put my foot. It's only near the end that the spiral whirling of the seven stairways stops, and I can confidently run down (left-right-left-right) the last few steps.

We invited our neighbor Lee over for dinner last weekend. We clean the house from top to bottom at least once a week, but in his honor I had been overzealous with the floor polish. Everything is hardwood flooring except the kitchen and bathroom, and I had polished even the wooden stairs.

Coming back downstairs during dinner, my feet slipped out from under me and -- bump bump bump -- down the stairs I went. Richard jumped up from the table and ran to me, followed by Bryn the Dog. Lee stood up, looking concerned.

I, on the other hand, was more relieved than anything else. I had finally fallen here, and it wasn't so bad. The bruising lasted all week, and I'm still slow getting started at the top, but I'm a little easier about things now, and the seven sets of stairs don't swirl as fast as they once did.

Whatever is going on in my inner ear (part of the vertigo resides there) may be lessening a bit.
If only I could say as much for the rest of my head.

Festivus for the rest of us

2006-04-06T07:53:00.000-07:00

My sense of this blog as "the poor woman's Seinfeld" -- the blogsitcom about nothing -- increased last night in a conversation with my husband.

Richard is a multi-faceted jewel of a man. Reflections of other people can be seen as the light hits him in motion. He's like Jerry Seinfeld when it comes to neatness, the Soup Nazi when it comes to the kitchen, and now--alarmingly--I'm seeing the emergence of a combo-character: part Cosmo Kramer, part Mr. Costanza (George's father).

Here's what happened.

It started so innocently... He's mulling over the crossword puzzle (I'm a Sudoku fan, myself) and murmurs, "Ingredient in a fizz..."
I pop up with a perky, "Gin."
He nods, "But that doesn't fit -- they're looking for another ingredient, a liqueur of some sort."
I'm of no help, having never had a gin fizz.

This sparks another train of thought.
"You play gin rummy, don't you?" he asks.
"Of course, learned it at my grandfather's knee."
"I should teach you Hollywood Gin," he says with sudden Kramer-like enthusiasm. He didn't actually slide through an open doorway and across the room, shirt tails flapping, but he could have.

Immediately, I'm suspicious.
"Is this one of those games you keep inflicting on me -- one your father made up and you always change the rules while we're playing to make sure you win?"

Ruffled Italian honor takes umbrage: "I don't know what you're talking about."
I start naming the fake games.
He interrupts, "Nonsense, shh, quiet, you're upsetting the dog. Now, here's how you play Hollywood Gin."

So he launches into this dealing scheme where you have three piles of cards in front of you, and each pile contains one card face up and one card face down.

"Blackjack!" I yell, "Or poker! This isn't gin!"

He quells me with a stern look. "It is gin, and the three columns..."
Yada yada yada he goes into this long dissertation I'm certain is impromptu creativity, and then he says: "And if I reach a hundred in all three of my columns, before you reach a hundred in your first column, then I call out "Schneid!" and win the game."

"Schneid!?" I respond, indeed waking the dog, "Schneid isn't a word you say in gin. Schneid isn't even a real word. It's like Festivus for the Rest-of-us. Your father is Mr. Costanza! Do we play this game while sitting around a metal pole?"

While he sulks, I go online.
Grrrr.
There is something called "Hollywood Gin," and apparently Gin Rummy was a hot card game among Hollywood stars of the 1920s and 30s.

And... Schneid is a word too.
(sigh)
So we're going to play this weekend.
As soon as I start winning, he'll change the rules and suddenly yell, "Schneid!"

My only possible reply will be: "Serenity Now!"

Definition from www.word-detective.com
"The schneid" is a another good example of such a term, and, coincidentally, means nearly the opposite of "in the catbird seat." To be "on the schneid" means to be on a losing streak, racking up a series of losing, and especially scoreless, games. "Schneid" is actually short for "schneider," a term originally used in the card game of gin, meaning to prevent an opponent from scoring any points. "Schneider" entered the vocabulary of gin from German (probably via Yiddish), where it means "tailor." Apparently the original sense was that if you were "schneidered" in gin you were "cut" (as if by a tailor) from contention in the game. "Schneider" first appeared in the literature of card-playing about 1886, but the shortened form "schneid" used in other sports is probably of fairly recent vintage.

I should never have let him watch "Seinfeld."

A little song, a litte dance

2006-03-31T12:35:00.000-08:00

A little caffeine down your pants.

The phone rings.
It's the Man.
An entire cup of coffee has spilled in his lap; could I bring him a clean pair of pants?

Hot coffee, I ask, concerned.
Warm, he says. Embarrassing, not painful.

