I have been buying less at my Saturday farmers market. Berkeley's farmers markets seem to price based on the theory of charging whatever the market will bear. The farmers markets in tourist-mobbed San Francisco sell local, organic foods for significantly less than the Berkeley markets. And the vendors here, in Berkeley, seem to be dissociated from pricing reality. There have been many times that a vendor assured me her price was lower than anywhere else; I hold my tongue on such occasions because I pay close attention to food costs and they are very high at the Berkeley market.
Berkeley has a couple beyond-awesome locally owned, large grocery stores that sell awesome, and awesomely priced, organic food. It's not all local but where everything comes from is posted.
So why do I still go to my nearby market? Because there are a few things I can't get anywhere else. At least no where that I know about.
White mulberries were today's best score. These white mulberries are long. Very fragile. And priced at $7 for a tiny basket of, maybe, four ounces (I think it is less ounces). If there are white mulberries again next week, that will be it for the year. White mulberries are a fastly fleeting bit of magic.
Black wild mulberries are another rarity that appears once or twice each spring. I bought some wild black ones last Saturday.
When I was a child, I spent lots of time most summers on my cousin Joy's Indiana farm. Her parents farm. Joy's mom was my mother's sister. Joy's dad was, I think, the oldest son in very large farm family. His parents, Rosie and Lem, bought up small, adjacent farms to their original farm, to have more acres to grow food and grow income for their growing clan. Most such farms came with a farmhouse so scattered in a bit of a cluster, my uncle's siblings, the ones old enough to be married with kids, moved into the farmhouses that his parents, well, his whole clan, bought.
Joy had an aunt, my uncle's baby sister, named Maggie. Maggie was a year younger than me. I heard lots of jokes mixing up the word aunt with the child named Maggie. Maggie did not have a farm. She was a child and lived with her parents, Rosie and Lem. And with Jane, Rosie and Lem's oldest daughter who had had polio and could not walk.
I do run on, eh?
The farmhouse Joy and her parents lived in with, more or less, kitty corner, separated by an interaction of a gravel road, from the grandparents (Rosie/Lem). In the front yard of that farmhouse, but actually on what was, in practical life, the side yard because no one ever used the front door or side porch to come and go to that house. Everyone walked in off the gravel driveway next to the kitchen. So the 'front' yard felt like the back.
In that front yard was an old black mulberry tree. It was taller than the two story house. My aunt never went to windows in her house that overlooked the yard with the mulberry tree.
Joy and I would pick all the mulberries within our reach but we could not get up past, maybe, six feet. Seeing thousands of ripely perfect mulberries going up above the roof was so tantalizing.
Being a bit older, and having endless brothers who did things like I did on that farm, I had JOy and I haul out a ladder so we could teeringly climb to the top and pick more mulberries. We got away with it for a goodly while because no one saw us.
Once my aunt found out, and I still don't get what was wrong with picking mulberries on a ladder (one of us held it down to the other and I was always the one up on the ladder, not my aunt's precious daughter), my aunt showed us the most anger I had ever seen. Even now, I can't understand why she was so upset. And she was upset with me, who she always saw as the instigator of things we did that she decided were unacceptable. She was kinda right. I was usually the instigator, at least with stuff. Joy was the one who dressed up Puff, her cat, in doll clothes but I got blamed for Puff in doll clothes.
I'm running out of gas and I have to get in my laps. Story incomplete.
Quickly: a few other must-buys that only show up at my farmers market for brief appearances: persimmons, both kinds, and dried persimmons, both kinds; great tamales that keep in the fridge -- they cost $9 for four at the market and $14 at one of our local grocery stores -- but the tamales are a year-round thing. Today I bought a four-pack of spinach and mushroom tamales. Yes, they are all vegetarian. And have some vegan ones, as in no cheese.
Oh, I want to mention the $12 a quart almond milk. $48 a gallon. I mostly drink almond milk these days, but I will happily use coconut. These commercially prepared non-dairy milks nearly all use carrageenan, a known carcinogen. The $12/quart organic almond milk is carcinogen free but wow on the price. Making almond milk is actually easy if one has a Vitamix. And that's what I do: make almond milk from raw organic almonds. This is not quite cheap but it is much less costly than the $12/quart stuff.
Saturday, May 26, 2018
Sunday, May 20, 2018
angels in america
I got myself perked up with the thought of seeing 'Angels in America". Nathan Lane plays Roy Cohn in the Broadway show.
The Berkeley Rep is a great theater, often previewing shows that land on Broadway. And it happens to be doing 'Angels' now but, whoo-ee, the tickets for Berkeley's Angels in America are something like $175. I can't swing that. I need a date with money to spend on me!
So maybe I should try to see it in NYC where it is, strangely enough, less expensive than Berkeley. Whodathunkit?
Thinking about 'Angels' reminded me that my daughter was still considering a career in acting as the world awaited Angels in America. She was in all the plays at her first college, always iwth a lead role. Always great. She also worked with a professional group in a play based entirely on Emily Eickinson journals and poetry. She got rave reviews. She could have been an actor but she shifted.
In her still-considering-acting days, her dad called me once to complain to me, as if it were my choice that our daughter was acting. He said she might starve and what was I thinking 'letting' her act.
To which I responded something like this: "you are probably right, that the odds of her making a living as an actor are slim. And she might not make it. But think about the skills she is building. First her dancing: she learned to perform emotionally and brilliantly as a dancer, revealing her soul to audiences and doing so scantily clad as dancers often are. And now she is learning how to present herself. She is building skills that would serve anyone in any field. Leave her be. She's smart. She'll find her way."
I also believe, now, and this is very painful for me to think, that he was phonig her in those years too, denigrating me, saying whatever he could to put a wedge between her and me. (should that be first person singular? -- I don't care).
