In the spring of 2008, I had several experiences with hummingbirds.
Back in the eighties, married, pregnant, then a mother, domiciled in suburban red state America, my next door neighbors had several hummingbird feeders. The whole neighborhood talked about the hummingbirds and how those particular neighbors were like hummingbird whispereres. You are so lucky, my neighborhood told me, you will see hummingbirds all the time living next to those eople. They have magic ability to attract hummingbirds.
I only lived in that house a few years but I gardened a lot, sent a lot of time in the yard, a few feet from the hummingbird feeders. I never saw one. I thought hummingbirds were unreal maybe, a myth and they are very rare and if the folks next door really had hummingbird magic, then they got one sighting every few years and it was such a rarity that everyone turned it into a bullshit myth.
Then, in the spring 2008, three times hummingbirds came to me and, I swear, sent me messages. I don't know the messages but they were, I am sure, telling me something.
The first time, there were three. As I walked up to the gate of my pool, arriving a few minutes before it would open, seeing a couple regular guys from the pool standing by to witness what hapened, three humingbirds swooped over to me and all three of them flew close to me, doing thier hummingbird sizzling sarkling humming sparking thing.
If you have never seen a hummingbird up close doing its amazing think, know that it is amazing. It seems sacred and magical.
Three. Jack, a gruff conservative red neck who often bored all us blue neck liberals with his bombast cause he knew it grated on us but he counted on our manners. .. he would say racist things and then pause, make sure he had shocked us, and with timing that suggested he had practiced his act, he would mince a bit (and he is bit and fat and the mincing prance was very funny) he would say, 'there I said it, you know you were thinking it" but we weren't. None of us were sitting there thinking the racist things he said. Typically he made cracks about East Palo Alto, which is where the nearest enclave to our pool was of poor blacks. Mountain View, where I lived and swam in 2008, had plenty of ethnic poor but they are mostly Hispanic. And sure there are blacks of all economic brackets all over Silicon valley. But it seems like there are more poor blacks in East Palo Alto. EPA is a pocket of our racist culture. The rich folks of Silicon Valley and respected Stanford do a good job of keeping poor blacks out of Palo Alto.
Jack was often a jerk, often spouting very ugly Repugnant thinking. I have not directly interacted with many people who think like he does. Well, there is my brother chuck the fuck. He talks ike that. Chuck the fuck used to be a judge, even1 But I have not talked to him since our father's funeral in 1988. C-the-F worshipped Rush Limbaugh.
As a public employee (well, now retired) I wonder how Chuck's conservative politics is working out these days as Ohio tries to eliminate benefits for public employees? I wonder if he still worships all things Repuglican?
whatever.
I'm sick of me. I wish I were traveling. I long for exotic travel, like a trip down the Nile on a barge or building a library in the Niger Delta of Nigeria or building a house in Burundi. But today I wish I were in a European city, with lots of spending money, staying in the kind of hotel I have never really stayed in unless my rich mom was paying. Paris would work. Barcelona would work. Portugal. What the heck, a european tour this summer with lots of money, expensive hotels and good company.
Or Eat Pray Love, a swing to Europe, then India then Bali.
give me two weeks on the beach in Goa India would work. It would seem exotic but it's actually major tourist spot.
Or China. When my sister lived in Korea, she and her family took a tour trip to China. Meals included with the trip price. They toured some remote areas of china on a bus, ate at remote places. China's economy is on the rise but, like everywhere including America, there is poverty and shysters taking money from tourists on travel packages. One evening, in a dumpy hostel with the only available meal the hostel dinner that came with the tour package, dinner was three kinds of rice. That was it. Nothing else. Three kinds of rice. the host, the paid food purveyor was so poor and all he had on hand was three kinds of rice. But that made the tour a real tour of the real China, the tour guide said. In China, a little bit of rice if often all there is for dinner. Nobody had, um, signed up for a slice of real poverty living in rural china. This three-rice dinner feast was presented in a place where there was no choice, no where else to go. My sis said they couldn't go out and just spend more money and buy a restaurant meal. That three kinds of rice dinner was the only option.
I guess it was a memorable meal. Not the rice. The memorable part was that it happened, that the tour guide kept a straight, serious composure as he describe the evening's repast, lovingly describing the feast they were about to experience, lovingly describing each kind of rice and telling the suckers, er, the tourists, what to savor to fully appreciate this special meal. It was like he was coaching at a wine tasting. Sis and her French artist deadbeat husband who freeloads off her still (you have to be pretty desparate if you freeload off a single mom school teacher, am I right? it's not like my sis, who earned fourteen grand a year in Korea -- but you can live well in Korea, she was assured, when she took the gig and my jerk brother in law . .
this post sucks. Once my brother in law hit me. I had a bruise later. I was standing outside their house, waiting for a cab, my suitcase on the public sidewalk in front of their house but on public property. Being a foreigner, an immigrant, I guess he thought he owned the sidewalk. He told me to get my suitcase off his property while I waited for the cab. I told him to fuck himself, that it was public property and, I swear, he lifted my large suitcase and threw it into the street. He didn't hurt anything. He was just being an asshole. And, yes, I had said some ugly things to him but I had never imagined he would hit me. When I tried to stop him from throwing my suitcase, which was deifnitely not his property and I cried and talked about how he couldn't throw me off the public sidewalk, he hit me. Just one pop on my left arm. But it was an assault.
If he hits his sister in law that he has only seen twice in public in front of the neighbors, geez, the asshole must hit people in private. That's how cowards and bullies tend to work, right?
My ex hit me, was physically abusive with some regularity and I did live in a battered women's shelter when I left him, but he controlled himself enough to hit in private.
If a man who beats on women does it in the street, either the French have standards about public violence much different than ours in America or Fred is a way out of control abuser. Since he is adoptive father to my niece and bio dad to my nephew and freeloader to my sister, I would like to believe he has his drinking under control. I bet not.
Once when he was blind drunk, he hit on my gay brother in my sister's basement with sis upstairs waiting for her husband to come to bed.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
let the more loving one be me
it sounds so great, to aspire to be the more loving one. It is such hard work.
poem by W.H. Auden, whose work I deeply appreciate.
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.
Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total darkness sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.
poem by W.H. Auden, whose work I deeply appreciate.
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.
Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total darkness sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Thursday, April 14, 2011
something new to love
I moved into my building about two years ago. It was brand new!! All the dirt came from me me me and my world.
I love every inch of my sunny, top-floor home. I didn't get to choose the apartment but the universe made sure I got the best one. Best for me. Across from my front door, I can see San Francisco and the Golden Gate and Alcatraz and Marin and Mount Tamalpais. And the bay. I live here. This Midwesterner from the South Side of Chicago can see Alcatraz out her front door. Me?! and outside the windows inside the apartment I see some Berkeley hills, the horizon, the sky, the building next door and my building.
My building has 97 apartments on five floors, with a first floor of retail, and parking below all. So I am perched in the sky. Outside my windows, I see the rounded tower-end of my building, I see glimpses of the rooftop, the photovoltaics, the gardens, the climbing wall on the roof for very little children.
And I see the windows, the lines, the fence on the roof, the gate-y thing on the perimeter of the roof which seems to be part design, part safety. The windows have a faint tint that changes as the sun moves. The building's walls are buff, a neutral, maybe tan. Sometimes the windows are only reflected sunshine, sometimes I see the white blinds inside or people moving but mostly all my neighbors, and this amazes me, keep the blinds closed. I have never closed my blinds except when I have overnight guests who don't like the sun in their eyes in the morning or worry needlessly about privacy. There is no one up here, the building is well designed so people don't easily see into neighbors homes plus all the neighbors close their blinds. I won't give up a single moment of sunshine or shadow or sky but I do close the blinds when guests ask. Not many guests, few such requests.