I go to his closet, ready to riff on which of the 39 pairs of gray slacks he wants.
Perversely, he wants tan, but will take khaki or taupe.

Since taupe contains gray (let me hear an amen) and I want more fodder for jokes about his wardrobe, I choose the taupe pants. Pressed at the China Star laundry on Clement Street, they look new, camera-ready.

After alerting my office that I'll be gone for about 15-20 minutes (Richard works close to home), I realize this is the perfect opportunity to leave Bryn (our new dog) alone in the house and observe the results. Will she curl up quietly in her dog bed and snooze? Will she chew Richard's shoes out of separation anxiety? Will the mail be shredded and the trash upturned? A lot can happen in 20 minutes, and she's a smart, fast dog.

In the doorway, I lock eyes with her, sending mental images of her asleep in her bed, while I say with a clarity Demosthenes would envy: "Sit, stay, good girl."

Feeling brave, risky and hungry, I motor off to the Lucas Digital Arts Center, home of Richard's company. I pass him the fresh pants and he looks in the back seat, "No dog?" I tell him of the experiment, his eyes widen, and I head home.

Bryn greets me at the door, body wiggling, wanting to lick me and rub against me at the same time. Nothing is different. Each room looks as it did when I left. Everything is perfect, and she's so happy to see me.

I wonder how she spent her time.

The Human Pez Dispenser

2006-03-29T21:41:00.000-08:00

Currently, I'm a walking, talking Dog Treats Dispenser for our new dog, Bryn.
An "Outward Hound" (oh yes) training pouch lives at my waist, filled with little bits of kibble to reward her every good action.
Sit - Pez!
Down - Pez!
Stay - Pez!
Come - Pez!
Go into your crate - Double Pez!
Don't eat the neighbor's cat - Pez Jackpot!
It's raining kibble, hallelujah, it's raining bits, on Bryn.
One day, perhaps, she'll recognize me as the Hiking Czarina and Alpha Female I really am, but right now, I'm Robibil of the Kibble, fuh shizzle.

Expecting Bryn

2006-03-29T06:26:00.000-08:00

Last night was our last night alone for a while. We're about to adopt a 4-year-old Catahoula Leopard Dog mix from the San Francisco SPCA.

So what did we do on our last night alone?
We stayed up late, in total privacy, completely absorbed together with one goal:
Finding a name for our new dog.

The pound calls her "Summer," and it just doesn't seem to fit her.

The Catahoula Leopard is the only known domesticated dog native to North America.
The best history of its origin is that Native American Indians cross-bred their semi-domesticated red wolves with "war dogs" left behind by Viking, Spanish and French explorers throughout the 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th centuries.

Prior to the Louisiana Purchase, when that area of the USA did not yet belong to the USA, the dogs living there were similar to the Australian Dingos in their relationship with humans. They are named after Catahoula Parrish and are the Louisiana State Dog.

So, late into the night, we searched internet sites for everything from the Cherokee names for leopard (tlv-da-tsi) and dog (gi-li) to ancient European, Asian, African and Middle Eastern female names.

Finally, we thought about Bryn-hild, a variation of Brunhilde, one of the famous Valkeries.
Bryn seemed perfect -- the name sounded beautiful to us, it has some historical significance to her ancestry, and her coated is brindled with black and gold.

More info than you'll ever want to know, plus a warning!
Dog blogs to follow.

Nice Cuts, Part Deux

2006-03-15T23:55:00.000-08:00

Setting up the story, Part the First:

The intersection of Union and Fillmore streets in San Francisco is a prime pedestrian junction. Not only is it trafficked by most denizens of the city, visitors hang out here, too.

Harrison Ford and Calista Flockheart were seen here recently, as were Robert Redford and an unnamed companion.

It's a jam-packed parking nightmare, with drivers searching desperately for street parking then running back an hour later to put more quarters in the meters. The "meter maids" are merciless. Better to interrupt whatever you're doing and dash back to add more quarters, than risk the $50 parking ticket.

This congested center of a small universe also is the basic location of the hair salon I'm trying out: Nice Cuts, $15.

Setting up the story, Part the Second:
I'm a natural blonde. This shows itself in many forms, not simply the color of my hair.

The bright white blonde of my childhood became platinum in my twenties and then champagne-ish in my thirties. Still blonde, still au natural, but a little darker.

During the winter of my 39th year, my beloved hair stylist said, "Ah, those bright summertime highlights are fading. You know what we should do? We should give you a few highlights until summer's sun can bring them back naturally."

No, no, I demurred. No chemicals for me.

"Thirty strands," she urged. "Let me just lighten 30 strands of hair -- it's not adding color - you're not coloring your hair, we're just stripping a few strands so the summer blonde shines through. You don't like it, I don't charge you."