After that, he told her he would support her if she went to NYC to try to get acting work, which was something she was briefly considering. Mia Farrow, whose son Ronan was ten and going to the same early college she did, had told her she was good enough to go to NYC, get an agent and get acting. I wanted to throttle Ms. Farrow. Farrow's parents were both movie world stars so of course Ms. Farrow easily got an agent at age sixteen.
But Katie came with some build in wisdom and smarts, I guess. She found her way with, whether she thinks so or not, my considerable help.
Oh: I am thinking of Katie as I consider getting tickets to see Angels in America on Broadway on this trip because she asked me to buy her a copy of the play (so maybe my memories are wrong and Angels was already out?!) so she could prepare a solo from the play for auditions. Even as a student in college, she had to audition.
Her small first college did one 'big' play each of the four semesters she was there. She had the female lead in all of them.
I love her. I miss her.
The Berkeley Rep is a great theater, often previewing shows that land on Broadway. And it happens to be doing 'Angels' now but, whoo-ee, the tickets for Berkeley's Angels in America are something like $175. I can't swing that. I need a date with money to spend on me!
So maybe I should try to see it in NYC where it is, strangely enough, less expensive than Berkeley. Whodathunkit?
Thinking about 'Angels' reminded me that my daughter was still considering a career in acting as the world awaited Angels in America. She was in all the plays at her first college, always iwth a lead role. Always great. She also worked with a professional group in a play based entirely on Emily Eickinson journals and poetry. She got rave reviews. She could have been an actor but she shifted.
In her still-considering-acting days, her dad called me once to complain to me, as if it were my choice that our daughter was acting. He said she might starve and what was I thinking 'letting' her act.
To which I responded something like this: "you are probably right, that the odds of her making a living as an actor are slim. And she might not make it. But think about the skills she is building. First her dancing: she learned to perform emotionally and brilliantly as a dancer, revealing her soul to audiences and doing so scantily clad as dancers often are. And now she is learning how to present herself. She is building skills that would serve anyone in any field. Leave her be. She's smart. She'll find her way."
I also believe, now, and this is very painful for me to think, that he was phonig her in those years too, denigrating me, saying whatever he could to put a wedge between her and me. (should that be first person singular? -- I don't care).
After that, he told her he would support her if she went to NYC to try to get acting work, which was something she was briefly considering. Mia Farrow, whose son Ronan was ten and going to the same early college she did, had told her she was good enough to go to NYC, get an agent and get acting. I wanted to throttle Ms. Farrow. Farrow's parents were both movie world stars so of course Ms. Farrow easily got an agent at age sixteen.
But Katie came with some build in wisdom and smarts, I guess. She found her way with, whether she thinks so or not, my considerable help.
Oh: I am thinking of Katie as I consider getting tickets to see Angels in America on Broadway on this trip because she asked me to buy her a copy of the play (so maybe my memories are wrong and Angels was already out?!) so she could prepare a solo from the play for auditions. Even as a student in college, she had to audition.
Her small first college did one 'big' play each of the four semesters she was there. She had the female lead in all of them.
I love her. I miss her.
Suffering required for higher development
Suffering is
a side effect of higher development. We cannot avoid it in attaining
insight. Human beings will one day say to themselves: ‘I am grateful for
the joy the world gives me, but if I had to face the choice of keeping
my joys or my sufferings, I would want to keep my sufferings for the
sake of gaining insight. Every suffering presents itself after a certain
time as something we cannot do without, because we have to grasp it as
part of the development contained within evolution. There is no
development without suffering, just as there is no triangle without
angles.
[…]
By overcoming egotism, human beings get over the mood of depression and feeling lamed or paralyzed. In this phenomenon we can see something that is good: strength out of insufficiency or inadequacy. Thank God that I am encouraged by an inadequate deed–that is, by its failure–to further action! Human striving is not a vague matter of luck. Only those whose free will turns away from the destiny of the human being remain unredeemed. In the synthesis of the world process, suffering is a factor.
Source: Rudolf Steiner – The Spiritual Hierarchies and the Physical World, April 21, 1909 – 2008 edition, p. 147
[…]
By overcoming egotism, human beings get over the mood of depression and feeling lamed or paralyzed. In this phenomenon we can see something that is good: strength out of insufficiency or inadequacy. Thank God that I am encouraged by an inadequate deed–that is, by its failure–to further action! Human striving is not a vague matter of luck. Only those whose free will turns away from the destiny of the human being remain unredeemed. In the synthesis of the world process, suffering is a factor.
Source: Rudolf Steiner – The Spiritual Hierarchies and the Physical World, April 21, 1909 – 2008 edition, p. 147
I love New York in May
I love visiting New York. I am here for some work, extending my visit so I can do tourist things. This trip, I am going to finally get to The Cloisters. Well, maybe. So much art. So little time.
I don't know much about what tourist things there are to do outside of art. Theater, sure, but that gets expensive and I don't much care about live theater. I'm glad its there for others.
I took my niece, Izzy, to see Cats. First we stood in a long line inside the World Trade Center (pre-911!) to buy cheaper tickets. One of those day-of-the-show ticket sales booths was in the WTC. We struck up a conversation with a young woman from Ireland. Izzy's then-parents (a then-stepfather and her mom) were in Ireland. I was the 10 ten babysitter.
When we went to 'Cats', waiting in the lobby to move into the theater, we struck up a conversation with some older man who, upon hearing she was my niece, asked us if she were really my niece or if we just called me her aunt for social reasons. "I am her mother's sister, I am her aunt, she is my niece" I assured him but he continued to voice his disbelief.
Once, my sister and niece met met in the Walker Sculpture Garden while I was getting some tour guide training. They arrived just as my class was ending. I introduced sister and niece to another art docent who said "you didn't have to tell me they were your relatives, my goodness, you all look so alike".
I think what that old coot in the Cats lobby was focussed on was my fat. Izzy was not.
I thought Cats was unusually boring, although toddler Izzy liked the crawling cats. I couldn't believe it had run a very long time on Broadway. But its a musical. Splashy musicals are fun (Cats did not strike me as splashy . . . I just didn't get it) but they are not much of a draw for me.