I decided, as soon as I moved in, that I would begin each day pausing to love a detail in my view. I am not limited to one detail. Often I love many. The tower across the courtyard (my place does not overlook the street, but the interior courtyard and if I weren't on the top, I would not see sky as I lay in bed, sigh I am blessed, aren't I?) . . the tower is a sundial. Each morning, I look at the tower, note where the shadow is, which tells me where the sun is, which tells me the time. I love the clean lines everywhere. There are lines along the building's surfaced lined up with the window frames, up and down. Not very noticeable. I bet most folks don't see them but I am loving this view forever. I love the lines of the windows, and, of course, there are several shapes of windows. Mine are the best but they are all lovely. I never imagined I would fall in love with lines. Sometimes I 'see' these lines as they extent into perpetuity, as sacred geometry. Lines do extend, always, into infinity. It behooves us to note it now and then. We are a bunch of points on a gagillion lines.
Lots of lines.
Oh, the buildilng next door has cooler lines. Their photovotaics are not just on their rooftop: the architect of that building incorporated the photovoltaics so they look like an awning: an awning of photovoltaics. The photovoltaics have many lines. I study them. I want to, over time, to have seen every one, loved each one. Plus lines in all the windows and nowadays in buildings, architects put line-y things as decoration. You don't see gargoyles anymore. You see metal lines evoking faint memories of building art that has, in a very minimalist way, become decoration.
But last week, after over two years of loving the lines -- I am not mentioning all of the lines. There are lines on the courtyard cement, of course, and on the furniture downthere. Blinds are lines. -- but last week, I saw the shadow of the five-line railing that is on the edge of the roof above me. I can't see this rialing from my place but late in the afternoon, before the sun goes below the other side of the building, these lines are cast in shadow on my tower.
They were always here. I only began to love them last week. I felt startled, surprised, in the discovery. Oh, so there they are. I knew they were there but never saw them until now. Well, until then. Then. It is dark in this present now: I only see my bedroom reflected in my windows. I don't see outside now. But I did then.
I know this is a dull essay but the moment when I began to love these newly discovered shadows -- are the real lines if they are only shadow? Of course they are real and of course they do not exist.
These are the best lines yet.
I love them.
I have to actually go up on the roof, look more closely. I don't understand why there are five lines. I think there is a repetition in the shadows, I think the actual railing only has three lines.
These are beautiful lines. They curve around the tower, fading as the tower turns.
I am in love.
I love every inch of my sunny, top-floor home. I didn't get to choose the apartment but the universe made sure I got the best one. Best for me. Across from my front door, I can see San Francisco and the Golden Gate and Alcatraz and Marin and Mount Tamalpais. And the bay. I live here. This Midwesterner from the South Side of Chicago can see Alcatraz out her front door. Me?! and outside the windows inside the apartment I see some Berkeley hills, the horizon, the sky, the building next door and my building.
My building has 97 apartments on five floors, with a first floor of retail, and parking below all. So I am perched in the sky. Outside my windows, I see the rounded tower-end of my building, I see glimpses of the rooftop, the photovoltaics, the gardens, the climbing wall on the roof for very little children.
And I see the windows, the lines, the fence on the roof, the gate-y thing on the perimeter of the roof which seems to be part design, part safety. The windows have a faint tint that changes as the sun moves. The building's walls are buff, a neutral, maybe tan. Sometimes the windows are only reflected sunshine, sometimes I see the white blinds inside or people moving but mostly all my neighbors, and this amazes me, keep the blinds closed. I have never closed my blinds except when I have overnight guests who don't like the sun in their eyes in the morning or worry needlessly about privacy. There is no one up here, the building is well designed so people don't easily see into neighbors homes plus all the neighbors close their blinds. I won't give up a single moment of sunshine or shadow or sky but I do close the blinds when guests ask. Not many guests, few such requests.
I decided, as soon as I moved in, that I would begin each day pausing to love a detail in my view. I am not limited to one detail. Often I love many. The tower across the courtyard (my place does not overlook the street, but the interior courtyard and if I weren't on the top, I would not see sky as I lay in bed, sigh I am blessed, aren't I?) . . the tower is a sundial. Each morning, I look at the tower, note where the shadow is, which tells me where the sun is, which tells me the time. I love the clean lines everywhere. There are lines along the building's surfaced lined up with the window frames, up and down. Not very noticeable. I bet most folks don't see them but I am loving this view forever. I love the lines of the windows, and, of course, there are several shapes of windows. Mine are the best but they are all lovely. I never imagined I would fall in love with lines. Sometimes I 'see' these lines as they extent into perpetuity, as sacred geometry. Lines do extend, always, into infinity. It behooves us to note it now and then. We are a bunch of points on a gagillion lines.
Lots of lines.
Oh, the buildilng next door has cooler lines. Their photovotaics are not just on their rooftop: the architect of that building incorporated the photovoltaics so they look like an awning: an awning of photovoltaics. The photovoltaics have many lines. I study them. I want to, over time, to have seen every one, loved each one. Plus lines in all the windows and nowadays in buildings, architects put line-y things as decoration. You don't see gargoyles anymore. You see metal lines evoking faint memories of building art that has, in a very minimalist way, become decoration.
But last week, after over two years of loving the lines -- I am not mentioning all of the lines. There are lines on the courtyard cement, of course, and on the furniture downthere. Blinds are lines. -- but last week, I saw the shadow of the five-line railing that is on the edge of the roof above me. I can't see this rialing from my place but late in the afternoon, before the sun goes below the other side of the building, these lines are cast in shadow on my tower.
They were always here. I only began to love them last week. I felt startled, surprised, in the discovery. Oh, so there they are. I knew they were there but never saw them until now. Well, until then. Then. It is dark in this present now: I only see my bedroom reflected in my windows. I don't see outside now. But I did then.
I know this is a dull essay but the moment when I began to love these newly discovered shadows -- are the real lines if they are only shadow? Of course they are real and of course they do not exist.
These are the best lines yet.
I love them.
I have to actually go up on the roof, look more closely. I don't understand why there are five lines. I think there is a repetition in the shadows, I think the actual railing only has three lines.
These are beautiful lines. They curve around the tower, fading as the tower turns.
I am in love.
making bacon for my ex
I am never going to use my ex-husband's name on my blog cause he's a prick lawyer and although I doubt that he would spend money to sue me, he might threaten to do so and frighten me. So I am going to give him a fake name. I will call him Dick, short for dickhead. How's that?
Dick, like many humans, male and female, loves fried, crisp bacon. Not the kind that is sold precooked, zapped to flatness by machine and then just reheated in some restaurants. He likes the kind that is fried in bacon grease, moved and tended so it comes out flat and perfectly, evenly cooked, end to end, with little bulges of where the fat stayed a little fatty and crispy spots where the meaty part fried up.
As any real cook knows, it is easy to cook this perfect bacon. I acknowledge that there might be more than one definition of perfectly fried bacon. For purposes of this essay, let's go with this one, narrow description: evenly cooked strips of bacon, fried in its own fat, turned over and over, tended while frying so it cooks evently. And then when you drain the slices on paper towels, they ended up straight with little bulges of fatty part that are delicious. The whole slice is perfection.
But Dick's mom had taught him how to cook and she was a lousy cook. She just threw a bunch of bacon in a pan and did other stuff while it fried and carelessly tended it and bacon came out overcooked, undercooked, sometimes burned. Once in awhile, with her approach, you got perfect bacon but too often you got a little burned, a little raw, and a lot of imperfection.
I was taught how to cook bacon and everything else by my dad. Cooking was one of the ways my dad showed his kids he loved them. He loved us through perfect bacon, among many other things.