What's 30 strands, I thought, and I succumbed. So, for the past two years, I have gone in once a winter for a slight sprinkling of highlights throughout my hair. Let me rush to say - and don't get in my way or you'll be run over - that I'm still a natural blond. And that brightness in summer is absolutely real. It's just that in the winter-time I need a little help to combat my version of Seasonal Affective Disorder.

Setting up the story, Part the Third:
If you've read the previous blog, "Nice Cuts," you'll know of my search for a San Francisco hair salon I could call my own. This is what happened after I sat down in the chair, and the nice Korean woman - Wanda - started playing with my hair.

Today's blog:
As Wanda began to talk about the hair cut, she asked me if I ever had highlights. I said what you now know: yes, a light sprinkling once a year. Would you like them now, she asked? I said yes, determined to try not just her cutting skills, but her "thirty strands in the foil" skills.

My highlights work like this -- along the crown and forehead, the stylist selects a few scattered strands of hair, paints them with a gentle compound similar to bleach, and wraps them in foil for a few minutes.

My job is to sit quietly, read a newspaper, sip my coffee, etc.

So, I'm sitting in the chair, reading the paper, wearing the black synthetic cape they always put around you, and sporting the little foil wrappers in my hair. I resemble a cooking experiment gone awry, or perhaps an Iowan afraid the aliens are going to read her thoughts. But, who's going to see me? I'm safely ensconsed in the stylist's chair; I'm supposed to look like this.

Suddenly, I realize it's time to feed the parking meter. I look up, startled, at the clock on the wall. Wanda notices me and says, "No, no, ten more minutes."
I say, "No, it's the parking meter, I think I'm out of time."

Wanda reacts like a native San Franciscan. She pulls a handful of quarters out of her pants pocket and rushes to the door. "Are you parked out front!?!" she asks frantically. "Which car -- I feed your meter!!"

I jump up, throwing the paper in my seat. "I'm around the corner and two blocks away. Do you know what a Nissan Pathfinder looks like?"

"No!" she yells, pouring quarters in my cupped hands, pushing me towards the door. "Run! Hurry! Feed meter! Go! Go! Go!"

I race out of the salon and onto the crowded sidewalk. The black salon cape flaps around my running body as the cold February sunlight bounces off the aluminum foil in my hair.

A man in the northbound crosswalk at Union and Fillmore shouts, "Feeding the meter?!"
"Yes!" I reply without stopping.
"Hurry!" he urges me.

I reach the Pathfinder with two minutes to spare.

The walk back to the salon was an excercise in nonchalance.
The caped lady with the tin foil hair, sashaying past her pierced, tatooed and botoxed neighbors.
As I re-entered the salon, spontaneous applause broke out, and Wanda laughed, "Only in San Francisco, huh, lady?"

Nice Cuts

2006-03-15T13:52:00.000-08:00

I'm told my hair is hard to cut because it is fine-textured and blond. Dark, coarse, thick hair hides or even overcomes a bad cut. Not my hair; cut it badly and the whole world knows.

Once, a crazed hair stylist mulling my forehead decided I'd look good with "Pixie Bangs," a jagged fringe a half-inch long. I tried to stop her but the damage was done.

Short, jagged fringe-bangs are fine for George Clooney.
Sean Connery elevates fringed, Pixie Bangs to an art form.

Not so much an art form with me, the pixie bangs.

While living in Houston, I found two anti-Pixie stylists who brought a sure and delicate touch to my haircuts. I trusted them so much that between the two of them they cut and styled my hair for my wedding day, and then I waited until I was in Houston again on a business trip for my next haircut.

I put off finding a hair stylist here in San Francisco, hoping for regular quarterly business trips back to Texas. But finally, I succumbed to the Great Stylist Search.

San Francisco is a small city with a lot of hair salons and barbershops.
Ricky goes to the "Supercuts," $8, but he's Italian and - like the Scot above - can wear Pixie Bangs, or no bangs at all. I'm not saying Supercuts = Badcuts. I'm just saying I've never had any luck with them.

Both of my Houston stylists said, "When you see someone with the haircut you look best in, go ask them who cuts their hair." Great theory, lousy practice. Everyone who wears the cut I like is either on a train going the other way, or has Maria Shriver hair. Not the style, the hair -- so thick and full that a bad cut looks good.

So, I started wandering down Union and Chestnut, two streets notable for blonds. I visited more than a dozen hair salons, asking about pricing and styles, looking for a client with my hair. Suddenly, on Union near Fillmore, I saw a modest little sign that said, "Nice Cuts, $15."

