quieter new year's eve than planned

As I mentioned over on my other blog, we had plans to attend a fancy dinner party tonight. A rather driving snow storm was also planned for today, so our hostess canceled. Alas, we were all dug out by about 5pm, but without plans we decided to stay home. I didn't want to drive too far (it was still snowing, though not particularly effectively). And going out to eat on New Year's Eve is usually a disappointment if not a downright bad idea.

So I made an impromptu dinner which worked out well. We've been sitting by the fire and reading. After dinner, we broke out the sparkling wine and started work on a jigsaw puzzle, a truly nasty one given to us by my ordinarily considerate in-laws. (It's a fine tradition to curse them when working on a difficult puzzle that they've given to us.) We had an able assistant in the form of Theo, but I don't think he ever made it up onto the table where the puzzle lies in pieces. I've pretty much given up for the evening; Robert might be at it for a few more hours.

Not a bad New Year's Eve. About as peaceful and peaceable as they come, surrounded by my family of one husband and two cats. We're warm and toasty and safe. I think my hope for the year is that this state continues for a while to come.

Be kinder than necessary

With much gratitude to RoasterBoy, I think I'll adopt this one as my New Year's resolution, a tall order indeed. Does anyone else make resolutions? Do you stick to them?

a year ago today

On this ultimate day of the year, I'm thinking back to one year ago. It was a Monday. Several weeks earlier, I had received a job offer contingent on my starting the new position before the end of 2007. I had very much wanted some time off between jobs and between Christmas and New Year's. Little did I know how much time I'd end up getting. Just a few days after I resigned, my previous company closed its doors a week before Christmas.

In any case, my new boss and I worked out a deal whereby I could start work on the 31st, ensuring that the no one would take away her job requisition. Then I could take the rest of the week off, and make up the time later. Except that there was a huge snow storm predicted for that Monday. On Saturday, my new boss emailed to ask if we could meet for the next day. I really didn't have anything better to do, so we spent about four hours together and my first day on the job was on a Sunday.

Of course, the huge snow storm absolutely fizzled. I ended up going into the office on my official first day for a few hours, at least. On that second day on the job, the place was totally emptied out. Had I been paranoid, I would have thought I'd been hired into a ghost town.

And today, exactly a year later, we start the morning awaiting snow. It's all supposed to be over by late afternoon, ensuring that tonight's "amateurs" will be only partially handicapped as they leave their New Year's Eve parties. (Hmm -- best time to leave one of those parties? Probably at 11:58.) Alas, our New Year's Eve event is apparently canceled; we'll have to celebrate tomorrow at a day-time party.

Happy New Year, everyone!

All the dirt that's fit to print - memes!

Two memes have attracted my attention of late, so here come the answers!

Addictions
From Jen, a meme about one's top five addictions. I don't know if I have five because I'm limiting myself to needs that feel physical:

#1 (and I'm not ashamed to admit it) coffee
Good strong French or Italian roast. My favorite brand is Peet's. My sister-in-law, who for four years had access to great coffee in Costa Rica, tasted my coffee and said "Finally. Someone who likes coffee stronger than I do." I usually drink one cup a day, sometimes two, on weekdays, and (when diluted by decaf), two cups on non-work days.

#2 (weird, but I'm going with it) cats
When my beloved Juliet died, I realized just how hard it was to live without cats. I yearned for them and was making all sorts of excuses to visit cats. We had our next cat within a month.

#3 (weird if you know me) physical activity
Every morning for the past 25 years, I've done a series of strengthing and stretching exercises. I repeat a couple of them each night. I try to swim twice a week, a mile each time. We try to contra dance, walk, or both on weekends. I'm not terribly fond of physical activity, but I'm less fond of the aches and pains that quickly knock me off my balance when I get too slug-like.

#4 (kind of) chocolate
I love chocolate, preferably very dark, preferably with nuts. I could probably stop eating it any time -- really, I could, but so far have chosen not to. I eat a couple of squares a day.

OK, now that I've gotten that off my chest,


Where I slept in 2008 (at least that I'll admit to)
#1 Home, a lot. I like being home.
#2 Carpe Diem guest house, Provincetown, mid-February
#3 Cabin at dance camp, Woodstock CT, early May
#4 Sunset Farm Inn, Tyringham MA (Berkshires), mid-July
#5 Hawk Meadow Farm, Lee MA (Berkshires), early August
#6 Mountainview Grand Resort, Whitefield NH, mid-August
#7 Casa del Toro, Santa Fe NM, late September
#8 Mabel Dodge Luhan House, Taos NM, early October
#9 Airport La Quinta, Albuquerque NM, early October
#10 Becket Motel, Becket MA for late October dance camp

Robert did not accompany me to #3, spring dance camp. Then again, I did not accompany him when he visited his sister in New Jersey and his grandfather in Albuquerque. Compared to other years, we were home a lot this year. Still, we had great adventures together, as I'm sure we'll continue to do for a long time to come.

good dance

At our dance last night, we had a cast of seeming thousands -- well over 50 people, at least. There were a lot of newbies, so our Queen Mum started very slowly and gently, first with a "circle mixer" and then with a dance involving two couples each, where you switched either couples or partners at the end of each chorus. Then he eased us into contra dances. The new folks stuck with it and were amazingly successful, even with some tricky moves thrown in. QM gets a lot of credit for creating an evening that was successful and fun. I hope we see at least some of the new folks again.

We also had some cross-over from other area dances and one set of parents there to support their daughter. I danced with both the mom and the dad and reassured them that they were doing fine and could come back.

The music was great fun with a lot of traditional tunes woven through bits and pieces of Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Years' tunes. The musicians looked like they were having a swell time too.

I danced most of the first part with new folks, then towards the middle of the second part I broke down and danced with a couple of friends. I kept thinking we were going to go home but then I would be asked to dance, so we actually stayed through the last contra dance and left during the last waltz.

There's another dance in two weeks, then a very fun all-day 20th anniversary event in four weeks. Should be a good month for dancing.

my brother, again

My brother called the other night. This after a small flurry of emails about which he instantly felt regretful, hence the call. This is a pattern. Fortunately, or not, the call came on a night when Robert was coming home at 8pm and was being fed about as soon as he walked in the door, so I had a good excuse to get off the phone.

I can't tell if my brother is drunk when he calls. He's told me he has a problem with alcohol. He rambles (a good sign). He's emotional. He talks about our father as a Nazi and mental caretakers as The Rapist (therapist, get it?, he said). In the next sentence, he talks about how "he loves the guy" (our father).

He's grief-stricken that his relationship with our father is seemingly destroyed, that he may never see our father again, yet seems to have no understanding that he's played a big role in the state of things. He hates our stepmother for pushing him away and calls her all sorts of unspeakable names, and yet I think she's really protecting our father from further hurt.

This brother is not subtle. He's not gentle. He's a raw, open gaping wound, and an expressive and literate one at that.

He seems to admire my having found some measure of peace in my life. Yeah, partly by learning not to obsess about it. Partly by putting it out of my mind a good deal of the time. Partly by having done a lot of hard work to get to a peaceful place.

He is so stirred up, so unpeaceful, that I feel riled up, sometimes for days afterwards. Not peaceful at all.

I certainly haven't asked to have all this old stuff brought to the surface. I don't like the tone our conversations (or, occasionally, our monologues) take. In my experience, there's a certain value in neatly folding up the memories and putting them in a drawer. You don't have to take them out every day and try them on so you can continue to re-experience the pain. The pain is still there, just not necessarily a part of every day experience. Does that sound cold? It's meant to sound practical. It's my coping mechanism that allows me to get through the day, keep my job, keep relationships going.

And of course, he always ends each conversation with "I love you." What the heck does that mean? He doesn't know who I am. It's very sweet of course, but always leaves me feeling puzzled.

I don't think he's going to go away. That means I'll need to strategize about how to set limits but in a loving way. Regardless of how I express them, it's quite possible that my message will be received negatively. The forecast calls for pain, followed by more of same.

Minor complaint

This has been bugging me for days and I finally decided I had to write about it.

I have this friend S, a member of the dance community. Really, when you talk to him, you visualize the cigarette holder, the fur-trimmed bathrobe, the mule slippers. He can be funny, but also quite awful sometimes.

Recently, his boyfriend C posted a series of facebook blurbs about his grandmother -- that she was in the hospital, that she was not expected to live, that he was traveling back and forth to visit her, that she had died, that he was planning her service. This seemed like an important loss.

I found the obituary in the paper and asked Robert if he could possibly go to the wake without me. He was lovely and gracious and went. C seemed happy to see him, and I *think* appreciated his presence. Robert said he felt awkward, but who wouldn't in a room full of mostly strangers? Yup, it's awkward.

A few days later, I talked to S and mentioned that Robert had gone to the wake. He launched into a diatribe. First of all, this was an awful grandmother whom no one liked. Second of all, many of C's friends had asked S whether they should attend the wake. S's reply? That C's father wouldn't want a bunch of homos showing up at his mother's wake, so no, they shouldn't go. Then some more about how awful this grandmother was. No mention (and perhaps no insight) of C's loss, of his possible need for support, of anything sad associated with this event.

I have no regrets asking Robert to go. I'm so appreciative that he did go. And I wish that for once, S could have just shut up and said thank you. I'm hoping that C said it. A friend to whom I told this story said it on C's behalf.

And S? Every time I think I'm being too hard on him, he reminds me of exactly why I am this way.

