...Somalia....

This NY Times Pictorial was called to my attention by my 16 year old daughter. She was disturbed, but unfortunately, not surprised as she has become rather knowledgeable about Somalia. She was disturbed but she made herself look anyway....

These are disturbing...but how can we do nothing?

Are we a civilized world if we look the other way?

Are we decent human beings if we continue to focus only on our own troubles?

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/08/02/world/africa/20110802_SOMALIA_GOBIG.html?ref=world#1

Huelga Now....

The true purpose of this forum can no longer be denied. Voice must be given to the growing thousands, hundreds of thousands, who are out of work -- who are actually working very hard, but who are out of pay.

I confess, here and now, I stand in those ranks. I try not to fall down in those ranks.

Piece by piece I am stripped away. My ability to pay for the infrastructure necessary for me to try to obtain paid work (e.g., insurance coverage, office space, computer usage to search for work, transit, etc., etc.) diminishes weekly.

My self esteem, energy, and will to keep up the fight are battered.

I know I am not alone, though most in my former "circle" cannot really relate. Do not understand that of course I seek any work I can find. Of course I would scrub toilets or shovel horse manure. Or hold my tongue...or look the other way....These nicks to our integrity happen...when we have mouths to feed....

I dream we will all take to the streets, sleep in tents on the most gorgeous boulevards...dream we all unite in Tel Aviv and across the world...have not given up the dream that there are enough resources to go around and that the greedy will give up a small piece in order that the masses might have enough to eat....

Dormancy and Blogging

(Weeks have multiplied. Winter clouds have given way to August fog. Days have been filled with struggles and happiness. Bliss and despair. Life....)

This morning I peruse the NYT. An article catches me. Law firms exporting their work to India. Work traditionally done by "grunt lawyers" here in the U.S., now done by a roomful of legal minds in India who get paid a fraction of the money previously paid to the "grunt lawyers" in the States. Those "grunt lawyers" -- in the States -- now seeking work at other firms, displacing others, on down the line. Until, at the end of that line, are those who now cannot find work. NAFTA as it applies to the legal field. (I think it is safe to say this concept is or will be applied in every field.)

If it is cheaper to get the work done by people out of country, "Let's do it!" With enthusiasm! More money for those entities that can afford to do it. These entities , (tech companies, law firms, manufacturers, etc.), with resources to hire cheaper workers in other countries, increase their profits and get larger, as they charge less for the services offered (based on cheaper production costs). The places that either choose not to take jobs away from neighbors in the next town or can't do so, might manage to survive. Or more likely, go under. One by one. Box stores eating up the family store. More jobs...gone....

Greed.

It is no longer about taking care of your country, your neighbor, your municipality (with the taxes for services). It is about making more money. Bigger cars. Fatter steaks. More boats. More plantings on the estate. No need to care about anyone else if your own place is secure.

I don't care about anyone else's greed. Well, that's not true. I do care about it. I find it rather repulsive. But in the long view, it is not up to me to judge. I do care, however, when greed means that there are no legal jobs for me because instead of forging a career and playing golf and striving for the ladder, I was also having children, and so my position falls far below "grunt lawyers." I do care because hundreds of thousands of attorneys and toilet scrubbers and gas station attendants and librarians and electricians and teachers and all of us are out of work.

And no one does a thing to stop to flow. The outflow. The trickle which has become a torrent....

Spring day in the middle of Winter

Mid-day sun chair toes
naked. Wind chime. Recess noise.
More sun. Breathe. Enjoy....

Eradicating Hatred with Nothing but Love and Hope....

