From the Library

I'm typing from a public library.  I went to a luncheon which lasted all afternoon - the food was good, the company was better, but the time got away from me.  I'm meeting Amster and a friend for dinner and a movie (The Girl with the Dragon Tattooo) in an hour and there's just no time to drive home and type on Nellie.


So I drove the streets of Tucson, looking for a library.  The one I knew about is closed for renovations.  I had to stop into a used book store to ask where another might be.  "Just go north on 1st Avenue" was the less than helpful advice I received.  How far north?  Do you know the cross street? Is it on the east or the west side?  All of those questions were beyond his ken.  Following an 18-wheeler across town is not conducive to searching for a building of unknown location or size or shape or name, yet somehow I manage to avoid rear-ending him as the Woods Memorial Library appeared on the horizon. 


There's a lovely parking lot with a tree to shade the Schnozz and a very helpful Information Desk librarian who signed me in.  The chair isn't too comfy, but I only have 30 minutes to type .... how sore can I get?  I had another idea for a post in mind, but it can wait until tomorrow.  For now, share the scene here with me:

There are 6 eighth grade girls hovering over the terminal next to mine, all of whom have used their hands as memo pads. They are blonde and brown and slim and overweight, with curly hair and headbands and long straight locks cascading down their backs.  There's one boy on the computer next to them, and he's enjoying their ignoring him. 

The Cambodian kid next to me has his IPhone on the countertop.  I know he's Cambodian because his ring is a "Cambodian pop song"... or so he told me when it began to sing and travel into my space. 

Someone is sneezing, loudly and often, on the other side of the reading room.  No one is saying "Bless You."  I'm thinking it, but this is a quiet zone and it feels inappropriate to say it loudly enough for him to hear. 

The 6th grade boys behind me are checking their Facebook status while sitting with absolutely perfect posture.  They have t-shirts and new sneakers and I do wonder if they have homework to finish.  The 8th graders next to me have moved to showing photos of their families to one another; they all have nieces and nephews.  What they don't have is a proper sense of respect for the silence which ought to be de rigeur. 

There's a volunteer in the computer area, a young man with a huge key ring and a helpful manner.  My screen went dark, and before I could get up to ask why he was at my side, pressing  the on/off switch and restoring my post.  He vanished before I could thank him.  I'm wondering where he is as these girls get louder and louder.

A four year old with a brand new buzz cut is playing on the Catalog Use Only terminal his grown-up (a grandfather, perhaps) is checking his Facebook status.  Though I doubt that he can read, he's doing a pretty good imitation of a person looking for a specific book.  He's aping behaviors he's seen before, and the volunteer has appeared at his side.  He's smiling as the youngster looks up at him for approval.

There are some middle-aged adults asleep in comfy chairs, and several serious scholars using their own laptops on the desks under the windows, but I have definitely landed in a middle-school zone. 

When we built our community library in Marin, I insisted that there be a group project room for young teens.  Rather than taking over my dining room, I thought they'd be better off working in a public space, where research materials were available and professionals could answer questions.  Watching these kids roam the aisles here after school, I'm reminded of just exactly what a good idea that was. 


I studied and flirted in the library.  I pretended to be Francie from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, reading all the books from A to Z.  I fondled the card catalog and skimmed the magazines and I fit in just like the grown-ups did.  It felt safe and it had all the answers and there was nothing I needed that wasn't there.


It's nice to know that some things just haven't changed over time.

Good Teachers

I'm taking a class.  

I like taking classes.  I like learning new stuff and reading books I'd never pick up on my own.  I like the fact of the other students, especially now that I'm taking classes for fun and not for credit.  Everyone in the room has chosen to be there.  There's no pressure yet everyone always seems to have done the reading.  And, as my last professor sighed happily, no one in the room is texting.  

Decades ago, TBG and I took a film class taught by Roger Ebert.  We sat on uncomfortable folding chairs in a charmless auditorium and watched in wonder as our study of the westerns of John Ford and Howard Hawks became an examination of the career of John Wayne.  Even Ebert was amazed.  But since he was a fabulous teacher, as the conversations and questions focused more and more on the star's commanding, somehow huge but still understated presence, he was able to go with the flow.  It was like being in Baskin Robbins at the end of the night as the server gives you an extra scoop to finish off the barrel.  A bonus post, if you will.  Not only were we watching as bad guys galloped from right to left and good guys from left to right (watch an old oater and see for yourself), scrutinizing depth of field and admiring the long shot, but we also were seeing the creation of a screen icon.  And Ebert was discovering it along with us.  He was confident in his knowledge, and relaxed enough to be comfortable examining it from another perspective.

I was thinking about this as I sat in class this morning.  The room is windowed but shaded from the sun, and the greenery surrounding it is lush but not brushing noisily up against the walls.  The chairs are padded and have arms and there are 5 rows and several aisles so no one feels claustrophobic.  I'm at the younger end of the age range, and I enjoyed the fact that most of the women in the room did not color their hair; gray comes in a variety of hues.  There was a lovely buzz when I arrived, 15 minutes early, to an almost full room.  This guy has taught before, and there are groupies.  

For the life of me, I don't know why.  

The course covers four areas; he is an expert in only one of them.  I know this because he told us.  More than once.  Often, in fact.  He is learned in the umbrella topic, but not in all of the specifics.  Perhaps he thought it was endearing, this acknowledgment of foibles.  I did not find it so.