OK, I'll stop. Everyone back to Christmas cheer now.

news and cards, some cheerful, some harder.

One of my December activities is to write cards. I think I've sent about 75 so far this year, with a few more to go. I try to write a personal note in each one, so it takes me a few weekends to work through my list. I get a lot of great cards in return with pictures and fun newsy updates. Some people stay in touch with their "list" by sending out dumb jokes -- I take this route, which feels a lot more personal to me.

Amongst all the funny and fun news were some sad bits and pieces. My aunt wrote that her mother died this August. This was just a few months after her husband's mother -- my grandmother -- died in June. Lida, my aunt's mother, was feisty and brilliant. She did medical research alongside her husband, and then after she was widowed, alone, until they took her lab away. She wrote a book about cell-wall deficiency. She was so delighted that Robert could actually converse knowledgeably about the subject and was interested in it that she gave him a copy. She researched Lyme disease and had some wild ideas about it -- I'm not sure whether she was proved right or wrong eventually. But her lab was taken away when she was accused of practicing medicine without a license, basically diagnosing people whose doctors weren't helping.

A few years ago, she was invited to Australia to give a talk. She took one of her granddaughters but insisted to everyone that the lovely young lady was her niece -- she did not want to be perceived as old. After her forced retirement, she moved out of her Detroit mansion into a community where she spent her days playing bridge with her friends. Eventually, her mind went and then her body. She lived into her mid-90s.

The other piece of very tough news is that a friend of the family, M, has been diagnosed with acute leukemia. The family friendship goes way back -- there are pictures of her grandfather riding a horse with my great uncle's law partner in Central Park. My great uncle was her father's best friend. And I met her cousin, A, as a child in Washington and again at early dances in Boston. M and I have met as adults a few times, initially when her mother was ill and she was caretaker, then at my family's gatherings (including at my great uncle's memorial service) and at A's house near Boston.

A is a talented artist and makes a living gold-leafing. I now have a very sweet piece that she created for my great aunt and uncle's 25th wedding anniversary. It comes about as close to religious expression as I can get. I am very proud to be its keeper for now.

This family has known so much tragedy. There has been a huge split between the women and the men of the family. A's sister disappeared (or, as is suspected, was disappeared) on a trip to Maritime Canada. M, herself, had a sister who died of AIDS years ago.

In recent years, M has found a wonderful lifemate and husband. And A has also found a life partner. They both seem so much at peace. And now this news.

I am grateful to be informed. And as always, sadness creeps in and takes its place next to joy and gratitude. onward.

party in the snow

We went to a nice party last night at the home of my current boss. The centerpiece of the house is a giant room (what we call a "Great Room") containing a large pipe organ, one that a small-to-medium sized church would be proud to own. A smaller side room contains the "son of" -- a smaller mini-me organ perhaps made up of leftover or duplicate pipes. I knew there'd be a concert somewhere in there, but I didn't realize it involved singing. Someone passed out words and music to about 25 songs. Two pipe organs, a couple of French horns, a violin, and a few flutes accompanied us in an hour's worth of caroling.

I ran into an old colleague from 13 years ago, whom I introduced myself to, and an old noter from Digital who I hoped would still be so self-absorbed that she wouldn't recognize me. I was right, fortunately. A couple of co-workers showed up, as did some famous old names from Digital.

It was great fun.

d'oh! That wasn't too smart.

I had lunch with a friend today and for some reason started telling her about that stuck finger problem I have. I held up my hand and said "Sometimes, when I go like this" (making a fist), "my middle finger gets stu-damn". I spent most of lunch with my middle finger in its down position. At some point, I was able to wiggle it free, but hours later, my hand is still sore. I'll try not to be so -er- demonstrative next time I mention that particular problem to someone.

glimpses of humanity at the bank

I had to do some paperwork at the bank this morning and get something notarized. Basically, you show up, whoever's available authorizes your signature, and there's no charge. It's easy. Today, there was no line and the woman who helped me seemed really nice. I asked her if she had nice plans for the holidays. She told me that she's taking her entire family on a Disney cruise, which she sounded really excited about. (yawn, I know).

But she kept talking. She said that her husband died last year of pancreatic cancer on Dec 30. She wanted to be somewhere "safe and warm and loving" and thought up the cruise idea, which her children (all grown, with children of their own) were enthusiastic about. We talked about what a sneaky beast grief is and how she worries about whether she let her husband know how much she appreciated him and wonders whether she said and did all the right things. I told her she seemed like a very warm person and I suspected she did let him know how much she appreciated him.

It's so odd to dash off for an annoying errand, only to have things turn suddenly human. That woman made my day; I hope I was able to add some warmth to hers.

Toss. Turn. Repeat.

4:00 am last night. I was awake. After disturbing the cats and returning to bed, I couldn't get back to sleep.

First, I thought about my brother who sweetly sent a card, then a few days later sent an email asking if I'd gotten card. He said he hadn't intended to ask me to be a messenger between him and our father and then asked me to do just that. So I lay awake for a while grumbling to myself and wondering what part of NO he failed to understand the first time around.

Next, I thought about my aunt who ranges from sweet and innocent to manipulative and enraging. She actually was lovely enough to give my brother my number so that he would stop calling her. Lovely. At the time, she said "I know you two had a little tiff a while back," forgetting that the break came when my brother turned to me in front of a huge audience, said "You know, I've never liked you," and then things went downhill from there.

Then I thought about a friend who started driving toward Florida late last night and spent some perhaps unnecessary time worrying about her safety. (Storms, crazy drivers, the usual.)

I tried my usual falling-asleep trick several times -- counting backwards by sevens from 1000 -- but kept getting distracted by another worry and another. Then I thought about how I've been warned that insomnia is a side effect of being female and my age. Fun.

Somewhere in there, I did fall back to sleep but I'm wiped out. I was so afraid I'd snap at someone today but I don't *think* I did. Now I'm home, safe and sound and I can try to head to bed early tonight.

I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you!

Today I received an invitation from a friend, which included the instructions "bring an instrument (your voice counts, or anything that makes noise when you hit it--well, almost anything)." What was I thinking? I responded that "I won't bring my cat, who does make noise when I hit her, but only because she likes being spanked (gently). I'll have to think of another percussion instrument ."

My poor young innocent friend seemed a little -er- surprised? I then went on to elaborate that said cat is a slight fan of S&M and truly does enjoy being spanked.

I think the Christmas crazies have started.

fire & water... & popcorn?

We have a new domestic goddess at the pool. There I was this morning, paddling away, off in my own world. I heard a weird noise but thought little of it until it persisted. When I got to one end of the pool, I poked my head up and had a look around. Yup, the fire alarm was going off. Lights were flashing. The lifeguard was yelling at everyone to get out of the water.

He had us stand at one end of the pool near the exits until we were given the all-clear to get back in the water. The whole thing lasted about 20 lengths but because I could hear it under the surface, it felt like it went on a lot longer.

When I finally got out, I discovered that (a) the firemen couldn't find the control panel to turn off the alarm, which is why it went on for so long, and (b) the whole problem was started by overcooked popcorn. What an embarrassment all around.

It did make me wonder whether in a real emergency I would have been allowed to go back to my locker to retrieve my car keys. One can hope that I don't have to find out, especially in the middle of the winter.

Mousie cried out "oh"

In the midst of all the stirring up of less-than-pleasant thoughts of family, my sister sent me a link to a song that our grandfather used to sing to us as we were going to sleep. He'd sing to us nearly every night of our visits but this was a favorite for both of us.

Our grandfather was reputed to me mean and wily in his younger years, but by the time we came along, he had mellowed into a sweet guy. He tried his best to bond with us, sometimes with little success (I'm thinking of a failed fishing expedition that was just too gross for me) and sometimes with more (singing at bedtime).

The page containing the lyrics also links to a recording of the song. It's sung sweetly, but with absolutely no emotion on the line containing the mousie's exclamation. Our grandfather used to work up to that line, practically squealing out a little "oh" just as a mouse would squeak it, spurring us to imagine just why the little kitty with pearly teeth would actually drop its prey.

What a comfort to hear this song again and to remember those sacred moments just before sleep, summer breezes blowing, occasionally a cat at the end of the bed. Those were cherished moments.

My dear brother

No, not the one who lives in interesting places. Not the one I've never met. The other one, whom I mentioned several months ago. He was feeling fairly awful last night, so called me.

I think that one of his concerns is that he's so cut off from our family (with very good reason on both sides) that I'm one of the last thin threads he has. He seems obsessed that our father is old and is about to die with no resolution to their tortured relationship. ("I hate him, but I also love him.") Given that our father is in his mere mid-70s and that his self-abusing parents lived to much riper and older ages, I think that scenario is unlikely to play out anytime soon. It is however, possible that, as my brother fears, he will never see our father again.

In this crazy paternal family of mine, I've learned that our tribe consists of very good story tellers. They can horrify you, push all your buttons, get you all riled up, and then when you talk to the next person you are horrified all over again. There aren't just two sides to every story, more like three, four, a thousand, all the sides of a well-cut diamond.

My brother is tortured by his past. And I imagine that many of the things he remembers happened. Actually, my father has told me some of the same things, but seen from the other side of that diamond, filtered by different light. And they are horrifying in both tellings. My brother kept saying things like "I know you just ate dinner and I don't want to sicken you, so I won't tell you any details." And then he'd tell me another story. I don't think you can make any of these things up.