You cook perfect bacon by putting it in a heavy skillet, starting slow, and as the bacon grease slips off the bacon into the pan and that grease begins to cook the bacon, you tend the bacon, moving it around so it keeps cooking evenly and flatly and perfect. It is very simple and yet not: you have to pay attention. It is very simple if you pay attention and move the bacon as needed. Lots of things in life work this way: if you tend it, it goes better.
I struggled with this bacon thing. A newly graduated lawyer in the early days of my brief marriage to Dick, I wanted to be feminist in all things. I wanted my new husband to share home duties so I didn't get stuck doing all the house stuff and him just watching ball games while I worked in the evenings and weekends. Guess how that turned out?
Once in a great while, like Mother's Day or my birthday, he would start breakfast and then burn the bacon.
Was he being intentionally manipulative? Maybe. But I don't think so. I think he was a garden variety entitled male who had grown up in a world where women cooked, men partook and that was how it was supposed to be. I don't think he intentionally fucked up bacon. I think he just didn't get it: that paying attention matters. Which is almost funny when you consider that he was the general counsel of a gigantic agribusiness that did billions in sales each year. His work life was all about paying attention to detail. You don't handle the closing documents on the sale of endless ranchland, involving millions and millions of dollars without tending to the details. But the guy could not focus long enough to fry one decent piece of bacon.
I also liked good bacon so I surrenderd on the bacon thing. I cooked all the bacon.
Most men, if not all, are like Dick. They don't pay attention to the same things that women do. If they did, there would be no war.
I have a male 'friend' (he ended our friendship a few months ago but just this week, he just happened to run into me at a public event, imagine that, and asked me to join him to talk over coffee, which I did and he told me that ending our friendship had been a stroke of genius on his part and that since he broke my heart by ending our friendship, he had finally gotten from me what he had wanted all along? What did he get? I have hidden my pain from him. I have affirmed my very sincere good wishes for his happiness and success. That's what he wanted? Stilted courtesy hiding my pain? That's what he wanted all along: a veneer of friendship with no messy feelings? I wonder if he can fry bacon. I doubt it. He doesn't pay attention to the details. I bet he plops several slices of bacon in the pan, then he starts the coffee, burns toast, overcooks the eggs and wonder why the bacon is burnt in spots and undercooked in others. Like our "friendship".
Dick, like many humans, male and female, loves fried, crisp bacon. Not the kind that is sold precooked, zapped to flatness by machine and then just reheated in some restaurants. He likes the kind that is fried in bacon grease, moved and tended so it comes out flat and perfectly, evenly cooked, end to end, with little bulges of where the fat stayed a little fatty and crispy spots where the meaty part fried up.
As any real cook knows, it is easy to cook this perfect bacon. I acknowledge that there might be more than one definition of perfectly fried bacon. For purposes of this essay, let's go with this one, narrow description: evenly cooked strips of bacon, fried in its own fat, turned over and over, tended while frying so it cooks evently. And then when you drain the slices on paper towels, they ended up straight with little bulges of fatty part that are delicious. The whole slice is perfection.
But Dick's mom had taught him how to cook and she was a lousy cook. She just threw a bunch of bacon in a pan and did other stuff while it fried and carelessly tended it and bacon came out overcooked, undercooked, sometimes burned. Once in awhile, with her approach, you got perfect bacon but too often you got a little burned, a little raw, and a lot of imperfection.
I was taught how to cook bacon and everything else by my dad. Cooking was one of the ways my dad showed his kids he loved them. He loved us through perfect bacon, among many other things.
You cook perfect bacon by putting it in a heavy skillet, starting slow, and as the bacon grease slips off the bacon into the pan and that grease begins to cook the bacon, you tend the bacon, moving it around so it keeps cooking evenly and flatly and perfect. It is very simple and yet not: you have to pay attention. It is very simple if you pay attention and move the bacon as needed. Lots of things in life work this way: if you tend it, it goes better.
I struggled with this bacon thing. A newly graduated lawyer in the early days of my brief marriage to Dick, I wanted to be feminist in all things. I wanted my new husband to share home duties so I didn't get stuck doing all the house stuff and him just watching ball games while I worked in the evenings and weekends. Guess how that turned out?
Once in a great while, like Mother's Day or my birthday, he would start breakfast and then burn the bacon.
Was he being intentionally manipulative? Maybe. But I don't think so. I think he was a garden variety entitled male who had grown up in a world where women cooked, men partook and that was how it was supposed to be. I don't think he intentionally fucked up bacon. I think he just didn't get it: that paying attention matters. Which is almost funny when you consider that he was the general counsel of a gigantic agribusiness that did billions in sales each year. His work life was all about paying attention to detail. You don't handle the closing documents on the sale of endless ranchland, involving millions and millions of dollars without tending to the details. But the guy could not focus long enough to fry one decent piece of bacon.
I also liked good bacon so I surrenderd on the bacon thing. I cooked all the bacon.
Most men, if not all, are like Dick. They don't pay attention to the same things that women do. If they did, there would be no war.
I have a male 'friend' (he ended our friendship a few months ago but just this week, he just happened to run into me at a public event, imagine that, and asked me to join him to talk over coffee, which I did and he told me that ending our friendship had been a stroke of genius on his part and that since he broke my heart by ending our friendship, he had finally gotten from me what he had wanted all along? What did he get? I have hidden my pain from him. I have affirmed my very sincere good wishes for his happiness and success. That's what he wanted? Stilted courtesy hiding my pain? That's what he wanted all along: a veneer of friendship with no messy feelings? I wonder if he can fry bacon. I doubt it. He doesn't pay attention to the details. I bet he plops several slices of bacon in the pan, then he starts the coffee, burns toast, overcooks the eggs and wonder why the bacon is burnt in spots and undercooked in others. Like our "friendship".
Saturday, April 09, 2011
shoots & ladder, portals in the closet, through the lookingglass
I am straddling a wrinkle in time. Maybe it's a wrinkle of energy instead of time but time is probably energy. A crinkle in perception?
I have been thinking, a lot, and especially lately, about myth, fairy tale, science fiction, spirituality, physics, science and love. Love captures all the things I just listed and more, I guess. What I keep reflecting on is how I dissociate from the powers we see in myths and fairy tales. I tend to tell myself that the characters in fairy tales see some of their life problems solved by magic but, in 'reality' (whatever the fuck that is) I think magic is real and always present. And what about the iChing? I have not studied it but once, in a weekend qigong class, the qigong master talked about the iChing. My friend Peggy gave me a new translation of the iChing as a birthday gift a few years ago. So, emphasizing that I know nothing about it, I think the iChing tells us that everything we 'see' is a symbol, a communication form the universe, goddess, love, guiding us to make the right choices in each moment. The more we lived integrated, grounded lives, the better able we discern this guidance and act within it. If we see a hummingbird, it is just a clearly a message to us as a telegram contains a message. But life is so tricky. Even when you spot the message, it is easy to get it wrong. And then there is the imperfect implementation that comes with the territory of being human.
How the frak do you know what is right? And all the time?
I see why millions prefer to imbue religion or politicians or kings with the power to know on our behalf. Self responsibility can take its toll. It is tempting to surrender, to find a church you can stand and just follow that church's rules. Or, in some cultures, you land into a religion and you have no choice.
How to know anything?
Something happened to me. I fell down a rabbit hole, stepped through a lookingglass. I am not seeing the world or my experience being human in the lifetime of Tree Fitzpatrick the same as I did before. Everything is different. I feel ummoored. I feel like I was in a space ship and I put on a suit to go outside the ship and explore but when I got outside, I became disconnected from my ship and it was not possible to reattached.
I have come undone. I am in a lot of pain. And I know where the portal is to return to right. I have been denied entry.