I learned much about his frustrations with Power Point presentations: it's hard to skip over slides, for example.  There were others, but he never hit on my pet peeve with those things: there's no reason to read them aloud.  The information is up there.  Assume that your audience is not visually impaired and comment on the facts we're taking in as you are talking to us.  Trust me, your students can read and listen at the same time.  I promise.  We live in the 21st century; we are used to multi-tasking.  Alas, he did not hear my silent pleadings.

I knew there would be a lot of material, because he spent a few minutes telling us about having prepared 70 slides when 50 probably would have been enough and his concomitant fear of running out of things to say.  That's never a good sign.  Volumes have been written on this topic and he was afraid that he couldn't fill three hours?  Of course, this was one of the areas in which he is not an expert,  so perhaps it was a valid fear.  It just didn't make me feel all warm and fuzzy.

He had a point or two, and he made them with facts and figures and the now obligatory video segment.  College students these days seem to need their information fed to them on film; every course I've taken over the last 5 years has had a video component.  This one was interesting, though probably 3 times as long as it needed to be to make the point.   

I took notes, and I've re-read them and they are surprisingly interesting.  There was information there and I recorded it and now I remember it and I guess I learned something after all.  That's a good thing.  

But the class was still a disappointment.

Good teachers .....  they are some of my favorite people on the planet.  I start every class with the hope that I'll find another one.  Sometimes, I'm disappointed.

Sports Shorts

I vowed that I would not get caught up in the NBA playoffs.  When the general consensus is that "games are won in the 4th quarter" really means "there's no reason to turn it on until the 4th quarter" because the players are just going through the motions up until the last 12 minutes, I have a hard time respecting the competition.  The scene at a professional basketball game is more about the noise and the t-shirt-shooting-air-guns and seeing yourself texting on the Jumbotron than any athletic contest which might or might not be happening on the floor.  It's hard to take the experience seriously.

But TBG's Cleveland Cavaliers are competing, and the will-he/won't-he dance of LeBron James has made winning almost a necessity for the town.  Big market teams (eg. New York's Knicks) are lusting after LeBron's talent and image and The Mistake By The Lake is having a tough time competing.  After all, is there anything that could compare to playing basketball in Madison Square Garden?  Gund Arena is a nice space, but it's not The Garden, now is it? 

So, I've been watching because it's been on.  I'm finding most of it fairly boring (even, I'm sorry, the Cav's) with players I don't recognize on teams I don't care about.  So, when the Big Cuter, on the strength of having seen them play the Warriors in Oakland, told me to care about the Oklahoma City Thunder, I was less than enthusiastic.  

But Jeff Green is their starting forward, and he did play 3 years at Georgetown.  The Oklahoma City Murrah Building Memorial is one of our nation's finest commemorative spaces.  And, most important, the Big Cuter would be watching.  As regular readers know, I'll do just about anything if my kids want to share it with me.  So, now I was watching because I (kinda, sorta, not really but okay) wanted to watch.

And it was fun.  Surprisingly fun.  It was like watching college basketball.  Kevin Durant was one-and-done at Texas.  I remember Nick Collison from Kansas' championship teams, and D.J. White from the Little Cuter's Hoosiers.  Knowing the players definitely helps.  And when one of those players is shooting 3's and not missing and another is stuffing the ball over the heads of taller opponents, then some hooting and hollering is definitely called for. 

Their coach, Scott Brooks, is a nice young man and so are his players.  These are good kids on the court.  Pau Gasol was a medical  student, motivated at age 11  by Magic Johnson's announcement that he was HIV positive to search for a cure for AIDS..He left school as his basketball career took off, but he speaks 5 languages and hangs out with Placido Domingo. Serge Ibaka's parents were both members of the Congolese national basketball team. None of them have been arrested, nor photographed drinking with underage girls or coming out of a strip club at 3am.  The contrast between their behavior and the quality of their play and the scrolling news below the screen detailing Tiger's worst 9 holes of his professional career made for some nice thoughts about duality and personal responsibility and parenting.

Watching other people's kids is a recurring theme for me here in The Burrow.  I seem to spend a lot of time doing it, and it usually puts a smile on my face.  With the Georgetown connection I can pretend it's really my kid and all of a sudden I'm totally into it.  Kevin Durant's mother and father were courtside, cheering. At one point, his mom looked up into the crowd and raised her arms over and over again, insisting that they stand and cheer for her son.  And they did.  

Jerry, at Gently Said, is right - it's a  great feeling when your kid excels.and she was sharing the love.  Kevin's mom moved to Austin when he started school, and she continues to this day to remind him that talent is a fleeting gift, and that he must be more than what he is on the basketball court.  Listening to him in interviews is to see good parenting rewarded.

Back to the game.  The crowd is cheering and the players are encouraging it and TBG and I are leaning forward off Douglas and then The Thunder forget to double up on Kobe, and then they don't box out and, like kids usually do when the pressure is on, they stop and watch the train wreck happen.

Oh well.  They lost

Like the true fair weather fans that we were, TBG's hand was on the clicker to change the channel when he stopped because the nicest thing happened. Instead of the usual sweaty post-game interviews filing the screen, we saw the Lakers and The Thunder hugging each other.  Kobe took time with The Thunder bench players. Heartfelt handshakes and congratulations were exchanged.   And then there were the fans.  Oh yes the fans.  Their season was over, lost in the last 0.5 seconds, and instead of groaning they were on their feet cheering.  They were proud of their team and they loved their team and they weren't in any great hurry to be anyplace else.  So, they stayed in their seats and thanked the players for a great season.  