I do know from my father, though my step-mother was always way too polite to say so, that he was not a nice man back then. He was not gentle, he was not kind, and he was in fact, quite the opposite. His rages were so ferocious, and he was so well (or badly) matched to his second wife that he sent her original children to live with their father because he could not stand to see them live their lives cringing and hiding. I suspect things got much worse before they started to get better, just as my brother came onto the scene and started to develop memories.

The problem is that I can't fix this for anyone. I know that. I can make peace with myself and with those around me, or at least make motions in that direction. That's all. I can't carry messages to our father. (As I said last night, "you know who gets hurt when messages are carried back and forth? the messenger."). I can encourage my brother to continue writing and to continue making art. I've seen only small smatterings of his writing, and it is very good. And if his ability to make art is half as good as his mother's, he is a very fine artist indeed.

Some of the art work he's described, though, is filled with such awful images that I'm not sure I want to *see* it, exactly, though I can imagine that it is a very healing process to make it.

In some ways, I feel very lucky that my parents broke up when I was so young, allowing me to escape my father's worst years. Or if I didn't escape them, I at least have no memory of them. For all the horrors of my own early life, they pale next to those of my brother.

I somehow had the resources and help to pull myself out where I mostly function, or at least play a functioning adult on TV. I've come to believe, perhaps unfairly, that no matter what you've been handed, it is up to you as an adult to find a path through. You can find helpers along the way, certainly, preferably professional ones. You probably can't go back to the source for validation or reconciliation, especially when there's a good chance that the source has no memory of the awful past.

And so, one of the many painful parts of all this is hearing how much my brother needs validation and reconciliation from our father, something that is so unlikely to ever happen. And really, I think that's why he's been in touch after all these years -- both to see if I have any memories that match up and to see if I can act as a bridge to our father. I can't. And I don't want to.

After we hung up, Robert came into the room and said "There now. Was it easier to talk to him this time?" No, I replied. "Oh, well, then you have immense patience." I don't know about that. I know that I have some amount of compassion and a lot of sadness and exhaustion. After a conversation like this, I feel like the chalkboard against which fingernails have been scraped. And yet, I did not live through the horrors or the torture, so have very little to complain about in comparison.

moi

A friend passed along this picture via facebook. It's one of the nicest pictures of me I've seen in a while, and it sure doesn't hurt that I'm sitting next to an extraordinarily handsome man (the photographer's honey). This was taken at dance camp during high tea. Looking at it now, I remember how happy and relaxed I felt at that moment. Good impetus to sign up for the next dance camp.

We gather together

raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. Whoops, sorry, wrong celebration.

A loving husband whom I love in return.
A good strong roof over my head and a comfy and fun house to live in.
A decent job (what we do is hard work but we don't work hard -- kah).
Coworkers and bosses with good intentions.
A company that is generous to employees and to the surrounding community.
A short commute in a nice car.
Two amazing loving, sweet, funny, playful cats.
Friends. Dance. Good food.
The luxury of not having to eat meat.
So far, no hard choices among the basics - heat, food, medicine.
Enough of a cushion that those hard choices are not on our radar. Not right now.
A reasonable amount of intelligence and inquisitiveness.
A love for the seasons that swirl around us.
A beautiful view out my bedroom window.
Warm clothes. Clean underwear.
Funny and loving friends. More dance.
Sunlight.
Good coffee.
Good health.
The ability to walk.
Swimming.
The kindness of friends and neighbors.
Deep hearty laughs.
Hope for this country.
And not just one, but two Thanksgiving dinners at which to celebrate my very rich bounty of a life.

why i love my dentist

On Friday, I went to get my teeth cleaned. The hygienist is new and very sweet; I think she replaced someone I didn't like very much. She did perhaps the most thorough inspection and cleaning I've gotten in a while, and was so gentle that I wasn't the least bit sore afterwards.

As I was lying in her chair, my dentist's assistant, DJ, saw me and said "Is that my buddy?" She came over and gave me a huge smoochy kiss and a hug. She ran out of the room and returned with the picture taken of her and my dentist, Dr. K, on Halloween. I didn't understand the reference, but it was a guy in overalls, a tee-shirt, and a big poofy wig (Dr. K) with his arm around his slutty girlfriend (DJ). Very amusing, even more so when you know that Dr. K is happily married and DJ is a very tough ex-army dental assistant who's worked on people in tents with a sand floor in the middle of war zones. They saw patients all day in costume.

Apparently, someone in the office told Dr. K that he looked like Rainbow Bright. We all agreed that he didn't. That settled that, until a few minutes later when Dr. K rushed in and said "I did not look like Rainbow Bright and I want that to be clear," then rushed out again, just after I said "I would Never. Never. Accuse you of looking like Rainbow Bright."

A bit later, he came in and did his usual inspection and detection and then I was sent home with a clean mouth and a clean bill of health.

And who knows? Maybe I'll stay out of trouble, at least of the dental variety, until my next cleaning appointment.

two events, slightly intertwined

On Friday night we attended a play that made me squirm - one of those family depictions that left me feeling like I had tacks pointing upward on my seat. The play was Independence by Lee Blessing and concerned a mother and her three daughters.

The mom has a history of mental illness and the daughters feel that she cannot be left to live alone. The mom has fond memories of a close-knit family that never was. She lives in the past and can never accept that her daughters have grown past the stage where they were cute and loving. When the whole family gathers in one place, she is overjoyed, despite the emotional destructiveness that results.

The oldest daughter is a lesbian who has moved to the big city and become a successful college professor. The middle daughter is the "good girl," the one who feels most strongly that she can never leave her mother so that she can pursue her own life. The mother seems particularly bent on consuming her emotionally. Oh, this middle daughter has become pregnant by a seeming thoughtless cad. And the youngest daughter is in her late teens, has already given up a baby for adoption (at her oldest sister's insistence), works in a bar, is angry at the world, and is planning to get the hell out of dodge as soon as she graduates from high school.

Lots of revelations, breakdowns, attacks, more breakdowns, all swirling around this highly manipulative mother who seems to sink deeper into her illness as the play progresses. Robert felt that the ending was redemptive. I was initially depressed by it, but in looking at it from his point of view, can see his point. Still, I would rather sit on tacks than see the play again.


Last night's event was way more cheerful. We went to see David Wilcox perform. He's a singer/songwriter/storyteller, very comfortable on stage, very good at putting his audience at ease. He says that he writes songs to discover the ending, that if he already knows the ending when he starts, it's hardly worth it.

He had very tough beginnings - his father was chronically depressed and frequently hospitalized. One snippet we heard "Where's Dad? Oh, he's in the hospital. Can we visit him? Uh, that's not a great idea." and so on. But from all this came a brutal honesty, an opened-up approach to life.

One of his songs was about a soothsayer who had worked for a medium but found crystal balls too slow. So he started divining peoples' lives by working at a Minimart and analyzing the five items that each customer would place on the counter. He sang about the love he has for his son, a love that has taken him deeper than he ever thought it possible to go. He sang of breakups and get-togethers, of his own emotional landscape, of his guitar. In fact, he told a great story of coming to a better place in his life by diving into his guitar playing.

And running through the evening was a lot of good humor and some really twisted rhymes.

I came away with two words: redemption and resilience.

We make connections in odd ways. The music of last night somehow helped me see more of the redemption in the story from the night before. There is hope. There is light.

saving face

I've gone and done something slightly silly. I've joined facebook. At first, I used a nom de face (pronounced noamh duh fahss), Koa A Feline, but then decided to use my real name.

First impressions: it's fairly chaotic and while the UI is pretty enough, the use model isn't intuitively obvious. Some of my confusions:
-- Friends are at the top of the screen (with a text label), groups are at the bottom of the screen (graphic label), and Find Friends is at the bottom of the screen in faint text.
-- Click Profile at the top left to see some of your settings. Hover in the right column to edit them. Or, on the far left, under your picture, click Edit My Profile.
-- But if it's settings you're after, click in the upper right corner. Unless you're looking for another set of settings, in which case, click the other Settings button under the text field for Posts.
-- To control what you see on your "Wall," you move a bunch of sliders around, but it's not really clear what you're controlling, just that the sliders are "sensitive" (emo-sliders, anyone?)

Second impression: if the good people at Google had designed it, facebook would be a lot easier to use. But then, any old riff-raff would be using it, I suppose.

So if you're on facebook and want to friend me, feel free.

You write on my wall, I write on yours.

yet another emergency - not

In our fair little 'burb, we have a phone system called "Reverse 911," paid for, of course, with tax payer dollars. This system allows town managers to deliver a recorded message to every telephone in town. As its name implies, it's designed for use in emergencies. I believe it has a secondary use for delivering school-related calls to school families only.

For example, it's been used to announce water break mains downtown and to request that we avoid driving in that area until a resolution has been arrived at. When we were suffering through the Extreme Overload house-building exercise, the chief of police dialed us up one or more times a day to breathlessly announce where the TV cameras would be and how to get into that area. It's been used to announce rabies clinics for pets.

This morning, it must have been activated because both our land lines rang once at 6 am in rapid succession. I'm usually up then, but with all the sickness in the house and typical kitty activity, this was the one morning when I was sleeping in (and really needed the extra shut-eye).

I can't imagine what the so-called emergency was this time. That I was asleep? That a bunny ran across the road? That little Suzy Potter wore a dress to school for the first time?