If I were going to see a play, it would definitely be "Angels in America". We'll see if we can get tix while I'm in NYC. It's pretty last minute.
And one can always get into art spaces!
I don't know much about what tourist things there are to do outside of art. Theater, sure, but that gets expensive and I don't much care about live theater. I'm glad its there for others.
I took my niece, Izzy, to see Cats. First we stood in a long line inside the World Trade Center (pre-911!) to buy cheaper tickets. One of those day-of-the-show ticket sales booths was in the WTC. We struck up a conversation with a young woman from Ireland. Izzy's then-parents (a then-stepfather and her mom) were in Ireland. I was the 10 ten babysitter.
When we went to 'Cats', waiting in the lobby to move into the theater, we struck up a conversation with some older man who, upon hearing she was my niece, asked us if she were really my niece or if we just called me her aunt for social reasons. "I am her mother's sister, I am her aunt, she is my niece" I assured him but he continued to voice his disbelief.
Once, my sister and niece met met in the Walker Sculpture Garden while I was getting some tour guide training. They arrived just as my class was ending. I introduced sister and niece to another art docent who said "you didn't have to tell me they were your relatives, my goodness, you all look so alike".
I think what that old coot in the Cats lobby was focussed on was my fat. Izzy was not.
I thought Cats was unusually boring, although toddler Izzy liked the crawling cats. I couldn't believe it had run a very long time on Broadway. But its a musical. Splashy musicals are fun (Cats did not strike me as splashy . . . I just didn't get it) but they are not much of a draw for me.
If I were going to see a play, it would definitely be "Angels in America". We'll see if we can get tix while I'm in NYC. It's pretty last minute.
And one can always get into art spaces!
Wednesday, May 16, 2018
the hired help
"I am here for my annual pap smear and lab tests for any sexually transmitted diseases," the law student said to the doctor's receptionist. She had chosen a gynecologist out of the phone book, one near her father's home. She was spending time with her family over her Christmas break from school. Still on her dad's insurance, it was easier to get the annual check up in Chicago.
She had been sexually active for a few years. And, like a good feminist and self-care-taker, she always had this annual check up.
There was a short wait to see the doctor. An assistant gave her one of those drapes of fabric to cover her up. She thought, as she took off her clothes and put on that open-in-the-back cover, which are all paper nowadays, that she did not think she needed to remove her top clothes but she did not voice that concern. She submitted to what she was ordered to do. Of course she needed to have no pants on to get the pap. But making her sit, in a cold office in late December, in just that bit of robe was not necessary. It gave her a creepy vibe.t had still
The doctor came in. He greeted her. He said and did the routine, telling her to scooch down a bit more, explaining that he was going to put his hand insider her, then telling her that she might feel a pinch when he took the scrape he needed for the pap test.
So far, so good.
When the doctor had done the pap, he could have, as was typically for this young law student when she got her annual gynecological check up, let her get dressed again before drawing her blood. Instead, the doctor had her remain, almost nude and freezing, on the exam table.
It was common for his assistant to draw blood for the annual blood test. In those days, doctors did not usually send her to a lab for a blood draw. Their offices just did the blood draws and sent it to a lab.
This time, the unfamiliar doctor announced he would draw her blood. As he put on the tourniquet, then tapped her arm to find a good vein, he said "Worried about sleeping with too many guys, are you?"
She was astonished. It took a couple moments for her to register that the doctor had just made an inappropriate comment about her private life.
"I always get an annual pap and an annual blood test for sexually transmitted diseases. I was told to do this for basic self care and I do it every year." She ducked saying anything about her sex life. It had still not quite registered with her that the doctor was behaving abusively, batting his eyes as if he were flirting, making faces as he suggested she was, in his judgmental assessment, too sexually active.
As she lay on the exam table, trying to calm herself enough to say something, she thought "I have only had sex with one guy, my boyfriend, this past year. I am just getting this test out of self care habit." And she thought "This clown is a doctor so he knows that even if I only had sex with one guy, I was sleeping with all that guy's past sex partners if he did not use condoms. This was just good, early feminist days, self care. She had attended health clinics for female college students. She was doing the right thing and this doctor was behaving inappropriately. He did not need to ask about her sex life and especially did not have any business making jokes about her promiscuity. She could not quite get her thinking clear so she said little. She got dressed as soon as she could. And she left that office without saying anything to anyone.
On the short drive back to her father's, she calmed down and got clear on what thoughts she wanted to share with the doctor. When she got to her dad's, she phoned the doctor's office. First she blurted out to the receptionist that the doctor had no business asking her about the number of sex partners, no business leering at me as he speculated about my sex life. She announced, with rising angry tones, "The doctor violated me and I am going to report him to the Illinois Medical Board."
The receptinist asked her to wait on hold so she could put the doctor on the phone. By then, she had found her voice, found her anger and she all but shouted at the doctor, accusing him of harassment, then slamming down the phone.
A week or so later, she got the lab test results. The pap had been fine and her blood tests showed no sign of syphyllis.
And she never got a bill from the gynecologist.
She had been sexually active for a few years. And, like a good feminist and self-care-taker, she always had this annual check up.
There was a short wait to see the doctor. An assistant gave her one of those drapes of fabric to cover her up. She thought, as she took off her clothes and put on that open-in-the-back cover, which are all paper nowadays, that she did not think she needed to remove her top clothes but she did not voice that concern. She submitted to what she was ordered to do. Of course she needed to have no pants on to get the pap. But making her sit, in a cold office in late December, in just that bit of robe was not necessary. It gave her a creepy vibe.t had still
The doctor came in. He greeted her. He said and did the routine, telling her to scooch down a bit more, explaining that he was going to put his hand insider her, then telling her that she might feel a pinch when he took the scrape he needed for the pap test.
So far, so good.
