Japan has been hit (again) by a serious quake over 8.0 and (again) loss of life and a follow up Tsunami. Our hearts go out to them, especially from sister Californians who live in 'the zone' and not too distantly dealt with the aftermath of a smaller quake here at home.
A Tsunami is caused by "the displacement of a large volume of a body of water due to disturbances above or below the water." (Thank you, Wikipedia) The ocean currents freak out, not only at the site of the earthquake but for thousands of miles in every direction. The closest land gets it: the more shallow it is, the bigger the punch. It was heartbreaking to watch a wall of water 23' high travel 6 miles inland.
Survivor accounts of a Japanese tsunami by a child at a school in the 1920s described the waters receding a long way from shore, and her classmates running down to pick up starfish and seashells. As the ocean built in volume on the horizon and a distinctly big wave formed, they realized the danger too late as they ran for their lives.
It's hard to imagine the approach of a wall of water with no break that surges in and swallows everything in its path. People thinking they were safely out of the way are often swept out to sea with the receding waters. And this just minutes after the shock of living through the most devastating quake imaginable, an 8.9 and hundreds of times stronger than the devastating San Francisco quake of 1906.
Open bays and coastlines are risk even half a world away and so a Tsunami warning was put out for Hawaii and along the west coast through noon today. For some unknown reason our four major news stations took this as an invite for continual coverage even though tracking a Tsunami is a waiting game. It takes a while to travel. (Dramadramadrama)
Not only that. I'm looking at a confusing series of photos of the Japanese Tsunami on the left side of the screen with a reporter in Hawaii on the right. To the casual observer, it implies that the pictures you are viewing are from Hawaii. Not good, people.
Let's try another station. Here we are looking at the Great Hwy in San Francisco across from where Pop B lives, which has been closed since 5am and is being patrolled by SF's finest. Another earnest looking reporter is standing on the abandoned road and interviewing officers about the implied danger. (But evacuations? No?) With swells expected to be 2' above normal (isn't that 24 inches?) they will 'continually monitor the situation'. Well thank God for that!
Flipping to another station ... where photos are constantly repeating in Santa Cruz, showing the local bridge and a couple of dozen commercial and private boats having lost the oldest dock at the north side of the marina floating along upside down. Five hours of the same pictures and no mention of the 95% of the marina that remains. People in tears. Seriously!
News is super important, I get that, for early warnings and notifications, but I wish it were spent keeping focused on the real tragedy here: the Japanese people and news on how to help and where to donate. Even with baby tsunami leftovers, no part of this day should have been about us.
Mar 11, 2011
Mar 9, 2011
Do Unto Others
I read rather a shocking article by Lenore Skenazy ( http://www.parentdish.com/2011/03/08/kids-helpless/?icid=maing%7Cmain5%7Cdl6%7Csec3_lnk2%7C49092 ) about the importance of independence in children. In it, the author bluntly accused well-meaning and over-indulging parents of teaching the Art of Handicap-itis (my word) rather than self reliance. She went so far as to identify the drop off spots in front of the elementary school as former handicap zones that proves parents think their children are unable to walk.
I love a good starry-eyed trip back to the days of my youth, too, when we walked to school uphill both ways in the snow. But if you take a trip there you might want to look at it all, like all of my neighbors had two parent households and one family car, and there were roughly 35 kids on the block to walk with in a clump to the elementary school at the end of the street.
There were other differences, too. We took our lunch in a lunch box with a thermos of milk. If we fell down on the way to school, we had to figure out if we wanted to ask the secretary for a bandaid or turn for home. There were no cells right to Mom.
At the show, we paid attention because we got to see it once. No one blew their allowance. When that .50 was plunked down, we had already worked out two or three different ways to go, plus a little to savings. And if we skipped our chores that meant no allowance. Simple systems are sometimes best.
So instead of debating the merits of whether to train and empower our children with the skills they need in life, the better question might be: at what age should it begin?
It already has. Our little sponges are learning all the time, so make the process interactive. That's it! No big mystery! Have them help pick up their toys when they're 3 and make the bed when they're 4; let them stand on a stool and help mom do laundry when they're 7 and make one dinner a week when they're 10; praise them and push them and model what you want them to learn. Set up consequences and stick to them. C'mon! Who needs a class on this stuff?!
I'm sometimes sorry that the world has changed. But nowadays my neighbors are busy single parents or two-wage earners. They often need to be on the road before school starts, and they've got to get them there so they drop them off. I'd be vying for that cherry drop off spot right in front of the school, too, because it's faster and safer.
Hey, parents are people, too.
I love a good starry-eyed trip back to the days of my youth, too, when we walked to school uphill both ways in the snow. But if you take a trip there you might want to look at it all, like all of my neighbors had two parent households and one family car, and there were roughly 35 kids on the block to walk with in a clump to the elementary school at the end of the street.
There were other differences, too. We took our lunch in a lunch box with a thermos of milk. If we fell down on the way to school, we had to figure out if we wanted to ask the secretary for a bandaid or turn for home. There were no cells right to Mom.
At the show, we paid attention because we got to see it once. No one blew their allowance. When that .50 was plunked down, we had already worked out two or three different ways to go, plus a little to savings. And if we skipped our chores that meant no allowance. Simple systems are sometimes best.
So instead of debating the merits of whether to train and empower our children with the skills they need in life, the better question might be: at what age should it begin?
It already has. Our little sponges are learning all the time, so make the process interactive. That's it! No big mystery! Have them help pick up their toys when they're 3 and make the bed when they're 4; let them stand on a stool and help mom do laundry when they're 7 and make one dinner a week when they're 10; praise them and push them and model what you want them to learn. Set up consequences and stick to them. C'mon! Who needs a class on this stuff?!
I'm sometimes sorry that the world has changed. But nowadays my neighbors are busy single parents or two-wage earners. They often need to be on the road before school starts, and they've got to get them there so they drop them off. I'd be vying for that cherry drop off spot right in front of the school, too, because it's faster and safer.
Hey, parents are people, too.
Mar 7, 2011
Long Time Passing
Looking in the mirror shows a ...
Long time's been passing;
Someone's looking back at me
(Kinda looks like Mom;)
Looking in the mirror: guess
the lighting must be terrible!
I still feel 25
But can't see signs when I drive.
Where has all the firmness gone
Long time passing;
Where has all the firmness gone
Long time ago;
Where has all the firmness gone:
Gone to crows feet everyone;
We'd better moisturize
And hatch a plan to downsize.
Where have all the noses gone
Long time passing;
Where have all the noses gone
Long time ago;
Where have all the noses gone
Gone to gravity everyone;
A witches' nose is there
Which seems completely unfair.
Where have all the jawlines gone
Long time passing;
Where have all the jawlines gone
Long time ago;
Where have all the jawlines gone
Gone to neck fat everyone:
It was there yesterday:
The jowls are just in the way.
Where have all the hairs come from
Long time passing;
Where have all the hairs come from
Long time ago;
Where have all the hairs come from
Lips and chins and everywhere:
They pop up overnight
And hard to see in the light.
Where have all my glasses gone
Long time passing;
Where have all my glasses gone
Long time ago;
Where have all my glasses gone
I can't see without them now
When will I ever learn?
One pair in every room...
Long time's been passing;
Someone's looking back at me
(Kinda looks like Mom;)
Looking in the mirror: guess
the lighting must be terrible!
I still feel 25
But can't see signs when I drive.
Where has all the firmness gone
Long time passing;
Where has all the firmness gone
Long time ago;
Where has all the firmness gone:
Gone to crows feet everyone;
We'd better moisturize
And hatch a plan to downsize.
Where have all the noses gone
Long time passing;
Where have all the noses gone
Long time ago;
Where have all the noses gone
Gone to gravity everyone;
A witches' nose is there
Which seems completely unfair.
Where have all the jawlines gone
Long time passing;
Where have all the jawlines gone
Long time ago;
Where have all the jawlines gone
Gone to neck fat everyone:
It was there yesterday:
The jowls are just in the way.
Where have all the hairs come from
Long time passing;
Where have all the hairs come from
Long time ago;
Where have all the hairs come from
Lips and chins and everywhere:
They pop up overnight
And hard to see in the light.
Where have all my glasses gone
Long time passing;
Where have all my glasses gone
Long time ago;
Where have all my glasses gone
I can't see without them now
When will I ever learn?
One pair in every room...
Mar 6, 2011
What to Do
Well here I am sitting on the fence at a crossroads, and in the lightening round. I'm only here as a spectator, but it's bad enough even in that capacity.
Someone fairly new to me has developed a false impression of someone I love. As simple as that, decades of relationship building is dissolving away. It resembles watching a computer virus eat through the hard drive and all you can do is stand helplessly by.
Every time I see it happen, I can never really believe that such unimportant, indefensible issues can take down something so sturdy. In the aftermath, there's no gap to widen, no hope for repair. And although it should be taken into account, it doesn't soften the blow knowing that age and mental acuity are factors.
I know that what is in our hearts is not always on our lips but I'm reluctant to believe situations come up where each action and reaction is judged separate from the bridge you have spent a lifetime to construct. Seriously, all this (hard) hat hair for nothing.
Ok, so I don't want to believe that we can't count on anyone for sure and what is built together is transitory. I don't even want there to be words for it.
Someone fairly new to me has developed a false impression of someone I love. As simple as that, decades of relationship building is dissolving away. It resembles watching a computer virus eat through the hard drive and all you can do is stand helplessly by.
Every time I see it happen, I can never really believe that such unimportant, indefensible issues can take down something so sturdy. In the aftermath, there's no gap to widen, no hope for repair. And although it should be taken into account, it doesn't soften the blow knowing that age and mental acuity are factors.
I know that what is in our hearts is not always on our lips but I'm reluctant to believe situations come up where each action and reaction is judged separate from the bridge you have spent a lifetime to construct. Seriously, all this (hard) hat hair for nothing.
Ok, so I don't want to believe that we can't count on anyone for sure and what is built together is transitory. I don't even want there to be words for it.
My Very Own Shoes
One of my favorite things when I was a little kid was to pull out a pair of my father's dress shoes and clomp around the house. They barely stayed on and there was no hope at all I'd ever fit into them. Two of my feet fit into one of his shoes.
It's an interesting expression, 'having big shoes to fill', when you apply it to building a life, because invariably there is always someone ahead who has done everything first. No one skips a predecessor who has done it, worked it, played it, raised it, or believed it. And very likely it was done thoroughly and with great panache.
Thankfully, Lifekeeping doesn't remind us of that too often. Everything feels like a personal first as we work our own booth, swap in and out relationships and jobs, go up and down ladders while juggling plates.
So what is it about being asked to fill big shoes that causes such anxiety and self doubt? Here we've been happily owning our journey and building off the experience and knowledge of others the whole time, millions of times over... and then the dreaded words of ... 'boy, you have some big shoes to fill!' Isn't that just the mantra of people resistant to change?
I understand that. I overheard a conversation with the boys talking about buying our old house that was for sale. And the girls are really attached to our house here, the wallpaper, the Wall of Fame, the yard.
I was mulling all of this over the other day and darned if I didn't remember about those big old shoes of my dad. It was really fun to try them on for size but they sometimes caused me to stumble and trip. And when the sun came out and friends rang the bell, I was back in my own shoes in a flash and taking off at a run.
New anythings take adjustment, and in the end the only shoes that you want to be wearing are your own.