I'm beginning to think that with Reverse-911 in a towns-person's hands, every event looks like an emergency. I'm waiting for the day when the powers that be learn to use the system responsibly and correctly.

Update: Our dear patient

Robert continues to improve. He's still on pain meds, though he's tapering off them. He says that in a few days, he'll be able to sleep on his right side. And today he tried driving. He reported that he was not at his best, but by driving on back roads on a Sunday afternoon, he did fine. He'll work from home for at least part of the day tomorrow and decide whether to go into the office in the afternoon or just stay home all day.

This is all good news. I realize that none of what he had (the book-end colds or the shingles) was life-threatening, but it is awfully good to watch him come back into himself. And I'm sure it's a relief for him too.

WMIG

Robert and I couldn't attend last night's gala ball because we had concert tickets that we were loathe to give up. We left the wedding reception around 4 and had extra time in Boston. So we walked indoors for a while before dinner and then outdoors after dinner. For the meal itself, we treated ourselves to dinner at Legal Seafoods, which was delicious as always.

The concert is one of a series called What Makes it Great. The presenter examines one piece of music, first decomposing it into its smallest parts and asking the orchestra to play little samples, then building up the pieces to show how the whole thing fits together. He demonstrates the "not great" way that someone could have composed it, then shows what the composer did to achieve true greatness. Then, after about an hour of lecture and demonstration, the orchestra plays the entire piece straight through. All this is followed by a question and answer period.

The piece last night was Bach's double concerto, which is an old chestnut with some marvelous twists and turns. The presenter compared the composition to what Vivaldi would have done, especially appropriate because Bach tried to recreate some of Vivaldi's work, adding his own genius, creating something completely new.

The whole thing was wonderful. Somewhere in there, the presenter talked about how Bach's children, and even the general public, felt that Bach was kind of old-fashioned and just not that interesting. And yet, his is the music that we now go back to over and over again. The lesson is that to soar, to achieve greatness, you must be true to yourself. How appropriate this message was after the incredible emotional wedding we'd attended just hours earlier.

As much as I missed going to the ball, it really was best for Robert not to go. And I am so happy that we ended up at the concert, too. Such a perfect day.

The Wedding of CR and JB

Yesterday, we missed the anti-Prop-8 protests so that we could attend the wedding of two men, both dear to us. Our dear Queen Mum, Chris, founder of our dance community, was one of the grooms. And his beloved, John, is someone we've known for years, since before he and Chris became a couple.

The wedding was held in a Unitarian church near their house south of Boston, a church built about 125 years ago in high Arts and Crafts style. When we arrived, we noticed that the doors separting the sanctuary from the parlor had been opened and rows of chairs were placed behind the pews. By the time the service started, nearly every seat was taken.

One of the joys of our community is that we knew well over half the attendees, many of whom had traveled from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, western Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine, and perhaps points even further afield.

Both sets of parents were there -- John's from Wisconsin and Chris' mom and her partner from (I think) Rhode Island. John's incredibly supportive brother and his wife were also there (of course). We've met the latter several times and it was lovely to see them again.

The service was taken from a Unitarian wedding ceremony written around the time the church was built. It was formal, stately, elegant. God was mentioned just once. The minister, herself married for 43 years, is clearly very fond of the two grooms. Her sermon started out with some discussion of politics, especially noting John's invitation of a state rep to the church years earlier to discuss his position when he did not support gay marriage. Apparently, the talk changed the rep's mind at a crucial time in our history. The minister talked about the children of the church and how important the recent votes in this state will be to them as they get older.

The sermon turned personal, talking of John and Chris' love for each other and the important role the community plays in their relationship. Of course, the service swirled around themes of autumn and dance, of coming apart and coming back together, of natural rhythms in our lives and our relationships.

When it was time for Chris' mother to read her piece, she added an observation that short term memory is often the first thing to go. The chuckle that erupted from all of us rolled into a hearty laugh. I adore the idea of forgetting the fights and remembering the love, of starting with a new slate every morning, of coming more together than falling more apart.

As we spiraled into the pronouncement by the laws of Massachusetts (oh man, did we cheer), poor Chris started bawling. And John so sweetly took out his handkerchief and wiped away Chris' tears. I think we all shed tears at many points during the ceremony.

And then, to great cheers and much applause, the wedding party made its way up the aisle and to the reception, which was a high tea -- scones, cream, jams, and tea. We mingled and chatted, hugged, laughed, and explained to many people that, alas, we'd be unable to make it to the celebratory ball later in the evening. (Early reports say that it was wonderful. One of its features was a dance written by a member of our community, who also wrote the music. It is called Boston Marriage.)

Here's wishing the happy couple many many loving years together. What a great beginning for the next part of their lives.

Defend equality - Love unites

New image for the nationwide protests tomorrow.

weather report -- it's rainin...

An oldie but a goodie. I'd of course heard the song many times but never seen the video (MTV completely passed me by in my misspent youth). Probably safe for work, depending on where you work, but best listened to with headphones. Kind of dorky, with some fun dance moves. Made me laugh out loud.

Our dear patient

Our dear patient seems to be improving by leaps and bounds. This comes as a tremendous relief to both of us. I felt fine about leaving him alone for the evening last night. (A few days ago, I probably wouldn't have gone out for the evening alone.)

He still has a rash, ugly and alarming by most standards unless you'd seen it at its worse. Now it looks blessedly healed. And he's still on pain pills but can actually see a path to dropping them soon. I don't think he'll be going to work for a day or so more. Still, he's getting his old energy back and is starting to look more and more like himself.

Phew phew phew.

harvest ball

Our Harvest Ball was lovely last evening. The elegant potluck may have been served on paper plates, but they were pretty paper plates and the food was outstanding. My mac&cheese went in a breath (wow, they liked it! they really liked it!). There were plates of roasted Jerusalem artichokes and a dish of roasted potatoes, feta cheese, and lemon juice. The leftovers of that last dish were kindly deposited in my (empty) m&c container. I was happy to bring them home.

The hall was lit with thousands of tiny lights and many candles and the lights turned low. A handful of people showed up in period (mid-to-late 19th century) clothing. Many of our men who are normally handsome just in jeans and tee shirts showed up in tuxedos, showing off their inner woofiness. Even I wore a dress, not a fancy one, but come on, it was a dress.

The dancing was lovely. The caller (our Queen Mum) left space between the dances for quick chats so that we weren't rushing from dance to dance. The band -- called Spare Parts, consisting of a husband and wife and the spare part (a guest artist) -- played elegantly while dressed in gorgeous evening clothes.

We integrated brand new people seamlessly while entertaining and engaging experienced dancers. We danced many "old chestnuts," especially fun when you've danced to their modern descendants.

I ended up dancing most of the evening, then towards the end just sat and talked to a small group of people, after engaging in some fun conversations earlier in the evening. I wish Robert could have been there, but of course many people asked for him, so he was in some sense there in spirit.

And somehow, I didn't manage to leave until nearly 11 and got home close to midnight. Robert was still up, but close to crashing and the cats gave me a hearty greeting before I, too, crashed and fell into a deep deep sleep.

Next week is the marriage of the century -- our own Queen Mum is wedding his beloved man-of-his-dreams with activities spread out over a couple of days and a cast of what seems like thousands. The wedding will be especially renewing after the devastating votes this week in California, Arkansas, and Arizona. (Thank you Mormon church, who, as Jon Stewart quipped, pioneered the concept of one man, one woman.) Perhaps the newest marriage in our community will re-energize us all to go out and do what needs to be done. Onward.

the corner is turned

When Robert first started turning the corner, it meant that he'd hit a plateau and things were not getting worse. But now, things are actually improving. His bumps are still tender and sensitive but the inflamation is way down, he's not in nearly as much pain, his mind is coming back, and he's sleeping less. (Thank goodness for the antivirals, which are hastening the process, and antipain meds, which are taking the edge off some of the symptoms.)

I think the rest of the weekend will be devoted to rest and small amounts of activity, perhaps short walks. Big sighs of relief all 'round.

We are both grateful for all the messages of support and caring we've received. Thank you.

our men in blue at work

We had a pretty good batch of crime reports this week. Here are a few highlights:

Monday, October 27
10:47 a.m., a caller reported a large piece of metal was on Great Road. The Department of Public Works was notified and reported [wait for it...] there was nothing in the road.

Tuesday, October 28
2:18 p.m., a caller on Powder Mill Road reported there was a woman in their bathroom who would not leave after being asked. Police spoke to the woman, who said she had gone there to seek shelter from the rain.

Wednesday, October 29
7:05 a.m., a caller on Douglas Avenue reported many mornings, a man was waiting by a bus stop on that street, making the children and mothers nervous. Police spoke to the man, who said he waited in the mornings for a van to take him to work. He said he would wait in a different location from now on. [What do you want to bet that the man was of a different race, or at least a different nationality, from the mothers?]

4:11 p.m., two callers reported a possibly sick coyote heading toward the soccer fields behind the schools, where children were playing. The dog officer was notified and reported the coyote was really a domestic dog.

Friday, October 31
2:24 p.m., a caller on Dettling Road reported a driver ran over his trash can. The caller said when he went out to confront the driver, the driver almost ran over him. Police issued the driver a summons.

Saturday, November 1
8:31 p.m., a caller on Forest Street reported upon getting home from work, he found three guys in his backyard, drinking. The guys ran into the woods. Police checked the area but could not locate them. [I saw that ending coming from a long ways off.]

turning the corner?