When the doctor had done the pap, he could have, as was typically for this young law student when she got her annual gynecological check up, let her get dressed again before drawing her blood. Instead, the doctor had her remain, almost nude and freezing, on the exam table.
It was common for his assistant to draw blood for the annual blood test. In those days, doctors did not usually send her to a lab for a blood draw. Their offices just did the blood draws and sent it to a lab.
This time, the unfamiliar doctor announced he would draw her blood. As he put on the tourniquet, then tapped her arm to find a good vein, he said "Worried about sleeping with too many guys, are you?"
She was astonished. It took a couple moments for her to register that the doctor had just made an inappropriate comment about her private life.
"I always get an annual pap and an annual blood test for sexually transmitted diseases. I was told to do this for basic self care and I do it every year." She ducked saying anything about her sex life. It had still not quite registered with her that the doctor was behaving abusively, batting his eyes as if he were flirting, making faces as he suggested she was, in his judgmental assessment, too sexually active.
As she lay on the exam table, trying to calm herself enough to say something, she thought "I have only had sex with one guy, my boyfriend, this past year. I am just getting this test out of self care habit." And she thought "This clown is a doctor so he knows that even if I only had sex with one guy, I was sleeping with all that guy's past sex partners if he did not use condoms. This was just good, early feminist days, self care. She had attended health clinics for female college students. She was doing the right thing and this doctor was behaving inappropriately. He did not need to ask about her sex life and especially did not have any business making jokes about her promiscuity. She could not quite get her thinking clear so she said little. She got dressed as soon as she could. And she left that office without saying anything to anyone.
On the short drive back to her father's, she calmed down and got clear on what thoughts she wanted to share with the doctor. When she got to her dad's, she phoned the doctor's office. First she blurted out to the receptionist that the doctor had no business asking her about the number of sex partners, no business leering at me as he speculated about my sex life. She announced, with rising angry tones, "The doctor violated me and I am going to report him to the Illinois Medical Board."
The receptinist asked her to wait on hold so she could put the doctor on the phone. By then, she had found her voice, found her anger and she all but shouted at the doctor, accusing him of harassment, then slamming down the phone.
A week or so later, she got the lab test results. The pap had been fine and her blood tests showed no sign of syphyllis.
And she never got a bill from the gynecologist.
Tuesday, May 15, 2018
Sunday, May 13, 2018
Saturday, May 12, 2018
Pure Joy Tea: for real
I bought a small package of a beautiful looking and beautiful smelling, custom blended tea from a herbalist and healer today. The tea is called Heart Afire, Pure Joy. And it says made with love.
One can see bits of rose petals in the bag. QUERY: do I send it to her? or drink it and try to feel loving towards myself as I sip? I'd use some almond milk. I love milky tea.
My daughter is named Pure Joy, altho I gave her a more conventional first name that means pure instead of naming her pure. I chose her name with much clarity of intention: she would be pure joy!!!
Ha. Ha. Happy Mother's Day to me, the childless mother.
I so fucking hate Mother's Day. As has become part of my awful Mother's Day ritual, I have ruminated several times this weekend about my first Mother's Day after her birth, which was in May 1983. Being with her was pure joy but, Mother's day being on a weekend, her father's presence marred my day.
Her father was, as he was every day, a pure asshole. She was pure joy, pure bliss, pure love.
One can see bits of rose petals in the bag. QUERY: do I send it to her? or drink it and try to feel loving towards myself as I sip? I'd use some almond milk. I love milky tea.
My daughter is named Pure Joy, altho I gave her a more conventional first name that means pure instead of naming her pure. I chose her name with much clarity of intention: she would be pure joy!!!
Ha. Ha. Happy Mother's Day to me, the childless mother.
I so fucking hate Mother's Day. As has become part of my awful Mother's Day ritual, I have ruminated several times this weekend about my first Mother's Day after her birth, which was in May 1983. Being with her was pure joy but, Mother's day being on a weekend, her father's presence marred my day.
Her father was, as he was every day, a pure asshole. She was pure joy, pure bliss, pure love.
Tuesday, May 08, 2018
courageous love, conscious love
When a couple with a karmic love connection part ways, it is seldom the courageous one who fled. It is the coward that flees. For some, cowards, when they meet a powerful love connection, they choose from their fears and abandon their beloved from fear. Conscious, whole loving shines a light on our darkness and the coward flees that light, flees being seen. Yet being really seen is the gift of love and worth any risk. And it is, ultimately, no risk, to be vulnerable to one's beloved. Some people can't handle having their dark places known by their beloved. Real intimacy, or conscious loving, requires
real presence, and if someone isn’t ready to be truly here on an
individual level, they will find it very difficult to manage all the
triggers that come up in connection.
Only the brave can remain open to the light, and darkness revealed, of love.
Only the brave can remain open to the light, and darkness revealed, of love.
Saturday, May 05, 2018
Bolinas, CA
I've been to Bolinas once. It is a hippie dippie coastal town, north of Marin, along the coast, along Highway 1. I lived in Sonoma for awhile with my then eight year old daughter. Her father threatened to have me mutilated if I did not return to the Midwest so I did, cutting short my longing to live in CA. Katie and I took many drives in the short time we lived in the area. t was all new and exciting.
We did not know about Bolinas, we happened upon it. Once we strolled down its main street, poking our heads into shops, especially a children's book store. I usually let my daughter pick out what she would read. I did try to keep her from reading stories like "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" because it had a scene of a girl being raped. And when I was strongly enthusiastic about "The Bean Tress" [a few years after the Bolinas book incident I am about to describe], I tried hard because it is a great novel but definitely an adult novel. By about the fifth grade, so, what, age 10, I had accepted that my daughter was going to read what she wanted. What was I going to do? Censor her choices? So. Not. Me.
When we visited the shops in Bolinas when she was 8 or maybe 9, I still made some attempts to keep some books out of her hands but hey, I had not read all the books in the world. And I tended to trust star children's book writers like Beverly Clearly.