Chills....First I Googled WBC and saw their schedule to protest at my kids' school today. With their messages of hate against "Jews" and "Gays"....Truly Revolting....But then I saw the weekly Torah Portion from school and it gave me chills to see hate transmuted into something lovely. So with thanks to the wonderful Roni, I re-print the following:

"If you were to walk into the JCHS lobby right now, the first thing you would notice is an oversized Fundraising Pledge Sheet hanging on the bulletin board with the heading "From Hate to Haiti." It is overflowing with the signatures of students, staff and parents pledging varying amounts of money - to be donated to the American Jewish World Services' Haitian Relief Services. When I think of this week's parsha, B'shalah, I smile at the image of Miriam, Aaron's prophetess sister, leading the women in song and dance. The Israelites have just survived a frantic chase by the Egyptians across the Sea of Reeds and are about to embark on a long, stressful journey. In the face of relentless persecution and an unknown future, it would be quite natural to react with anger or gloom. Instead, Miriam sings! She has the wisdom and courage to harness all of that anxious energy into a moment of goodwill. This week the JCHS community learned that a homophobic, Anti-Semitic group decided to picket outside our school to publicize their hateful messages. A group of thoughtful students chose to respond with a hugely successful fundraising campaign. On their own, these students have flipped a potentially negative experience into an occasion for generosity and joy. If Miriam were here, I have no doubt that she would break into song!"

Enjoy the Sunshine Whenever it Comes....

I'm always amazed, this time of year, when the sun shines brightly after five p.m. Like magic, the daylight hours lengthen and we are brought out of darkness. Today especially caught my attention. After days and days of gray skies and torrential rains, suddenly this afternoon brought blue, sunny skies, stretched east to west.

I rushed to get a load of laundry out of the washing machine and onto the clothes line. Happy to save the planet (a little) and my wallet (a little less) by forgoing the dryer. I was so inspired that after hanging the clothes in the bright, chilly, air, I took my lunch outside. It felt good.

And now, as the sun is lighting up the topmost edges of the bay's fog and clouds on its way down for the night, it pleases me immensely to see my laundry hanging on the line. At first I look out and experience quick panic: oh no, what if it rains tomorrow, before the clothes are dry. But then I immediately remember that last month it did rain on the laundry, clinging to the line. And when the rain stopped, the clothes dried again, and they were fine.

After the rain storm, everything is fine....

On Cleaning out "Things" with the New Year....

At 2 in the morning I heard my 19 year old son rustling through the cabinets. At first I thought he was fixing himself a snack but when I tripped downstairs without my glasses, I found him kneeling beside the cupboard, wrangling with open bags of chips and cereal boxes. Trying to make order out of the chaos. We had a good visit, while he helped make room in the refrigerator by eating leftover turkey enchiladas and I cleaned out the microwave.

Things had gotten a little tense and I almost lost it when I found the two recipe boxes and a neatly organized box of garden information that he'd stacked at my place on the dining room table (my portable office as it were).
First of all, I told him, Don't mess with my shit. Second of all, yes, I wish I had time to clean out and organize all this stuff....And third, well...third of all, I'm sad to think I used to have time for this....Time to clip and organize and time to garden and cook and...and even a garden where things could grow....

For two days the boxes sat. But it is, after all, New Year's, which always presents a good time for cleaning and clearing....I opened one of the recipe boxes. I had to ignore little thoughts that I should trash the whole of it because "who needs recipes since all of this stuff is available on the internet?" But I didn't trash them and slowly I started going through the neatly labeled categories: "Seafood," "Various Holiday Fare," "Roasted Marinated Vegetables" (why this would need its own category I can't quite explain), "Desserts," etc. Thirteen labeled categories and five un-labeled miscellaneous categories in all.

With the box open, I found twelve year old clippings from the S.F. Chronicle. I had forgotten that way back when I had subscribed to that paper instead of reading my news online....One section, (it must have been "Fruits"), had lots of recipes for Meyer lemons and apples. Oh yes, I silently recalled, I used to have a yard with a nice, squat lemon tree that produced gorgeous, smooth-skinned lemons ten months out of the year. And a big apple tree. I came across emails from friends I haven't seen in years, sending recipes back and forth. Invitations to come for chili. Mentions of birthday parties of our children. A couple recipes were from "Faz" who used to have a Persian restaurant in the City. There were posts from Joyce Maynard, whose online discussion group I used to visit and whose pie baking events I used to attend, giving advice on the pie crust (cherries from our tree) I was going to bake for my husband's birthday. (I'm no longer married and that cherry tree died a couple years after we moved from that house....) The box also yielded cards written by my mother, my sister, and my stepmother, sharing their recipes -- as if that would make me a good and comfortable cook....