When I came home tonight, Robert was in bed with the radio going. He was very very still. It was dark. I kept peering at him to see if he was breathing, put my hand on his chest, stepped back a bit and watched some more. I couldn't detect any movement. Then suddenly he was awake. Phew on that. Big breath.

Over the course of the evening, his color has improved. He even came with me when I went to the drug store to pick up more meds for him. (Robert's big adventure.) He sat with me in my study while I perused the day's news on the intertubes. And he surprised us both by staying up for a whole three hours before going back to bed.

It's probably best that he's sleeping through a good portion of this ordeal. I'm pleased that he finally has some pain meds (though why they didn't give them to him before he was in agony puzzles me.) Just before he turned in, he said that he thinks some of the drugs are finally kicking in. I suspect he'll have a bit more of a haul to go, but turning the corner is always a Good. Thing. Another big breath.

and those damned shingles

Today, Robert is feeling worse, not better. He's not itching so much as experiencing pain, and of course a lot of this happened as the doctor's office was closing this afternoon. I'm hoping he stays home tomorrow and calls the doc for pain meds or anything else that might help. Thanks to KAH for his helpful suggestion. Thanks to everyone who's sent their good wishes and sympathies. Nasty stuff. I'm crossing my fingers that the anti (retro?) virals start kicking in and soon.

more good news

In addition to the good news on the national front, I heard from a friend yesterday, a man who married his high school sweetheart years ago. They've quietly and gracefully resigned themselves to being unable to have children -- made adjustments, continued with their lives. Except the wife got pregnant a while back and carried the baby nearly to term. They have a new daughter, born just a touch early last Saturday, named Adelaide Cyrille. They're already calling her Lady Surreal and are hoping to bring her home today or tomorrow. When I heard the news, I started crying all over again. Welcome, little Adelaide!

Change we can believe in

I often feel that I was born to live a life of disappointment, both in the global and the personal sense. But every now and then, something wonderful happens that helps mitigate some of the past pain. Last night was such a night.

Breathe. Exhale. Hope. Obamanos!

Side effects

As I tweeted yesterday, Robert has shingles and he went to the doctor yesterday.

This morning, Robert reported he was feeling side effects from his new drugs. I cheerfully replied "Oh, you mean nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea*?" then added "leading to death?". To which he replied that there were a few steps in between -- coma, convulsions, then death. But fortunately, his side effect is a little light-headedness, which seems to be dissipating. I hope the other side effect is a lessening of his main complaint. Crossing my fingers that we united Robert and drugs fast enough.

* The full line, from my friend Mark, is "Nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea -- Our Favorites!!"

of no importance

Last night, we went to Vokes, one of our favorite local theaters to see Terrence McNally's "A Man of No Importance." It's a musical about a single, middle-aged fading man, Alfie, a bus conductor living in Dublin during the repressed 1960s. He lives with his spinster sister who cannot marry the man she loves until Alfie weds and has a woman to look after him. Alfie feeds his dying soul by reading books, cooking, reading aloud to his bus passengers, and running an amateur theater group, a truly awful theater group, if I might say so.

One day a beautiful young woman appears on the bus. Alfie takes to her and decides that she shall be the princess in the next, soon-to-be-controversial play that he puts on. His sister becomes very excited about this young woman and schemes to marry her brother off at long last. Of course, Alfie is dreaming of love, but certainly not to a young woman, beautiful though she may be, nor is the young woman dreaming of marrying him -- she also loves another.

Alfie, of course, is an Oscar Wilde scholar. The young woman is in an early pregnancy with a helping of unrequited love, and the object of Alfie's affections is straight and is engaged in an extra-marital affair with one of the upstanding church ladies.

Many small setbacks ensue, the kind that seem enormous at the time, all set to the background of lovely, haunting Irish music and ballads. And just when you think the whole play is about to end in the shit-pile typical of modern Irish play endings -- the kind that leave you hurting for days -- rays of sunshine emerge, Alfie learns who his true friends are, and the show, or some show at least, goes on.

There was a lot of humor mixed in with the tragedy. The director did not choose the most obvious leading man to play Alfie; instead, he chose someone relatively unknown to Vokes audiences, and a great choice he made. Without any costume changes from beginning to end, the lead actor's entire posture and face changed throughout the play, so that afterwards, I realized I never really saw his eyes until the tail end of the play.

I know we have a lot of talent available in New England, even in amateur theater, but wow, the voices were great, the music was well played, and the acting was convincing and moving. It doesn't hurt that I love the author's works and the director is one of my favorites too.

Even though I've revealed a bit about the trajectory of the play, I haven't let on too much about the plot, and the devil, or perhaps the delight, really is in the details. If you're in the area and have a free evening, I highly recommend seeing the play. (For once, we did not see it during the last week of its run -- we changed our night to accommodate my goofy work schedule.)

Ashley fail

Speaking of shameful and delusional, remember that woman named Ashley who supports McCain and who claimed she'd been assaulted by a Democrat who had carved a "B" on her face (for "Barack")? Except that the B was backwards, implying that she'd probably used a mirror and the whole thing was a hoax?

You can read more about her here, in the context of a couple of other Ashleys, at least one of whom will make your hope-meter soar: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/10/three-ashleys.html

I found this picture a few days ago and I just roared. (For background, see http://failblog.org/):

shameful and delusional

We have a local politician -- a state senator -- who until a few days ago was considered by many to be a shining star. Her name is Diane Wilkerson. She's a brilliant African-American lawyer who's pulled herself up by her own bootstraps and has really made a name for herself.

She represents perhaps the poorest, most downtrodden, most neglected part of Boston, Roxbury, an area that strikes fear into the hearts of many suburban white folks. It's been generally accepted that she's a fierce advocate for her community, a fighter, a networker, someone who has done a tremendous amount of good.

A few years ago, she got into trouble for neglecting to file her income taxes. Yeah, she's a lawyer, she should have known better, etc etc, but I think she was forgiven and everyone moved on. Then this week or last, the news broke that the feds have been following her for years, that they'd caught her on camera multiple times accepting bribes from business people. The bribers were influencing her to allow businesses into her district (and paying her to use her network to influence others). Some of these businesses weren't necessarily good for her constituents -- they were good for the business people.

Ms. Wilkerson's lawyers tried to claim that the pictures of Ms. W stuffing cash into her bra were "taken out of context" -- er -- what context would these pictures make the most sense in? Apparently, some of the bribery happened in a restaurant with huge plate glass windows across the street from the State House. Like no one might have noticed the cash-stuffing activity? Sounds fairly anonymous to me.

Earlier this fall, Ms. W had narrowly lost a primary bid to a challenger and was mounting a write-in sticker campaign as if the primary hadn't happened. This week, the state Senate unanimously (a rarity) asked her to step down. Then a coalition of the area's black executives joined the senators in requesting her resignation from the Senate. A few days later, Ms. W dropped the sticker campaign and said she'd announce her further intentions after the election.

This story has gotten tremendous air and newspaper play across the Boston area. In my opinion, most people caught on tape accepting bribes multiples times would be resigning in a hurry and going into seclusion. The long pauses between this woman's announcements are astonishing to me.

I find the unwinding of this story so sad. She is obviously delusional. In the face of undeniably strong reality, she seems to be going about her business, assuming she's still a Senator and that nothing much has changed. Maybe she thinks it will all "blow over" in a few days. Maybe she thinks she still has supporters who are willing to vote for her anyways (remember, her name isn't even on the ballot at this point). Maybe she thinks enough people will believe the contention that her pictures were "taken out of context" and that she will be exonerated.

Her resignation is inevitable. I can't imagine that she'll ever work in this town again, which might be ok, because I imagine she'll be spending some of the next few years in prison. As they said in Fiddler on the Roof, I wish her well, somewhere very far away from here.

a glimpse of my professional life -- conference this week

I got to go to a conference this week -- close to home, slept in my own bed every night. When I signed up, I knew that my organization would be researching a particular type of software but I had no idea how timely the info available at the conference would be.

The very first talk I attended was incredibly helpful. It was called "Navigating the Vendor Maze" about the actual type of software we're purchasing. The talk was chock-full of advice about making the very decision we're about to make. That night, I got the list of finalist vendors that our committee (of which I'm part) had chosen.

I had spoken to some of the vendors at the tradeshow part of the conference on the first day. The next day, I went back to speak to nearly all of them again.

For technical reasons, we rejected one vendor who would otherwise have been at the top of the list. So I spoke to their representative, said I was sorry, and said I hoped our paths would cross again. He was so professional and actually gave me some advice about the next part of the process. I really do hope I get to work with that company some day. They sound like a first-class act.

Then I talked to three of the four finalists who were at the show. Two of them look like they'd be great (at least from the perspective of getting just a shallow look at their products).

The last one and I got into a bit of a tussle -- they've made some architectural decisions which force their customers to adapt their work style to the tool rather than having the flexibility to adapt to their customers. I argued with the VP of development, who basically took the attitude that people shouldn't do things in a way that he hasn't thought of already (him: "No really, our way is much better than what you're suggesting" me: "But you're taking away the way we think, conceptualize, and work" him: "But it makes the system so much faster" etc -- aargh!).

Meanwhile, the director of sales was laughing at the two of us. Neither approach -- the rigid affront, or the tremendous amusement -- gave me warm fuzzies about the company. As someone pointed out, pay attention to how these guys treat you now before you select them -- it doesn't get any better than this, and it probably gets worse.