TBG and I smiled.  This  is why we watch sports.

25th Annual Tucson Folk Festival

I went downtown today.
In Tucson, that's a noteworthy event.
Unless you have business with the State or the County or the City or the judiciary associated with any one of those entities, there's really no reason at all to drive down there.  On a weekday or on a weekend, unless you're going to the Museum of Art or a convention, locals rarely say "I went downtown today."

But every once in a while we put on a show.

With the police as open as their vehicles (isn't that the friendliest cop car you've ever seen?) Tucson's 25th Annual Folk Festival, put on by the Tucson Kitchen Music Association, took over the plazas around our civic center.  There were vendors on the outskirts, selling the usual array of tie dye and jewelry and pan flutes 

There's going to be a medical marijuana initiative on the November ballot, and NORML was there to explain the why's and argue the why not's while wearing blinking necklaces of 5" plastic hemp leaves. 

Right next door (NORML is the green tent on the right) were the snacks. 

 Save your snickering.

Have you ever seen frybread?  There is a reason that our Native American population is riven with the medical consequences of obesity, and its name is frybread.  The lovely ladies will drizzle honey or slather chocolate sauce over its still-warm-almost-crunchy-outer layer, but I prefer cinnamon sugar with my grease, thank you very much.

:

There were felafels and hot dogs and all of this

but the one inescapable vendor was this guy

whose smoked essence permeated the festival.

There was lots of wonderful music and the venues were lovely

 

The performers were on and off the stage with efficient introductions and exit strategies designed to direct the listener to the TKMA kiosk where my cd's are available and they're really really good.

There were no roadies; the performers carried their own instruments and shared the same sound guy

and I was ready to head for the other two stages when the rain and the wind and the generally menacing skies sent me scurrying back to TBG at home.

I parked for free, on the street, one short block from the main stage and in front of the secondary venues. I bought a cool t-shirt and some silver earrings and I heard live music while watching middle-aged folkies dance.  (Are there any young folkies? There weren't that many in the audience, that's for sure)
I ate ethnic foods and sat on comfy folding chairs and watched baseball caps and cowboy hats and straw boaters smile at one another as we watched each other watch each other.

It was like being invited to a neighbor's backyard, with great entertainment.

My Side Yard

Some things must be shared.  

It was calm and sunny when I took these photos.

The sky was the blue I've only seen here, and the previous day's rain had filled the plants with all the water they wanted.  

Walk out to the side yard with me, why don'cha?

 These are ocotillo (Fouquieria splendens).

For most of the year they are tall, spiky brown sticks.  To the casual observer, they are dead.  But after a bit of rain, surprising things begin to happen.  

Green leaves appear out of nowhere and spires of orange appear at the tips of the suddenly vibrant branches.

  Luckily, some of my plants are still short enough that photographing them was easy. 

Some of the plants in our neighborhood are 15' high.

These flowers deserve a closer look.

They just pop right open, unlike some of the desert flowers which unfurl.

Kind of like New Year's Eve paper-poppers... or little rockets..... or what do they conjure for you?

They are glossy and the pollen is sticky and those pointy thorns to the right under the flower and to the left under the first "true leaf".... well they don't bend when you brush against them.  They pierce leather gloves and welders gloves and even the rattlesnakes don't like fences made of ocotillo branches.

  Anyway..... did you notice anything special about the first picture of the ocotillos?   Up there next to the middle branch?    Would you like a closer look?    

I can't believe this came from my little Nikon L20:

This hummingbird was buzzing my ear all afternoon.
It was nice to have the company.

Speaking Wild Chimpanzee

G'ma and I went to hear Jane Goodall speak this afternoon.  After saying "Hello" in what I can only describe as  "a proper British accent," she said it again in Wild Chimp.  I've never heard anyone converse in Wild Chimp before, and I have to tell you that it sounds like a language I could learn to love... and like a language I could probably learn.  My sense is that grammar wouldn't be a huge part of the curriculum.

Dr. Jane spoke for an hour this afternoon in the lovely outdoor atrium of Pima Community College's Northwest Campus, conveniently located right between G'ma's pod-castle and my house.  And before I wax eloquently about her and her work and her general wonderfulness, let me do the same about PCC and its student body.  Parking was abundant but crowded, yet no one was tailgating or honking or looking peeved.  The signage was ok, but I asked a group of boys (ok, young men.... I'm getting old.....they all look like boys to me....) where the Atrium might be and they were polite and grammatically correct and genuinely glad to tell me that it was "beyond that steel building" and then add, with a big smile and the certainty that the information was golden "after 3 speed bumps."  And they were right; the speed bumps were crucial.  There were credentialed (t-shirts, necklace-badges, big welcoming smiles) helper-bees who greeted us as G'ma "I can walk"  and I crossed to the walkway, and one of them strolled, slowly slowly slowly, with us to the elevator (cleverly disguised with a big clear sign saying ELEVATOR) which took us up the one "no I am not walking up all those stairs"  flight where we were greeted by another smiling worker who showed us the seats set aside for those with disabilities.  Thanking G'ma for being old, I moved two of the folding chairs under the shade of a blooming palo verde tree and we smiled.