Having just left a faux-Peruvian salon with bottled water costing $15, I was intrigued. The place, even from the outside, had a nice vibe. I walked in, and two Asian women were laughing with a customer while cutting his short, soft blond hair.

Nice.

Granted, they were giving him Pixie Bangs. But he could wear them. Think of George or Sean gone blond.

One of the women, Wanda, sat down with me. She began feeling my hair and talking to her colleague in rapid Korean.

Wanda wagged one finger very seriously at me: "Your hair, very fine, very light. Bad cut shows. I take care of you, give you nice cut for blond lady."

The Pixie Bang guy in the chair said, "My sister has your hair; she loves it here."

A peaceful, easy feeling began to steal over me. Nice people, nice place, nice vibe, nice customer. And at a $15, a Nice Price.

Camping Cookbook, Vol. 1

2006-03-13T22:13:00.000-08:00

As with any great chef -- Escoffier, Pépin, Boyardee -- my husband has never met an ingredient he couldn't use. Tell him a pigeon pooped on the car and he replies, "Ah, the French have such a classic way of preparing squab."

This isn't revenge; this is a mind wide open to innovative, seasonal and contextually appropriate ingredients.

Recipes are constantly cooking in Richard's brain. Any other activity or conversation is merely an onion skin facade, behind which simmers some new sauce.

Left-overs are a particularly rich source of inspiration for him. He loves to rummage around and make never-again-to-be-recreated dishes out of random yet still fresh bits and pieces. Meals stay with him mentally, and often he'll call to say, "You know those roasted beets we didn't finish last night...?"

Richard is also an enthusiastic outdoorsman. Show him a mountain and he climbs it. Give him a river, and he fords it. Lead him to Bambi, and he grills it.

Sunday, all of this collided in a sleepy, late night conversation about meals he could prepare for a several-day hiking and rafting trip.

To set the scene:

Our friend L. had been over for dinner. We all enjoy tapas, so there were a variety of small dishes and courses, including make-your-own Pita Pizzas with ingredients such as tomatos, mushrooms, onions, cheese, zucchini and eggplant.

L is a local pastor in the process of resigning from his church to explore a more monastic life. He is going to live at a campground owned by a Christian group south of San Francisco, and begin to develop wilderness programs for church groups.

I used to lead hiking, kayaking, camping, etc., trips for youth and church groups; Richard is an experienced expedition cook and an all-round good camper; and so the three of us spent a few minutes brainstorming about potential trips.

Conversation then turned to other things, L went home, we cleaned up, and went upstairs.

The San Francisco area has been having wintry weather this March -- snow, ice, freezing conditions. Right before L came over, a hail storm swept over our house, and frost formed on the windows.

So, it's cold and windy outside. The sound of the waves crashing on the shore is a clear and comforting lullaby. We're warm and sleepy. I in fact am much more asleep than awake, and while Richard is talking softly and slowly about possible hiking trips, I'm slipping away into the arms of Morpheus.

Then Richard says two words that bring me into sudden wakefulness:

"Eggplant roll-ups."

"What?" I ask.

"When you bring the kids down river," he said, clearly having been ruminating on the remains of the meal, "I'll be waiting at a pre-arranged spot with dinner for them. We could start with eggplant roll-ups. Sliced thin-thin, spiced and filled with..."

My silent shaking turned to helpless, unrestrained laughter, and after a moment, he joined me.

Eggplant roll-ups on a youth group river trip.
It's "Deliverance" meets the Galloping Gourmet.

I'll never know what was to be rolled-up in those thin, thin slices of eggplant.
Richard won't talk to me about them any more.
But it was one of the best and longest laughs we've ever had.

Ready to go camping with us?

Shaken and stirred

2006-03-10T22:29:00.000-08:00

And now we are age five, possibly six.

As a young child, I fell into the revolving arms of James Bond, and stayed there.

When 007 movie marathons play, I move inexorably towards the television, like one of the zombies in Live and Let Die. The theme music acts as a Homeric siren song to my senses, pulling me in to the Bond Zone where this competant, resourceful, amusing person always finds a way to win, a way to do the right thing for King and country.

We're not talking eros, here.

We're talking superhero love.

Some kids went for Batman or Barbi.
Aging into the mysteries and arrogance of adolescence, they went for Peter Frampton or one of Charlie's angels.

Not this kid. This kid fell hook, line and cocktail for 007, and never recovered.

Because the child in me loved James Bond, I was able to let Sean Connery go and embrace Roger Moore. Timothy Dalton? Pierce Brosnan? The tuxedo passed from man to man, and it was all good, because it was Bond I loved.

James Bond, with his indominatable tenacity and immortal wit, gave this little girl a picture of mental toughness and moral courage that overcame a world of betrayal, deceit, corruption and pain.