Usually, when I'm at a tradeshow, there's nothing I want to buy and I don't want to waste the time of the salespeople by trying to figure out what exactly they're selling. (I should probably get over it and visit more tradeshow booths.) This time, the tradeshow part of the conference was enormously helpful and instructive.

I found some of the talks interesting -- there was one on linguistics, an old love of mine, and applying it to my field. Other talks were -er- pedestrian or less relevant.

The networking was great. I got to catch up with some former colleagues, both people attending the conference and people at the tradeshow. I got to spend an entire lunch with one of my favorite former coworkers of all time. I got to meet people I've only known electronically or over the telephone. And I made some connections for a possible revival of an area professional group that I participated in and helped lead a few years ago.

So personally and professionally, it was time and money well spent. I'm glad I went. And it's nice to have a weekend to recover before plunging back into things.

Next week, we need to prepare to talk to the finalist vendors. The leader of our selection committee will be out of town, so he's asked me to organize and present the list of questions we'll have. Sounds like next week will be busy. Sounds like I'll be even better prepared to do the work than I might have been pre-conference. I love synchronicity.

oh and one more thing...

The good folks at the motel where we stayed this weekend have just gotten a "special needs" dog that they're working with. It's a very nice dog and seems to be making great progress. The humans had gotten the dog a little bed but he much prefers to sleep in their bed and they're fine with it. When I mentioned that we have a "special needs" kitty, they pretty much insisted that we take the dog bed for her.

The bed has some kind of special insert, perhaps memory foam. I've squished it. It's nice. Apparently to Koa, it feels like a mommy cat belly, because she blissfully kneads it for a while before curling up and napping in it. The bed is a little big for her, but she really really likes it. Here she is smiling at her good luck.



You can bet that I've already sent Miss Smiley's picture off to the motel-keepers. Such a kind gesture that they made.

p.s. on dance camp

Oh, I should mention that in addition to our regular suspects -- dancers from MA, RI, NY, NJ, ME, NH, CT, and VT -- people came from pretty darned far away to spend the weekend with us at camp. We had at least six people from California, and some folks from Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, and Florida. A nice testament to the very good time our little group has when we get together.

dance camp -- cha cha cha

Dance camp really was lovely this time around. Two committee members approached me to talk about the communications snafus with the housing, and that made me feel a lot better. They even offered us a partial refund, which I of course declined.

Our motel accommodations were quite comfortable and cheery. The people who run the motel are extra nice and we spent some time talking to them and rubbing their dog's belly.

A lot has happened at Camp Chimney Corners since we were last there. For one thing, the dining hall burned down and was replaced by a much grander, much more architecturally appropriate building, one that actually acknowledges that it is practically next to a scenic lake. Somewhere in there, they got a new cook and the food was good; the cooks were extremely attentive to vegetarians. They seem to make everything plain and put fixings on the side, so as to please everyone.

Our contra dance caller was Lisa Greenleaf, one of my all-time favorites. She talks a lot about how to make dancing a lot more fun for everyone, even if people are screwing up. She talks about how to be gentle with your partner and not cause pain, and she talks about how to react if you are feeling pained -- all good sensible advice, and great for building community. She gets new people up and dancing very quickly, while giving experienced folks fun, challenging, and smooth dances to work with. And she's great at helping an entire group get back on track when there's an inevitable "train wreck".

The English teacher, Michael Ciccone, is a gentle and sweet man and a great teacher. For the first time ever, I understood how to do "Cecil Sharpe siding" (sorry for the dance geek talk), but why can't other teachers make it that easy? For the first time ever, I stopped worrying about screwing up and felt like I was *dancing* English and being fairly elegant about it.

Our musicians were mostly great, though they came with a drummer who got a little -er- over enthusiastic at times. *He* was having a great time, but when he started banging on his drums really loudly and blowing his little street whistle, well, I'm sure my face wasn't pretty and smiley.

I did sit out a *few* dances during the weekend but found it difficult to just sit and watch. I felt like one of the most popular belles at the ball -- as soon as I'd sit down, someone would invite me to dance. It was all very flattering. A lot of people came up to me to tell me how much they appreciated hearing me laugh, also sweet.

One of the very fun new traditions was afternoon tea. This apparently started at the first west coast dance camp last spring, quickly spread to our spring east coast camp, and happened again this weekend. One of our esteemed members baked nearly 150 scones, made several pots of tea, and served it all with whipped cream and jam. It provided a nice time to sit, socialize, catch up with people, and relax a little. Just lovely.

I'm not sure I mentioned this story after last spring's camp, so I'll tell it again. I'm so moved by it. The west coast gender-role-free dance community started up just a few years ago. I remember talking to my friend, RR, who'd lived in NYC and had gone to the NY dances. He eventually moved west and didn't want to give up our special brand of dancing. I remember talking to him at a dance camp years ago about what it takes to run a dance, and he got a dance series going in San Francisco.

At the very first SF dance, two men, Mark and Tom, met each other and have been a couple ever since. They are really nice people, caring, energized, passionate. They were at the spring dance camp and came east again for the fall camp.

It turns out that RR's kidneys were failing. He became weaker and weaker and eventually had to stop working. He was undergoing dialysis fairly frequently but still managed to organize the dances. I heard that he organized the west coast dance camp primarily from bed.

Meanwhile, Mark had heard about RR's condition and heard that RR was hoping for a transplant. He felt sad, but basically thought the whole thing didn't concern him. Except that it kept coming back to him. He said that he started hearing about kidney disease and transplants all the time. Something kept tickling his brain until one day he realized that all those messages were meant for him and that he was meant to give RR one of his kidneys.

And so, this summer, he did just that. They're both recovering well. Tom reports that neither of them is completely back to their top-shelf self, BUT that it's as if RR has had new life breathed into him. Reports are that RR is revitalized, really quite literally.

As I say, I am so touched by this story. It's a hint of what the dance community is all about.

dance camp -- on, then off, then on

We're planning to go to dance camp this weekend in Becket MA. One of my favorite callers will be there, accompanied by a terrific band. It will be the first time back in Becket, for Robert and me at least, after many years of absence. We've been looking forward to the weekend for a long time.

Accomodations are fairly uncomfortable but we've finally made our peace with the place. We like to stay in an unheated cabin (no electricity, "wash house" next door). We bring loads of blankets and stay very toasty. Last night, we got a last-minute message saying that the the water in the wash houses has been turned off. So we needed to stay in a dorm or deal with a bathroom that was a significant hike away. The coed dorm is fairly unpleasant and we'd prefer to stay together.

We discussed a lot of options. Not going was one. Sending one of us (to stay in a single-sex dorm) was another. Staying in a local motel was another idea. But when I looked up the rates at the motel, they were prohibitively high. We thought about staying 20 miles away in the next closest motel, but that involves much more than 20 minutes of driving for each back and forth.

Finally, we called the nearby motel and were quoted a rate $100 less than what's posted on their web site. It's still a little pricey, but we're both going to dance camp minus all the linens, blankets, and extra pillows. Phew.

And now that we've taken care of the comfort issues, we can concentrate on the having fun part. And I'm especially looking forward to that.

weekend

It's been a nice weekend. On Friday night, we were treated by my company to night at the Symphony -- Concord, not Boston, but they were darned good. They played a Mozart piece (Prague Symphony, familiar to me, not to Robert). They played a weird moody Debussy piece, which included the Concord Women's chorus for the last movement. The words seemed to be something like "aah aah." And they played a Rachmaninoff piano concerto with a rockin' 20-something (maybe even in his late teens) who had understandably won awards and who, on Friday night, made the piano sing.

Last night, we journeyed to Montague, a tiny charming town in Western Central Massachusetts, for a very fun contra dance. We'd agonized about whether to go to our own home dance in Boston, and decided on heading west rather than east for the smaller venue and friends we don't see as frequently.

We drove out during the last bits of daylight and enjoyed some fall color -- *as if* we weren't getting enough of it by just glancing out the windows at home. Still, it's fun to see from a moving car and to know that some people actually come visit to see it.

It was about 40 degrees when we were driving home, but sometime in the middle of the night, the temperature must have dropped a little lower. When we woke up this morning, there was a hard frost on the ground and Robert was completely congested. We decided to inaugurate the burning season in our wood stove, and we have a nice little fire going at the moment.

I'm going to get adventurous in the kitchen a little later (only with food and our intended dinner), but we should be topping off the end of the weekend with a good and likely multicultural meal.

This week marks that twentieth and last week at the farm. I'll probably order the special "fall harvest" delivery, so it's really my penultimate visit for the year. Fall is definitely with us. We are hunkering down for the duration.

New Mexico 2008

The trip to New Mexico was great -- very relaxing, while filled with activities, talking, good food, a little family, lots of beautiful driving, art, shopping, and some public gatherings.

The scenery is so different from that at home and it varies quite a bit. We drove across mesa past many mountains. The sky was a deep blue almost consistently with an occasional set of high puffy clouds. Occasionally, we'd see black clouds off in the distance, some of which reached to the ground, which meant that in very isolated areas, it was raining. The earth and rock varied from light tan to dark brown to deep red, sometimes even presenting itself in stripes. On top of that, we'd often see little dark green bushes (called trees, believe it or not) interspersed with light green sage brush. In some areas, there were tall pines and aspens (like our birches), many of which had turned yellow for the fall holiday. The aspens quake -- their leaves shimmer in the wind. And wildflowers -- lots of light purple asters and bushes with brushy yellow flowers called chamisa. The air smells fresh and vaguely like herbs.