The introductions began 10 minutes late but weren't all that long-winded and then, there she was, under the canopy protecting her from the Sonoran sunshine, worrying about those of us out under the blue skies.  Of course she was good with the chimps -- she picked up on the energy of the audience in a nano-second.  She's a beautiful and delightful human being and I wish that I could have gotten close enough to take my own photo of her oh-so-comfortable-with-herself scarf clad person.  But there were a hundred or so school kids on the steps before her, so instead I'll give you a collage of the many umbrellas which were shielding skins from the sun

There's a lot I didn't know about her personal story, and as she shared the histories of JoJo and Satan and her other primate buddies, she told us about herself, as well.  She's received zillions of honors from zillions of institutions which give honors (UNESCO, Kyoto, Ghandi, UN Ambassador of Peace, Dame of the British Empire)  but she reserved her highest honors for her "amazing mother." I liked sitting next to my own mother as Dr. Goodall talked about her mother's encouragement and support and willingness to move to Africa for 4 months so that Jane could fulfill the British government's requirement that she not go into the bush without a companion  For her work with gauze pads and patent medicines, the indigenous people decided that her mom was a white witch doctor.  Personally, I'd say she ranks right up there with best mothers ever. At a time when finances precluded her daughter from attaining a degree, when girls didn't do those things, she had no trouble sending her obsessed child off on an adventure to follow her passion.  I have to believe that she was the one who gave the young Jane her first copy of Tarzan of the Apes.

I learned a lot about chimpanzees, too.  Their DNA differs by 1% from our human DNA; you can get a transfusion from a chimp and live to tell the tale.  They have a sense of self, emotions and family relationships.  They are tool makers (remember when humans were thought to be so special because we were the only ones clever enough for that leap?) and they tell stories and protect their young even when they are old and feeble and absurdly out-matched. 

With the reforestation of range areas spreading out from her compound, Gombe, there are fewer chances of intra-chimp-family-funny-business......that is to say, the opportunities for in-breeding are reduced as different groups are able to meet and mate.  There are water systems and latrines and micro-loans which have grown from Dr. Goodall's work in Tanzania, where destruction of the environment has become a necessity as human populations live without birth control on land which can no longer support their numbers.  She educates women because once they can read they are - surprise, surprise - happier, healthier, more self-sufficient and bearing fewer children. She's contributed to global awareness of our interconnectedness as she travels 300 days a year, repeating this mantra:

Every single one of us makes a difference every single day

That's something I can get myself to think about with a smile.

When I brought the car around to pick her up, G'ma was talking to a Happy Lady who recognized her as my mother, having seen her at luncheons and such with me.  As the security guard directed the traffic around The Schnozz, G'ma buckled her seat belt and, as he stopped the traffic so that we could leave, we drove down the driveway with smiles on our faces.

Life is good.  This is why I moved G'ma to Tucson, after all.  I was looking for a playmate and today she was right there with me, listening to a primatologist speak Wild Chimp as palo verde leaves, 2cm long and light as ... well, as palo verde leaves... landed on our arms as a toddler made not-at-all-random-circles in the space between his brothers and my chair as we listened to a real hero encourage us to stay involved with our poor old battered Mother Earth. 

There are many reasons to love living in Tucson; today was just another one.

Spring in the Desert

Words.... words.... words.... I'm so sick of words......

Eliza Doolittle echoes my sentiments exactly.  After SB1070 and our 1% sales tax and schools being thwarted by entrenched interests (in our military, the Taliban and Afghan villages) and Board meetings that would not end, I cannot have another serious thought.  I just can't.  

So, instead of considering the sorry state of the outside world, I am, as Pantagruel suggested, tending my own garden.  

Here are the results of a lovely early morning and late afternoon walking around my yard and admiring the work that the creator (need a capital C?  whatever floats your boat... today, I'm not arguing with anyone about anything) and I have achieved.  The commentary is minimal.... I hope your joy is exponential.

*****

Yellow is the predominant color right now.

These damianitas have finally shown their true beauty.
I must give myself some credit for their showy display; I pruned them carefully after their last bloom.  Mini-Marie gave me instructions at Master Gardeners one day, and everything she said was true.  I just snipped off the dead blossoms and left the leggy, woody, ugly branches alone and, as if by magic (but isn't that just the way with gardening?) here they are.

Forgive me for bragging, but they're gorgeous.  Simply gorgeous.  Someone slowed down to look at them while driving by yesterday afternoon.  I love sharing the joy.

This brittle bush is a volunteer; she just arrived last Fall and established herself.
I am eternally grateful to the animal who excreted or brushed off her seeds near the drainage berm.

The Prickly Pear Cacti I showed you earlier this year have bloomed

and the mesquite trees

are just getting started.  In a few days, there will be no greenery on any of their branches.
They will all be covered in those yellow pods.
Let the sneezing commence!

 The lantana

has also joined the party.
 
The barrel cacti blooms are long spent

and their detritus

 have become food for the ground squirrels.  These tunas litter my yard.  The little rodents sit in the shade (of the garbage can waiting to be emptied, of the gate, of the barrel cacti) and munch away happily.  Then, not having been schooled in mannerly behavior, they leave their trash and jump up for more.

Yellow is not the only color that is sprouting from the ground.

The little red cactus garden is beginning to show its stuff.  If they open tomorrow morning I'll add a picture as a bonus post.

 The Staghorn Cholla

 has these soft buds amidst those awful thorns

and those blooms have opened

to that deep red.  I'm fixated on the pollen.  Am I crazy or is that really sexy?

The yuccas' (hesperaloe parviflora) long red shoots have been up since Seret and Mr. DreamyCakes were here in March, but the buds

are starting to open

 and I'm loving their delicate yellow insides.  The hummingbirds and the butterflies and the finches all seem to like perching on their sturdy limbs and drinking.

The birds and the bees, indeed.