As I drink my coffee on New Year's morning, I smile while I make my way through the boxes. Good thing I didn't throw them away without even cracking the lids....In actuality, the treasures buried within cannot be found on the internet. And besides, just yesterday I fantasized about making oatmeal chocolate chip cookies....Maybe today, the first day of the new year, will be the day I finally use my stepmother's recipe....

The Gift of Light....

Light, light, light. A glorious gift. No need to ask where the gift comes from. It is more than enough just to enjoy it. Bask in its warmth. Marvel at its colors. Breathe in its magic spectrum....

On Learning and Life and Time....

Oh my God! Bam! It hits me. Along with all the other crises I am facing, (some real, some exacerbated, some imagined, some too bleak to even accept are real), just now I realize that I'm distraught because there is still so much I want to learn and I am surely past the half-way point in my life and I can't delude myself into thinking that magically opportunities for study will appear....My time is taken up with trying to maintain the systems -- taking care of kids, paying rent, buying food, etc. --to have time for the luxury of systematic learning.

This morning, in my half-asleep/half-awake state, I had a clear vision that I should take a class in linguistics or communication. Lately I have been involved in many discussions about problems surrounding our little world, emanating out from Berkeley, and what seems to be at the very root of solving those problems is that large word -- and larger concept -- "communication." But I digress.

The point for me right at this moment is that I have to face the fact that there are multitudes of things I will not be able to study. I will run out of time, and energy, and functioning brain cells, (I'm already out of money), for such pursuits. This morning, before I had this epiphany -- that time is dwindling -- I told my kids about my dream/thought and joked that maybe I'd return to school for another degree...a masters in communication or linguistics....

This afternoon, as I'm working my way through pronunciation of my daily Hebrew word (delivered free of charge to my in-box), and I again face the fact that reading one Hebrew word a day is not going to make me fluent -- boom -- it hits me! There is a whole list of things I am going to have to give up on. Reality dictates that I will not be able to effectuate these goals before my life comes to a stop.

In a mild panic, I unconsciously begin a mental list: learn Hebrew, re-establish my near-fluency in Spanish, learn the difficult process of making dye transfer prints, write and publish the growing number of books I've started (which is a list, with sub-lists in itself), trek in Nepal, take classes in a (huge) variety of topics, start a foundation that gives sabbaticals to mothers, grow crops in my tiny concrete yard, work on Jewish/Muslim relations, make documentary movies (another list...)....And this is only the beginning.

I think of people I know who are satisfied to live their lives along their already established paths. Who have no curiosity or desire to learn anything new. My innate sense, I must in candor admit, is disdain but maybe instead I should be envious....Living like that would make things easier....Maybe part of growing older and more mature is accepting these facts....

Passing....