It's an interesting expression, 'having big shoes to fill', when you apply it to building a life, because invariably there is always someone ahead who has done everything first. No one skips a predecessor who has done it, worked it, played it, raised it, or believed it. And very likely it was done thoroughly and with great panache.
Thankfully, Lifekeeping doesn't remind us of that too often. Everything feels like a personal first as we work our own booth, swap in and out relationships and jobs, go up and down ladders while juggling plates.
So what is it about being asked to fill big shoes that causes such anxiety and self doubt? Here we've been happily owning our journey and building off the experience and knowledge of others the whole time, millions of times over... and then the dreaded words of ... 'boy, you have some big shoes to fill!' Isn't that just the mantra of people resistant to change?
I understand that. I overheard a conversation with the boys talking about buying our old house that was for sale. And the girls are really attached to our house here, the wallpaper, the Wall of Fame, the yard.
I was mulling all of this over the other day and darned if I didn't remember about those big old shoes of my dad. It was really fun to try them on for size but they sometimes caused me to stumble and trip. And when the sun came out and friends rang the bell, I was back in my own shoes in a flash and taking off at a run.
New anythings take adjustment, and in the end the only shoes that you want to be wearing are your own.
Mar 4, 2011
The Airport
This, from the internet:
A young lady was waiting for her flight in the boarding room of a big airport. As she would need to wait many hours, she decided to buy a book to spend her time. She also bought a packet of cookies.
She sat down in the armchair of the VIP lounge at the airport, to rest and read in peace. Beside the armchair where the packet of cookies lay, a man sat down in the next seat and opened and magazine and began to read.
When she took out the first cookie, the man took out one also. She was irritated but said nothing. But she thought: what nerve!
For each cookie she took, the man took one, too. This was infuriating her but she didn't want to cause a scene. When only one cookie remained, she thought to herself: Ah! What will this man do now?
Then, the man, taking the last cookie, divided it in half and gave her one half. That was too much! She was angry now. In a huff she took her book, her things and stormed off to the boarding place.
When she sat down in the plane and looked in her purse for her eyeglasses, to her surprise her packet of cookies was there, untouched and unopened. She realized that she had forgotten her cookies were put in her purse.
She felt so ashamed. The man had shared his cookies with her, without bitterness or complaint. And now there was no way to explain herself or apologize.
There are 4 things that you cannot recover:
The stone after it's thrown;
The word after it's said;
The occasion after the loss; and
The time after it's gone.
A young lady was waiting for her flight in the boarding room of a big airport. As she would need to wait many hours, she decided to buy a book to spend her time. She also bought a packet of cookies.
She sat down in the armchair of the VIP lounge at the airport, to rest and read in peace. Beside the armchair where the packet of cookies lay, a man sat down in the next seat and opened and magazine and began to read.
When she took out the first cookie, the man took out one also. She was irritated but said nothing. But she thought: what nerve!
For each cookie she took, the man took one, too. This was infuriating her but she didn't want to cause a scene. When only one cookie remained, she thought to herself: Ah! What will this man do now?
Then, the man, taking the last cookie, divided it in half and gave her one half. That was too much! She was angry now. In a huff she took her book, her things and stormed off to the boarding place.
When she sat down in the plane and looked in her purse for her eyeglasses, to her surprise her packet of cookies was there, untouched and unopened. She realized that she had forgotten her cookies were put in her purse.
She felt so ashamed. The man had shared his cookies with her, without bitterness or complaint. And now there was no way to explain herself or apologize.
There are 4 things that you cannot recover:
The stone after it's thrown;
The word after it's said;
The occasion after the loss; and
The time after it's gone.
Feb 23, 2011
This Was On My Mind
I traveled with my husband last weekend to Texas and one of the days we headed over the border into Progresso, Mexico, for his birthday. It's a nice little town, very quaint and very poor.
There's a 350 mile long fence along the Rio Grande that separates their country from ours, and we observed border patrol all along the way keeping watch. But on this day, with immigration on my mind, I tried to see the visit with a different set of eyes.
We have read about the powerful drug cartels in Mexico and their bold strikes at civilians, police and innocent children. There has been an incredible loss of life. They take what they want, whenever they want it: not unlike the Mafia of the 20s and 30s in Chicago. Vicious. Violent. Arrogant. Unstoppable.
This was on my mind as we parked and walked over the long bridge spanning the Rio Grande. We saw small arms with caps poking through the bridge slats at either end where it met ground, women and children begging for a few coins. Downstream there were people begging and Americans tossing them coins to catch.
This was on my mind as we entered a country under siege. There were soldiers with submachine guns walking the streets and barricaded near the bridge to ensure the civil rights of people going about their daily lives. There has been no eruption of violence here, but they were taking no chances.
We walked through the gauntlet of vendors selling puppets and jewelry, knockoff purses and booze, as army transport vehicles full of soldiers drove up and down the narrow streets. We ate at a nice restaurant there, looking down on the street busy filled with tourists, knowing our money is the lifeblood of this little town.
What was on my mind as we walked up and down the main street was that there are real people with beating hearts behind the immigration issue. I looked into their eyes, smiling and trying to connect. They are hard working, proud and strongly desiring a better life.
I imagine them waking up in the morning feeling the humidity of the Rio Grande and looking meters across to America, where their friends say there are jobs and less reason to fear.
I imagine them looking at their little children knowing they would not need to weave between the visitors legs holding candies to sell for a quarter or two if they were in America.
I imagine they believe there is a guaranteed better future ... as they look beyond the fence that is just across the Rio Grande.
There's a 350 mile long fence along the Rio Grande that separates their country from ours, and we observed border patrol all along the way keeping watch. But on this day, with immigration on my mind, I tried to see the visit with a different set of eyes.
We have read about the powerful drug cartels in Mexico and their bold strikes at civilians, police and innocent children. There has been an incredible loss of life. They take what they want, whenever they want it: not unlike the Mafia of the 20s and 30s in Chicago. Vicious. Violent. Arrogant. Unstoppable.
This was on my mind as we parked and walked over the long bridge spanning the Rio Grande. We saw small arms with caps poking through the bridge slats at either end where it met ground, women and children begging for a few coins. Downstream there were people begging and Americans tossing them coins to catch.
This was on my mind as we entered a country under siege. There were soldiers with submachine guns walking the streets and barricaded near the bridge to ensure the civil rights of people going about their daily lives. There has been no eruption of violence here, but they were taking no chances.
We walked through the gauntlet of vendors selling puppets and jewelry, knockoff purses and booze, as army transport vehicles full of soldiers drove up and down the narrow streets. We ate at a nice restaurant there, looking down on the street busy filled with tourists, knowing our money is the lifeblood of this little town.
What was on my mind as we walked up and down the main street was that there are real people with beating hearts behind the immigration issue. I looked into their eyes, smiling and trying to connect. They are hard working, proud and strongly desiring a better life.
I imagine them waking up in the morning feeling the humidity of the Rio Grande and looking meters across to America, where their friends say there are jobs and less reason to fear.
I imagine them looking at their little children knowing they would not need to weave between the visitors legs holding candies to sell for a quarter or two if they were in America.
I imagine they believe there is a guaranteed better future ... as they look beyond the fence that is just across the Rio Grande.
Feb 22, 2011
"Is there anything I can get you before I leave?"
I'm reading 90 Minutes in Heaven, by Don Piper. I've wanted to pick it up for a while, and our recent trip to Texas provided the perfect environment for quiet uninterrupted reading time. I'm only halfway through but there was one scene that really stood out.
To set the stage: a Baptist Minister is en route home and his small car is literally run over by a big truck, crushing him inside with such life-threatening injuries he is pronounced dead at the scene. The emergency crews toss a tarp over the car with this man inside and attend to the other accident victims after checking at least twice that there is no pulse. A full hour and a half later, the emergency crews are frantically using The Jaws of Life to extract him because another minister who happened upon the scene was praying over his body and heard him singing along to the hymn.
True story. It is graphic and uplifting, difficult even to read what he went through, the miracle of each step in his recovery and his intense pain during those months and years. There were moments where my mind turned to the suffering of Christ and wondered how a human body and spirit could endure it.
The Minister came to see God's profound lessons during his convalescence, and one very meaningful passage leapt out at me. It involved his Mentor and friend visiting and observing the Minister, who is struggling with intense depression and pain, turn away well-wishers and offers to help in some small way.
The exchange that followed has changed the way I interpret relationships. After the visitors had gone, the Mentor admonished the Minister. 'You need to get your act together,' he told him: 'You're not treating them right. You won't let them do anything for you.'
You can imagine how the Minister protested to those words. He was the one in constant pain, and doing all the hard work. It was his body with steel rods running in and out of his arms and legs, and tubes everywhichway, with no end in sight for his recovery. He was the pathetic and woeful one. It was his life. It was his desire for people to leave him alone in his misery.
But the Mentor persisted. 'It's not your call. You have spent the better part of your life trying to minister to other people ... and now you are cheating them out of an opportunity to express their love for you.'
It was a shocking passage. It meant that when we connect with others, even superficially, we give a part of ourselves away. We give them the reins. Our friends and family become vested in us and the glue is love and purpose.
This lesson isn't just for when we are lying helplessly in a bed and have no alternative: it should be applied during every step of living. We gave permission for the people we love to participate even when we don't need it because we invited them in.
I started looking at all the things that are taken for granted, the small gestures of someone making you breakfast or your son mowing the lawn, or your friend taking you out for lunch and offering to pay. Being more in tune with a graciousness of heart and a graciousness of spirit. Maybe, too, recognizing the gifts for what they are: an expression of love and a desire to please.
I looked back and see it in the failed relationships in my life. Not just in some of them: in all of them. As the relationship grew sick, there were less opportunities to make kind gestures and participate. And when you can no longer give, our role becomes uncertain, we felt unnecessary, and inevitably the relationship ends.
I know we pride ourselves on independence and stalwartness but I wonder about this side of it. So today I think I'll call a friend and see if I can't somehow work the conversation around to this passage and hint around at how her isolated, self reliance is affecting those who want to help. And today I'm going to call someone I've not honestly let in my life the way I should have and see what happens when I nudge open the door.
Post Script: both went well.
To set the stage: a Baptist Minister is en route home and his small car is literally run over by a big truck, crushing him inside with such life-threatening injuries he is pronounced dead at the scene. The emergency crews toss a tarp over the car with this man inside and attend to the other accident victims after checking at least twice that there is no pulse. A full hour and a half later, the emergency crews are frantically using The Jaws of Life to extract him because another minister who happened upon the scene was praying over his body and heard him singing along to the hymn.
True story. It is graphic and uplifting, difficult even to read what he went through, the miracle of each step in his recovery and his intense pain during those months and years. There were moments where my mind turned to the suffering of Christ and wondered how a human body and spirit could endure it.
The Minister came to see God's profound lessons during his convalescence, and one very meaningful passage leapt out at me. It involved his Mentor and friend visiting and observing the Minister, who is struggling with intense depression and pain, turn away well-wishers and offers to help in some small way.
The exchange that followed has changed the way I interpret relationships. After the visitors had gone, the Mentor admonished the Minister. 'You need to get your act together,' he told him: 'You're not treating them right. You won't let them do anything for you.'
You can imagine how the Minister protested to those words. He was the one in constant pain, and doing all the hard work. It was his body with steel rods running in and out of his arms and legs, and tubes everywhichway, with no end in sight for his recovery. He was the pathetic and woeful one. It was his life. It was his desire for people to leave him alone in his misery.
But the Mentor persisted. 'It's not your call. You have spent the better part of your life trying to minister to other people ... and now you are cheating them out of an opportunity to express their love for you.'