And now we are grown, and we see the culture of violence and sex. We get the double entendres and we wince at characters named Pussy Galore.

But despite the guns and girls, the casual death and sex, I still find moral courage in James Bond.

For me, he's always the incorruptible Commander Bond, the loyal sailor who took an oath to defend the country that once embraced the ideal of "might for right." 007 didn't fight Goldfinger for personal enrichment or to climb a career ladder, he was defending the realm against a bad guy.

James is never deflected from the mission, and he rarely injects his own agenda in a way that changes what he is supposed to be doing. Look at people around us who have power -- small scale or large scale -- and notice how often they replace and/or modify the original mission with their own personal agenda.

It takes moral courage to stay on mission, even if those missions look like James Bond's.

Bond is also a minimalist, something I admire while struggling to imitate. Minimalism surely was born in the Royal Navy where sailors don't have much room for bric-a-brac, and became honed in MI6 where you travel fast and light or not at all. Bond is such a minimalist that Sean Connery sped through several films -- Thunderball comes strongly to mind -- wearing little more than swim shorts. (I only noticed this last week, by the way, after having been entrapped by the theme music when my husband was channel-surfing. Poor Ricky, I think he was hoping for Seinfeld. Instead, he got a Bond marathon.)

Yes, there were the silly space operas, and Roger Moore should probably have bowed out before A View To A Kill, and yada yada yada I still love James Bond.

I hope this new guy, Daniel Craig, gets Bond right.
Shaken, not stirred.
Amused, not serious.
A gentleman, not a lecher.
Loyal, courageous, resourceful, and competent to the end.

A five-year-old girl is depending on you.

The spy who loves me

2006-03-09T21:26:00.000-08:00

I have seen my husband's future...
And he is Sir Roger Moore.

Note:

the navy blazer with gold buttons,
the faun trousers sporting an impeccable crease,
the clean white shirt serving as a canvas for the bright tie in 1970s width.

It's Ricky, 25 years from now, wearing the clothes hanging in our closet at this very moment.

The glasses are a stretch. Currently, Richard is favoring the retro black plastic frames that say "1950s U.S. State Department." But then his dad was a state department diplomat in the 50s, and Richard comes by intrigue very honestly.

And the freckles. I don't see that happening. Otherwise, though, this picture looks like our future. I wonder if we can snag a gig as a UNICEF ambassador (Moore's current tour)? We like children, world travel, talking... Brangelina, move over.

The passage of time has been kind to James Bond, forever in his prime, as well as to the actors who've played him. Roger Moore is 79 or 80, in awfully good shape, trotting the globe with his blond-ish wife while making urbane, witty speeches. Somewhere in Scotland, a picture of Sean Connery gathers dust in an attic, while the man himself keeps getting sexier.

I like this future. I think I'll choose it.
Ricky, renew your passport and iron your shorts.
We're catching the next flight to Mozambique.

As Seen On TV

2006-02-06T18:58:00.000-08:00

Are my husbands collars starting to get dingy?
Are his hankerchiefs as white as they should be?
Am I using the right floor polish?

Welcome to the list of questions I thought I'd never ask.

So I'm home, innocently folding the laundry while listening to NPR.
My husband is downstairs cooking dinner.
All should be right with the world.

Suddenly, I notice the white of Richard's collar isn't as white as I remember.
My brow furrows.
I squint, then move towards the windows to catch the last light before sunset.

The questions and fears come, piling up one after the other.

Are my husbands collars starting to get dingy?
Didn't they used to be whiter than this?
Are his hankerchiefs as white as they should be?
I think this hankerchief used to be whiter.
I chose, nay insisted upon, the Arm & Hammer laundry detergent we use.
Did I choose the wrong laundry detergent?
Am I using the right floor polish?
Is my husband still satisfied with me?

As the life-giving odor of sauteeing garlic wafted upwards from the kitchen, the freshly laundered clothes slipped from my slackening grip.

When the hell did I start caring about dingy collars and floor polish?
When did I start tying it to marital satisfaction?

Me!
The woman who used to worry about men's souls is now worrying about their collars.
The woman who kayaked river rapids bravely is now quailing before a washing machine?

Who cares that these are the times that try men's souls, when I'm worried about their boxers?

I stalked downstairs and interrupted the Italian cooking.
"When did I start worrying about the laundry, and whether your collars were white enough?" I demanded, in mid-dudgeon.
"Not soon enough," he replied without missing a beat.

Coming soon, to a neck near you, as seen on TV, white collar crime!
Sponsored by Arm & Hammer, and 20-Mule-Team Borax.

Y

2006-01-06T11:37:00.000-08:00

MCA
It's fun to stay at the YyyyyMCA-a.