Finally, just in case you think that everything in the desert is prickly and pointy and harsh and sharp and ouchy, look at this

It felt as delicate and dewy as it looks.

Oh, frabjous day!

I Can't Believe This Is Really Happening

I'm feeling put upon, so forgive me if I use you to whine about the world for a while.  Things are just out of sorts, it seems.

I've been stewing about SB1070 since yesterday, and I'm no more comfortable with it today than I was then.  The lead photo in Monday's Arizona Daily Star has the requisite raised fist

Michael Chow/The Arizona Republic

but I don't see many raised fists here in Tucson.  I'm berating my legislators via email and phone, I'm spreading the word here in The Burrow, I'm feeling outraged.... and yet it all seems small and petty and meaningless.

Why have the campuses not erupted?  Where is the fervor I remember?  Is it really that different 40 years later?  Have kids changed that much? 

*****

I helped G'ma fill out her absentee ballot yesterday.  Arizona has a special election next month. There is only one question: Are you for or against the imposition of a 1% sales tax for the next three years?  

Without it, elementary school teachers will have 40+ students in their classrooms, if they have classrooms at all.  Police, fire, hospital care will all fall by the wayside as the state becomes unable to pay its bills.  It seems like a fairly simple proposition with which any right thinking person could agree, until you read that while these new monies must go to education, health and public safety, there is nothing to prevent our legislators from siphoning money from those same accounts to fund other state priorities.  Kind of like Boris Badenov's "Out with the bad air, in with the good air" refrain from Rocky the Flying Squirrel fame..... "out with the old money, in with the new." 

Poor G'ma -- she could barely keep the permutations in her head.  Finally, laughing hard enough to shake her glasses askew on her nose, she said "At least they're honest about being crooks" and signed her name.

I sighed as I mailed her ballot.  

*****

Road construction bonds are sold years before the work is done.  The planning takes place years before that.  So it was not surprising that in the depths of the recession, AzDOT began a major street resurfacing program.  It was surprising that my entire corner of town was blocked in by these programs.  Tucson doesn't have many sneaky back ways to avoid the main roads and their concomitant traffic delays; our neighborhoods are cul-de-sacs affording no outlets to further your journey.  That makes things flow smoothly, for the most part... except when the main roads exist only in the imagination of the map maker.  

I try to stay off the streets before and after school and during lunch breaks and if it's raining or at 4 o'clock when the construction workers (those few still employed) head for home, but it still takes much too long to get where I'm going.

Relax, you say?  Think of the fabulous surface on which you will soon be privileged to ride?  If only that were true.  But, the finishing touches have been put on nearly the entire length of one of those roads, and there's a seam, a big, annoying, tire-catching seam, an accident waiting to happen seam running beneath my tires.  And the tires of the truck in front of me, the one with the rakes and shovels teetering as they sway, are caught in that seam, too.

I can't believe I waited all Fall and Winter for this.

*****

The second headline in Monday's Arizona Daily Star reads:

UA to teach high school level math in the fall.  

One-third of freshmen found not ready for college courses.

We are not talking about Math 101 here, Dear Readers.  We are not asking that all UofA students prove their competence in a basic, college level math course (whatever that might be).  No, this is high school math we're talking about.   

Are there no admissions standards?  Is there not an expectation that, in order for your application to receive favorable consideration by someone, somewhere, who might be paying attention, that you have passed certain courses?  

Does everyone need to study math in college?  Not really.  I'm just hoping that the students in those high school math classes are not then admitted to the engineering school.  I'd like to think that by the time they got to be freshmen in college, the engineers who build my bridges and design my buildings were able to do the math without remediation.

*****
And to top it off, NBC Nightly News just told me that Afghan school-girls were victims of poison gas attacks in their classrooms in Kunduz Province last week.   How heinous - to want to learn.

A Thousand Splendid Suns should be required reading in every high school in America.
*****

I just can't believe this is all really happening. 

What Happened to The Melting Pot?

I'm a blue girl living in a red state and I'm very confused. 

Apparently, I am not the only one in this predicament.  Nance is wallowing in the same morass, and has offered to guide the winner of her "more names for shades of red" contest through the parts of South Carolina which delight her.  I've always been a fan of re-labeling, but I don't think she's going far enough.  I think we need a whole new paradigm.

I walk the aisles of supermarkets surrounded by people who are all shades of brown.  Some find their color through tanning booths (our newest addiction - I am having fun considering the treatments..... sunburns? long trips to Chicago in the winter?) but most seem to have been born that way.  I am hard pressed to determine ethnic origins as I pass them near the frozen foods; we're all shivering in our tank tops as we retrieve Popsicles and peas and pizzas.  Goose bumps are goose bumps no matter how colorful your skin might be.

We have a large contingent of African refugees here in Tucson, and most of them are what the Little Cuter called purply, a word she coined to describe our Belizean babysitter.

Of course, the Little Cuter thought that her own skin was light brown and we won't even go to the confusion that flesh in the Crayola box created. 

I've got some cousins who are white, but then so was their mother. Their skin is almost translucent, and I don't imagine that they've spent 10 minutes of their lives on a tanning bed. One's married to a German (and there is a whole 'nother definition of what white meant, but we're not going there yet) and the others chose men of Italian and Hispanic descent to father their children.  Their kids are ...... hmmm.....  

And this is where I stop - because what I want to type is American.  But, Arizona seems to be moving in the direction of color-coding our residents as well as our states, so I must pause and reflect. 