Time. Or more precisely, the passing of time. It seems to be a topic I write about frequently, (either blatantly or in more subtle forms)....This morning I can think of nothing I want to write about more than the death of a woman I never met...a woman I always thought I would meet, planned to meet in the future....
My aunt lives on the East Coast; I am in the West. Actually, she is my aunt by former marriage. When I divorced, we kept up our relationship. Even deepened it. She told me that she described our relationship to her friends as, "When they divorced, we took custody of Karen." I like that. My aunt is one of my favorite people on Earth. She is smart, straightforward, funny, kind, stylish, wise. Definitely someone you want to know; an excellent role model. Her best friend, I always imagined, must be like her. They'd been friends many years, I think from when they were pregnant or when their kids were young. It had been a long time....
Like my aunt, her best friend lived on the East Coast. Our visits never coincided but we always asked about each other. A couple months ago when I visited my aunt and uncle with my new "Prime Mate," whom they hadn't yet met, my aunt's friend called the first night to make sure he was a-okay. And I frequently asked my aunt about her friend. I recall when her husband passed away. I recall when she started dating. We traded lots of news...but we never met....I always meant to plan a trip so we could finally meet, but somehow I just never made it happen.
My aunt's friend took ill. Seriously, rapidly ill and the last couple of weeks brought steady decline. When I'd heard that her condition was bad, it hit me hard. I felt for her, for her three grown children. For my aunt, and my uncle, and their son. At first I thought their pain was the only reason I was sad. And then it dawned on me -- I felt that awful cloud which so often shadows our lives...the procrastination which hangs over us, until taking action is no long an option. Until it is too late to do the thing we had wanted to do.
Maybe this morning's email -- one phrase confirming a life is gone, confirming opportunities no longer viable -- will serve to remind me to do now what is meaningful....

Detroit...in Photos....

I want Detroit to be on my mind more than it is, truthfully. I'm too busy, I guess, taking care of the decay and failing systems in my own backyard (literally) to remember to check in on this symbol of the rest of the country....I don't need symbols 'cuz I got the real thing....

But something about the gray skies this morning reminds me to check out Detroit via online Time Magazine. I find a short photo essay by Sean Hemmerle, entitled "The Remains of Detroit." My brain begins to wake up as I click past greenish-gray lit photographs of Michigan Central Station. I insert myself into the photographer's shoes -- mine would be getting wet and dirty from rain and detritus abandoned on the floor of the once crowded station, as I lose myself in the glorious light slanting in where the windows and roof used to be.

What are our values, I can't help but wondering, that we abandon people and buildings and other lovely ideals in favor of money in the pockets of a few who made these decisions? The beautiful train station, designed by the same architects as New York's Grand Central Station, opened in 1913, has been devoid of passengers since 1988. A gorgeous theater, with no less magnificent a name than "The Michigan Theater," built in 1926, now has a few cars parked under its ornate ceilings. Acres and acres of manufacturing space now host a few ratty mattresses under broken windows. And too, there are the neighborhoods, with houses missing and untended yards, looking more like abandoned fields than city blocks. (....If I bought a house there, I could fill the yard with summer crops....)

Anyway, I guess I don't need to make any more value statements....The photographs speak well enough on their own....
http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1864272,00.html

Lemon blossoms and dog piss....

I am stretched out, eyes closed, on my chaise. My laundry floats and breathes on the line...in and out, up and down, gently swaying in the afternoon breeze. I give in and close my eyes....A thirty page to do list waits for me; no matter how hard I try to ditch it, that list waits patiently like the puppy my Standard Poodle is not anymore....

The other night I dreamed I needed to drive forward twenty feet, pull across a narrow lane into a parking lot. It was my van, dents and old, dusty raindrops and all. The engine started but when I tried to put it into a forward gear, it would only go into reverse. I tried and tried and then I gave in and raced out, driving backwards, onto a busy, four-lane road, which turned into a freeway, which turned into a one-way highway...further and further from my parking spot. I didn't know how to get back there.

This morning I wake with the commitment to make more time -- to steal the time if need be -- for my family, friends, photographs, and anything else which fills my soul instead of robbing it. So this morning, in between working, I also call my stepmother and my aunt, email a couple of friends, and even sort a few photographs....That's how I came to be reclining, in the hot October sun, in my yard.

I'm out there with my eyes closed, seeing nothing but orange behind my lids. I'm drifting in and out of my yard...and suddenly I'm aware of a sweet and lovely smell which is enveloping me, gently carrying me away....Oh, it's so good....I drift around with it for a bit....I realize, ah ha, it is the sweet smell of the sun hitting the lemon blossoms on my little Meyer lemon tree. My eyes stay closed and I am in my yard and I am also floating past my childhood, acres of orange groves and sweet citrus blooming into the night....It's so sweet and good....I don't move. I want it to last forever. And then, without warning, I smell the strong scent of dog urine. I can almost feel it in my nostrils, the acrid stench. It is unmistakable.