It was a shocking passage. It meant that when we connect with others, even superficially, we give a part of ourselves away. We give them the reins. Our friends and family become vested in us and the glue is love and purpose.
This lesson isn't just for when we are lying helplessly in a bed and have no alternative: it should be applied during every step of living. We gave permission for the people we love to participate even when we don't need it because we invited them in.
I started looking at all the things that are taken for granted, the small gestures of someone making you breakfast or your son mowing the lawn, or your friend taking you out for lunch and offering to pay. Being more in tune with a graciousness of heart and a graciousness of spirit. Maybe, too, recognizing the gifts for what they are: an expression of love and a desire to please.
I looked back and see it in the failed relationships in my life. Not just in some of them: in all of them. As the relationship grew sick, there were less opportunities to make kind gestures and participate. And when you can no longer give, our role becomes uncertain, we felt unnecessary, and inevitably the relationship ends.
I know we pride ourselves on independence and stalwartness but I wonder about this side of it. So today I think I'll call a friend and see if I can't somehow work the conversation around to this passage and hint around at how her isolated, self reliance is affecting those who want to help. And today I'm going to call someone I've not honestly let in my life the way I should have and see what happens when I nudge open the door.
Post Script: both went well.
Feb 17, 2011
Incredibly Worth the Read (it's long) -- Goodbye California
While I do not endorse all of Victor's conclusions, it has some profound observations for those of us who love California and are trying to understand its rapid decay.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
By Victor Davis Hansen at rense.com
Good-Bye California
The last three weeks I have traveled about, taking the pulse of the more forgotten areas of central California. I wanted to witness, even if superficially, what is happening to a state that has the highest sales and income taxes, the most lavish entitlements, the near-worst public schools (based on federal test scores), and the largest number of illegal aliens in the nation, along with an overregulated private sector, a stagnant and shrinking manufacturing base, and an elite environmental ethos that restricts commerce and productivity without curbing consumption.
During this unscientific experiment, three times a week I rode a bike on a 20-mile trip over various rural roads in southwestern Fresno County . I also drove my car over to the coast to work, on various routes through towns like San Joaquin , Mendota, and Firebaugh. And near my home I have been driving, shopping, and touring by intent the rather segregated and impoverished areas of Caruthers, Fowler, Laton, Orange Cove, Parlier, and Selma . My own farmhouse is now in an area of abject poverty and almost no ethnic diversity; the closest elementary school (my alma mater, two miles away) is 94 percent Hispanic and 1 percent white, and well below federal testing norms in math and English.
Here are some general observations about what I saw (other than that the rural roads of California are fast turning into rubble, poorly maintained and reverting to what I remember seeing long ago in the rural South). First, remember that these areas are the ground zero, so to speak, of 20 years of illegal immigration. There has been a general depression in farming - to such an extent that the 20- to-100-acre tree and vine farmer, the erstwhile backbone of the old rural California , for all practical purposes has ceased to exist.
On the western side of the Central Valley , the effects of arbitrary cutoffs in federal irrigation water have idled tens of thousands of acres of prime agricultural land, leaving thousands unemployed. Manufacturing plants in the towns in these areas - which used to make harvesters, hydraulic lifts, trailers, food-processing equipment - have largely shut down; their production has been shipped off overseas or south of the border. Agriculture itself - from almonds to raisins - has increasingly become corporatized and mechanized, cutting by half the number of farm workers needed. So unemployment runs somewhere between 15 and 20 percent.
Many of the rural trailer-house compounds I saw appear to the naked eye no different from what I have seen in the Third World . There is a Caribbean look to the junked cars, electric wires crisscrossing between various outbuildings, plastic tarps substituting for replacement shingles, lean-tos cobbled together as auxiliary housing, pit bulls unleashed, and geese, goats, and chickens roaming around the yards. The public hears about all sorts of tough California regulations that stymie business - rigid zoning laws, strict building codes, constant inspections - but apparently none of that applies out here.
It is almost as if the more California regulates, the more it does not regulate. Its public employees prefer to go after misdemeanors in the upscale areas to justify our expensive oversight industry, while ignoring the felonies in the downtrodden areas, which are becoming feral and beyond the ability of any inspector to do anything but feel irrelevant. But in the regulators' defense, where would one get the money to redo an ad hoc trailer park with a spider web of illegal bare wires?
Many of the rented-out rural shacks and stationary Winnebagos are on former small farms - the vineyards overgrown with weeds, or torn out with the ground lying fallow. I pass on the cultural consequences to communities from the loss of thousands of small farming families. I don't think I can remember another time when so many acres in the eastern part of the valley have gone out of production, even though farm prices have recently rebounded. Apparently it is simply not worth the gamble of investing $7,000 to $10,000 an acre in a new orchard or vineyard. What an anomaly - with suddenly soaring farm prices, still we have thousands of acres in the world's richest agricultural belt, with available water on the east side of the valley and plentiful labor, gone idle or in disuse. Is credit frozen? Are there simply no more farmers? Are the schools so bad as to scare away potential agricultural entrepreneurs? Or are we all terrified by the national debt and uncertain future?
California coastal elites may worry about the oxygen content of water available to a three-inch smelt in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, but they seem to have no interest in the epidemic dumping of trash, furniture, and often toxic substances throughout California 's rural hinterland. Yesterday, for example, I rode my bike by a stopped van just as the occupants tossed seven plastic bags of raw refuse onto the side of the road. I rode up near their bumper and said in my broken Spanish not to throw garbage onto the public road. But there were three of them, and one of me. So I was lucky to be sworn at only. I note in passing that I would not drive into Mexico and, as a guest, dare to pull over and throw seven bags of trash into the environment of my host.
In fact, trash piles are commonplace out here - composed of everything from half-empty paint cans and children's plastic toys to diapers and moldy food. I have never seen a rural sheriff cite a litterer, or witnessed state EPA workers cleaning up these unauthorized wastelands. So I would suggest to Bay Area scientists that the environment is taking a much harder beating down here in central California than it is in the Delta. Perhaps before we cut off more irrigation water to the west side of the valley, we might invest some green dollars into cleaning up the unsightly and sometimes dangerous garbage that now litters the outskirts of our rural communities.
We hear about the tough small-business regulations that have driven residents out of the state, at the rate of 2,000 to 3,000 a week. But from my unscientific observations these past weeks, it seems rather easy to open a small business in California without any oversight at all, or at least what I might call a "counter business." I counted eleven mobile hot-kitchen trucks that simply park by the side of the road, spread about some plastic chairs, pull down a tarp canopy, and, presto, become mini-restaurants. There are no "facilities" such as toilets or washrooms. But I do frequently see lard trails on the isolated roads I bike on, where trucks apparently have simply opened their draining tanks and sped on, leaving a slick of cooking fats and oils. Crows and ground squirrels love them; they can be seen from a distance mysteriously occupied in the middle of the road.
At crossroads, peddlers in a counter-California economy sell almost anything. Here is what I noticed at an intersection on the west side last week: shovels, rakes, hoes, gas pumps, lawnmowers, edgers, blowers, jackets, gloves, and caps. The merchandise was all new. I doubt whether in high-tax California sales taxes or income taxes were paid on any of these stop-and-go transactions.
In two supermarkets 50 miles apart, I was the only one in line who did not pay with a social-service plastic card (gone are the days when "food stamps" were embarrassing bulky coupons). But I did not see any relationship between the use of the card and poverty as we once knew it: The electrical appurtenances owned by the user and the car into which the groceries were loaded were indistinguishable from those of the upper middle class.
By that I mean that most consumers drove late-model Camrys, Accords, or Tauruses, had iPhones, Bluetooths, or BlackBerries, and bought everything in the store with public-assistance credit. This seemed a world apart from the trailers I had just ridden by the day before. I don't editorialize here on the logic or morality of any of this, but I note only that there are vast numbers of people who apparently are not working, are on public food assistance, and enjoy the technological veneer of the middle class. California has a consumer market surely, but often no apparent source of income. Does the $40 million a day supplement to unemployment benefits from Washington explain some of this?
Do diversity concerns, as in lack of diversity, work both ways? Over a hundred-mile stretch, when I stopped in San Joaquin for a bottled water, or drove through Orange Cove, or got gas in Parlier, or went to a corner market in southwestern Selma, my home town, I was the only non-Hispanic - there were no Asians, no blacks, no other whites. We may speak of the richness of "diversity," but those who cherish that ideal simply have no idea that there are now countless inland communities that have become near-apartheid societies, where Spanish is the first language, the schools are not at all diverse, and the federal and state governments are either the main employers or at least the chief sources of income - whether through emergency rooms, rural health clinics, public schools, or social-service offices. An observer from Mars might conclude that our elites and masses have given up on the ideal of integration and assimilation, perhaps in the wake of the arrival of 11 to 15 million illegal aliens.
Again, I do not editorialize, but I note these vast transformations over the last 20 years that are the paradoxical wages of unchecked illegal immigration from Mexico, a vast expansion of California's entitlements and taxes, the flight of the upper middle class out of state, the deliberate effort not to tap natural resources, the downsizing in manufacturing and agriculture, and the departure of whites, blacks, and Asians from many of these small towns to more racially diverse and upscale areas of California.
Fresno 's California State University campus is embroiled in controversy over the student body president's announcing that he is an illegal alien, with all the requisite protests in favor of the DREAM Act. I won't comment on the legislation per se, but again only note the anomaly. I taught at CSUF for 21 years. I think it fair to say that the predominant theme of the Chicano and Latin American Studies program's sizable curriculum was a fuzzy American culpability. By that I mean that students in those classes heard of the sins of America more often than its attractions.. In my home town, Mexican flag decals on car windows are far more common than their American counterparts.
I note this because hundreds of students here illegally are now terrified of being deported to Mexico . I can understand that, given the chaos in Mexico and their own long residency in the United States . But here is what still confuses me: If one were to consider the classes that deal with Mexico at the university, or the visible displays of national chauvinism, then one might conclude that Mexico is a far more attractive and moral place than the United States.
So there is a surreal nature to these protests: something like, "Please do not send me back to the culture I nostalgically praise; please let me stay in the culture that I ignore or deprecate." I think the DREAM Act protestors might have been far more successful in winning public opinion had they stopped blaming the U.S. for suggesting that they might have to leave at some point, and instead explained why, in fact, they want to stay. What it is about America that makes a youth of 21 go on a hunger strike or demonstrate to be allowed to remain in this country rather than return to the place of his birth?
I think I know the answer to this paradox. Missing entirely in the above description is the attitude of the host, which by any historical standard can only be termed "indifferent. " California does not care whether one broke the law to arrive here or continues to break it by staying. It asks nothing of the illegal immigrant - no proficiency in English, no acquaintance with American history and values, no proof of income, no record of education or skills. It does provide all the public assistance that it can afford (and more that it borrows for), and apparently waives enforcement of most of California 's burdensome regulations and civic statutes that increasingly have plagued productive citizens to the point of driving them out.
How odd that we overregulate those who are citizens and have capital to the point of banishing them from the state, but do not regulate those who are aliens and without capital to the point of encouraging millions more to follow in their footsteps. How odd - to paraphrase what Critias once said of ancient Sparta - that California is at once both the nation's most unfree and most free state, the most repressed and the wildest.