Food is incredible, especially if you stick to "New Mexican" cuisine (not Mexican). They grow and then roast a variety of chiles. When eating New Mexican, they ask whether you want green chile sauce, red chile sauce, or "Christmas" -- both. Driving down the street, you often see people standing over a big roaster, kind of like a lottery drum, cranking out fresh-roasted chiles. You can even go to the grocery store and buy chile powder to take home, which we did.

For the long stretches, we stayed in two B&Bs, one in Santa Fe and one in Taos. In Santa Fe, our B&B consisted of 24 tiny casitas in an old neighborhood. These were tiny apartments or large rooms that had fireplaces, seating areas, microwaves, fridges, and local furniture and art work. In the morning, we'd walk a short distance to the larger house and have breakfast, eating with some fairly interesting people. Our morning cook was from Puerto Rico (she was not a Newyorqueno) and the B&B manager had recently worked at a Trader Joe's near our house.

While in Santa Fe, we walked for miles. We went to art galleries. We found a woman from whom I'd bought a neclace five years ago and bought another one. (She sets up her table outdoors in a particular spot, so we just went back to that spot). We went to the Georgia O'Keefe museum on the very first day of a new exhibit. It's a very neat museum because they often pair paintings with photographs either showing the original scene or the inspiration for the scene or the painting itself. We also went to the International Folk Art museum.

We went to the Farmer's Market, which has just gotten its own plaza and building. There were all sorts of vendors and colors, flowers, vegetables, crafts. Many people hang ristras -- strings of chiles -- from their front door as a sign of good luck. So ristras were everywhere. We bought a worldwide vegetarian cookbook from a friend of the B&B's cook.

Also in Santa Fe, we visited Robert's 100-year old grandfather, Grandmarvin. We met his girlfriend, a mere 92-year old named Dixie. Marvin introduced us all to as many people as he could. And when his son Terry announced he was taking us out for dinner, Marvin told everyone we were going out. He was quite happy for the visit.

Our last day in Santa Fe, Terry and his partner, Claire, drove us up the high road to Taos. This is the old, more interesting route through forests and small charming towns. We stopped at Chimayo, which we affectionately call "the church of the holy dirt." It's a healing place with many crutches and other signs of recovery. There's a small hole in the floor out of which you're supposed to scoop up dirt. Terry rubbed some on his leg which had undergone surgery. I hope it helps. After a few more quick stops, we ate a late lunch in Taos, then returned on the low road.

The following day, we headed up to Taos again, this time on the low road so that we could get to town relatively early. The Taos Pueblo, which has been continuously occupied for 1000 years, was having a festival. There were no cameras allowed, but visitors were welcome. There were vendors from many surrounding pueblos, and of course, I bought more jewelry.

The ceremony was amazing and quite an honor to attend. Men wore black and white striped makeup on their entire body topped with a small loin cloth and went "looting and pillaging" across the pueblo. They "kidnapped" children and "baptized" them. They danced. There was a harvest element with blessed aspen branches. And then they climbed a pole -- the guy who succeeded in making it to the top got to keep the booty at the very top. These were the physical aspects of the ceremony, but it was actually alternately funny and moving and holy.

We stayed in a B&B that had been owned by Mabel Dodge Luhan, who was a real mover and shaker in the artistic and intellectual community in Taos. She had befriended Willa Cather, Georgia O'Keefe, DH Lawrence, Karl Jung (and before I knew this, I kept thinking about Trickster at the Taos Pueblo), Ansel Adams, and on and on. The B&B was quirky and filled with interesting and lovely guests and staff members. We stayed in the part that had been built about 200 years ago, long before MDL even arrived.

We went to some small museums and to a wool festival (complete with examples of many of the animals that provided wool, minus yaks and bison), to the local historic cemetery, and to the Kit Carson house.

We drove up into Colorado one day to have dinner in La Veta with Robert's 'rents, who drove down from Denver. Another day, we drove to Abiquiu, where Georgia O'Keefe painted some of her work, and we visited Ghost Ranch, which is now a Presbyterian retreat center. We might go back and stay there on our next visit. The scenery was gorgeous and it was really fun to go back and look at some of her paintings of the area after seeing the landscape with our own eyes.

Another day, we drove the "Enchanted Circle" and visited DH Lawrence's old property (given to him by Mabel Dodge Luhan) way up a country road and visited his shrine/chapel. That day, we also ended up visiting a furniture place and talking to the furniture maker and an arts cooperative and talking to the proprietor. We went up into ski country, though I more appreciated the scenery between towns than what we saw in the towns.

Then, on our way out of Taos, we took the high road back and stopped in a little town called Las Truchas, which basically has one shortish road which ends in farm land several miles away. We walked the length of the town part and visited galleries, admiring the mountain scenery around us. It had snowed up high the night before and the clouds were swirling around the peaks, occaisionally revealing some of the white stuff.

Back in Albuquerque, we had dinner with an old college friend (the wife of whom was in town this past weekend, so we had dinner with her again on Saturday). On our last day, we thought we'd go to the Old Town, but instead, we spent the entire day at the "BioPark" -- a large garden -- the aquarium, and the zoo, which is pretty good.

Then up early the following morning and onto a plane. It was a good trip. Lots of great input for all the senses, a good break from our routine, and a much needed relaxing time together with very few thoughts of work. We'll go back.

We're back!

We're back and had a great time. More on the trip soon, I promise, but I just had to report on a few political signs we saw while away. We were in New Mexico, in the liberal part, so saw very few signs for McCain and even fewer for McCain and Palin. And besides, the word "McCain" doesn't make for great copy.

We saw lots of signs, though, for Obama, including the special New Mexico version -- Obamanos! At the Taos Obama headquarters, we asked whether we could buy a sticker but the stickers fly out the door about as fast as they come in. Obamanos was posted on fences way out in rural areas. One sign was so far at the end of a road that I was able to stand in the middle of the road to take a picture. We also saw Si se puede (yes we can).

A huge sign on a farm house: Horse lovers for Obama.

And on a bench outside a pottery shop way out a dirt road: Alaskan malamutes for Obama.

Oh, and voter registrations were happening at every public event we attended.

A funny story from visiting Robert's (step) grandfather, whom we affectionately call Grandmarvin. The phone rang in his room and we heard him say "uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. Well, I'm voting for Obama! ... Now listen here. I'm 100 years old. I'm in a wheelchair and I live in a nursing home. So I'm not going canvassing for you. I will vote though. I'm getting an absentee ballot. What's your name? Mark? It's so good to talk to you."

Cats seem delighted to see us and have been getting extra scritches. More pictures and stories to follow.

and another thing...

This here bloggy thing is about to go on hiatus while current husband (whose name is Robert) and I vacate to sunnier and southier climes. House and cats will be looked after, but the blog will have to await our return.

d'oh! I've been tagged!

My friend j tagged me to write six random things about myself. I forget all the rules of this meme, but one of them is that I'm supposed to tag six more people. So here's the deal. I suspect I have about six readers on this blog. Consider yourself tagged, and comply at your whim. Here goes:

• All my husbands have been named Robert.
• My best friend in high school had the same first and last initials as my current husband.
• I work for the mother of an old friend.
• I belong to a secret club with just three members. We have uniforms. The three of us haven't been in the same place at the same time for over four years.
• A sick friend once gave me the last of his stash because "it was for a kitty."
• My middle name is taken from the name of a town in Prussia that was obliterated in some war or another.

Best. Answer. Ever.

You know those questions that have no good answer like "Honey, does this outfit make my butt look fat?" The ones that make you feel like you've been walking across a field of daisies that all of a sudden morphed into cow patties when you were momentarily distracted? Where the whole future of your relationship, reputation, and ability to walk hinge on what you say next?

This morning, out of the blue, I asked Robert if he'd stopped beating his wife. His answer: "Never."

avast!!

It's once again time to celebrate that hallowed day -- International Talk Like a Pirate Day! After I adjust my eye patch and my hook, I'll throw a cat on my shoulder and -- uh -- plunder, yeah, that's it! and pillage! ARRRR! (and the cat echos MEARRRRRR).

more from cnn.com

I swear I'm not making this up. I saw it this afternoon on CNN.com. The controversy rages. Were the headline writers in such a rush that they didn't notice? Or were they having a little too much fun with their readers?

swift or not so much?

Until a few weeks ago, I was perhaps the last person I knew who had a shred of respect for Jane Swift, our accidental governor. Now, not so much. A Boston Globe article says:

Citing the remarkable similarities in their biographies, the former acting governor of Massachusetts this week signed up as a leader of Republican efforts to defend the record of Alaska's governor, Sarah Palin. Swift, 43, was tapped by Republican presidential nominee John McCain to lead a "truth squad" defending his 44-year-old vice presidential pick.

Speculation is that Swift is angling for a position in a McCain government. Good luck to her.

This link is likely to be ephemeral -- http://snurl.com/3p99o [www_boston_com].

haven't yet crossed that inevitable line

At the grocery store yesterday, I hopped into a line that had one customer, just finishing up. I knew that my turn would come quickly. Then I waited and waited and waited while the cashier tried to help her operate the card machine. As she was starting to leave, I noticed that she had placed the cart behind her, so the bag boy couldn't start loading her cart until her transaction was completely finished.