The children's book store was packed. It would have been a weekend, for otherwise K-J would have been in school. We had to snake our way through the store as if it was one long line. Every inch of the shop was full of people. We passed by books like robotic models on a conveyor belt. There was plenty of time to look at books because that endless, snaking line moved very very very slow.
Katie picked out a book. It it wasn't by Cleary, it was by another children's writer my daughter had happily read many times. And I repeat: I had not read every children's book ever published.
Katie wanted a book for the ride home. Say, back then she avoided talking to me, eh? I agreed to buy her the book she selected without looking at it.
When we got to the cashier to pay for her chosen book, the cashier asked if she could speak to me on the side, away from Katie. She said "I don't think you want to buy this book for your daughter, it is too mature for her." I tut-tutted a bit, saying my daughter was smart and the book did not look to be above her age level. I did not say, but I was thinking "My daughter is a genius and is already reading books like Austen, she can handle this kiddie novel".
The woman, however, was very upset. And adamant. She seemed ready to refuse to see us that book.
Hey, it was a book store. There were many more books. I capitulated to that woman, asking her to recommend a book. Later I looked at the book the cashier had not wanted to sell us. It in volved a child's death.
By the time Katie was ten, she had read the 500 to 600 page "Mists of Avallon" which, if memory serves, opens with a brother and sister, who don't now they are siblings but the reader does, having sex in a Beltane ritual. Once she read that, I let her read anything she chose. The Bean Trees was a book, she happily told me, she had read on the sneak years ago. And I had suspected gtaht she had because she had stopped hounding me about reading it.
Bolinas, Ca, where booksellers cling to the fantasy that it is reasonable to control what children read. Fuck it, is what I say. We're talking about books. And censorship. Not for my kid. Not then and not ever.
We did not know about Bolinas, we happened upon it. Once we strolled down its main street, poking our heads into shops, especially a children's book store. I usually let my daughter pick out what she would read. I did try to keep her from reading stories like "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" because it had a scene of a girl being raped. And when I was strongly enthusiastic about "The Bean Tress" [a few years after the Bolinas book incident I am about to describe], I tried hard because it is a great novel but definitely an adult novel. By about the fifth grade, so, what, age 10, I had accepted that my daughter was going to read what she wanted. What was I going to do? Censor her choices? So. Not. Me.
When we visited the shops in Bolinas when she was 8 or maybe 9, I still made some attempts to keep some books out of her hands but hey, I had not read all the books in the world. And I tended to trust star children's book writers like Beverly Clearly.
The children's book store was packed. It would have been a weekend, for otherwise K-J would have been in school. We had to snake our way through the store as if it was one long line. Every inch of the shop was full of people. We passed by books like robotic models on a conveyor belt. There was plenty of time to look at books because that endless, snaking line moved very very very slow.
Katie picked out a book. It it wasn't by Cleary, it was by another children's writer my daughter had happily read many times. And I repeat: I had not read every children's book ever published.
Katie wanted a book for the ride home. Say, back then she avoided talking to me, eh? I agreed to buy her the book she selected without looking at it.
When we got to the cashier to pay for her chosen book, the cashier asked if she could speak to me on the side, away from Katie. She said "I don't think you want to buy this book for your daughter, it is too mature for her." I tut-tutted a bit, saying my daughter was smart and the book did not look to be above her age level. I did not say, but I was thinking "My daughter is a genius and is already reading books like Austen, she can handle this kiddie novel".
The woman, however, was very upset. And adamant. She seemed ready to refuse to see us that book.
Hey, it was a book store. There were many more books. I capitulated to that woman, asking her to recommend a book. Later I looked at the book the cashier had not wanted to sell us. It in volved a child's death.
By the time Katie was ten, she had read the 500 to 600 page "Mists of Avallon" which, if memory serves, opens with a brother and sister, who don't now they are siblings but the reader does, having sex in a Beltane ritual. Once she read that, I let her read anything she chose. The Bean Trees was a book, she happily told me, she had read on the sneak years ago. And I had suspected gtaht she had because she had stopped hounding me about reading it.
Bolinas, Ca, where booksellers cling to the fantasy that it is reasonable to control what children read. Fuck it, is what I say. We're talking about books. And censorship. Not for my kid. Not then and not ever.
5 de mayo, 2006
On the 4th of May, 2006, I had a routine doctor visit with my Seattle primary care doc. She has a great assistant who always asked me the same questions. One of the questions, always except on 4th of May 2006, was "has anything changed since you last visit?"
I had been saving up my answer to that question because something had changed. Every now and then, for no reason I understood, I could not breath. This inability to breath could last about a minute. It was scary when it was happening. Since I resumed breathing, however, I downplayed its significance.
I was really only looking forward the the question 'what's different since last visit' so I'd have something to say.
The assistant did not ask.
So my doc came in. Martha. She did her doc thing.
Sidebar: when did docs stop listening to patients breath, esp, as I am now, a heart patient? My new primary did not use her stethoscope when I saw her yesterday.
Martha listened to me breath, asked some questions and she was done. As she gathered up her stethoscope to leave my exam room, I said, believing myself to be joking, "Your nurse forgot to ask if anything has changed. Something has changed." I believed myself to be kidding, seriously not serious. I was mostly joking around, 'catching' the nursing assistant in a small mistake: she did not ask.
Martha, however, closed the door, which she had already opened and begun to exit through it, stepped back over to me and said "What's difference?"
So I told her about my very occasional inability to breath for a tiny bit.
She asked lots of questions, listened to my heart and breathing. And ordered me to get some lab tests on my way out, to get them asap. There was a lab in her building so it was easy.
The next day, I was out all day, at some meeting. I was the lead organizer for a large, complex conference that would start about two weeks after that office visit. I was probably out at meetings for that. This was pre-cell for me. Cell phones existed but I didn't have one.