Jan Brewer became Arizona's governor when Janet Napolitano took on Homeland Security.  She was our Secretary of State prior to her elevation; Arizona does not elect a Lieutenant Governor and she was the next in line.  Now, Dear Reader, stop for a moment and see if you can conjure up the name of the Secretary of your State...... take your time.... we'll wait.

Still stumped?  Imagine how we felt when our nonentity 

suddenly became our supreme leader.  (As an aside, I vow that I will never again ignore "the bottom of the ticket" in the voting booth.)  She has annoyed and fumbled and stumbled and prayed but she hit a new highlight on Friday when she signed SB1070, which requires Arizona's state and local police to ask about a person's immigration status if there is a "reasonable suspicion" that he or she is in the country illegally. 

Don't you love the wording?  "Reasonable Suspicion" ...... it's almost oxymoronic.  Aren't most police officers naturally suspicious?  Isn't that their job?  If you are suspicious aren't you looking for reasons?  Isn't it the fact that you are suspicious telling you that what you are seeing is unreasonable?  And what might those reasons be?

Speaking with an accent?  Having purply skin?  Listening to Radio Sonora at full volume as you wait at a red light? Reassurances have been given that documentation can be requested only if one is stopped for "something else", but anyone who's watched even half an episode of Law'n knows that "something else" is easily manufactured. 

Suddenly, running out to pick up a gallon of milk requires not only $2 but your passport.

today.ucla.edu

Having relatives who wore yellow stars makes me sensitive to this issue in ways which may surprise you, and which certainly startled many of my Marin friends.  After all, if you're liberal don't you automatically want to open our hearts and our borders to all and sundry, regardless of paperwork?

Had they been able to walk across the Atlantic, I would have had many more cousins than I do now, for certainly America's promise of religious and ethnic freedom would have been an attractive alternative to the death camps.  But there was all that water standing in their way, and there were rules and regulations and quotas and laws precluding them from joining family and friends here in the USofA. So, they died.  I'm big on fairness, and I don't think that walking in unobstructed should allow a person to reap the benefits of our nation's largess.  I think that we need a guest worker program and reasonable immigration standards which allow farm workers as well as high-tech geniuses to join in our great American adventure.  I don't think people can just appear and vote.  I don't think free social services should be served on gilt platters to those who've cheated their way in and then slip on a banana peel.  

But I hearken back to 3rd and 4th grade, where Social Studies was consumed with "the melting pot."  Immigrants of varied backgrounds were shmooshed together and America was the result.  Alexander Hamilton's illegitimate Caribbean birth was cause for derision in the 18th century, but no one doubted that he was an American.  The founders of our country had all come from somewhere else, and the challenge was to take Virginians and New Yorkers and Massachusetts Bay colonists and create a nation of Americans.

This notion was central to my understanding of our country when I was 8, and it remains so today.  I never saw the need for the school district to teach the Big Cuter's California classmates about Hanukah; I brought in dreidles and a menorah and shared the experience with them.  It was my responsibility to describe this particular feather in the plumage of our country; it was the school's responsibility to educate Americans.  Black History Month annoys me, Diversity Assemblies insult me...... we're Americans and that should be that.  Some are tall and some are Methodists and some are purply and the differences are there, but none should be considered more unusual, more unreasonable, more suspicious than another.  If we'd just concentrate on being Americans instead of appending hyphens whenever we notice a distinction, that is.

I think it's because of this kind of thinking that we are, in the 21st century, legalizing questioning based on an officer's "reasonable suspicion" regarding immigration status.  If you are robbing a candy store and you are dark skinned, can I reasonably assume that you are also an illegal entrant to our fair state?  If you are standing at the corner, looking lost, can I reasonably suspect that you have just hiked here from Michoacan and are looking for your safe house?  I can't come up with a palatable suspicion. It's racism that's not even vaguely clouded or hidden.

I've never understood the objections to a National Identity Card.  But concerns exist and the NIC does not.  Instead of hearing "license, registration and NIC" at a traffic stop, we'll be hearing "license, registration and passport."  We'll be erecting barriers between us, requiring only some of our number to carry identification.  Will we be seeing hoodies with sweat-resistant passport holders? 

I don't like feeling sad about my country.  I don't like feeling embarrassed by my state.  But the birthers are trying to amend our election laws to require samples of amniotic fluid before you can run for President of the United State on the Arizona ballot and I don't know..... I'm confused..... depressed..... outraged.....or just plain sad.

Bonus Post

The Big Cuter lives on Market Street in San Francisco.  I've written about Market Street, but I've never really thought about it.  I think I will begin to consider it with a different eye, now that I have seen this film.  It was taken by cameras mounted on the fronts of streetcars traveling east toward the Ferry Tower on the Embarcadero in the year 1905 -  just days before the earthquake.

Have a nice weekend!

A Different Kind of Grocery Store

Grocery stores are some of my favorite places on earth.  

There are the mom-and-pop corner markets in New York City, shelves stocked with goods reflecting the ethnicity of the owners.  There are the mega-markets filled with generic and recognizable boxes and cans.  There are the big box stores and the local chains and I love them all.  

I've always liked pushing the cart through the store.  When I was small, Associated Foods had kid-sized carts waiting next to the grown-up carts... waiting there just for me.  I don't remember filling the basket with groceries or emptying it at the checkout counter but I can still remember how the ribbed black rubber felt under my hands as I steered it, very very carefully, up and down the aisles.

Now, G'ma likes to leave her walker in the car and lean on the grocery cart.  It makes her feel mainstreamed, as if she's fitting in with the crowd, just as I did when I was 5.  I try not to dwell on the sad piece.....