At first, I'm confused. My brain fights to regain the sweet citrus magic....Where is it? Did I imagine it? Can I bring it back? I almost laugh when the simple truth hits me: the wind has shifted and now, instead of smelling my delicate lemon blossoms, I'm smelling evidence of my dog's business, lifted by the sun, off the concrete....And I realize once again, it's all a matter of perspective....Just a simple matter of where you're standing and which way the wind is blowing....

Detroit Dreams

One of these days I'm going to forecast my trends instead of just spouting them to friends and relatives....Actually, I have some sort of dim memory that was supposed to be a major inspiration for this blog...but then, life got in the way....Well, never to late to hop on the train -- unless it's already left the station....

Quite a while back (months? a couple years?) I read an article in Harper's about Detroit. About how certain people were planting vegetables and other crops in the yards of abandoned houses and vacant lots within the city limits of Detroit. I loved that article. I showed it to those aforementioned family members and loved ones. Told them this I wanted to do too....I was fascinated....A beautiful notion: making things grow where otherwise there was only waste and blight....

More recently I read another article (Harper's? Time? New York Times?) about another "certain people" (the same people? do they know each other? working in concert?) who were buying houses cheap. Like for a coupla thousand dollars -- as in just over a couple hundred dollars -- and were fixing them up, green and nice, and selling them cheap to other like minded people. I think most of these people were artists and they were all moving close to each other. Forming a sort of urban, cold weather commune. And again, I showed the article to my loved ones. Threatened to buy a house there, as my own 'hood is completely unaffordable. Naturally no one thought I was serious. "Detroit?!" they asked. My kids knew I wouldn't leave good ol' Cali while they're still here...but still...it was mighty tempting. Even if I couldn't do it, it seemed like a great idea and I hoped others would jump on the bandwagon....

Then today I pick up the Oct. 5 Time magazine and find the cover article is all about Detroit. The editor's page is entitled "Assignment Detroit." Time has bought a house there -- and from the photo, a sweet looking home -- and the magazine will host various events throughout the year while they check on the health of Detroit. As they rightly surmise Detroit is a mirror of the nation...or as Mr. John Huey says, "we believe that Detroit right now is a great American story...."

I'm jazzed.
Let's keep a watch on poor, beleaguered Detroit. I'm rooting for it -- even if that means I won't be able to buy an affordable house there because the property values take a gigantic leap....
Look back to my blog and to time.com/detroit to see what's happening....My next fantasy is that Time magazine will invite me to their "D-Shack" for the benefit of my West Coast observations and ideas....It's always good to keep dreaming...so go to it Detroit!

Dad....Still Here....

Weeks have gone by, danced away, lazed away, drained away...gone, just the same, and I have not added anything to this blog of mine, which looks like it is becoming a yearly thing, certainly not daily....
I've thought about it....Opened the page. Left it sitting on my desktop. Had a vague idea of what I might say....But the page sat blank and unused.
This morning, it seems obvious, after I send an email to my brother and sisters. Everything looks clear. And it is okay....My mind has been preoccupied...and, actually, that's a lovely thing....

The email:
Dears,
I must admit, it is a lovely morning (especially because we had thick night fog, which is burning off, and keeping the heat wave reasonable). I sit here working on a transcript; it is boring but I am busy, engaged.
What I must admit, is that when my mind looks to what is there, in the back, in the front, in the parts I cover up with work, I am thinking of Dad....
It has been like this for me since Sunday -- well, probably actually for five weeks...well, probably actually, for the last several months!
I miss his presence on earth terribly.
I am not reconciled with the fact that he actually is gone.
I have had a few brief minutes here and there to reflect on what a tough year and a half it was....His initial throat problem (when I knew intuitively it was cancer and it was bad...), radiation, surgery, steady decline, though all the while, hoping that what the doctors assured was true....And all the while, Dad the same as always -- though, actually, changing in some subtle and some overt ways -- Dad, the same, not making it any easier to be close to him....
And anyway, the sun now is coming in the window where I work, and maybe it is Dad....Like he told me a few weeks before he died: he will be like Orion in the sky, I can't see him (without the aid of a very powerful telescope -- and, of course, he knew the exact magnification necessary), but he is there just the same....
So...I'm crying now but will try to dry my tears and return to work.
my love and good thoughts to you all,
KSJH

Endings....