When I finally came home, around 3 p.m. I listened to multiple phone messages from Martha. It was unusual for the actual doc to call. Each of her messages had a slightly more anxious tone. "Call me as soon as you get this." "Call me immediately, I have instructed my staff to put me on the phone when you call even if I am with a patient."
So, yeah, I called her. And, by golly, the actual doc came to the phone. She told me she had gotten my blood test results and it indicated I had, at least, deep vein thrombosis and, given my breathing issues, probably pulmonary emboli. "I want you to take a cab to the a lab next to the hospital and if you tell me you can't afford a taxi, I will pay for your taxi. Don't go on the bus."
I lied to her and promised to take the cab. I was thinking "If I am very seriously in threat, maybe this is my chance to die." So I resolved to take the bus. She had told me to go to a lab what would test for DVT and PE, but it was adjacent to the hospital closest to where I live. It wasn't even a hospital in her system, she had chosen one closest because she was so worried.
She also said she had consulted two different specialists about my lab results because she was a bit surprised that I seemed to have DVT and PE and both of those docs has said my blood tests indicated significant clotting issues.
On the map, the hospital was closest to my apartment but it was not on a bus line. I had to transfer three times, with long waits between each bus. And, piece de resistance, the walk from my last bus stop to the hospital was almost two miles. It took me hella long to walk those two miles because I had to stop to catch my breath constantly.
When I got to the lab where my legs would be evaluated for deep vein thrombosis and then for lung clots, the receptinist squealed. Then she said "where have you been? Your doctor said you'd be here an hour ago and she keeps calling and lots of people have been worried that you died on your way here." The rechnician rushed out and rushed me to her testing room. She shared that she had once had a DVT in a leg and it hurt like hell and asked if I was in a lot of pain.
It wasn't until that moment that I had realized my lower left leg was often in a lot of pain. I have had arthritis all my life. I am accustomed to feeling lots of pain.
So. She did the tests. I knew right away that something was wrong because on my not-clot leg, the machine made one kind of sound but when she put it on my DVT leg, the one with a mass of clots, the machine made very different noices.
After that, I was not allowed to walk. She rolled me over to the ER. I had not eaten lunch or dinner that day because I had planned to go out for Mexican on Cinco de Mayo. I was starving. The ER receptionists lied to me, said I'd be seen too soon for me to find the cafeteria to eat. Later I learned the health care team didn't want me to eat. But I was not seen soon and I was so hungry so I got up to get to the cafeteria. It involved going outside, it was a bit confusing so I asked for directions.
Whoosh. Someone rolled up with a wheelchair and I would be seen right then! And I think they did that to keep me from eating.
I spent that whole evening, until around midnight, in the ER. I went for tests intermittently. A doc was involved, ordering the tests, but I never saw a doc in the ER until the guy's shift ended. He came in, he did not tell me -- and no one had thus far -- what was wrong or going on with me. He patted me on an arm, said my condition (what condition?) was serious and the staff would do their best. But he didn't tell me what health issues were going on.
Finally, I met my hospitalist. I don't remember her name but I liked her. She explained taht I had deep vein thrombosis and multiple pulmonary emboli. I had had a test to look at my lungs so I had seen the images of my lungs. I had dozens of clots in my lungs. More later. . . I have an appointment. Fascinating stuff, eh?
Later. . .
That first ER doc was such a jerk. He never talked to me, just looked at my chart and gave orders. I wsa in that ER from around 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. and until the nightshift hospitalist came on duty, NO ONE told me what was going on, what was wrong. Just test test test.
The hospitalist came in, shook my hand, introduced herelf to me. Then she told me I had a large cluster of clots in my lower left leg, a mass of clotting. She explained that some of those clots had broken away and traveled to my lungs. Lots of them in my lungs, which I knew because I had seen the image of my lungs. When I remember that image of my lungs full of clots, I usually visualize a chinese checkerboard, with little holes for all the marbles. The marbles represent my huge amount of pulmonary clots.
It was kinda a miracle I could breathe.
They had me on oxygen.
The hospitalist explained taht sometimes she would recommend surgical removal of lung cluts but I had so many that such surgery was not feasbile. She said I'd likely die before a surgeon could get all the clots! She was recommending, like I had a choice, that I be administered a serious drug by intravenous means that would, the theory went (said the doc) would gradually melt my clots. This drug was a very serious drug and I would be very vulnerable while receiving it. So, she went on, I needed to be in intensive care.
I had been saving up my answer to that question because something had changed. Every now and then, for no reason I understood, I could not breath. This inability to breath could last about a minute. It was scary when it was happening. Since I resumed breathing, however, I downplayed its significance.
I was really only looking forward the the question 'what's different since last visit' so I'd have something to say.
The assistant did not ask.
So my doc came in. Martha. She did her doc thing.
Sidebar: when did docs stop listening to patients breath, esp, as I am now, a heart patient? My new primary did not use her stethoscope when I saw her yesterday.
Martha listened to me breath, asked some questions and she was done. As she gathered up her stethoscope to leave my exam room, I said, believing myself to be joking, "Your nurse forgot to ask if anything has changed. Something has changed." I believed myself to be kidding, seriously not serious. I was mostly joking around, 'catching' the nursing assistant in a small mistake: she did not ask.
Martha, however, closed the door, which she had already opened and begun to exit through it, stepped back over to me and said "What's difference?"
So I told her about my very occasional inability to breath for a tiny bit.
She asked lots of questions, listened to my heart and breathing. And ordered me to get some lab tests on my way out, to get them asap. There was a lab in her building so it was easy.
The next day, I was out all day, at some meeting. I was the lead organizer for a large, complex conference that would start about two weeks after that office visit. I was probably out at meetings for that. This was pre-cell for me. Cell phones existed but I didn't have one.
When I finally came home, around 3 p.m. I listened to multiple phone messages from Martha. It was unusual for the actual doc to call. Each of her messages had a slightly more anxious tone. "Call me as soon as you get this." "Call me immediately, I have instructed my staff to put me on the phone when you call even if I am with a patient."