There's a reassuring familiarity to grocery stores.  Milk and eggs and bread and meat are around the edges, which makes running in to get the necessities an exercise in tunnel vision if impulse purchases are to be avoided.  Hellmans Mayonnaise is Best Foods Mayonnaise west of the Mississippi (a fact which is true if somewhat bizarre) but for the most part, noodles are noodles and soups are soups.


Unless you enter another world entirely.  And that's what Seret and I did last month.  The sign at LeeLee's Oriental Market preceded the opening of the store by many months; we locals began to wonder if it was a ruse.  There were no grand opening banners nor local radio stations broadcasting from the parking lot but one day I noticed cars parked in front of the doors and deduced that they had actually arrived.  Not being a very adventurous cook, I needed Seret's presence to motivate me to cross the threshold.

It's a big, bright box store with very wide aisles.  There is a Vietnamese restaurant in one corner and take-out Asian BarBQue in another.  A jewelry store occupies the southern corner and a travel agency is right beside it.  I'm not describing storefronts facing the parking lot.  I'm talking about actual independent businesses housed within the confines of LeeLee's Oriental Market.  We weren't in a grocery store.  We were in a neighborhood.

And what a neighborhood it was.  There were no familiar products on the shelves.  Instead we saw

Now, perhaps the squid is a well-loved fellow in the Orient, but here in Tucson it's probably not the brand name designed to cause a cowboy to salivate.  

There were many varieties of eggs, some with little chicks nestled inside the shells.  The stocker wanted to be sure that we understood what he was trying to tell us, which is why he brought over the English-speaking manager to explain the contents.  We were grateful, and we moved on to something somewhat more palatable as well as unusual:

We're still wondering why the yolks are bright orange.

There were aisles of bamboo umbrellas and chopsticks in every hue.  There were brands of paper goods which were new to both of us, and there were delicacies we'd never imagined:

 But my favorite part of the neighborhood were these packages, nestled right up beside one another.  Honestly, I didn't move them to photograph them.

If the couscous can get along together, why can't we?

Once Upon A Time

Once upon a time, a girl planned a trip.  To be more precise, she planned to join a trip created by the Ultimate Trip Planners (UTPs).  Knowing that her only responsibilities were to pack correctly and show up at the WallyWorld parking lot at the appointed time, the months leading up to their departure were filled with obsessing about rolling suitcases vs traveling teams' soccer bags and old hiking poles vs new ones.  Should she take long sleeves or short sleeves and would shorts keep her warm enough if the Gila Wilderness proved to be colder than weather.com predicted?  Which hat - the purple polar fleece or the hand knit beanie with the pompom - would be the most fun to pull out should the need arise?  Did she really need sweat pants and pajama bottoms and stretchy athletic pants or could she truly "pack lightly" as the UTPs requested?  A sweatshirt or another layer of long-sleeves .... decisions, decisions, decisions.

As always, she began laying out the alternatives a few days before her departure.  Her closet floor was a maze of "maybe these" and "perhaps this" stacks and "for sure" piles.  New poles were purchased, as were 2 Camelback water bottles.  The fact that the 1 litre bottles fit in none of the holders on any of her day packs was annoying but not an insurmountable problem; there were 1 liter Smart Water bottles which fit quite nicely and contained the same amount of liquid.  Granted, the UTPs always trek with extra hydration for their hikers, but the girl liked to be self-sufficient.  The bigger Camelbacks fit nicely in her bike's water holder and in The Schnozz's cup holders so there was no waste.  She'd had a wonderful time comparing colors and shapes and brand names at the outfitter's, and that experience alone made her smile when she looked at the "not on this trip, at least" bottles sitting atop the reject pile.

Laundry was done, decisions were made, small cans of tuna fish (for lunches on the trails - she is not a big fan of the processed meats the UTPs were toting for the group) fit into nooks and crannies in the black soccer bag and, 30 hours before she was to depart, her planning and packing was complete.  Those who might have been expecting her at meetings during her travels had been informed that she'd be away.  CT was hired to maintain the rigid watering schedule her container plants required. The pod-castle was aware that she'd be gone, and G'ma was told (though how much she'd remember remained a mystery, even though the trip was scrawled across the relevant dates on all the calendars in her apartment).  She could spend her final day at home putting the finishing touches on her equipment.  The instruction booklet for the GPS slid nicely into a side pocket; Miss Marjorie planned to help her figure the damn thing out.  Carabiners hid in the outside zippered pocket of the soccer bag, ready to be called into use should a strap fail or a clasp crack.  Extra Kashi Bars.... wet wipes.... some more plastic bags....  she became convinced that she was all set.  Let the excitement begin.

Then life intervened.

Finishing up the last of the ground beef, she lit the BBQ and served hamburgers and home made fries for dinner.  After 2 bites, TBG's face turned an all-too-familiar shade of puce.  "How old is this meat?" was his last healthy sentence.  Writhing on the couch turned to puking into the gigantic I-used-to-be-the-6-loaves-of-bread-dough bowl from the side of the bed.  Sleep never happened; gastrointestinal distress continued, hour after hour after hour.  The morning brought no relief, nor did the afternoon nor the early evening.  Sundays are not the day to arrive by car at the Emergency Room, and his symptoms really didn't warrant an ambulance, and the quicker care arrival by siren ensures, and Urgent Care was never a consideration for reasons passing understanding and so he suffered and she served.  She toted.  She rubbed.  She cossetted.  She made jello and found popsicles (red and orange only.... does anyone want 15 purple ones?) and toasted toast and cleaned that damn big bowl all day long.  He was miserable and weak and not getting any better.