Hundreds of thousands sense all that and vote accordingly with their feet, both into and out of California - and the result is a sort of social, cultural, economic, and political time-bomb, whose ticks are getting louder.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
By Victor Davis Hansen at rense.com
Good-Bye California
The last three weeks I have traveled about, taking the pulse of the more forgotten areas of central California. I wanted to witness, even if superficially, what is happening to a state that has the highest sales and income taxes, the most lavish entitlements, the near-worst public schools (based on federal test scores), and the largest number of illegal aliens in the nation, along with an overregulated private sector, a stagnant and shrinking manufacturing base, and an elite environmental ethos that restricts commerce and productivity without curbing consumption.
During this unscientific experiment, three times a week I rode a bike on a 20-mile trip over various rural roads in southwestern Fresno County . I also drove my car over to the coast to work, on various routes through towns like San Joaquin , Mendota, and Firebaugh. And near my home I have been driving, shopping, and touring by intent the rather segregated and impoverished areas of Caruthers, Fowler, Laton, Orange Cove, Parlier, and Selma . My own farmhouse is now in an area of abject poverty and almost no ethnic diversity; the closest elementary school (my alma mater, two miles away) is 94 percent Hispanic and 1 percent white, and well below federal testing norms in math and English.
Here are some general observations about what I saw (other than that the rural roads of California are fast turning into rubble, poorly maintained and reverting to what I remember seeing long ago in the rural South). First, remember that these areas are the ground zero, so to speak, of 20 years of illegal immigration. There has been a general depression in farming - to such an extent that the 20- to-100-acre tree and vine farmer, the erstwhile backbone of the old rural California , for all practical purposes has ceased to exist.
On the western side of the Central Valley , the effects of arbitrary cutoffs in federal irrigation water have idled tens of thousands of acres of prime agricultural land, leaving thousands unemployed. Manufacturing plants in the towns in these areas - which used to make harvesters, hydraulic lifts, trailers, food-processing equipment - have largely shut down; their production has been shipped off overseas or south of the border. Agriculture itself - from almonds to raisins - has increasingly become corporatized and mechanized, cutting by half the number of farm workers needed. So unemployment runs somewhere between 15 and 20 percent.
Many of the rural trailer-house compounds I saw appear to the naked eye no different from what I have seen in the Third World . There is a Caribbean look to the junked cars, electric wires crisscrossing between various outbuildings, plastic tarps substituting for replacement shingles, lean-tos cobbled together as auxiliary housing, pit bulls unleashed, and geese, goats, and chickens roaming around the yards. The public hears about all sorts of tough California regulations that stymie business - rigid zoning laws, strict building codes, constant inspections - but apparently none of that applies out here.
It is almost as if the more California regulates, the more it does not regulate. Its public employees prefer to go after misdemeanors in the upscale areas to justify our expensive oversight industry, while ignoring the felonies in the downtrodden areas, which are becoming feral and beyond the ability of any inspector to do anything but feel irrelevant. But in the regulators' defense, where would one get the money to redo an ad hoc trailer park with a spider web of illegal bare wires?
Many of the rented-out rural shacks and stationary Winnebagos are on former small farms - the vineyards overgrown with weeds, or torn out with the ground lying fallow. I pass on the cultural consequences to communities from the loss of thousands of small farming families. I don't think I can remember another time when so many acres in the eastern part of the valley have gone out of production, even though farm prices have recently rebounded. Apparently it is simply not worth the gamble of investing $7,000 to $10,000 an acre in a new orchard or vineyard. What an anomaly - with suddenly soaring farm prices, still we have thousands of acres in the world's richest agricultural belt, with available water on the east side of the valley and plentiful labor, gone idle or in disuse. Is credit frozen? Are there simply no more farmers? Are the schools so bad as to scare away potential agricultural entrepreneurs? Or are we all terrified by the national debt and uncertain future?
California coastal elites may worry about the oxygen content of water available to a three-inch smelt in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, but they seem to have no interest in the epidemic dumping of trash, furniture, and often toxic substances throughout California 's rural hinterland. Yesterday, for example, I rode my bike by a stopped van just as the occupants tossed seven plastic bags of raw refuse onto the side of the road. I rode up near their bumper and said in my broken Spanish not to throw garbage onto the public road. But there were three of them, and one of me. So I was lucky to be sworn at only. I note in passing that I would not drive into Mexico and, as a guest, dare to pull over and throw seven bags of trash into the environment of my host.
In fact, trash piles are commonplace out here - composed of everything from half-empty paint cans and children's plastic toys to diapers and moldy food. I have never seen a rural sheriff cite a litterer, or witnessed state EPA workers cleaning up these unauthorized wastelands. So I would suggest to Bay Area scientists that the environment is taking a much harder beating down here in central California than it is in the Delta. Perhaps before we cut off more irrigation water to the west side of the valley, we might invest some green dollars into cleaning up the unsightly and sometimes dangerous garbage that now litters the outskirts of our rural communities.
We hear about the tough small-business regulations that have driven residents out of the state, at the rate of 2,000 to 3,000 a week. But from my unscientific observations these past weeks, it seems rather easy to open a small business in California without any oversight at all, or at least what I might call a "counter business." I counted eleven mobile hot-kitchen trucks that simply park by the side of the road, spread about some plastic chairs, pull down a tarp canopy, and, presto, become mini-restaurants. There are no "facilities" such as toilets or washrooms. But I do frequently see lard trails on the isolated roads I bike on, where trucks apparently have simply opened their draining tanks and sped on, leaving a slick of cooking fats and oils. Crows and ground squirrels love them; they can be seen from a distance mysteriously occupied in the middle of the road.
At crossroads, peddlers in a counter-California economy sell almost anything. Here is what I noticed at an intersection on the west side last week: shovels, rakes, hoes, gas pumps, lawnmowers, edgers, blowers, jackets, gloves, and caps. The merchandise was all new. I doubt whether in high-tax California sales taxes or income taxes were paid on any of these stop-and-go transactions.
In two supermarkets 50 miles apart, I was the only one in line who did not pay with a social-service plastic card (gone are the days when "food stamps" were embarrassing bulky coupons). But I did not see any relationship between the use of the card and poverty as we once knew it: The electrical appurtenances owned by the user and the car into which the groceries were loaded were indistinguishable from those of the upper middle class.
By that I mean that most consumers drove late-model Camrys, Accords, or Tauruses, had iPhones, Bluetooths, or BlackBerries, and bought everything in the store with public-assistance credit. This seemed a world apart from the trailers I had just ridden by the day before. I don't editorialize here on the logic or morality of any of this, but I note only that there are vast numbers of people who apparently are not working, are on public food assistance, and enjoy the technological veneer of the middle class. California has a consumer market surely, but often no apparent source of income. Does the $40 million a day supplement to unemployment benefits from Washington explain some of this?
Do diversity concerns, as in lack of diversity, work both ways? Over a hundred-mile stretch, when I stopped in San Joaquin for a bottled water, or drove through Orange Cove, or got gas in Parlier, or went to a corner market in southwestern Selma, my home town, I was the only non-Hispanic - there were no Asians, no blacks, no other whites. We may speak of the richness of "diversity," but those who cherish that ideal simply have no idea that there are now countless inland communities that have become near-apartheid societies, where Spanish is the first language, the schools are not at all diverse, and the federal and state governments are either the main employers or at least the chief sources of income - whether through emergency rooms, rural health clinics, public schools, or social-service offices. An observer from Mars might conclude that our elites and masses have given up on the ideal of integration and assimilation, perhaps in the wake of the arrival of 11 to 15 million illegal aliens.
Again, I do not editorialize, but I note these vast transformations over the last 20 years that are the paradoxical wages of unchecked illegal immigration from Mexico, a vast expansion of California's entitlements and taxes, the flight of the upper middle class out of state, the deliberate effort not to tap natural resources, the downsizing in manufacturing and agriculture, and the departure of whites, blacks, and Asians from many of these small towns to more racially diverse and upscale areas of California.
Fresno 's California State University campus is embroiled in controversy over the student body president's announcing that he is an illegal alien, with all the requisite protests in favor of the DREAM Act. I won't comment on the legislation per se, but again only note the anomaly. I taught at CSUF for 21 years. I think it fair to say that the predominant theme of the Chicano and Latin American Studies program's sizable curriculum was a fuzzy American culpability. By that I mean that students in those classes heard of the sins of America more often than its attractions.. In my home town, Mexican flag decals on car windows are far more common than their American counterparts.
I note this because hundreds of students here illegally are now terrified of being deported to Mexico . I can understand that, given the chaos in Mexico and their own long residency in the United States . But here is what still confuses me: If one were to consider the classes that deal with Mexico at the university, or the visible displays of national chauvinism, then one might conclude that Mexico is a far more attractive and moral place than the United States.
So there is a surreal nature to these protests: something like, "Please do not send me back to the culture I nostalgically praise; please let me stay in the culture that I ignore or deprecate." I think the DREAM Act protestors might have been far more successful in winning public opinion had they stopped blaming the U.S. for suggesting that they might have to leave at some point, and instead explained why, in fact, they want to stay. What it is about America that makes a youth of 21 go on a hunger strike or demonstrate to be allowed to remain in this country rather than return to the place of his birth?
I think I know the answer to this paradox. Missing entirely in the above description is the attitude of the host, which by any historical standard can only be termed "indifferent. " California does not care whether one broke the law to arrive here or continues to break it by staying. It asks nothing of the illegal immigrant - no proficiency in English, no acquaintance with American history and values, no proof of income, no record of education or skills. It does provide all the public assistance that it can afford (and more that it borrows for), and apparently waives enforcement of most of California 's burdensome regulations and civic statutes that increasingly have plagued productive citizens to the point of driving them out.
How odd that we overregulate those who are citizens and have capital to the point of banishing them from the state, but do not regulate those who are aliens and without capital to the point of encouraging millions more to follow in their footsteps. How odd - to paraphrase what Critias once said of ancient Sparta - that California is at once both the nation's most unfree and most free state, the most repressed and the wildest.
Hundreds of thousands sense all that and vote accordingly with their feet, both into and out of California - and the result is a sort of social, cultural, economic, and political time-bomb, whose ticks are getting louder.
Feb 14, 2011
Preferential Access
My son logged off FB the other day and suspended his account after falling into the habit of going on to all his friends' and families' pages to see what was going on. He said it made him feel like a stalker.
I can relate. Facebook has its place, definitely. I totally enjoy watching my 2nd cousins grow up, and get to know their wonderful sense of humor with their siblings and friends. They are terrific kids. Their parents and I haven't seen each other since passing through from OH to CA in '92, and they didn't have children yet. Now their family is 4 strong with the eldest off to college in the fall. So in that way FB is an amazing opportunity to not lose touch with people outside of our self-contained lives. Would I be picking up the phone if FB weren't an option? No.
Seems like access preferences are making connections harder, too. Some prefer only calls. Some texts. Some FB posts. Some Skype. Some only email. Some old-fashioned mail. So when there is family news, who can remember it all? I have a friend who encouraged me to communicate with her through FB. By the time I reluctantly joined, she had moved on to texting which I didn't know how to do and had to learn. Now that I have a jazzy Samsung keyboard slide phone, I realize we don't talk any more often than before I chased her all over Tecchyland. Now she's suggesting I learn to Twitter. Instead I suggested she just give me a call sometime.
It brings to mind that scene from the movie He's Just Not That Into You where Drew Barrymore is trying to coordinate a date ... he calls her cell, she returns the call from the office, he texts her, she calls him from her landline, he facebooks her ... and so on? Real life, baby.