So, yeah, I called her. And, by golly, the actual doc came to the phone. She told me she had gotten my blood test results and it indicated I had, at least, deep vein thrombosis and, given my breathing issues, probably pulmonary emboli. "I want you to take a cab to the a lab next to the hospital and if you tell me you can't afford a taxi, I will pay for your taxi. Don't go on the bus."
I lied to her and promised to take the cab. I was thinking "If I am very seriously in threat, maybe this is my chance to die." So I resolved to take the bus. She had told me to go to a lab what would test for DVT and PE, but it was adjacent to the hospital closest to where I live. It wasn't even a hospital in her system, she had chosen one closest because she was so worried.
She also said she had consulted two different specialists about my lab results because she was a bit surprised that I seemed to have DVT and PE and both of those docs has said my blood tests indicated significant clotting issues.
On the map, the hospital was closest to my apartment but it was not on a bus line. I had to transfer three times, with long waits between each bus. And, piece de resistance, the walk from my last bus stop to the hospital was almost two miles. It took me hella long to walk those two miles because I had to stop to catch my breath constantly.
When I got to the lab where my legs would be evaluated for deep vein thrombosis and then for lung clots, the receptinist squealed. Then she said "where have you been? Your doctor said you'd be here an hour ago and she keeps calling and lots of people have been worried that you died on your way here." The rechnician rushed out and rushed me to her testing room. She shared that she had once had a DVT in a leg and it hurt like hell and asked if I was in a lot of pain.
It wasn't until that moment that I had realized my lower left leg was often in a lot of pain. I have had arthritis all my life. I am accustomed to feeling lots of pain.
So. She did the tests. I knew right away that something was wrong because on my not-clot leg, the machine made one kind of sound but when she put it on my DVT leg, the one with a mass of clots, the machine made very different noices.
After that, I was not allowed to walk. She rolled me over to the ER. I had not eaten lunch or dinner that day because I had planned to go out for Mexican on Cinco de Mayo. I was starving. The ER receptionists lied to me, said I'd be seen too soon for me to find the cafeteria to eat. Later I learned the health care team didn't want me to eat. But I was not seen soon and I was so hungry so I got up to get to the cafeteria. It involved going outside, it was a bit confusing so I asked for directions.
Whoosh. Someone rolled up with a wheelchair and I would be seen right then! And I think they did that to keep me from eating.
I spent that whole evening, until around midnight, in the ER. I went for tests intermittently. A doc was involved, ordering the tests, but I never saw a doc in the ER until the guy's shift ended. He came in, he did not tell me -- and no one had thus far -- what was wrong or going on with me. He patted me on an arm, said my condition (what condition?) was serious and the staff would do their best. But he didn't tell me what health issues were going on.
Finally, I met my hospitalist. I don't remember her name but I liked her. She explained taht I had deep vein thrombosis and multiple pulmonary emboli. I had had a test to look at my lungs so I had seen the images of my lungs. I had dozens of clots in my lungs. More later. . . I have an appointment. Fascinating stuff, eh?
Later. . .
That first ER doc was such a jerk. He never talked to me, just looked at my chart and gave orders. I wsa in that ER from around 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. and until the nightshift hospitalist came on duty, NO ONE told me what was going on, what was wrong. Just test test test.
The hospitalist came in, shook my hand, introduced herelf to me. Then she told me I had a large cluster of clots in my lower left leg, a mass of clotting. She explained that some of those clots had broken away and traveled to my lungs. Lots of them in my lungs, which I knew because I had seen the image of my lungs. When I remember that image of my lungs full of clots, I usually visualize a chinese checkerboard, with little holes for all the marbles. The marbles represent my huge amount of pulmonary clots.
It was kinda a miracle I could breathe.
They had me on oxygen.
The hospitalist explained taht sometimes she would recommend surgical removal of lung cluts but I had so many that such surgery was not feasbile. She said I'd likely die before a surgeon could get all the clots! She was recommending, like I had a choice, that I be administered a serious drug by intravenous means that would, the theory went (said the doc) would gradually melt my clots. This drug was a very serious drug and I would be very vulnerable while receiving it. So, she went on, I needed to be in intensive care.
Thursday, May 03, 2018
I just woke myself up as I cried very hard in a dream
I was arguing with my dad. He had mangled his agreement with me about how I would spend the summer, then he was forcing me to move furniture even though all my brothers, all big guys six feet or taller, and at least one bro a big hulk and all of them more capable than I have ever been of moving heavy stuff. And he was talking about some of my cousins, people neither of us had seen in many years, about giving them some of his money. If he had said he was giving all his money to these nephews of his, I wouldn't have been upset, I would have known he was pulling my leg. My dad was an awful tease, never knowing when to stop, always taking his teasing too far. But I could spot his teasing. Usually. Like if he had said share with my cousins, okay, he was teasing. But when he said, sober as a judge, no twinkle in his gambler's charming blue eyes, that he would have to talk to 'the boys' and then he'd decide but he believed in giving where it was needed. Maybe a pointed dig at me, like I shouldn't be holding out my hand. I didn't spot his teasing because he was being deliberately mean. My dad was not delibertely mean to me many times, if you don't count the incest. And I don't count his incesting me aas being deliberately mean. I count the incest as my dad being a weak, damaged man. I guess he was weak and damaged in all things but I didn't know this when I was about 22, as I was in the dream, getting ready to move to MN for law school without enough money to do it. He never did give me a dime to help with that move. Throughout law school, I lived with one used wing back chair I bought in a dingy Lake Street used furniture store, then threw a furniture cover of it, a drexel heritage dining room table whose surface was very badly damaged that I bought at a garage sale. one straight back chair from the same sale and an old metal springs bed with old mattress on an old metal frame my landlady had offered me when, as she shoed me the apartment, she asked if I needed furnishing and I said "Well, yeah, now that you mention it." She gave me that bed and I, then I and my now ex hubby slept on it for years, into the marriage even. And she gave me an old metal dining table with two chairs. A kitchen table. It was art deco and would be prized in a fifties odernity furniture shop but my ex hated it for not being from a contemporary furniture store, not being bought new.