Summer is, I guess, officially over...though the season doesn't expire for a few more weeks....Two of my children started high school yesterday -- my daughter, my baby, took that leap towards adulthood with a smile and her usual centered attitude. My middle child, who grew into an even taller, guitar playing, stringbean over the summer, is now a high school junior. My oldest returns to college next week...no longer a freshman....

The other day I came home to find my two boys reclining in the yard, books on their laps, oblivious to anything except the world created by the words their eyes were devouring...ah...such is summer reading....Ignoring dishes in the sink, phone calls to be returned, bills to be paid, I plopped down between them, no book, but I closed my eyes and my thoughts wandered....What had happened to summer? Where had it gone? Down what hole had the days drained? Summer started with a bang and a wake up call when I returned from an exhausting visit with my boyfriend's family to find that my house had been the locus for a frat party populated by fifteen and sixteen year olds. I arrived home from the airport -- tired and grumpy and glad to be home -- and couldn't cross the living room without my feet sticking to the old wood floor. Every step restricted by beer residue (and God knows what else). Two rooms had more than traces of three-day old, teenage, vomit....All in all, it wasn't a very relaxing way to ease into summer.

Two and a half months have somehow passed, thankfully with no more shocking parties. There haven't really been any lazy days either....The beginning of July brought my dad's 80th birthday, complete with a giant party and a reunion of out-of-town friends and relatives. My dad attended, though to me he seemed propped up solely for the festivities. By the end of the month, his doctor told him he had only two weeks to live. The cancer which everyone had assured him was gone, was certainly not gone and instead was ravaging his already weakened body....My mind played over all these events which had comprised my summer....

In the yard with my boys, as the sun warmed my cheeks and my closed eyelids, the only sound coming from the windchimes and my boys turning pages (because I've trained myself to tune out the afternoon traffic), my mind meandered over the summer days....A school ending party, children reading, children taking giant -- sometimes dangerous and inappropriate -- steps, my father leaving us forever, more family gatherings, hikes and swims at ten thousand feet, and then, school starting up again. I realized that immutable truth: life ebbs and flows, some things end, some things begin, but always, while we live, there is change. There is sadness and sweetness, a tangy mix for us to savor....

Summer....

Summer....I'm an adult...what is summer to me anyway? It's not like I get a summer vacation. Not like I look forward to a break from school work. Not like I'm going to camp....Except for the fact that my alarm can go off an hour later than usual, not much else seems different.

My kids are all home for the summer. My oldest, back after his first year at college. My middle, not working, like he did last summer. My youngest, anticipating high school. It's not like they need me around. I'm not arranging any play dates or dropping them at any nifty day camps. (Eight years ago I enrolled them all in Shakespeare camp. They were totally game. My daughter, several years under the minimum age, held her own. An impressed counselor, on summer break from the drama program at Yale, told her she should become a costume designer. Something about that camp really seemed like summer....Shakespeare performed by children in a WPA park, with its small outdoor theater....In my fantasies, it seems the quintessential summer experience....)

This summer I meant to help each of the kids get a job. Months ago, in vain attempt to plan ahead for success, I told them all, "You need to get a job this summer...." We did a little brainstorming -- but I guess that's all we did....A friend asked today about the kids and I told her the kids wanted to work this summer. She emailed back: "This summer" -- it IS this summer....Ooops, she's right: this summer is full upon us....I might have to give up on the idea that they'll earn money and/or be productive before school starts up again in the fall.