Or at least work out there.
And now that I write it, perhaps "fun" isn't the correct word.

Regardless (not irregardless. Irregardless is not a word; stop using it.)

Regardless (and really the song is just a convenient lead-in to the blog today), the Man and I have joined the Y here at the Presidio, and are engaged in working our Major Muscle Groups.

My work-outs are complicated by the injured foot and the clogs I have to wear. Ever worn clogs to the gym? Let me rephrase that -- are you NOT Scandinavian, and yet you have worn clogs while working out at the gym? Do you feel my pain?

Since I'm not allowed to put undue pressure on my foot, my current areas of activity include:

The recumbent bycicle
Various machines for exercising arms and stomach muscles
The swimming pool if I don't use my legs and feet much. Fun!

Recumbant bikes are sort of cool, actually. About half the recumbent bikes at the Y are attached to computer screens allowing you to surf the web or watch a television program while pedaling.

"While pedaling" is the operative phrase.
Stop pedaling and the screen goes black.
The web-TV access is supposed to act as an incentive to continue exercising.

But I wind up feeling like one of those gerbils or hamsters in an exercise wheel, forever running to catch something I can't have, while scientists evaluate my behavior.

"Look at that woman pedaling during the Julia Child re-run," they say behind the big glass wall, making obscure notations on their clipboards. "She's working so hard; does she really not know how to boil water? Do you think she'll ever learn? And what's with the clogs?"

The arm and so-on machines are easier. No real pressure on the Clog-encased Foot, and I can feel very virtuous about the lat pull-down and the tri-cep extension. Passers-by are sometimes startled when I announce "Twelve!" in the midst of complete silence, but then they notice the Clog and adjust their expectations accordingly.

The swimming without using my legs and feet is a toss-up.

Plus, I don't have to wear the clogs.
Minus, I'm automatically the slowest person in the lane.
Plus, no one really notices the quiet counting of strokes, as if I'm a crew chief on the Thames.
Minus, I forget not to use my feet, go underwater for a couple of mighty frog kicks, and come to the surface in pain, knowing I've just set my recovery back by another day or two.

Yesterday, I tried to adapt one of those styrofoam floating kick-boards to my work-out instructions. You know the ones, an elongated half-moon shape that people hold with their hands and arms while kicking like mad to get across the pool? Well, try clamping it between your thighs while using only your cupped palms to reach the other side.

They think the mirrors are only one-way, but I could see the scientists with their clipboards watching me. "Doesn't understand use of styrofoam board," they note on my permanent record in indelible ink. "Uncoordinated swimmer, slowest in her lane. Counts outloud."

"And where are her clogs?"

Counting neuroses

2006-01-05T20:03:00.000-08:00

I confess I'm an unconscious counter.
I arrive at the top of a staircase and announce -- seemingly apropos of nothing -- "22!"

I'm as surprised as you are. I thought I was talking to you, or thinking about the State Of The World Today or "Do we have enough garlic cloves in the house?"

But somewhere in my soul, where the foot bone connects to the counting bone, I was communing with the steps.

My husband, on the other hand, is a conscious counter. An unrepentent conscious counter. He chose the flatware in our wedding registry because he loved the way all the different pieces hung in perfect proportions on the cool silver thing. Frankly, I liked it too, but I was unaware of the darker portents to come.

Now that we're married and keeping house together, I've discovered he Counts Things, much as does Kanga in the Pooh adventures. I'll hear him down in the kitchen, cosseting the pasta boxes, and then suddenly he'll walk into our bedroom, fix me with a gimlet gaze and say, "One of the spoons is missing."

Often, something's not in its place because I'm using it.
Occasionally, something's not in its place because I left it who knows where. I'm the woman who has placed car keys and library books in the fridge, simply because they were unnoticed in my hands while putting up the groceries. I confess this frailty willingly and with a heart open to change.

But sometimes, and O! the glory of it, something's not in its place because King Richard the Counter has left it somewhere.

I come to you tonight, full of a small triumph, which are often the best kinds.

The Man, like a terrier with a bone, has been worrying around the house about a missing glass. A large-ish, 16-ounce drinking glass, which lives with its seven brothers on the second shelf of the upper cabinet immediately to the right of the sink. It's been missing for more than a week, with plans in place to be featured on a milk carton.

At various times of the day and night, in various rooms of the house and locations in The City, Richard will mutter accusingly, "That glass still hasn't shown up."

There has been no need to articulate my blame in this matter. Of course I'm responsible for the missing glass. God and God alone knows what I might have done with it, and where I might have left it. Silly woman, she probably put the glass in the recycling bin, or sent it off with the returned library books.