The most angst producing aspect of the dream was this: I knew I was sleeping and kept trying to pull yself awake so I'd stop being so angry and hurt by my dad's talk but I didn't want to wake up because I knew I had no one to tell when I awoke. Even asleep, I wanted to tell Geo how rudely my dad was treating me and hear him coo sympathetically, stroking my hair, hugging me, telling me I was okay.
So I stayed in this in and out zone, sleeping but conscious I was dreaming, alseep but not wanting to wake up but wanting to stop the dream by waking up.
Come to think of it, many of the stories from my dad that have been cropping up in my thoughts, based on memories of real events, with the fractured filters one gets with fifty year old memories, and some of them dreams that were about things that never happened but which match emotional states I had when interacting with my dad, these stories often reveal a character trait that my dad and Geo share.
I have always been attracted to men with the worst traits of both my parents.
One of my dad's finest traits was his generosity, which is instilled in me. He would say "If giving away some of the money in my pocket will help a guy out, I'll give it to him. Sometimes a guy feels like the only friend he has in the world is the few bucks he has in his pocket and that's a terrible way for a guy to feel, honey. So if someone hits me up for money, I give it. I've been tapped out myself and it is a cold, lonely place to be." Another thing he said a lot, to explain why he never locked any house he lived in. He said "If anyone wants anything I got so bad they will break in to steal it, they need it worse than me and I don't need the smashed in window or door so let them have it." No one ever broke in but for some reason, I beamed with pride for my father each time he said it. As I beamed, I would think about what we owned. We didn't own anything of great value. Our most expensive asset that I could identify was our family tv. Even as a kid, I knew that was not great wealth. And I knew we never had any money because my dad was a compulsive gambler. Chuck liked the ponies, the crooked world of horse racing.
I cajoled him to Omaha partly with his first glimpse of his first grandchild, and my gifted airfare, but I think what won him over, for my dad hated to leave Chicago and only left it to meet Rosie and to come to my wedding. Also he attended my law school graduation. He talked, regularly, about going to Vegas but he never made it to Vegas. I always prayed he would never go to Vegas for I was sure he would gamble away his house.
He was a flawed human but I loved him. And he loved me. I always knew he loved me.
The most angst producing aspect of the dream was this: I knew I was sleeping and kept trying to pull yself awake so I'd stop being so angry and hurt by my dad's talk but I didn't want to wake up because I knew I had no one to tell when I awoke. Even asleep, I wanted to tell Geo how rudely my dad was treating me and hear him coo sympathetically, stroking my hair, hugging me, telling me I was okay.
So I stayed in this in and out zone, sleeping but conscious I was dreaming, alseep but not wanting to wake up but wanting to stop the dream by waking up.
Come to think of it, many of the stories from my dad that have been cropping up in my thoughts, based on memories of real events, with the fractured filters one gets with fifty year old memories, and some of them dreams that were about things that never happened but which match emotional states I had when interacting with my dad, these stories often reveal a character trait that my dad and Geo share.
I have always been attracted to men with the worst traits of both my parents.
One of my dad's finest traits was his generosity, which is instilled in me. He would say "If giving away some of the money in my pocket will help a guy out, I'll give it to him. Sometimes a guy feels like the only friend he has in the world is the few bucks he has in his pocket and that's a terrible way for a guy to feel, honey. So if someone hits me up for money, I give it. I've been tapped out myself and it is a cold, lonely place to be." Another thing he said a lot, to explain why he never locked any house he lived in. He said "If anyone wants anything I got so bad they will break in to steal it, they need it worse than me and I don't need the smashed in window or door so let them have it." No one ever broke in but for some reason, I beamed with pride for my father each time he said it. As I beamed, I would think about what we owned. We didn't own anything of great value. Our most expensive asset that I could identify was our family tv. Even as a kid, I knew that was not great wealth. And I knew we never had any money because my dad was a compulsive gambler. Chuck liked the ponies, the crooked world of horse racing.
I cajoled him to Omaha partly with his first glimpse of his first grandchild, and my gifted airfare, but I think what won him over, for my dad hated to leave Chicago and only left it to meet Rosie and to come to my wedding. Also he attended my law school graduation. He talked, regularly, about going to Vegas but he never made it to Vegas. I always prayed he would never go to Vegas for I was sure he would gamble away his house.
He was a flawed human but I loved him. And he loved me. I always knew he loved me.
over to the rainbow
I need to go to the city, to the hallowed ground of Rainbow Grocery, a worker owned co-op with the largest selection of bulk items I have ever seen, more choices than I could have ever imagined on my own. I find things I did not know existed in that bulk food barn.
They also sell packaged foods. . . but no meat. They do sell dairy and eggs. And the prices on all their non-bulk food are exhorbitant.
I love going over to the Rainbow anyway.
I love it that I usually go there for something small. I'll be heading over to the rainbow tomorrow to buy bulk organic black peppercorns. Or colorful peppers. They sell multi-colored pepper balls for grinding.
I will pick up some fermented bulk foods.
I am on the hunt for pickled ginger. I keep forgetting to buy it when I am in food stores, which I am not in often.
They also sell packaged foods. . . but no meat. They do sell dairy and eggs. And the prices on all their non-bulk food are exhorbitant.
I love going over to the Rainbow anyway.
I love it that I usually go there for something small. I'll be heading over to the rainbow tomorrow to buy bulk organic black peppercorns. Or colorful peppers. They sell multi-colored pepper balls for grinding.
I will pick up some fermented bulk foods.
I am on the hunt for pickled ginger. I keep forgetting to buy it when I am in food stores, which I am not in often.