My son criticises FB for having no real give or take, other than comments and photos that I wonder the wisdom of posting on a public forum. I posted a political article link once and was gently repramanded by a friend who said she never posted anything controversial on FB. So ... FB really is just the morning mask of Jane Jetson but not somewhere to really talk...which is kinda sad since it is one of our primary communication tools.
Other than sharing the occasional excitement of a big trip, promotion, or family event, I don't find it all that interesting. I think FB is best when it connects friends and family together to meet up later.
I maintain an account on FB for distance friends / family because more and more this is where all of life is shared. FB-esque communicades are rapidly becoming a substitute for more meaningful relationship building activities like calls and visits. FB is a mass, indirect, impersonal communication tool sent out to hook a response. Ever gone fishing?
I never yearned to return to the school environment of the popular crowd after school. But FB is patterned after a college social network of young people with unlimited time on their hands. I admit there is anticipation with logging on and often disappointment of finding no messages for me. How can a social network also be a solitary experience where you spend potentially hours roaming around seeing what others are doing? No wonder it's getting old.
I can relate. Facebook has its place, definitely. I totally enjoy watching my 2nd cousins grow up, and get to know their wonderful sense of humor with their siblings and friends. They are terrific kids. Their parents and I haven't seen each other since passing through from OH to CA in '92, and they didn't have children yet. Now their family is 4 strong with the eldest off to college in the fall. So in that way FB is an amazing opportunity to not lose touch with people outside of our self-contained lives. Would I be picking up the phone if FB weren't an option? No.
Seems like access preferences are making connections harder, too. Some prefer only calls. Some texts. Some FB posts. Some Skype. Some only email. Some old-fashioned mail. So when there is family news, who can remember it all? I have a friend who encouraged me to communicate with her through FB. By the time I reluctantly joined, she had moved on to texting which I didn't know how to do and had to learn. Now that I have a jazzy Samsung keyboard slide phone, I realize we don't talk any more often than before I chased her all over Tecchyland. Now she's suggesting I learn to Twitter. Instead I suggested she just give me a call sometime.
It brings to mind that scene from the movie He's Just Not That Into You where Drew Barrymore is trying to coordinate a date ... he calls her cell, she returns the call from the office, he texts her, she calls him from her landline, he facebooks her ... and so on? Real life, baby.
My son criticises FB for having no real give or take, other than comments and photos that I wonder the wisdom of posting on a public forum. I posted a political article link once and was gently repramanded by a friend who said she never posted anything controversial on FB. So ... FB really is just the morning mask of Jane Jetson but not somewhere to really talk...which is kinda sad since it is one of our primary communication tools.
Other than sharing the occasional excitement of a big trip, promotion, or family event, I don't find it all that interesting. I think FB is best when it connects friends and family together to meet up later.
I maintain an account on FB for distance friends / family because more and more this is where all of life is shared. FB-esque communicades are rapidly becoming a substitute for more meaningful relationship building activities like calls and visits. FB is a mass, indirect, impersonal communication tool sent out to hook a response. Ever gone fishing?
I never yearned to return to the school environment of the popular crowd after school. But FB is patterned after a college social network of young people with unlimited time on their hands. I admit there is anticipation with logging on and often disappointment of finding no messages for me. How can a social network also be a solitary experience where you spend potentially hours roaming around seeing what others are doing? No wonder it's getting old.
Feb 11, 2011
Giddyup
I am horseback riding again after reading this article about the value of higher education.
The author has put together results of a national study, from a reputed marketing research firm, that looked into the return on investment via college career paths. Simplistically, he concluded that there is a large percentage of our population who is not working in their direct area of study, something identified as 'underemployed'.
I was that, for about 14 months, but I'm not now.
In this authoritative comparative analysis of college and trade school in terms of measureable yield and outcomes, he missed the entire point: college is an investment in yourself, and an opportunity to deepen and broaden skillsets, experience, and knowledge in relating to the world.
College is the cerebral equivalent of a You Are Here map. It gives you a jumping off point, but not a destination. Because the destination is open-ended.
A trade school is more of a You Want To End Up Here map. Its focus is narrow and seeks only that outcome. Nothing else matters to a trade school other than teaching one particular skill.
My ex did the trade school route and I did the regular way. We ended up making about the same amount of money (ft-vs-ft), but this study would not identify him as 'underemployed': only me. But am I, really?Would it have been worth it to stay at that vile publishing house just to be on the right side of this study's assessment of whether my academia has been a total waste?
College is a different animal altogether. It seems like the goals are similar for both institutions, but they really are not. And don't forget to throw in what life unexpectedly tosses at you, just for good measure. I'm pretty sure a Ph.D waiting tables has her own reasons for doing it, none of which are our business or useful to judge. Maybe she's a single mother who wants to be home to pick up her daughter and do homework. Maybe she discovered she's a people person who gets antsy sitting at a desk all day. Maybe it's her restaurant. Maybe it's her second job because her husband is unemployed.
I clearly stand by college. It was a hugely valuable personal experience. The oral tradition of the Odyssey and To Kill A Mockingbird was passed on to my children when they were small. I became a lifelong learner, with confidence to grow and learn about computers and new innovations, write blogs and travel journals in my seemingly pathetic 'overinvested' life. And working as a secretary allowed me time to devote to my sons as they were growing up, so I could be home with them and help with homework and sports and Scouts.
How can anyone want to solely rely on the primary and secondary schools to teach the skillsets necessary to fully function in the business of life? Our educational system is in crisis; our children are advanced without demonstrating mastery of the basic subjects; and before we know it, they are 18 and sitting at home playing video games with no job, no work ethic, no skills and no prospects.
You can draw your own conclusions about college, but you cannot deny it teaches endurance and personal accountability. There is a lot of hard work with unbiased assessments based on a student's work ethic, participation, intellect and performance. You meet with obstacles that over 4 years are necessary to overcome. You either master it and achieve or you don't.
That sounds a lot like real life to me.
http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/why-did-17-million-students-go-to-college/27634
The author has put together results of a national study, from a reputed marketing research firm, that looked into the return on investment via college career paths. Simplistically, he concluded that there is a large percentage of our population who is not working in their direct area of study, something identified as 'underemployed'.
I was that, for about 14 months, but I'm not now.
In this authoritative comparative analysis of college and trade school in terms of measureable yield and outcomes, he missed the entire point: college is an investment in yourself, and an opportunity to deepen and broaden skillsets, experience, and knowledge in relating to the world.
College is the cerebral equivalent of a You Are Here map. It gives you a jumping off point, but not a destination. Because the destination is open-ended.
A trade school is more of a You Want To End Up Here map. Its focus is narrow and seeks only that outcome. Nothing else matters to a trade school other than teaching one particular skill.
My ex did the trade school route and I did the regular way. We ended up making about the same amount of money (ft-vs-ft), but this study would not identify him as 'underemployed': only me. But am I, really?Would it have been worth it to stay at that vile publishing house just to be on the right side of this study's assessment of whether my academia has been a total waste?
College is a different animal altogether. It seems like the goals are similar for both institutions, but they really are not. And don't forget to throw in what life unexpectedly tosses at you, just for good measure. I'm pretty sure a Ph.D waiting tables has her own reasons for doing it, none of which are our business or useful to judge. Maybe she's a single mother who wants to be home to pick up her daughter and do homework. Maybe she discovered she's a people person who gets antsy sitting at a desk all day. Maybe it's her restaurant. Maybe it's her second job because her husband is unemployed.
I clearly stand by college. It was a hugely valuable personal experience. The oral tradition of the Odyssey and To Kill A Mockingbird was passed on to my children when they were small. I became a lifelong learner, with confidence to grow and learn about computers and new innovations, write blogs and travel journals in my seemingly pathetic 'overinvested' life. And working as a secretary allowed me time to devote to my sons as they were growing up, so I could be home with them and help with homework and sports and Scouts.
How can anyone want to solely rely on the primary and secondary schools to teach the skillsets necessary to fully function in the business of life? Our educational system is in crisis; our children are advanced without demonstrating mastery of the basic subjects; and before we know it, they are 18 and sitting at home playing video games with no job, no work ethic, no skills and no prospects.
You can draw your own conclusions about college, but you cannot deny it teaches endurance and personal accountability. There is a lot of hard work with unbiased assessments based on a student's work ethic, participation, intellect and performance. You meet with obstacles that over 4 years are necessary to overcome. You either master it and achieve or you don't.
That sounds a lot like real life to me.
http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/why-did-17-million-students-go-to-college/27634
Feb 7, 2011
GVR
So at work there is a competition between offices called Active for Life (also available on the ACS website for non-employees to participate, http://www.activeforlife.com/) which promotes good health through a healthy diet and exercise.
THIS WHOLE DIET-AND-EXERCISE THING IS A STRUGGLE FOR ME! Whew, I am glad that's out.
So I joined my co-workers last week to get moving. My personal goal is exercising 5 days a week, for 30 minutes a day. 150 minutes doesn't seem like much, does it. They give credit for other activities too, like gardening and housework, and cleaning out the storeroom at work and moving big muscle groups, and I do those things already so the goal seems more do-able than committing to 30 minutes straight on the treadmill everyday.
The website tracks the team's exercise for 10 weeks, because they know that exercise is a habit put in place by repetition. One thing might lead to another, and someday I might jump the hurdle of wanting to walk 30 minutes on the treadmill 7 times a week but admittedly that is not where I am. (I wouldn't hold my breath.)
But even if I never achieve that kind of breakthrough, it is never a waste of time to be reminded to (a) drink several 24 oz water bottles each day, (b) lean up the meal portions and food choices (more veggies and less starch), and (c) keep the old bod moving.
After the last humiliating attempt at losing 10 that took 9 weeks to do and stayed off for - oh, maybe a month - I'm going to keep this one lower key. But I have lost a few. (Now don't go saying mean things like it's water weight loss: that's like telling a new father that his smiling newborn just has gas.)
Ya, ya, I know. My old walking buddy and I aren't neighbors anymore, and I don't have a dog with big brown eyes dragging me out of bed, and my husband's work schedule is vastly different than mine now so we can't go to the Y together except weekends. But maybe it's just as well to try being self reliant for a change. It's my responsibility after all to achieve better health and energy and get myself on track. Just Do It, right? Right. I'm bringing my tennies to work to-day!
THIS WHOLE DIET-AND-EXERCISE THING IS A STRUGGLE FOR ME! Whew, I am glad that's out.
So I joined my co-workers last week to get moving. My personal goal is exercising 5 days a week, for 30 minutes a day. 150 minutes doesn't seem like much, does it. They give credit for other activities too, like gardening and housework, and cleaning out the storeroom at work and moving big muscle groups, and I do those things already so the goal seems more do-able than committing to 30 minutes straight on the treadmill everyday.
The website tracks the team's exercise for 10 weeks, because they know that exercise is a habit put in place by repetition. One thing might lead to another, and someday I might jump the hurdle of wanting to walk 30 minutes on the treadmill 7 times a week but admittedly that is not where I am. (I wouldn't hold my breath.)
But even if I never achieve that kind of breakthrough, it is never a waste of time to be reminded to (a) drink several 24 oz water bottles each day, (b) lean up the meal portions and food choices (more veggies and less starch), and (c) keep the old bod moving.
My exercise minutes accumulate with everyone else's toward the daily and weekly goals. Last Saturday I made friends with the gal at the Y who opens up at 6am on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She is expecting to see me there and I heard myself promise to go. Yikes: What is up with me?