Picture the scene then, when he came to me last night.
I'm sitting on the bed, folding some laundry.
He appears in the open bedroom door frame, one hand behind his back, leaning half-in and half-out.

An inscrutable look is on his face.
"How much do you love me?" he asks.

Thinking he's serious and caught quite off-guard (I was folding his boxers), one hand goes towards my breastbone as I say, "Darling, more than I can say."

He steps fully into the room and silently reveals the hidden hand, clasping the missing glass. It had been hiding on the top shelf of his closet, behind some sweaters, where he had inadvertently left it.

He's been very good to me today.

Foot bone connected to the Knee doctor

2006-01-03T23:21:00.000-08:00

My foot doctor is named Knee.
Dr. Alicia Knee, podiatrist and adjunct professor at UCSF, specializes in sports injuries and ballerina's feet.

And yes, I asked if she had thought about specializing in knees, if for no other reason than the delicious irony of being "My knee doctor Doctor Knee."

She laughed with much good humour and said, "Actually I considered it seriously, for that very reason, but two more compelling things sent me further down the leg professionally. Feet and ankles are more interesting than knees, and I love dancing. And as a podiatrist, I get to work with a lot of dancers."

She examined my foot, frowned over the extremely flexible, light-weight running shoes I favor, and sent me for X-Rays. I might write a separate blog devoted to the experience of the X-Ray tech asking me if there were any chance I was pregnant. A lifetime of single-adult-celibacy (waiting til Mr. Right came along) always meant "No." As the word was leaving my lips I stopped, quite startled, looking at the wedding ring.

Anyway, when the results came back, Dr. Knee showed me the fracture - really, a network of small breaks - in my foot.

Earlier, she had warned me that I might have to wear a cast. It all depended, she said, on the location of the fracture along the bone. And the cast, if required, would stretch from just below my knee all the way to my toes. Ugh.

"Your break is far enough up the bone to give us options," she said brightly. "The cast is still the guaranteed, fastest treatment. It's a big cast, will require crutches, and bathing is hell. But the bone heals more quickly.

"Another choice," she continued, "is the Expensive European Clog. Dansko makes a clog with an extremely rigid sole and a great natural footbed. You'd have to wear it constantly -- no running shoes, no heels, no going barefoot on the beach or at home. The clog becomes your removable cast, and you only take it off in bed or the bath."

I chose The Clog.
Then, she began the lifestyle interview.
Do you smoke, drink alcohol, drink caffeine, play sports?
No, yes, yes, yes, I answered.

"Good on you for not smoking, bad on you for the caffeine. Here's my regimen for you -- go shopping and get at least one pair of the Dansko clogs. No caffeine you can possibly avoid, lots of red wine, and only the physical exercise that doesn't put pressure on your feet. And no walking on hills."

I did a double-take. "You know where we live don't you?"
She smiled, "Yes, and I know it's impossible, but don't walk on hills."

"And why red wine versus white?"
"Red wine helps your heart and blood more than white wine does. Caffeine and smoking constrict your blood vessels, and I want as much blood flowing through your feet speeding the healing as possible."

She tilted her head and smiled at me. "It's not a bad prescription, you know -- red wine and shopping for expensive shoes."

So, I left the orthopaedic clinic, picked up Richard, and went shoe shopping with him. We selected a version of the shoe pictured at the top, picked up some decaf coffee beans, and went home to drink red wine.

"Just one more glass, dear; it's for my foot."

Stress fractures my life, or at least my foot

2006-01-02T10:37:00.000-08:00

Well, so here's the truth according to the medical dictionary: A fracture is the breaking of a bone into two or more pieces.

Anyone who was not surprised when I developed a stress-related ulcer during my first year of pastoring, also will not be surprised that the fractured bone in my left foot is, yes, a Stress Fracture.

Ballerinas and professional athletes usually develop the sort of fracture I sport. Alas, I am neither. It was, though, a sports related injury. While in physical therapy for injuries received when run over by a Nissan Armada while riding my bycicle, I broke a bone in my foot.

There was this machine they use for Olympic skiers, see. You leap sideways from one foot, land on the other, and then slide (in a sideways crouch) along a slick surface while wearing cloth booties. Extra points for doing it eyes shut and not falling, and it strengthens your feet, ankles, knees and sense of balance.

The repetitve landing and sliding on the left foot caused the outside bone to begin to fracture and break.

I finished the therapy with good marks and a massage, wondering why the hell my left foot hurt when I walked or ran. I just iced it down and took the dogs around Rice University.

Look at a convenient naked left foot -- your own, someone else's, or the ones pictured above. The bone that runs along the outside of your foot, connecting with the little toe, is the one in question, known in august, learned circles as the 5th metatarsal.