WTF?
I have been thinking, a lot, and especially lately, about myth, fairy tale, science fiction, spirituality, physics, science and love. Love captures all the things I just listed and more, I guess. What I keep reflecting on is how I dissociate from the powers we see in myths and fairy tales. I tend to tell myself that the characters in fairy tales see some of their life problems solved by magic but, in 'reality' (whatever the fuck that is) I think magic is real and always present. And what about the iChing? I have not studied it but once, in a weekend qigong class, the qigong master talked about the iChing. My friend Peggy gave me a new translation of the iChing as a birthday gift a few years ago. So, emphasizing that I know nothing about it, I think the iChing tells us that everything we 'see' is a symbol, a communication form the universe, goddess, love, guiding us to make the right choices in each moment. The more we lived integrated, grounded lives, the better able we discern this guidance and act within it. If we see a hummingbird, it is just a clearly a message to us as a telegram contains a message. But life is so tricky. Even when you spot the message, it is easy to get it wrong. And then there is the imperfect implementation that comes with the territory of being human.
How the frak do you know what is right? And all the time?
I see why millions prefer to imbue religion or politicians or kings with the power to know on our behalf. Self responsibility can take its toll. It is tempting to surrender, to find a church you can stand and just follow that church's rules. Or, in some cultures, you land into a religion and you have no choice.
How to know anything?
Something happened to me. I fell down a rabbit hole, stepped through a lookingglass. I am not seeing the world or my experience being human in the lifetime of Tree Fitzpatrick the same as I did before. Everything is different. I feel ummoored. I feel like I was in a space ship and I put on a suit to go outside the ship and explore but when I got outside, I became disconnected from my ship and it was not possible to reattached.
I have come undone. I am in a lot of pain. And I know where the portal is to return to right. I have been denied entry.
WTF?
shoes for a dance
For my daughter's first high school fancy-go-with-a-date dance, she went to homecoming. She was a freshman. He was a sophomore. I had bought a custom couture off-white (winter white) sleeveless shift at a garage sale next door. It was a very classy, Princess-Grace dress that was fancy even though it was simple clean lines. And it fit her like it had been made for her, emphasizing her emerging hips and bosom. She looked smoking hot. And I had only paid one dollar for the dress and none of the kids at her prep school ever knew it was not a hot, expensive dress.
The dress, as I wrote, was couture. It had the designer's label sewn on. I forget the designer's name but it was a name designer. I want to say it was John Galliano; it was most definitely 'couture'. Someone had gone to a very high end designer and ordered a customized dress for herself. It was gorgeous, inside and outside. All the seams had been covered in stretchy lace,as if to make the inside of the dress just as perfect appearing as the inside. The fabric was a bit puffy, with little 'bubbles' of lacey-like fabric. It was a lacey texture that appeared delicate but it was a sturdy, thick fabric. This was a solid, winter-white, post-Labor Day cocktail dress for fall or winter. There was one tiny spot where a few shreds in one of the little bubbles had come unwoven but not noticeable. I am still amazed she agreed to wear it because it was imperfect.Since she was not with me when I bought it, I did not know it would fit her as if it had been made for her. Rosie resisted touching used things. She hated to use library books, for example, because she did not know who had touched them. Yeah, she's got OCD issues.
I had the also good idea to buy, if we could find them, over-the-sleeve, off-white gloves. It was hard to find those gloves. We scored them at one of those cheap accessory stores. The fabric gave her a rash but she wore them anyway. It looked so Audrey Hepburn at Tiffany's. For cheap gloves, they still cost something but the dress bargain emboldened me to spend.
And then there was the matter of shoes. In October in Minnesota, you don't find a lot of shoes that match a winter- white fancy-dress. We went shopping for shoes for that dance, without exaggerating, at least eight times. And when my kid went shoe shopping, I discovered, one trip could take up an entire day and involve trying on a dozen pairs of heels. She could spend an hour with one pair even when it was instantly obvious to me and the sales person that the shoe wouldn't work. I remember feeling a lot of frustration over how long she took shopping for the perfect shoe. I had the impression she thought if we looked long enough, we'd find a pair of shoes that were also winter white. I had the good idea of asking shoe clerks if they thought we could find winter white shoes. After many shoe clerks told us "No way", Rosie e opened up to other possibilities.
Very shiny silver shoes would not have fit the look. We did find a nearly perfect pair so if looking perfect matters, all those hours shopping paid off. Sometimes I think of those shoes and the endless shopping to find them and I think that for that reason alone, Rosie should never have left me. I don't think many moms I have ever known would have been so doggedly patient or shopped so long for just a pair of shoes for a not very important dance. Love drove me.
She bought a pair of shoes the salesperson called 'pewter' but they weren't pewter. They were not gray, not gold, not silver but they had a shimmer, a muted shimmery tone. They were muted enough that you didn't really notice them, which, we decided, was as close as we were going to find to go with that dress. Note that the dress had probably been made in the fifties when pointed off-white heels would have been routinely sold after Labor Day each year and it would have been easy to find a perfect match. Altho the shoes were called pewter, I thought they were almost no color with some shimmer, a hint of glitz. Perfect for a h.s. dance. I remember that those shoes cost $60. A $1 garage sale dress, sixty dollar shoes which, in 1996, was a lot more money then than now, right?
I guess her OCD came out on that shoe expedition. For awhile, I felt like I had entered a rabbity hell-hole of endless shoe shopping in the Mall of America. If we couldn't find the right pair at the Mall of America, with Nordstrom's, Bloomingdale's, Dayton's (now Macy's but then, still Dayton's), plus the endless shoe stores in the endless mall, we would not find any. We covered shoes stores in the Uptown area, also downtown. Shoes.
I never questioned investing all that time on a quest for something that held virtually no personal value for me I recall a few moments of inner despair that I hid from her. In those moments, I felt like we were never going to find a pair of shoes she would accept. Rosie mattered to me. Dresses and shoes have never mattered to me. As a teen, I imitated my friends' interest in clothes but not since then. As a mother, however, I combed through every sale rack looking for bargains to please my fashion conscious child.
She went with a shimmering, metallic pair that weren't really any color. A neutral shimmer with a glitzy buckle on the closed toe. The shoes cost sixty bucks in 1996, which sounds cheap now but it was a lot to pay for shoes she was going to wear once. By the time she settled on this pair -- and we visited that pair several times before the decision was made -- she had tried them at least five times.
And we talked about this purchase ad nauseum during these weeks of shoe shop hell. It started out as fun mom-daughter shopping but by the end, it was hell. For me. I think she loved all that shopping. Looking back, I feel sorry that I treated myself as I did. And her. I should have set more limits. I should have told her that if she wanted to shop endlessly for shoes, she could but she would have to do it alone, or with girlfriends. The shoe search became nauseating for me and yet I did not let on, not wishing to make the shoe search even more stressful.
An easy part of the shop was buying a cheap pair of long, above the elbows, off-white satin-like gloves. The gloves were my idea and it really set off the whole look. At later dances, some of her girlfriends wore gloves in imitation, as teens imitate one another. But when other girls added gloves, they didn't pull it off. Long, above-the-elbow gloves at a spring dance with a floor-length ballgown just doesn't look the same as a light mini dress with very lightweight, satin-appearing over-the-elblow gloves. Plus the other girls did not have Rosie's elegant, Princess Grace lightness. The gloves were super cheap, at one of those super cheap accessory shops. The gloves gave her hives on her arms but she kept them on, the look irresistible even to her itching self. As soon as she said good bye to her date and stepped into our home, she pulled them off. Her arms where the gloves had been were covered in allergy hives. She said it was worth the itching. That everyone at the dance had noticed her and her date had said he was with the hottest girl in the school. She liked me then. She didn't even know formal gloves existed until I suggested them. As I grew up, it was common for girls to wear white gloves for going to church and especially for fancy events, like weddings. When I suggested gloves to Rosie, she had never heard of dress gloves as a fancy-dress accessory.