After the last humiliating attempt at losing 10 that took 9 weeks to do and stayed off for - oh, maybe a month - I'm going to keep this one lower key. But I have lost a few. (Now don't go saying mean things like it's water weight loss: that's like telling a new father that his smiling newborn just has gas.)
Ya, ya, I know. My old walking buddy and I aren't neighbors anymore, and I don't have a dog with big brown eyes dragging me out of bed, and my husband's work schedule is vastly different than mine now so we can't go to the Y together except weekends. But maybe it's just as well to try being self reliant for a change. It's my responsibility after all to achieve better health and energy and get myself on track. Just Do It, right? Right. I'm bringing my tennies to work to-day!
Feb 4, 2011
Bon Appetit!
They're all sooo good!
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Little girl's birthday party 2011 |
It's a remarkable thing when talent collides with a business idea, and that is the case here with a recent family idea to make high end theme cakes.
Bella's Bakes got its name from Yana Belle (Aiyana), our 8 year old daughter, granddaughter, sister, niece and cousin who died in 2009 from Leukemia.
Yana's mom and older sister have been combining their talents to produce creative and awesome designs that are fresh and inspirational. Every one is a culinary masterpiece.
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| Thanksgiving leaves |
Bella's Bakes will also contribute 10% from each sale to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society which supports research to find a cure.
The girls specialize in cakes and cupcakes for special birthdays, public events, private parties, and business celebrations. A Bella's Bakes dessert is guaranteed to leave a lasting impression, especially when you discover most of the decorations are edible, too.
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| Local Crab Feed 2011 |
The girls are just getting started, and now that their creative juices are flowing we can look forward to each creation being more fantastic than the last.
Now, to the cupcakes. It's hard to choose but I think this sugar baby cupcake topper is pretty fantastic.
Or should I pick the cherry pie cupcake?
Or the turkey and stuffing designed topper?
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| BELLA'S BAKES are located in San Joaquin County (CA) and you can contact them through their FB page formore information. |
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| BELLA'S BAKES is a local business giving back to the community. |
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| Bon Appetit! |
Feb 3, 2011
Trying to Fool Mother Nature (from 1989)
This, from Margaret Roach's A Way to Garden, http://awaytogarden.com/
TODAY IS THE DAY when thoughts officially turn to the potential coming of spring, but on Groundhog Day, my troubled mind can’t let go of memories of Fourth of July. Just the mention of anything groundhog, in fact, and those guilt-laden synapses of mine take me right to that Independence Day not long ago and an ill-advised display of underground fireworks.
I tried to off a groundhog with a smoke bomb.
There, I feel better now that I’ve shared it.
At that time, like many city people, I fought the way thing are, or at least objected to it energetically. The first year in the country house, we fought everything, I recall, not just the groundhog (or woodchuck, as we knew him to be called). On the morning after a harsh snowstorm, for example, we tried to travel back to the city, and in this self-important misadventure, learned a whole new meaning for the term respect.
We fought the deer, who for generations had been coming to eat beneath the apple trees we now insisted were ours; the mice, who asked only a warm place-our bedroom wall-to raise their children. We fought the logic that says that moss, not flowers, grows on the north side of a house, and we even fought each other.
Neither skiers nor children eager to fashion Frosty on the front lawn, we moaned about snow simply because it was inconvenient, because it slowed us down. Now, several winters wiser, we pray for the stuff. It is nectar, sustenance. We have seen the devastation a winter windstorm can deal unto the naked garden, where no white blanket lies in place to soften the blow. When it melts around this time of year, we pray for more with all our might.
Beneath it, all manner of plant and animal life-even the groundhog–might sleep in safety until spring. Without it, they are like shivering homeless on the city streets.
This February morning, Punxsutawney Phil will raise his sleepy head toward the exit of his manmade bedroom burrow in Punxsutawney, Pa., aided by a human handler whose job it is to make him forecast the season ahead. The Blob, which is what a groundhog looks like, mostly, will either see or not see his shadow, depending on the strength of the late-winter sun. If he does, it’s back to bed for six more weeks; sorry, no early spring. The whole thing stems from an ancient Scotch couplet: “If the sun is bright and clear, there’ll be two winters in the year.”
I, for one, hope winter stays around awhile longer. I hope the rest of the winter, which hasn’t seemed like a winter to me at all yet, will bring lots of water to the earth in whatever form, however inconvenient, however messy. I hope it snows and sleets and rains and hails all over the country, every day if necessary, because recent droughts are too clear in my memory for me to hope otherwise.
I remember years when a third of the United States, or more, was parched deep into the subsoil, aching for those healing waters. Any gardener who has lost even one lettuce seedling to an unexpected April heat wave, or one potted plant when it baked on the radiator, should realize what that means: Without a proper sequence of ther passing seasons, without the “inconvenient” weather like rain and sleet and even snow, there would be no farming and nor gardening, no flowers and no food.
I know, it’s been bright and pretty a lot of recent mornings, and you haven’t had to fight the chapping winds to get to work or school. Besides, you think, the trouble’s worse in some other region, not mine, and so it’s all right to feel safe and happy that’s it’s spring two months too soon.
It’s not right, and it’s not safe.
My groundhog did not die, by the way, that unpleasantly memorable Fourth of July, he didn’t even bat a droopy lid at the pair of fools who sealed off the doors of his burrow with big stones after dropping a smoke bomb down one end. He just sat up high on his haunches, as his breed is inclined to do, watching from the distant third opening to his subterranean home. If we had more experience, or if we had only asked one of the many local farmers, we’d have known the burrow probably had more than two openings. We would have known that the groundhog had more sense than two flatlanders, as we of the city streets are sometimes not so fondly called in our unfamiliar rural home.
The rest of the summer-or was I being paranoid?-he seemed to devote to watching me garden, a kind of hairy conscience lingering over my shoulder. All would be well in the garden when, suddenly, a rustling in the brush on the nearby hillside would herald his arrival.
“He’s planning his retaliation,” I would say to myself, wondering what tasty morsel he planned to make his crudite for the day. Day after sunny day, he watched me, until I finally lost it, and began to shout at him with the conviction in my voice that he should listen, that he should understand, that he should even respond.
I was fighting again, a sorry sight, and though he never ate a thing from that year’s summertime garden, the woodchuck had already won.
TODAY IS THE DAY when thoughts officially turn to the potential coming of spring, but on Groundhog Day, my troubled mind can’t let go of memories of Fourth of July. Just the mention of anything groundhog, in fact, and those guilt-laden synapses of mine take me right to that Independence Day not long ago and an ill-advised display of underground fireworks.
I tried to off a groundhog with a smoke bomb.
There, I feel better now that I’ve shared it.
At that time, like many city people, I fought the way thing are, or at least objected to it energetically. The first year in the country house, we fought everything, I recall, not just the groundhog (or woodchuck, as we knew him to be called). On the morning after a harsh snowstorm, for example, we tried to travel back to the city, and in this self-important misadventure, learned a whole new meaning for the term respect.
We fought the deer, who for generations had been coming to eat beneath the apple trees we now insisted were ours; the mice, who asked only a warm place-our bedroom wall-to raise their children. We fought the logic that says that moss, not flowers, grows on the north side of a house, and we even fought each other.
Neither skiers nor children eager to fashion Frosty on the front lawn, we moaned about snow simply because it was inconvenient, because it slowed us down. Now, several winters wiser, we pray for the stuff. It is nectar, sustenance. We have seen the devastation a winter windstorm can deal unto the naked garden, where no white blanket lies in place to soften the blow. When it melts around this time of year, we pray for more with all our might.
Beneath it, all manner of plant and animal life-even the groundhog–might sleep in safety until spring. Without it, they are like shivering homeless on the city streets.
This February morning, Punxsutawney Phil will raise his sleepy head toward the exit of his manmade bedroom burrow in Punxsutawney, Pa., aided by a human handler whose job it is to make him forecast the season ahead. The Blob, which is what a groundhog looks like, mostly, will either see or not see his shadow, depending on the strength of the late-winter sun. If he does, it’s back to bed for six more weeks; sorry, no early spring. The whole thing stems from an ancient Scotch couplet: “If the sun is bright and clear, there’ll be two winters in the year.”
I, for one, hope winter stays around awhile longer. I hope the rest of the winter, which hasn’t seemed like a winter to me at all yet, will bring lots of water to the earth in whatever form, however inconvenient, however messy. I hope it snows and sleets and rains and hails all over the country, every day if necessary, because recent droughts are too clear in my memory for me to hope otherwise.
I remember years when a third of the United States, or more, was parched deep into the subsoil, aching for those healing waters. Any gardener who has lost even one lettuce seedling to an unexpected April heat wave, or one potted plant when it baked on the radiator, should realize what that means: Without a proper sequence of ther passing seasons, without the “inconvenient” weather like rain and sleet and even snow, there would be no farming and nor gardening, no flowers and no food.
I know, it’s been bright and pretty a lot of recent mornings, and you haven’t had to fight the chapping winds to get to work or school. Besides, you think, the trouble’s worse in some other region, not mine, and so it’s all right to feel safe and happy that’s it’s spring two months too soon.
It’s not right, and it’s not safe.
My groundhog did not die, by the way, that unpleasantly memorable Fourth of July, he didn’t even bat a droopy lid at the pair of fools who sealed off the doors of his burrow with big stones after dropping a smoke bomb down one end. He just sat up high on his haunches, as his breed is inclined to do, watching from the distant third opening to his subterranean home. If we had more experience, or if we had only asked one of the many local farmers, we’d have known the burrow probably had more than two openings. We would have known that the groundhog had more sense than two flatlanders, as we of the city streets are sometimes not so fondly called in our unfamiliar rural home.
The rest of the summer-or was I being paranoid?-he seemed to devote to watching me garden, a kind of hairy conscience lingering over my shoulder. All would be well in the garden when, suddenly, a rustling in the brush on the nearby hillside would herald his arrival.
“He’s planning his retaliation,” I would say to myself, wondering what tasty morsel he planned to make his crudite for the day. Day after sunny day, he watched me, until I finally lost it, and began to shout at him with the conviction in my voice that he should listen, that he should understand, that he should even respond.
I was fighting again, a sorry sight, and though he never ate a thing from that year’s summertime garden, the woodchuck had already won.
Feb 2, 2011
A Solid 8
Maybe it's age but this new job is wiping me out! Getting ready is fine, and tucking the house in before I leave is ok, even when dinner needs some prep work, and the whole commute thing is more of a counting-my-blessings thing than anything else. I head into the worst traffic in the area -- and just before it comes to a screeching halt, there is my exit. I feel kind of bad for the sea of red taillights, knowing I've got a leisurely route that will deposit me, literally, on the office doorstep.
I clock in at 9, grab a sweet little cup of celestial seasonings cinnamon tea, and my hard drive begins to hum. I turn on the computer, too. It's exhilirating for the constant barrage of new things to learn, especially when it is important to do things well even if you are in the 50 middlin's.
I sunk into insomnia last year, which emerged late in the summer when the days were really long and sunny and hot. Randy is an early-to-bed, early-to-rise kindaguy and the evening would creep into night -- midnight, one, two -- before my body would finally give it up. Hot camomile tea, a little snack, warm milk, exercise, Melatonin, and even half a Tylenol PM -- in various combinations -- eventually worked. An average night was about 6 hours.
I had talked myself into the compelling argument that sleeplessness was part of ze change. God knows I've been enjoying my 'personal summers' for quite some time. But after this little career repurposing expedition, the truth is that ...
I'm busy again, darn it! That's all it was (with noted contributions from worry wort). An active brain challenged by intense concentration is all it took. By 17:00 hours, you can bet it's a mad dash to the car and into a companionable jammy-clad evening at home.