Trying to broaden the scope beyond mere, practical capitalism, I've also talked to each of them, individually, about accomplishing anything at all this summer. (I even gave an example, "Is there anything you want to do this summer? Not only working...but also...like if you wanted to set a goal to get outside for at least a half hour each day....") In my daughter-of-a-Marine kind of way, I didn't want the months to evaporate without some goal set and effectuated....

As for me, I thought that I'd work every minute before they get out of bed. And I have tried a bit of work here and there. But I am finding that my work is sandwiched in between making them breakfast -- peaches from the farmer's market are an irresistible centerpiece for them to eat and me to offer -- washing dishes, taking them on errands...and...well, talking to them....

Trying to stick to my plan, keep up my work ethic, I found myself leaving their smiling and relaxed company to steal upstairs, to stare determinedly into my computer screen, to escape the sound of their music, to be just out of reach of their voices....And then...it dawned on me: This IS summer.

It happened while I was in my room working. My sunny yard beckoned outside my window. I took a break just so that I could go outside. I found myself, (to escape the pull of my computer), cleaning up dog poop and spraying off the side yard (yes, using precious water in the process). Anything to stay outside, in the summer weather. And when I finished my task, I gave in to irresistible temptation and lowered my now heavy body onto the chaise lounge and closed my eyes for five minutes. My oldest son wandered out and we talked about his adjustment from college life to returning home for the summer. We examined the tomatoes growing in the barrel and tried to out-guess each other as to when they'll ripen. Later my sixteen year old asked if friends could stop by and he entertained two boys in his room, strumming on the guitar and playing Scrabble on the computer. When his friends departed, he actually asked for my suggestions for a five letter word, starting with the letter "i." At bedtime, my daughter asked, (thinking that I'd decline for certain), if I wanted to play cards. We played a couple of games of rummy, on a deck we'd gotten years ago on the ferry up to Victoria....When we grew sleepy, we planned to play more games tomorrow....

I think I get it now: This IS summer....This is the time my kids are here. Relaxed. Talkative. Not needing anything too desperately. Just existing in the warm sun and cool breezes of our summer....

So that's it....I have tried to teach my children something about goal setting and accomplishment and in very understated fashion, they have taught me something about relaxing and letting go. It took me three days to write this short piece. First there were the vague thoughts, coming slowly into focus. The realization that it is so difficult to get something done when gravity is pulling one onto the chaise lounge....Next came the interrupted attempts to turn on my computer and formulate words....And I think I'll have to omit the last step -- no time to read over what I've written, because my daughter asked me to wake her at 10:00 and I'm already thirty minutes behind schedule....

Enjoy your summer days.....

On Laughing...and Hot Dogs...and Life....

Sometimes it is good just to laugh....Well, actually, I think it is often good to give it up, stop all attempts at being serious, and just laugh....(Even though this can bring trouble as I do tend to laugh at things no one else finds funny and I'm sure there have been times that people have looked and wondered what in the heck is wrong with me...but those are stories for another day.)

This morning I am thinking about my aging, VERY aging, (if chronological measures are not used), parents and though I've been consciously awake for hours, I have not yet laughed. (Instead I have thought about imminent death and woke with the headache that I've had all night...but that too is a story for another time....) I open the Times online and seeing a startling photo of the tail piece from the downed French plane, all red, white, and blue on the open ocean, I do not feel like laughing.

A few articles in, I unexpectedly choose one from yesterday title "This Land -- Ambassador Hot Dog." This might seem a strange choice as I have disliked hot dogs my entire life. (When I was a teen and my parents left my also teenage sister in charge while they took a "tour of Europe," I was given the choice of eating a half a hot dog in exchange for a certain brownie...but that also is a story for another day....)