When I first met her dad, he was newly graduated from law school, with a lawyer job. He bought several business suits and we went shopping together. Men's suit pants are custom hemmed for each men. You can choose (at least back then) a plain hem or a cuff. If you go with a cuff, you choose the height of the cuff. One and three quarter inch cuff? Two inch cuff? And where did you want the slacks to break, at the knee, just below the knee and how did the cuff fall on his shoes. I was just dating the guy but being a good girlfriend, I helped him shop. Shopping with him was nearly identical to shopping with Rosie. He would takes ages to choose a suit, then ages to agonize over the length of the pants, the break at the knee, the height of the cuff or even whether there should be a cuff. And shirts to match. Ties to match. What is wrong with me that I went along on what were, for me, such stresfully boring outings, spending my weekends shopping obsessively for perfection when I never really cared much about clothes. I am an idiot. I did all that endless shopping because I loved them. I am a chump.
He would call me about the cuffs. For his first suit, and I don't think I am exaggerating, I think he called me fifty times about 'to-cuff-or-not-to-cuff' and 'one and three quarter inch versus two inches'. He would call at 12:04 a.m. and ask 'cuff or not cuff, tell me what you really think'. At first, I could debate the pros and cons of the choices he presented. He would call at 12:22 a.m., then at 12:25, then at 12:42 and 12:51. Et ce tera. Etcetera. Etcetera.
After awhile, I would beg him to stop asking me. And eventually I had to unplug the phone if I wanted to end the calls for the day. And then they started up. We actually had a joint session with his therapist about the cuff calls. The therapist said it was okay for me to refuse to take a dozen calls a day about the same damned pair of cuffs. The therapist suggested I say "It is only one pair of pants, one set of cuffs, the height doesn't matter. One and three quarter inch or two inch. It doesn't matter. I'm hanging up now."And I did say those things and the cuff calls stopped. But there were other situations just like that. Endlessly.
And I married him.
I don't remember if he respected the agreement.
But when our daughter obsessed about finding the perfect pair of shoes for that dance, and I went along with her crazy obsessive shoe search, I felt very much as I had felt with the cuff debate. And I always assumed her OCD stuff came from him.
I went along with the behavior. Does that mean I was also OCD, just OCD about different things?
What should I have done? People tell you not to indulge the obsessions of your obsessive child but for the child, it is a very painful, real struggle. It wasn't really her 'fault' that she got snagged by the shoe shop. Was I supposed to amp up the stress by arbitrarily refusing to shop or just buying any old pair of shoes?
I probably made all wrong choices. But I spent a whole lot of my real life shopping for those shoes. And she still abandoned me once she got into the Ivy League. She waived around that campus and said "Now that I am here, I don't want anything to do with you" and I have not seen her since.
One time, I sat in one dressing room at a downtown Minneapolis Dayton's dressing room in the junior jeans section for 6 hours. It was a Sunday. We got there when the store opened at noon. We were there until the store closed at six p.m. She tried on many dozens of pairs of jeans. And I went on other crazy jean shops. Buying jeans brought out lots of stress.
I think she should still love me, for the shoes and the jean shopping and all the love I poured.
The dress, as I wrote, was couture. It had the designer's label sewn on. I forget the designer's name but it was a name designer. I want to say it was John Galliano; it was most definitely 'couture'. Someone had gone to a very high end designer and ordered a customized dress for herself. It was gorgeous, inside and outside. All the seams had been covered in stretchy lace,as if to make the inside of the dress just as perfect appearing as the inside. The fabric was a bit puffy, with little 'bubbles' of lacey-like fabric. It was a lacey texture that appeared delicate but it was a sturdy, thick fabric. This was a solid, winter-white, post-Labor Day cocktail dress for fall or winter. There was one tiny spot where a few shreds in one of the little bubbles had come unwoven but not noticeable. I am still amazed she agreed to wear it because it was imperfect.Since she was not with me when I bought it, I did not know it would fit her as if it had been made for her. Rosie resisted touching used things. She hated to use library books, for example, because she did not know who had touched them. Yeah, she's got OCD issues.
I had the also good idea to buy, if we could find them, over-the-sleeve, off-white gloves. It was hard to find those gloves. We scored them at one of those cheap accessory stores. The fabric gave her a rash but she wore them anyway. It looked so Audrey Hepburn at Tiffany's. For cheap gloves, they still cost something but the dress bargain emboldened me to spend.
And then there was the matter of shoes. In October in Minnesota, you don't find a lot of shoes that match a winter- white fancy-dress. We went shopping for shoes for that dance, without exaggerating, at least eight times. And when my kid went shoe shopping, I discovered, one trip could take up an entire day and involve trying on a dozen pairs of heels. She could spend an hour with one pair even when it was instantly obvious to me and the sales person that the shoe wouldn't work. I remember feeling a lot of frustration over how long she took shopping for the perfect shoe. I had the impression she thought if we looked long enough, we'd find a pair of shoes that were also winter white. I had the good idea of asking shoe clerks if they thought we could find winter white shoes. After many shoe clerks told us "No way", Rosie e opened up to other possibilities.
Very shiny silver shoes would not have fit the look. We did find a nearly perfect pair so if looking perfect matters, all those hours shopping paid off. Sometimes I think of those shoes and the endless shopping to find them and I think that for that reason alone, Rosie should never have left me. I don't think many moms I have ever known would have been so doggedly patient or shopped so long for just a pair of shoes for a not very important dance. Love drove me.
She bought a pair of shoes the salesperson called 'pewter' but they weren't pewter. They were not gray, not gold, not silver but they had a shimmer, a muted shimmery tone. They were muted enough that you didn't really notice them, which, we decided, was as close as we were going to find to go with that dress. Note that the dress had probably been made in the fifties when pointed off-white heels would have been routinely sold after Labor Day each year and it would have been easy to find a perfect match. Altho the shoes were called pewter, I thought they were almost no color with some shimmer, a hint of glitz. Perfect for a h.s. dance. I remember that those shoes cost $60. A $1 garage sale dress, sixty dollar shoes which, in 1996, was a lot more money then than now, right?
I guess her OCD came out on that shoe expedition. For awhile, I felt like I had entered a rabbity hell-hole of endless shoe shopping in the Mall of America. If we couldn't find the right pair at the Mall of America, with Nordstrom's, Bloomingdale's, Dayton's (now Macy's but then, still Dayton's), plus the endless shoe stores in the endless mall, we would not find any. We covered shoes stores in the Uptown area, also downtown. Shoes.
I never questioned investing all that time on a quest for something that held virtually no personal value for me I recall a few moments of inner despair that I hid from her. In those moments, I felt like we were never going to find a pair of shoes she would accept. Rosie mattered to me. Dresses and shoes have never mattered to me. As a teen, I imitated my friends' interest in clothes but not since then. As a mother, however, I combed through every sale rack looking for bargains to please my fashion conscious child.
She went with a shimmering, metallic pair that weren't really any color. A neutral shimmer with a glitzy buckle on the closed toe. The shoes cost sixty bucks in 1996, which sounds cheap now but it was a lot to pay for shoes she was going to wear once. By the time she settled on this pair -- and we visited that pair several times before the decision was made -- she had tried them at least five times.
And we talked about this purchase ad nauseum during these weeks of shoe shop hell. It started out as fun mom-daughter shopping but by the end, it was hell. For me. I think she loved all that shopping. Looking back, I feel sorry that I treated myself as I did. And her. I should have set more limits. I should have told her that if she wanted to shop endlessly for shoes, she could but she would have to do it alone, or with girlfriends. The shoe search became nauseating for me and yet I did not let on, not wishing to make the shoe search even more stressful.