I like the faces I am getting to know. I like knowing where things are and being able to measure the ways I can help. I like how they are teaching me, patiently, thoroughly, appreciatively. And I especially like the idea of being around people whose work it is to talk about life and death and the importance of dignity and courage that happens inbetween.
And on a personal note, the most unexpectedly great part of the first two weeks has been catching myself thinking about bed at 6 in the evening, and being tired enough to actually consider it. Welcome back, Solid 8.
I clock in at 9, grab a sweet little cup of celestial seasonings cinnamon tea, and my hard drive begins to hum. I turn on the computer, too. It's exhilirating for the constant barrage of new things to learn, especially when it is important to do things well even if you are in the 50 middlin's.
I sunk into insomnia last year, which emerged late in the summer when the days were really long and sunny and hot. Randy is an early-to-bed, early-to-rise kindaguy and the evening would creep into night -- midnight, one, two -- before my body would finally give it up. Hot camomile tea, a little snack, warm milk, exercise, Melatonin, and even half a Tylenol PM -- in various combinations -- eventually worked. An average night was about 6 hours.
I had talked myself into the compelling argument that sleeplessness was part of ze change. God knows I've been enjoying my 'personal summers' for quite some time. But after this little career repurposing expedition, the truth is that ...
I'm busy again, darn it! That's all it was (with noted contributions from worry wort). An active brain challenged by intense concentration is all it took. By 17:00 hours, you can bet it's a mad dash to the car and into a companionable jammy-clad evening at home.
I like the faces I am getting to know. I like knowing where things are and being able to measure the ways I can help. I like how they are teaching me, patiently, thoroughly, appreciatively. And I especially like the idea of being around people whose work it is to talk about life and death and the importance of dignity and courage that happens inbetween.
And on a personal note, the most unexpectedly great part of the first two weeks has been catching myself thinking about bed at 6 in the evening, and being tired enough to actually consider it. Welcome back, Solid 8.
Jan 31, 2011
Sunny Side Up
I think it was Stephen Colbert who defined hope as believing in something without evidence, and optimism as believing in something because there is evidence to suggest it.
A whole plate of changes last week ~ the first day, first outfit for the first day, first pair of heels for the first outfit for the first day, what to pack, and bring, and eat. Applied on bare skin, it felt icy hot with uncomfortable relief. I look deeply into my eyes as I frost the lashes and tell myself to get a move on. I'm working!
Sometimes my chest tightens at being too near the edge. I have to remind myself, change is not vertigo. Change is change, a part of life, so just get over it. And anyway, I was put here, with these people, for this purpose, at this time. Relax and let it go.
Cancer survivors have an astonishing resolve to push into a future they can't control, carrying hope up and out despite the temptation to pull the covers over their heads and block out the world. They already know life does not always go their way, a victimless crime that tests their resolve; when they suffer loss, they gain a new appreciation of their special gifts; and as time grows short, they understand what a waste it is to focus on the what ifs, why nots, and but whens.
On the best journeys, optimism lights the way and courage purposes the trip. The trick is to find a way to enjoy the view from all four sides of the house...
A whole plate of changes last week ~ the first day, first outfit for the first day, first pair of heels for the first outfit for the first day, what to pack, and bring, and eat. Applied on bare skin, it felt icy hot with uncomfortable relief. I look deeply into my eyes as I frost the lashes and tell myself to get a move on. I'm working!
Sometimes my chest tightens at being too near the edge. I have to remind myself, change is not vertigo. Change is change, a part of life, so just get over it. And anyway, I was put here, with these people, for this purpose, at this time. Relax and let it go.
Cancer survivors have an astonishing resolve to push into a future they can't control, carrying hope up and out despite the temptation to pull the covers over their heads and block out the world. They already know life does not always go their way, a victimless crime that tests their resolve; when they suffer loss, they gain a new appreciation of their special gifts; and as time grows short, they understand what a waste it is to focus on the what ifs, why nots, and but whens.
On the best journeys, optimism lights the way and courage purposes the trip. The trick is to find a way to enjoy the view from all four sides of the house...
Jan 25, 2011
All For One
I suppose when you love what you do it really shows in the way you tackle the work to be done. There's a mountain of it to cast a shadow, with the season just beginning for outreach activities throughout the state. Simultaneously is planned an office move plus significant job repurposing for some people, my job included, and for that I have the advantage of being new and not having to transition. (I've got plenty of personal transitions going on.) I recollect a couple of moves at work and know how easily derailed a staff can become when change upends the routine.
But not here. Where I work (still can't get over saying that, btw) ... there seems to be a constant awareness of the work itself. It is interesting to stand alongside people who have worked for decades together, companionably adapting to whatever they are asked to do to further the goals of the organization. There is a genuine sense of - what is it: celebration? dedication? - to make an impact on worldwide health and healing, however small.
My conclusion from that (after day two, as the initial reaction expert) and from meeting everyone (particularly those who went out of their way to stop by my little cubby ~ a Vice President and a receptionist) is that this is a good place to work. No one strutts around with their big titles, and I may be forced to memorize the org chart just to know who's who.
I like that. And becoming part of the philosophical shared voice the office has adopted for unity and purpose. They will come to know me. Rely and trust in me.
The employee manual was full of governing actions and a code of conduct that was fair, honest, and respectful to each employee. The goal was harmony and productivity from within, results-driven from without. Time was taken to explain why policy was enforced, and what the employee would gain. In just a few pages, I saw nurturing and longevity, personal development, and a company as vested in our health, exercise and education as we are.
Wow. There really are places where companies reflect light back into their employees, and I am so glad to have soft landed in one of them.
But not here. Where I work (still can't get over saying that, btw) ... there seems to be a constant awareness of the work itself. It is interesting to stand alongside people who have worked for decades together, companionably adapting to whatever they are asked to do to further the goals of the organization. There is a genuine sense of - what is it: celebration? dedication? - to make an impact on worldwide health and healing, however small.
My conclusion from that (after day two, as the initial reaction expert) and from meeting everyone (particularly those who went out of their way to stop by my little cubby ~ a Vice President and a receptionist) is that this is a good place to work. No one strutts around with their big titles, and I may be forced to memorize the org chart just to know who's who.
I like that. And becoming part of the philosophical shared voice the office has adopted for unity and purpose. They will come to know me. Rely and trust in me.
The employee manual was full of governing actions and a code of conduct that was fair, honest, and respectful to each employee. The goal was harmony and productivity from within, results-driven from without. Time was taken to explain why policy was enforced, and what the employee would gain. In just a few pages, I saw nurturing and longevity, personal development, and a company as vested in our health, exercise and education as we are.
Wow. There really are places where companies reflect light back into their employees, and I am so glad to have soft landed in one of them.
Jan 23, 2011
Spending Days
Tonight I sit in the old familiar chair, with something to get up for in the morning. It's the first time I've done this particular routine in 449 days. A lifetime ago.
I shopped today for knee highs and 2" black heels to wear with a pair of nicely fitting slacks and a pretty blouse. The route is mapped and recommendations tendered as to time and distance ratios. My lunch is in the fridge. The car is gassed up. The alarm is set and Randy promises to be back up with a call at six, just in case.
This all feels mighty fine, a fresh place to make impressions and figure out where the microwave is to make a cup of tea. A new password, a desk, and time at lunch to settle in. I think it will be a friendly and fun place to work. Tomorrow I'll know. Sure hope I can sleep!
I shopped today for knee highs and 2" black heels to wear with a pair of nicely fitting slacks and a pretty blouse. The route is mapped and recommendations tendered as to time and distance ratios. My lunch is in the fridge. The car is gassed up. The alarm is set and Randy promises to be back up with a call at six, just in case.
This all feels mighty fine, a fresh place to make impressions and figure out where the microwave is to make a cup of tea. A new password, a desk, and time at lunch to settle in. I think it will be a friendly and fun place to work. Tomorrow I'll know. Sure hope I can sleep!
Making Neighbors
This was just very nicely put. It is from the blog Maine Family Robinson.
I'm still trying to get the hang of living in western Maine. When you move to a new place, especially a far-flung place, the mundane habits and traditions of the place are all new, and often obscure. Simple things like figuring out what day to put out the trash have to be re-learned from ground zero (Tuesday mornings. Unless there's a holiday)
The fish out of water story is a mainstay of American movies and TV, but I'm not a Clampett, and there are no Drysdales around here anyway. It's closer to the movie Big, in which Tom Hanks is transformed from a grade-schooler into an adult -- except it's the opposite; I’m still physically and intellectually an adult, but I’ve regained the sense of curiosity and wonder of a child, or perhaps a Japanese tourist. Everything and everybody can be interesting if they're unknown to you. There's a temptation to timidity, too. Hang back until you figure out where you fit.
Everyone has been most kind to us in our new home; it's not an insular place. People are amazingly friendly, and they walk everywhere, including past our house, and they stop to talk to you if you're out on the porch or up on a ladder. But then the winter comes.
People are really hardy around here, so winter holds no terrors for them. The reason New York City disintegrates into chaos if it snows a foot is that they've been pretending that winter will never happen for so long that it might as well be a meteor strike when it does show up. People in Rumford know it will snow, and get on with it.
The rocking chairs are in the cellar now, not on our Queen Anne porch, and the pedestrians are fewer, and they can't tarry so long when they're walking their dog because their feet get cold. Life turns inwards a bit.
It snowed pretty good two days ago. Steady, straight down snow all day and all night. My son and I went out in the streetlight's twilight, shoveling the drive in front of our house twice, trying to stay ahead of it. We knew it would snow all night, and we'd have to do it again in the morning, but if we didn't get some of it now it would be a bear in the morning.
Yesterday dawned warmish for around here in January, in the low thirties. It had been as cold as nine degrees below zero a week ago, and thirty felt balmy. But it had rained to finish the snowstorm, and it froze over before dawn. The snow was heavy near the house. It was a citadel's wall along the road where the plow did its work. My older son and I had a long morning of heavy work ahead of us to clear it.
Our neighbor Gayle came up the hill with her snowblower. She's lived here her whole life, and knows enough to have equipment to clear the drive. She took pity on us for the second time this season, and blasted the heavy, wet, snow over the already substantial banks while we cleaned up with our shovels. When we were finished, we went across the street and helped the college professor finish his walk and stairs. He lent me a rake to pull the snow off my porch roof, which is more like ten billion termites holding hands than a real structure. Gayle came back over and blasted this new pile of snow out of my dooryard, too. Dooryard is what they call a place just outside the house where you park around here.
She looked at me and asked, "What about Lloyd?" Lloyd lives next door, and is far from unfriendly, but he keeps almost entirely to himself. He lives alone. He is retired, but goes out every day in an ancient van and ferries people around for some sort of charity or civic good. Not sure exactly what it is.
Gayle and I talked it over. Lloyd wasn't home, so we couldn't ask him if he wanted help. And we'd figure he'd say no thanks, even if we could ask him. People are self-reliant here, and often prefer to be left to their own devices. We finally figured no one ultimately minds a kind gesture, and Gayle blasted the snow and my son and I shoveled around the edges. It was the Maine version of a prank, I guess. Instead of vandalizing his house when he wasn't home, we shoveled his driveway.
I found it easy to imagine myself as the grasshopper of the old fable, not ready for winter while people like Gayle the ant have long since figured out how to take care of the inevitable. Only a fool would move to Maine and not have anything but a creaky back and a teenager to shovel the snow. Gayle would never give you the impression you were imposing on her, even though we were, with our very existence. I'm not used to being the Blanche DuBois of the neighborhood, but there it is.