And she was supposed to leave for her trip.  She was packed.  She'd invested $16.95 in a map of the area.  She really really wanted to go.

But she couldn't.  Nope, there was no way to leave him at home, all on his own, when food wouldn't stay down and dizziness and exhaustion were the order of the day.  Nope, she had to make the phone call to the UTPs and forfeit her spot on the trip.  How to do that without feeling like a martyr?  He hadn't asked her to stay; he just kept hoping that he'd feel better.  But she knew, having seen this pattern before, that the course of the disease would run on its own timetable, oblivious to any plans she had made.

The UTP's told her to call at 6:30am on the day of departure; she'd been awake with him the entire night so that didn't feel like an early call at all.  The group left and she took TBG to the doctor, where medication was given and blood pressure taken and dehydration addressed and gradually, over the course of the next night, they both fell asleep.

It was a miracle.

He woke up on Tuesday and felt nearly human.  Did she want to try to catch up with her trip? The baggage was still sitting in the dining room, ready to be loaded into The Schnozz.  She had a map and an itinerary.  The B&B owner said that all the keys had been taken, but she was certain that there was a double room with only one traveler in which she could crash.  Then she looked at the map and saw that the 158 miles she'd thought reflected the entire journey was, in fact, only the middle piece.  The group was nearly 300 miles away, in places which have no names.  True: the B&B's location is "the intersection of routes 15 and 35".... there's not even a zip code on the web site.  She decided to stay home and enjoy the free week - no plans, no expectations, it could really be a joy.

She went to pilates but was 15 minutes late (misreading the schedule is never a good thing) and she didn't like the teacher anyway so she turned around and went home.  And that was a very smart decision because..... surprise... surprise...surprise.....

She's spent the better part of the day doing her own writhing-in-agony dance between the bed and the bathroom.  Sparing her Dear Readers the gory details, suffice it to say that this situation would not have been the ideal way to spend a 3 mile hike to the cave dwellings, nor listening to a lecture on the Mimbres culture.  She rarely gets sick, and when she does it lasts about 24 hours.  Sitting here during hour 19, watching the clock and willing the medication to calm her guts or put her to sleep, she types to distract herself.

There will be no pictures of New Mexico on the blog this month.  There will be no stories of tales shared around a communal table.  Silver City, the Cat Walk, Fort Bayard..... they will all have to wait until another time.

For now, the girl needs to sleep.

Bakery Run

I rode my bike for the first time in a long time today.  I had books to return to the library and then I planned to head over to the pod-castle and visit with G'ma.  I was prepared - had my helmet and backpack and garage door clicker and cell phone and water bottle - and my new bicycle pump was easy and pouffed those tires up to a nice firm roundness.  I set off in the early afternoon sunshine, a slight breeze at my back, coasting down the hill and smiling.  Crossed at the green, not in-between, and it was only when the road began its ascent that the fact that the  only 2 gears available to me out of the 21 promised by the chains and the cogs on the derailleur and those clickers on the handlebars were impossible and who do you think you're kidding?  

I heard Jillian Michaels screaming at me to finish the hill finish the hill finish the hill and I did.  It took me a while to recover, and while I was resting by the side of the road I thought back to the last time I'd used my bike for a regular errand.

I must have been 11 or 12 or 13 when I began biking to the bakery early on Sunday mornings.  I'd ride past my neighbors, the men outside doing yard work or car work or just bringing in the New York Times and Newsday and, as I passed,  I took orders.  I had a note pad from Woolworth's just like the waitresses at the Rainbow Diner and I gave each customer his carbon copy as a receipt. 

I was working. I was independent.  I was self-sufficient.  I knew at the time that the men were impressed.  Was it patronizing or was it real?  It doesn't matter now.  At that moment in time, I was a wage earner, just as they were.  We were up early, doing the things that that wage earners do.  It might have been their day off, but for me, it was just another workday.  They expected me to come by, and I did.  If they'd missed me the week before they were sorry.  I was a part of their weekly routine.

Getting there was half the fun.  I always took the sneaky way, across the high school field and

across the footbridge and through the marshy area past scary, old Camp Algonquin and then twisting and turning down streets we'd never drive on but which made the perfect, most direct route to Lincoln Shopping Center and the bakery.

Some mornings it was cold and dark and sometimes it was rainy but as I cycled through the neighborhoods, with a purpose and a plan but in no particular hurry at all, I was alone and outside and it felt great.  I feel that when I'm hiking now.

It was nice to be recognized as a regular, to have the 6 poppy seed rolls and a thin sliced rye with seeds go into the bag before I started to place the rest of my order.  Other patrons were amused to see me stagger back to my bike with my spoils, but their smiles never bothered me.  I'd stack the individual bags carefully in my basket and then I'd ride home.

I was useful.  I was responsible to no one but myself and the job I had contracted to do.  I had intersected with the world while most of its inhabitants were still snuggled under their covers, dreaming Sunday morning dreams.

I was pretty special.

And I wonder, now, 40+ years later, where that sense of accomplishment, of being at one with the world, of having nothing on my worry list except deciding which left turn to take.... I've been wondering where it's gone.  When did I become so encumbered that my achievements all seem to have a but attached to their tails?  Everything is so complicated for me now.

On the other hand, no way do I want to time-travel back to that space.  Would you?