An easy part of the shop was buying a cheap pair of long, above the elbows, off-white satin-like gloves. The gloves were my idea and it really set off the whole look. At later dances, some of her girlfriends wore gloves in imitation, as teens imitate one another. But when other girls added gloves, they didn't pull it off. Long, above-the-elbow gloves at a spring dance with a floor-length ballgown just doesn't look the same as a light mini dress with very lightweight, satin-appearing over-the-elblow gloves. Plus the other girls did not have Rosie's elegant, Princess Grace lightness. The gloves were super cheap, at one of those super cheap accessory shops. The gloves gave her hives on her arms but she kept them on, the look irresistible even to her itching self. As soon as she said good bye to her date and stepped into our home, she pulled them off. Her arms where the gloves had been were covered in allergy hives. She said it was worth the itching. That everyone at the dance had noticed her and her date had said he was with the hottest girl in the school. She liked me then. She didn't even know formal gloves existed until I suggested them. As I grew up, it was common for girls to wear white gloves for going to church and especially for fancy events, like weddings. When I suggested gloves to Rosie, she had never heard of dress gloves as a fancy-dress accessory.
When I first met her dad, he was newly graduated from law school, with a lawyer job. He bought several business suits and we went shopping together. Men's suit pants are custom hemmed for each men. You can choose (at least back then) a plain hem or a cuff. If you go with a cuff, you choose the height of the cuff. One and three quarter inch cuff? Two inch cuff? And where did you want the slacks to break, at the knee, just below the knee and how did the cuff fall on his shoes. I was just dating the guy but being a good girlfriend, I helped him shop. Shopping with him was nearly identical to shopping with Rosie. He would takes ages to choose a suit, then ages to agonize over the length of the pants, the break at the knee, the height of the cuff or even whether there should be a cuff. And shirts to match. Ties to match. What is wrong with me that I went along on what were, for me, such stresfully boring outings, spending my weekends shopping obsessively for perfection when I never really cared much about clothes. I am an idiot. I did all that endless shopping because I loved them. I am a chump.
He would call me about the cuffs. For his first suit, and I don't think I am exaggerating, I think he called me fifty times about 'to-cuff-or-not-to-cuff' and 'one and three quarter inch versus two inches'. He would call at 12:04 a.m. and ask 'cuff or not cuff, tell me what you really think'. At first, I could debate the pros and cons of the choices he presented. He would call at 12:22 a.m., then at 12:25, then at 12:42 and 12:51. Et ce tera. Etcetera. Etcetera.
After awhile, I would beg him to stop asking me. And eventually I had to unplug the phone if I wanted to end the calls for the day. And then they started up. We actually had a joint session with his therapist about the cuff calls. The therapist said it was okay for me to refuse to take a dozen calls a day about the same damned pair of cuffs. The therapist suggested I say "It is only one pair of pants, one set of cuffs, the height doesn't matter. One and three quarter inch or two inch. It doesn't matter. I'm hanging up now."And I did say those things and the cuff calls stopped. But there were other situations just like that. Endlessly.
And I married him.
I don't remember if he respected the agreement.
But when our daughter obsessed about finding the perfect pair of shoes for that dance, and I went along with her crazy obsessive shoe search, I felt very much as I had felt with the cuff debate. And I always assumed her OCD stuff came from him.
I went along with the behavior. Does that mean I was also OCD, just OCD about different things?
What should I have done? People tell you not to indulge the obsessions of your obsessive child but for the child, it is a very painful, real struggle. It wasn't really her 'fault' that she got snagged by the shoe shop. Was I supposed to amp up the stress by arbitrarily refusing to shop or just buying any old pair of shoes?
I probably made all wrong choices. But I spent a whole lot of my real life shopping for those shoes. And she still abandoned me once she got into the Ivy League. She waived around that campus and said "Now that I am here, I don't want anything to do with you" and I have not seen her since.
One time, I sat in one dressing room at a downtown Minneapolis Dayton's dressing room in the junior jeans section for 6 hours. It was a Sunday. We got there when the store opened at noon. We were there until the store closed at six p.m. She tried on many dozens of pairs of jeans. And I went on other crazy jean shops. Buying jeans brought out lots of stress.
I think she should still love me, for the shoes and the jean shopping and all the love I poured.
Friday, April 08, 2011
beggars, panhandlers and me, oh my
I wonder what kind of money beggars in downtown Berkeley receive. I am wondering, in particular, about the regulars. I don't think the regulars in my neighborhood are homeless. I think there are a couple beggars in my neighborhood who beg as their hobby, it is how they hang out.
There is one woman who begs throughout the day most days near the intersection of Kittredge and Shattuck, which is where the downtown public library is. I am curious: why has she chosen this intersection? She moves from bench to bench and I don't know where she is when she isn't at this intersection but I think this is her begging corner.
Once I got on a bus, in another part of Berkeley, and she was already seated on the bus, near the front. She asked every single person that got on the bus and then passed her "Can you spare some change?" I was startled. For some reason, I thought asking every single person that passes was limited to the street. It seems more invasive to do this on the bus. Esp. this woman, who has a shrill, whining voice that is comparable to listening to cats fighting in your back ally in the middle of the night. Meow, shriek, whine. She was whining and shrieking just as loudly on the bus, in the exact same tone. She never changes what she says, except gender. "Mister, can you spare some change?" or "Miss, can you spare some change?"
When she first appeared -- she was not here when I first moved here -- she asked me each time I passed. I cross her intersection several times every day so I pass her a lot. Now she just hits me once a day. I have never given her money and I never will. I am absolutely sure she is not homeless. On the bus, she had a purse and a destination and she was coming from somewhere. Since her 'work' is begging at Kittredge and Shattuck and she was coming from somewhere and going somewhere,
There is one woman who begs throughout the day most days near the intersection of Kittredge and Shattuck, which is where the downtown public library is. I am curious: why has she chosen this intersection? She moves from bench to bench and I don't know where she is when she isn't at this intersection but I think this is her begging corner.
Once I got on a bus, in another part of Berkeley, and she was already seated on the bus, near the front. She asked every single person that got on the bus and then passed her "Can you spare some change?" I was startled. For some reason, I thought asking every single person that passes was limited to the street. It seems more invasive to do this on the bus. Esp. this woman, who has a shrill, whining voice that is comparable to listening to cats fighting in your back ally in the middle of the night. Meow, shriek, whine. She was whining and shrieking just as loudly on the bus, in the exact same tone. She never changes what she says, except gender. "Mister, can you spare some change?" or "Miss, can you spare some change?"
When she first appeared -- she was not here when I first moved here -- she asked me each time I passed. I cross her intersection several times every day so I pass her a lot. Now she just hits me once a day. I have never given her money and I never will. I am absolutely sure she is not homeless. On the bus, she had a purse and a destination and she was coming from somewhere. Since her 'work' is begging at Kittredge and Shattuck and she was coming from somewhere and going somewhere,
Wednesday, April 06, 2011
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
flahoolick, seanahai, Gaelic, Traeloch
There is a story in the San Francisco Chronicle today about Irish coffee, which SF, I just learned, considers a San Francisco treat. The article references the word flahoolick as an Irish word. I have always thought the language spoken by fewer and fewer Irishmen was Gaelic, although the words Irish and Gaelic might be interchangeable.
A few years ago, I had some dental surgery done by an hot young Irish dentist who was training in America to do implants. There was no place in Ireland to learn implants and Traeloch, the first name of my cute studmuffin dentist, said that the future was implants. I kept hearing the businessman in the movie 'The Graduate' telling the Dustin Hoffman character that the future was in plastics.