Mine flares out abnormally as it stretches back towards the ankle, because it is broken. But did I realize it was broken?
No.
Did I see the doctor back in July and August, when it started hurting?
No.
Did I see the doctor in September and October, when walking or jogging with the dogs brought me home limping, in great pain.
No.
I went through my wedding, outside, on 3-inch sandal heels, trying not to limp.
I moved to San Francisco and took long walks up and down the hills, pretending my foot didn't hurt.

Finally, The Man noticed the increasing limp, and began to lobby for a doctor's appointment. Then, one evening while jogging up and down the logs on the beach cliff trail (see previous blog: The 244 Steps), I limped home in tears.

Richard sat next to me, "What's wrong?" he asked tenderly.
"My foot feels like it is breaking," I said, breaking being the only description that seemed to fit.
He removed my running shoes and socks. The outer edge of my left foot was swollen, hot and red.
Gentle probing brought more tears, as well as a doctor's appointment.

Next time I have a recurring, unexplained pain, I'm just going to go to the doctor and save myself 6 months of making things worse.
New Year's Resolution, #4.
Wonder how long until I break it?
:-)

Buon giorno, 06

2006-01-01T14:02:00.000-08:00

Dinner was Italian, of course.
A nice little place down in the Mission.

Then a drive downtown where we walked through Union Square, looking for the big street party and fireworks. The Plaza was roped off and guarded by cops, with only raucous private parties along the side streets in swing. When did the Bush Administration come to The City?

After a really fun time hoofing it around town, we drove home and rang the new year in privately. We found out later that the public celebration had moved to the Embarcadero, with fireworks out over the Bay.

Next year, count us in.

Today's first meal will be cornbread, greens and black eyed peas, and a prayer for the future.

And butter.

Many blessings are sought for this year, this city, this family.
Ciao!

My fault

2005-12-30T13:46:00.000-08:00

Living on the San Andreas fault line adds a piquant spice to life.

Look at the upper left quadrant of this NASA infra-something photo and you'll see the San Francisco Bay area. The main fault line passes directly under our house.

Mostly, I live more in the state of denial than of California. But sometimes we take our fault into consideration.

For one thing, we really have read the emergency preparation guidelines at www.72hours.org, The City's quake prep site. Between all of my camping and hiking equipment, and the Italian Stallion's natural sequestering of water, wine and pasta, hell, we're good for 144 hours!

For another, we're always aware of ground movements. Seismic activity goes on all the time, every day. The little needles are constantly quivering, reflecting the shifting plates beneath us. This is a good thing, because the little quakes we barely or never feel release pressure.

Another thing is the way you hang pictures or stack bookcases. A bookcase unanchored to the wall can release hundreds of flying hazards during a big quake.

I lived through a number of hurricanes, some of them passing over my house and doing bad things. Richard has lived through several quakes and he says quakes are much easier on the nerves, because you never know when they're coming. With hurricanes, weather people are discussing the possible paths and destructive forces for days before they ever hit. With an earthquake, boom! it just happens, and then you deal with it.

I don't have any desire to be here when The Big One strikes, but I do get his point.

Want another glass of red wine? We have pasta, too.

Puppy porn

2005-12-29T21:12:00.000-08:00

I have led a pornography-free life for more than 40 years, even during the height of Real Estate Porn in San Francisco, until we began looking for a pet.

Now I surf the internet at odd hours, poring over the differences between a Shepherd-Lab mix and a Lab-Shepherd mix, and staring into the soulful eyes of hundreds of willing, eager puppies. I am on first-name terms with the managers of local dog shelters, and have visited with a number of the caged dogs. And Beloved, I know why the caged dog howls...

When my husband and I married, my roommate's dogs - Jake and Happy - went to live with their grandparents in Arkansas. They felt like my dogs too, and I miss them - particularly Jake, with whom I formed a lasting friendship.

Richard and I are going to adopt a dog from a local shelter, saving the one life our lease agreement allows us, and we're going through the process of meeting the candidates.

One of the challenges we're facing is that I've never met a dog I couldn't like. Particularly those medium sized mutts who have been rescued from Hurricane Katrina and need some extra love. I want them all. And we're just going to have one. Argh.

Another challenge is the fractured bone (5th metatarsal) in my foot. Richard (wisely) doesn't want us to adopt anyone until I'm well enough to run around on the beach with him/her. Right now, I'm still limping in low gear. Argh.

So really, all of my late-night surfing for puppy love is in vain. It will be another month or two before I'm back up to speed, and shelters don't hold dogs for you. First come, first serve, and if the medium brown dog with the tender eyes is gone when you get there, he's gone.