Gayle was going back down the hill, heading home for a well-deserved rest, and I offered to carry the shovel she carried along with the snowblower. She noticed the fire hydrant across the street from her house was buried by the plow, and started blowing out around that, too. "We take turns doing it," she said, pointing to another neighbor's house. I waved goodbye and started back up the big hill to our house, a bit footsore, tired, and both sweaty and cold -- a bad combination, I thought.
Halfway up the hill, I saw another of my neighbors. I don't know her all that well. She has muscular dystrophy, or maybe cerebral palsy, I'm not sure which. Her limbs do not entirely obey her commands, and her speech is very slurred. In the summer, we used to see her riding a big tricycle up the hill and down to town, returning with groceries in a basket in the back. She can still drive, but I think she likes the exercise. Unlike people without a care in the world, she always appears to be happy.
I was sort of stunned. I stood there in the road a while, longer than I should have, doing nothing. It was like seeing a prisoner trying to tunnel out of a dungeon with a spoon. She had to hold onto the railing or tumble over, and was shoveling as best she could with her other hand. I weigh 175 pounds. I'm not elderly. I've worked construction for a good portion of my life. Her task would have tested me to my limit --maybe past it. If she weighs a hundred pounds, I'd be shocked.
I begged her to stop and let me do it. I yelled for my son to come and help. I asked her over and over to stop and let us do it, but she kept trying to keep going alongside us. Gayle was going up her own driveway, and saw us over there, and rolled her machine over.
Gayle knows her better than I do, of course. She asked where the man she lives with was. She told us he was in the hospital here in town. He's not an old man, much younger than I, but he had a pacemaker put in, and he was having some sort of procedure done on his heart's valve, because it wasn't helping.
"He's coming home today. He's going to call me. He was going to shovel when he got home."
Jesus wept. I could mine a thousand libraries and not come up with words to describe the way the whole thing affected me. Gayle never flinched, just fired up the blower, and my son and I scraped and heaved, and we even moved cars around and cleaned them off. I put my creaky back into it like Charlton Heston gone to seed at an oar, while the whole thing ran around a little track in my head.
In many ways, I don't have a lot in common with my new neighbors. That is not because we're new here, and it’s certainly not their fault. I have never fully fit in anywhere. But I am honestly glad to see them when I sit on the porch on a hot summer's evening and wave as they walk by. They are amiable, and I hope I'm affable right back. No one is rich. There are no beautiful people. There is no way to be a big deal. Exactly how pleasant and solicitous of others you are is about the only pecking order I can discern. The postman is a king here, and wears his crown lightly.
Outside of this place I see my fellow citizens claw and spit at one another over trifles. They kill each other over slights that wouldn’t require an “excuse me” here. Lately it seems to me that half of the country would have driven past my neighbor with a Scrooge's dismissal of her plight on their lips, and the other half would have gone by going the other way, pretending not to see her, while hurrying to a rally to demand a surtax on someone else's money to start a No Snowshoveler Left Behind program.
Me? I was hoping that maybe, just maybe, someone was as glad to see me as I was to see them.
I'm still trying to get the hang of living in western Maine. When you move to a new place, especially a far-flung place, the mundane habits and traditions of the place are all new, and often obscure. Simple things like figuring out what day to put out the trash have to be re-learned from ground zero (Tuesday mornings. Unless there's a holiday)
The fish out of water story is a mainstay of American movies and TV, but I'm not a Clampett, and there are no Drysdales around here anyway. It's closer to the movie Big, in which Tom Hanks is transformed from a grade-schooler into an adult -- except it's the opposite; I’m still physically and intellectually an adult, but I’ve regained the sense of curiosity and wonder of a child, or perhaps a Japanese tourist. Everything and everybody can be interesting if they're unknown to you. There's a temptation to timidity, too. Hang back until you figure out where you fit.
Everyone has been most kind to us in our new home; it's not an insular place. People are amazingly friendly, and they walk everywhere, including past our house, and they stop to talk to you if you're out on the porch or up on a ladder. But then the winter comes.
People are really hardy around here, so winter holds no terrors for them. The reason New York City disintegrates into chaos if it snows a foot is that they've been pretending that winter will never happen for so long that it might as well be a meteor strike when it does show up. People in Rumford know it will snow, and get on with it.
The rocking chairs are in the cellar now, not on our Queen Anne porch, and the pedestrians are fewer, and they can't tarry so long when they're walking their dog because their feet get cold. Life turns inwards a bit.
It snowed pretty good two days ago. Steady, straight down snow all day and all night. My son and I went out in the streetlight's twilight, shoveling the drive in front of our house twice, trying to stay ahead of it. We knew it would snow all night, and we'd have to do it again in the morning, but if we didn't get some of it now it would be a bear in the morning.
Yesterday dawned warmish for around here in January, in the low thirties. It had been as cold as nine degrees below zero a week ago, and thirty felt balmy. But it had rained to finish the snowstorm, and it froze over before dawn. The snow was heavy near the house. It was a citadel's wall along the road where the plow did its work. My older son and I had a long morning of heavy work ahead of us to clear it.
Our neighbor Gayle came up the hill with her snowblower. She's lived here her whole life, and knows enough to have equipment to clear the drive. She took pity on us for the second time this season, and blasted the heavy, wet, snow over the already substantial banks while we cleaned up with our shovels. When we were finished, we went across the street and helped the college professor finish his walk and stairs. He lent me a rake to pull the snow off my porch roof, which is more like ten billion termites holding hands than a real structure. Gayle came back over and blasted this new pile of snow out of my dooryard, too. Dooryard is what they call a place just outside the house where you park around here.
She looked at me and asked, "What about Lloyd?" Lloyd lives next door, and is far from unfriendly, but he keeps almost entirely to himself. He lives alone. He is retired, but goes out every day in an ancient van and ferries people around for some sort of charity or civic good. Not sure exactly what it is.
Gayle and I talked it over. Lloyd wasn't home, so we couldn't ask him if he wanted help. And we'd figure he'd say no thanks, even if we could ask him. People are self-reliant here, and often prefer to be left to their own devices. We finally figured no one ultimately minds a kind gesture, and Gayle blasted the snow and my son and I shoveled around the edges. It was the Maine version of a prank, I guess. Instead of vandalizing his house when he wasn't home, we shoveled his driveway.
I found it easy to imagine myself as the grasshopper of the old fable, not ready for winter while people like Gayle the ant have long since figured out how to take care of the inevitable. Only a fool would move to Maine and not have anything but a creaky back and a teenager to shovel the snow. Gayle would never give you the impression you were imposing on her, even though we were, with our very existence. I'm not used to being the Blanche DuBois of the neighborhood, but there it is.
Gayle was going back down the hill, heading home for a well-deserved rest, and I offered to carry the shovel she carried along with the snowblower. She noticed the fire hydrant across the street from her house was buried by the plow, and started blowing out around that, too. "We take turns doing it," she said, pointing to another neighbor's house. I waved goodbye and started back up the big hill to our house, a bit footsore, tired, and both sweaty and cold -- a bad combination, I thought.
Halfway up the hill, I saw another of my neighbors. I don't know her all that well. She has muscular dystrophy, or maybe cerebral palsy, I'm not sure which. Her limbs do not entirely obey her commands, and her speech is very slurred. In the summer, we used to see her riding a big tricycle up the hill and down to town, returning with groceries in a basket in the back. She can still drive, but I think she likes the exercise. Unlike people without a care in the world, she always appears to be happy.
I was sort of stunned. I stood there in the road a while, longer than I should have, doing nothing. It was like seeing a prisoner trying to tunnel out of a dungeon with a spoon. She had to hold onto the railing or tumble over, and was shoveling as best she could with her other hand. I weigh 175 pounds. I'm not elderly. I've worked construction for a good portion of my life. Her task would have tested me to my limit --maybe past it. If she weighs a hundred pounds, I'd be shocked.
I begged her to stop and let me do it. I yelled for my son to come and help. I asked her over and over to stop and let us do it, but she kept trying to keep going alongside us. Gayle was going up her own driveway, and saw us over there, and rolled her machine over.
Gayle knows her better than I do, of course. She asked where the man she lives with was. She told us he was in the hospital here in town. He's not an old man, much younger than I, but he had a pacemaker put in, and he was having some sort of procedure done on his heart's valve, because it wasn't helping.
"He's coming home today. He's going to call me. He was going to shovel when he got home."
Jesus wept. I could mine a thousand libraries and not come up with words to describe the way the whole thing affected me. Gayle never flinched, just fired up the blower, and my son and I scraped and heaved, and we even moved cars around and cleaned them off. I put my creaky back into it like Charlton Heston gone to seed at an oar, while the whole thing ran around a little track in my head.
In many ways, I don't have a lot in common with my new neighbors. That is not because we're new here, and it’s certainly not their fault. I have never fully fit in anywhere. But I am honestly glad to see them when I sit on the porch on a hot summer's evening and wave as they walk by. They are amiable, and I hope I'm affable right back. No one is rich. There are no beautiful people. There is no way to be a big deal. Exactly how pleasant and solicitous of others you are is about the only pecking order I can discern. The postman is a king here, and wears his crown lightly.
Outside of this place I see my fellow citizens claw and spit at one another over trifles. They kill each other over slights that wouldn’t require an “excuse me” here. Lately it seems to me that half of the country would have driven past my neighbor with a Scrooge's dismissal of her plight on their lips, and the other half would have gone by going the other way, pretending not to see her, while hurrying to a rally to demand a surtax on someone else's money to start a No Snowshoveler Left Behind program.
Me? I was hoping that maybe, just maybe, someone was as glad to see me as I was to see them.
Jan 21, 2011
Game Night
I am reminded of the children's books that came out in the 1990s that had the stories within stories. Remember those? The reader was carried along until a choice appeared at the end of a section, and they were presented with two options and directions on where to turn.
The story had its twists and turns, and there were five or six junctures. The stories weren't long, and often it was even more fun to go back to the beginning and find out where it would have ended had there been other choices. Those books helped develop decisionmaking and individual choice.
There is something about game night that does that, too, in addition to visit over dessert and cards. It's informal and friendly, with undiluted communication. Teasing is encouraged. Families bond.
At the game table, everyone is welcome and equal, little ones on up. We learn concentration and the importance of keeping to the rules. That competitiveness is good. That it feels better to win than to lose and even worse to cheat and get caught. That sportsmanship and teammanship make it easier to reach the goal.
All those millions of seemingly insignificant game night help our life take shape and direction, but we don't know that. All we know is the fun of sitting around shooting the breeze, laughing and looking at each other as we learn how to play.
The story had its twists and turns, and there were five or six junctures. The stories weren't long, and often it was even more fun to go back to the beginning and find out where it would have ended had there been other choices. Those books helped develop decisionmaking and individual choice.
There is something about game night that does that, too, in addition to visit over dessert and cards. It's informal and friendly, with undiluted communication. Teasing is encouraged. Families bond.
At the game table, everyone is welcome and equal, little ones on up. We learn concentration and the importance of keeping to the rules. That competitiveness is good. That it feels better to win than to lose and even worse to cheat and get caught. That sportsmanship and teammanship make it easier to reach the goal.
All those millions of seemingly insignificant game night help our life take shape and direction, but we don't know that. All we know is the fun of sitting around shooting the breeze, laughing and looking at each other as we learn how to play.
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