Traeloch went to dental school straight out of high school. That's how it goes there. Kids choose professions around age 18. Then he worked in his dad's dental practice a few years until he bit the bullet and came to America to learn implants. His ma was worried that an American gal would scoop him up and he would not return home but he loved Ireland, he told me, in his lilting, sexy broque, and how could he be living his life anywhere else? American girls were fine lasses, but he would not allow himself to fall in love until he had returned home. I didn't say what I was thinking, that love can sometimes come upon us without our planning or choice.
Traeloch told me that his first language was Gaelic. And he very graciously accepted me into the tribe of being Irish.
My point: Traeloch was adamant: his first language was not Irish. It was Gaelic.
I just read, maybe on Wikipedia, that only 72,000 Irish folks speak Gaelic in their daily langauge transactions. Traeloch must be one of them. He told me he speaks Gaelic at home, always had but, of course, he spoke English with me.
The Chron informs us that flahoolick is Gaelic for generous. My da was flahoolick. I received my gifts from my dad. I think his generosity was one of his finest. One of my favorite stories about my da is what he said when I told him had become engaged. He said "I learned a long time ago that you can't tell your kids what to do, they are going to do what they want, and I have tried not to talk about any of the people my kids have dated, but this guy, Tree, are you sure about him? The one thing I'll say against him is that he is cheap. I could say more but let's just leave it at cheap. I'd hate to see you going through life with a guy who is going to make you pinch every nickel before you spend it."
That's the only time I have ever heard someone characterize the trait of being cheap by saying the cheap person pinches every nickel. I still hear my father's Irish milieu as a young man, when he would have interacted almost exclusively with other first generation Irish American men. If they were me dad's pals, they were gamblers, too. Gamblers aren't cheap, not my dad's kind. And my ex-husband was cheap. He never made me pinch a nickel but he did seem to hate spending every cent he ever spent and he was sure that whatever he spent could have bought more.
Contrast this story about my ex with the above story about my long gone father, who was very flawed and abused me in many ways, but, like all humans, he has lots of good streams in him. My dad's finest stream was his love for his children.
The ex-husband story. Once, when we were still dating, not yet engaged, the ex and I met at a restaurant downtown, during happy hour, of course, for the cheap drinks. We got there at the beginning of happy hour, we drank a lot cause he always drank a lot. And he was sure to order a last round during the last minute of happy hour for that last extra bargain. And then we ordered food. We sat at that table for at least three hours. He paid the bill. This was the seventies, what can I say. The guy paid on dates, esp. my guy. Even if I covered my part of the bill, or even if I paid the whole thing, he insisted on making a show of paying, being the guy paying. So he pays the bill and we leave. This was a very early date. This also tells you something about me cause I kept on dating him. As we walked to our car, nearly a block from the restaurant, the waiter caught up with us, his face red with anger, but, I sensed, his anger warming him in the winter cold. He waived his fist as he spoke. He said "I can't believe you completely stiffed me. You sat at my table for three hours and you don't leave me anything?" My ex, dressed in his first-lawyer-job suit was probably embarassed but I didn't know him well then and did not yet know that when he became embarrassed, he got angry and then abusive. Not that knowing this would make it more acceptable. I just observe how naive I was. He shook his fist back at the waiter and said "I venture to guess that your manager will be disappointed to hear that you have come out here to yell at his customers. You are out of place. I am going to report you."
All these years later, I still remember that phrase, 'I venture to guess'. He used that phrase whenever he was feeling pompous. And dang if the asshole didn't march up to the payphone at the parking lot entrance (pre-cell phone life!) and call the restaurant to complain. And, I am sorry to say, the manager made the waiter call the ex later to apologize.
I longed to go back to that restaurant and leave the guy some money and apologize. I remember considering doing that. And a part of me wants to turn that longing into the memory of having actuall done that, having actually made some amends.
After that, I always hung back after the bill was paid when I was out with my ex and snuck tips on the table.
Not long after, maybe at his graduation weekend (he had graduated a semester early so he didn't walk n his gown until he had been working six months as a lawyer), we went out with his mom and sister. They chose one of those food buffets, all you can eat. At one point when my ex had gone to the men's room, I told them the story about the waiter angry with no tip. Get this. While I recounted the story, my ex-mother-in-law and ex-sister-in-law, who was a surgery resident and is now, of course, a surgeon who owns several clinics and makes millions annually, they were stuffing their purses with fried chicken so my ex could eat off the all-you-can-eat-buffet after they had gone home to Hicksville. I should have put the purloined chicken together with the no tip. My ex-mother-in-law, who was just my boyfriend's mother at the time, said, in her bad grammar English that still makes me winces when I just hear it in memories, said "I tell you what, hon, I say anyone stupid enough to work for a dollar an hour deserves a dollar an hour. If the best job they can get is waiter, they must be no good. They don't deserve more. I aint gonna pay someone to do their job. That's their problem, not mine." I actually pointed out that prices in restaurants were based on the fact that the restaurant's overhead did not include the full salary of the waitstaff, that the price of restaurant meals should always be assumed to include a freely given payment for the service. Those women laughed at me. They also concluded that I was not a good match for their boy. They were right, of course, but I did not admit that defeat for several years and one baby later.
Fast forward a couple years to the birth of our daughter. My dad came to visit, go to the races at Aksarben Race Track and see the College World Series. He insisted on taking us all out for a fancy Sunday brunch at a fancy downtown hotel but then my husband, Mr. Bigshot, insisted on paying, which was okay with my dad. He would have been happy to pay and he was also happy to accept my husband's gift. My dad was always generous when he had any ready, and always ashamed when he didn't. Dad didn't mind being broke. He minded being unable to be generous. . He also knew that my husband had an overdeveloped self-conscious pride in what defined his manhood and he knew that my husband needed to pay that brunch bill to show off. A little bit of a manly pissing match only my husband didn't realize he was the only one competing.
So dad let him pay. Then, as usual, I excused myself to go to the restroom but my real agenda was to sneak back to the table to leave a tip. My dad also excused himself to use the restroom. The womans room was around one side, the men's room around the other and behind them both was the dining room. So my dad and I saw one another as we both approached the table with our tip. We laughed and left both our tips, leaving the waiter a lot of tip money cause me and dad were both always big tippers. My best brother is a waiter and my dad had always been very insistent on tipping well. Sometimes he would just get coffee in a shop but leave several dollars in tips when coffee cost a quarter cause he knew his time at the counter cost the waitress other men's tips. I loved my dad so much for leaving that tip. And I loved us both for leaving that double tip. How much did you leave, I asked him, laughing, as we walked back to the husband. How much did you leave, he laughed, as we realized we had both overcompensated a lot. Then we settled down, hiding our laugh so the husband wouldn't demand to know what we were laughing about.
My dad had a hole in him. He didn't get something he needed as a child, I think, and that wound drifted with him through life. The only real happiness he ever had was loving his kids. And my mom. He lived twenty years after she left him. He never got over it. My mom loved my dad. I think she left him because she wanted to leave the life she was living, with too many kids, not enough money. She chose just as wrongly as I did. She never really wanted to have kids but in nineteen fifties small town South Dakota, especially if you were Catholic, about all you could do was get married and have kids. She wanted to be an artist but this culture discourages most young people with such an impractical ambition. Artists starve. Writers starve.
Now I am feeling sad again. It was more fun thinking about Traeloch and Gaelic coffee.
Oh, I almost forgot. Senahai is Gaelic for storyteller. I am a seanahai. I am not sure how to spell it.