When I got to the head of the line, I asked the cashier whether the machine was having trouble today or whether she was having trouble operating it. He said the machine was fine but she was having a little confusion.

Funny thing -- she didn't seem that much older than me, though her super-saturated dyed hair made her look older than I'm sure she was.

But the reason I didn't make loud sighing noises while waiting was that I know this is me in a few years. Technology seems to be whooshing past so quickly. So far, I've managed to keep up -- with cell phones, grocery store card machines, linkedin, blogging, twitter, and on and on. But I know it's not too long now before something comes along that just stymies me -- something simple and easy, albeit with a terrible UI. I will then be officially Too Old to Learn New Technology. I'm crossing my fingers that my TOLNT days are in the distant future, not just around the corner.

exhausted

We invited friends over for dinner tonight, friends with a very sweet and mellow and smiley two-year old. The wife is pregnant with their second, and we checked carefully about what is and what is not on the diet. I even got something I'd observed the two-year old eating last time I saw him. I'm fairly pleased with the menu we came up with.

Some impressions:
. Koa immediately knew what she was in for and did everything in her power to be on a different floor from the rest of us. At one point, a brown blur went shooting by -- if you didn't know what to look for, you barely saw anything.
. Theo was curious and wanted to sniff, but was extremely cautious and didn't get too close. Usually he's out and about, flopping on the floor, playing, and entertaining.
. Conversations lasted about two seconds each.
. Dinner went reasonably well. And then it didn't. The two-year old hated the special food I'd gotten for him and refused to eat it. He then announced he was having ice cream for dessert. I hadn't planned to serve any, but fortunately, we had some on hand. (phew)
. Theo figured out that the kid was tied down and paraded around during dinner.
. The two-year old was ALL DONE and let us know that repeatedly until the rest of us were all done too.
. At some point, the screaming started and nearly simultaneously, the rubbing of eyes started.
. Then, on an excursion to get another book, the child fell on the tile floor, which was slippery with humidity, and really started screaming. Poor kid. By this time, he was tired, cranky, annoyed at being told not to touch anything, not interested in any toys or books, throwing things. Did I mention he's two? And is cutting a couple of teeth? Bad combination.
. I forgot, or actually, it didn't occur to me, to kid proof the house. I'm not sure it's actually possible in this house, and the parents were extraordinarily attentive, but still. If we ever invite a two-year old over again, I'll have a serious talk with the parents about whether it's a good idea.
. Our visitors were here for 2.5 hours and finally declared uncle and went home.
. Just before they left, they did a diaper change, which easily took two people and might have taken a third had the third had a clue what to do. More screaming, worse than what had occurred after the fall, ensued.
. Soon after the front door closed, the cats came out of hiding.
. And I'm exhausted.

Sweet friends, sweet kid on every other occasion, and tonight was not his night. Maybe next time...

Labels

Went to a store today and noticed two labels of note.

On a pair of magnifying glasses (for those of us with middle-aged eyes who need a little assistance seeing the printed word): the magnification in the teeniest numbers possible. Um, it would help to be wearing a pair of reading glasses to see the numbers, guys. Yes, that pair of glasses *inside* the case with those teeny weeny numbers on them.

On a pair of socks:
How to have fun with your socks: Use as a hand puppet to entertain your family and friends. Or better yet, place over your shoes and slide around.
Thank you, Joe Boxer.

good old fashioned tired.

Earlier today, I tweeted that I was a little surprised that I'd found my week exhausting. But ok, let's say it in unison -- duh. At work, we recently met an intense deadline, then I temporarily loaned myself out to another project while they try to meet a slightly later deadline. OK, so on that second project, I'm working but not overexerting myself, but I am not quite getting a break. Also at work, we've had some intense personnel situations, comings and goings, that sort of thing. It's not necessarily bad, just tiring. That may be settling out. And this week, we had hours of meetings in a mini summit -- that's always tiring.

Last weekend, we were very social and trying to make things to bring to each event. Somehow, we never managed to plan our upcoming vacation, which we're taking at the end of this month. So this week, after dinner and dishes, we bit off a little bit every night. That led to a lot of late evenings, but at least we have now scheduled our flights, rental car, and three hotels. The rest will probably get crammed into the flight, but at least we have some place to go.

And a few bits of correspondance had to get out. Those took a while to think about and prepare. OK, so as I said, duh. I can imagine an early night tonight and perhaps some sleeping in tomorrow, kitties permitting.

you can't make this stuff up

As seen on CNN.com -- juxtaposition theirs, not mine. I will claim being quick on the draw with my screenshot program, however.

schadenfreude, but only the tiniest bit

When Barack Obama announced that he was accepting the nomination in front of 80,000 of his closest supporters in an outdoor stadium, prominent members of the right issued public prayers for rain to ruin the moment. As I recall, perhaps inaccurately, a few hoped for something stronger than rain -- a huge storm or something that would actually endanger tens of thousands of Democrats.

And now, on the eve of the Republican convention, we're hearing dire predictions about Hurricane Gustav. From the bits I've read, W is likely to stay home so as not to look like he's fiddling while New Orleans sinks (again). Delegates may have trouble getting to the convention. There's even some early talk about interrupting or deferring the convention because of the storm.

Be careful of what you wish for, Republicans. Your God seems to have a wicked sense of humor.

Forty years ago

Has it been that long already?

Forty summers ago, the Democrats convened in Chicago. My father felt that they needed some "adult supervision" so he went to help with the rioting. A few years later, I noticed one of his treasures -- a tear gas cannister mounted on a rock that the police lofted at him and a few others after they'd run down what everyone thought was a blind alley. The fact that my father is still around today is testimony that there was some escape.

Later that summer, my sister and I visited my grandparents in Michigan -- a trip we would make for a few more summers until my grandparents retired to North Carolina. My father came down from Toronto but we barely saw him. The Republicans werer convening and he was staying up watching it into the wee hours. I remember coming downstairs in the morning and seeing him laid out on the couch, day after day.

Of course, there was very little discussion about it because my grandparents were backing whoever the Republican candidate was -- oh, must have been Nixon. No question, no wavering. And my father was probably furious at the Democrats for veering so far to the right.

So instead, we enjoyed my grandfather's vegetables that my grandmother cooked. We ate good meals together in peace, sniffing the night air, me waiting for my treat -- a martini-soaked olive, of which there were plenty, always, not that that many olives went into each martini, mind you.

Forty years ago, I was ten and my sister was six. Times were far more innocent then, yet there was still plenty to riot about. Much has changed, much else hasn't.

one robert, two cats, no kids

(still thinking about that six-word biography meme.)

A few weeks ago, I tweeted that upon my return to work after my first honeymoon, a coworker asked naughtily, "So, did you do any family planning while you were gone?" He didn't even have to wink at me. "Yes, I replied, but not quite the kind you're thinking about." Much thought has gone into that family planning, resulting, thankfully for me, in no kids.

The decision I've made will result in several outcomes. Besides the obvious -- no diaper changing and no middle-of-the-night feedings, I'll never have the opportunity to sniffle through a kindergarten graduation or squirm through a piano recital given by 30 7-year olds. I'll never hear one of my children say "don't worry, mom, you can move in with me when you get old." Or, as one friend recently heard from one of his kids, "Dad, when you get old, don't expect me to change your diaper."

But there's one sweet mothering opportunity I recently experienced without the benefit of the preceding eighteen years. My old college buddy who lives in Albuquerque recently sent his freshman son off to college in my area. And the son's best friend is also a freshman at the same institute. When first approached, I said that I'd be delighted to help them through the transition.

So from the dad, I got a blow-by-blow description of the departure -- the dad trying to savor every moment while not going too deep, the experience of momentous change in every day acts, the anticipation of longing for his son, the excitement about the adventure that he couldn't quite express, at least to his son, the memories of his own awful lonesome arrival at college in the rainy dark of night.

We picked up the young men at the airport on Tuesday night. They were exhuasted and I think a little eager to get to school. We brought them home, fed them, put them to bed early, and fed them again the next morning. Then, on my way to work, I drove them to their new adventure. We got to watch the other kids unload their cars -- so overloaded with ridiculous useless items that my two guys started to feel virtuous. "Where are they going to put all that stuff?" one asked. Our rooms aren't that big.

At one point, I saw a young parent carrying a TV set and mentioned how hard it was to get used to the idea of TVs in one's dorm room. I can't remember a single TV during my college experience except for one in a professor's house. This caused me to launch into mentioning that we also didn't have phones in our rooms. One of the guys was shocked -- "How on earth did you communicate with each other?" I said that there was a phone at the end of each hall and if it rang, someone answered it, then came and knocked on the door of the person being called. We left notes in our mailboxes and we saw each other at the one dining hall. "Ooh," he said, trying to imagine it, "sounds complicated."

I've got to say that I was really impressed by these two. They seemed totally adult-ready, even running on hungry and tired fumes. They asked us questions about ourselves and politely engaged in conversation with us. They told us about their summer adventures canvassing, one for a politician, one for an organization. They even insisted on loading the dishwasher for us after breakfast. (I'm definitely not used to having guests who insist on helping, especially after I say that there's no need).

They also expressed their gratitude to us several times. The friend of the friend's son said how much he appreciated our taking a complete stranger in our home. These thoughts required stepping outside of the self-centeredness of childhood into what I consider to be a more adult empathy for others in the world.

I immediately wrote to my friend and told him he'd done a great job raising this young man. I look forward to meeting both young people again.