This morning I read the following and can't help but laugh out loud:

"Twenty years later, in 1959, a hot dog again figured in American foreign relations when Nikita Khrushchev, the unpredictable leader of the Soviet Union, toured the United States. At one point he stopped at a packing plant in Des Moines, where he ate his first hot dog — although at least one account says his first bite had to wait until security agents waved a Geiger counter over the dog. A mere cold war formality.

The hot dog, it seems, figures in American diplomacy only when absolutely needed. In 1999, for example, President Bill Clinton gathered at a table with Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel and the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat to eat hot dogs. Kosher, of course."

Yes, it is so nice to enjoy an unexpected laugh while reading the morning paper....

Of Power and Abuses....

After dropping my son at his carpool this morning, I heard on NPR about Jacqui Smith, British Home Secretary, who had previously stated she would not quit over reports that she had purchased porn for her husband with public funds. I'm not an Anglophile and I think that one's taste in porn -- including, whether, what, and with whom -- is a private matter. However, hearing this brief news piece got my attention. It is not just the porn purchase...in fact, I find other expenditures of public money on private matters equally as shocking....Dog food and toothbrushes? Moat cleaning?

Jacqui Smith, like (perhaps) John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer, and so many others suffer from some kind of affliction that shocks me. Whatever they do in their private lives is not my business. What I do find shocking is the use of public money for such follies. Have all these people lost their minds? Where is their sense of good judgment? Do "these people" (and by that I suppose I mean people in the public eye) come to believe that they are above the usual rules and mores which apply to the rest of us? That good sense and decent decisions do not have to be a part of their lives?

It would be easy to say that I'm just naive, that throughout the ages, across the political spectrum, there are examples of people who "do this." Newspapers and history books are replete with references to flagrant use of public money on private desires. That fact does not dim my ire. Hmm, what comes to mind is the aphorism I heard growing up: If so-and-so played on the freeway, would that make it right? The answer, of course, is that acceptance of stupid behavior doesn't make it the right course to follow.

And that, I suppose, is what bothers me about these stories: these people are stupid and arrogant...and they are the ones we choose to put in positions of power....

A quick lament on the fact that life gets so complicated we don't find the time to write a few words, to stick our noses in a good book, to dig our fingers into the warm earth, to tread our toes in the shallow waves as the water washes in and out just above the soft sand....

If anyone is taking the time to do that...I admire you and will strive to emulate your behavior....I am, I'm afraid, failing miserably at that...and instead stop only briefly to look out my office window at the occasional green hummingbird...and it's been much too long since I've stretched out in my yard, with a book or the watering hose....

Sadly...on Guns Again....

Guns and more guns. Last Wednesday I came in from a good run and opened my email. Still hot and sweaty and filled with endorphins. There in bold, unopened, was an email from Wesleyan entitled "Security Alert" and it was my first notice of the shooting of Johanna Justin-Jinich, though it didn't name her at first. Subsequent email notices followed. First the campus was shut down while they hunted for the killer. Then the doors were re-opened. Shortly after, another email warned that the police had recommended closing the campus again -- which isn't actually accurate since the campus, by deliberate design, is very open. The email said the kids were to stay inside their locked dorms.

I went to sleep with a bad headache and in a nervous state. It wasn't only the beautiful Ms. Justin-Jinich that concerned me....

First thing the next morning, another email warned that the killer's journal targeted Jews. Apparently he wanted to 'make Wesleyan the next Jewish Columbine.' Apparently the day before he had just walked into the campus bookstore, Czech-made gun in hand, and shot his victim dead. Execution style.

This weekend I read an issue of "The Economist." There was a short review of a book written about the Virginia Tech killings. The author, a teacher who had met with the killer a couple years before and who had great concerns over his mental health, posited that in the end, there may be nothing we can do. This violence is not actually predictable.

Yesterday I read the first reports about the soldier in Iraq who shot and killed five of his comrades. The article noted that this type of thing has happened before.

I have to wonder: do we have to accept so much violence? Would it make a difference if we worked to slow the rising tide of aggression and violent mental health? What if guns were not so available and accepted?

I don't know the answers...but I have to wonder....