A few years ago, I had some dental surgery done by an hot young Irish dentist who was training in America to do implants. There was no place in Ireland to learn implants and Traeloch, the first name of my cute studmuffin dentist, said that the future was implants. I kept hearing the businessman in the movie 'The Graduate' telling the Dustin Hoffman character that the future was in plastics.
Traeloch went to dental school straight out of high school. That's how it goes there. Kids choose professions around age 18. Then he worked in his dad's dental practice a few years until he bit the bullet and came to America to learn implants. His ma was worried that an American gal would scoop him up and he would not return home but he loved Ireland, he told me, in his lilting, sexy broque, and how could he be living his life anywhere else? American girls were fine lasses, but he would not allow himself to fall in love until he had returned home. I didn't say what I was thinking, that love can sometimes come upon us without our planning or choice.
Traeloch told me that his first language was Gaelic. And he very graciously accepted me into the tribe of being Irish.
My point: Traeloch was adamant: his first language was not Irish. It was Gaelic.
I just read, maybe on Wikipedia, that only 72,000 Irish folks speak Gaelic in their daily langauge transactions. Traeloch must be one of them. He told me he speaks Gaelic at home, always had but, of course, he spoke English with me.
The Chron informs us that flahoolick is Gaelic for generous. My da was flahoolick. I received my gifts from my dad. I think his generosity was one of his finest. One of my favorite stories about my da is what he said when I told him had become engaged. He said "I learned a long time ago that you can't tell your kids what to do, they are going to do what they want, and I have tried not to talk about any of the people my kids have dated, but this guy, Tree, are you sure about him? The one thing I'll say against him is that he is cheap. I could say more but let's just leave it at cheap. I'd hate to see you going through life with a guy who is going to make you pinch every nickel before you spend it."
That's the only time I have ever heard someone characterize the trait of being cheap by saying the cheap person pinches every nickel. I still hear my father's Irish milieu as a young man, when he would have interacted almost exclusively with other first generation Irish American men. If they were me dad's pals, they were gamblers, too. Gamblers aren't cheap, not my dad's kind. And my ex-husband was cheap. He never made me pinch a nickel but he did seem to hate spending every cent he ever spent and he was sure that whatever he spent could have bought more.
Contrast this story about my ex with the above story about my long gone father, who was very flawed and abused me in many ways, but, like all humans, he has lots of good streams in him. My dad's finest stream was his love for his children.
The ex-husband story. Once, when we were still dating, not yet engaged, the ex and I met at a restaurant downtown, during happy hour, of course, for the cheap drinks. We got there at the beginning of happy hour, we drank a lot cause he always drank a lot. And he was sure to order a last round during the last minute of happy hour for that last extra bargain. And then we ordered food. We sat at that table for at least three hours. He paid the bill. This was the seventies, what can I say. The guy paid on dates, esp. my guy. Even if I covered my part of the bill, or even if I paid the whole thing, he insisted on making a show of paying, being the guy paying. So he pays the bill and we leave. This was a very early date. This also tells you something about me cause I kept on dating him. As we walked to our car, nearly a block from the restaurant, the waiter caught up with us, his face red with anger, but, I sensed, his anger warming him in the winter cold. He waived his fist as he spoke. He said "I can't believe you completely stiffed me. You sat at my table for three hours and you don't leave me anything?" My ex, dressed in his first-lawyer-job suit was probably embarassed but I didn't know him well then and did not yet know that when he became embarrassed, he got angry and then abusive. Not that knowing this would make it more acceptable. I just observe how naive I was. He shook his fist back at the waiter and said "I venture to guess that your manager will be disappointed to hear that you have come out here to yell at his customers. You are out of place. I am going to report you."
All these years later, I still remember that phrase, 'I venture to guess'. He used that phrase whenever he was feeling pompous. And dang if the asshole didn't march up to the payphone at the parking lot entrance (pre-cell phone life!) and call the restaurant to complain. And, I am sorry to say, the manager made the waiter call the ex later to apologize.
I longed to go back to that restaurant and leave the guy some money and apologize. I remember considering doing that. And a part of me wants to turn that longing into the memory of having actuall done that, having actually made some amends.
After that, I always hung back after the bill was paid when I was out with my ex and snuck tips on the table.
Not long after, maybe at his graduation weekend (he had graduated a semester early so he didn't walk n his gown until he had been working six months as a lawyer), we went out with his mom and sister. They chose one of those food buffets, all you can eat. At one point when my ex had gone to the men's room, I told them the story about the waiter angry with no tip. Get this. While I recounted the story, my ex-mother-in-law and ex-sister-in-law, who was a surgery resident and is now, of course, a surgeon who owns several clinics and makes millions annually, they were stuffing their purses with fried chicken so my ex could eat off the all-you-can-eat-buffet after they had gone home to Hicksville. I should have put the purloined chicken together with the no tip. My ex-mother-in-law, who was just my boyfriend's mother at the time, said, in her bad grammar English that still makes me winces when I just hear it in memories, said "I tell you what, hon, I say anyone stupid enough to work for a dollar an hour deserves a dollar an hour. If the best job they can get is waiter, they must be no good. They don't deserve more. I aint gonna pay someone to do their job. That's their problem, not mine." I actually pointed out that prices in restaurants were based on the fact that the restaurant's overhead did not include the full salary of the waitstaff, that the price of restaurant meals should always be assumed to include a freely given payment for the service. Those women laughed at me. They also concluded that I was not a good match for their boy. They were right, of course, but I did not admit that defeat for several years and one baby later.
Fast forward a couple years to the birth of our daughter. My dad came to visit, go to the races at Aksarben Race Track and see the College World Series. He insisted on taking us all out for a fancy Sunday brunch at a fancy downtown hotel but then my husband, Mr. Bigshot, insisted on paying, which was okay with my dad. He would have been happy to pay and he was also happy to accept my husband's gift. My dad was always generous when he had any ready, and always ashamed when he didn't. Dad didn't mind being broke. He minded being unable to be generous. . He also knew that my husband had an overdeveloped self-conscious pride in what defined his manhood and he knew that my husband needed to pay that brunch bill to show off. A little bit of a manly pissing match only my husband didn't realize he was the only one competing.
So dad let him pay. Then, as usual, I excused myself to go to the restroom but my real agenda was to sneak back to the table to leave a tip. My dad also excused himself to use the restroom. The womans room was around one side, the men's room around the other and behind them both was the dining room. So my dad and I saw one another as we both approached the table with our tip. We laughed and left both our tips, leaving the waiter a lot of tip money cause me and dad were both always big tippers. My best brother is a waiter and my dad had always been very insistent on tipping well. Sometimes he would just get coffee in a shop but leave several dollars in tips when coffee cost a quarter cause he knew his time at the counter cost the waitress other men's tips. I loved my dad so much for leaving that tip. And I loved us both for leaving that double tip. How much did you leave, I asked him, laughing, as we walked back to the husband. How much did you leave, he laughed, as we realized we had both overcompensated a lot. Then we settled down, hiding our laugh so the husband wouldn't demand to know what we were laughing about.
My dad had a hole in him. He didn't get something he needed as a child, I think, and that wound drifted with him through life. The only real happiness he ever had was loving his kids. And my mom. He lived twenty years after she left him. He never got over it. My mom loved my dad. I think she left him because she wanted to leave the life she was living, with too many kids, not enough money. She chose just as wrongly as I did. She never really wanted to have kids but in nineteen fifties small town South Dakota, especially if you were Catholic, about all you could do was get married and have kids. She wanted to be an artist but this culture discourages most young people with such an impractical ambition. Artists starve. Writers starve.
Now I am feeling sad again. It was more fun thinking about Traeloch and Gaelic coffee.
Oh, I almost forgot. Senahai is Gaelic for storyteller. I am a seanahai. I am not sure how to spell it.
