Alas, I was not always pushing up the daisies (as they say) gleefully backstroking through eternity without a care.
Once I was a fearsome phantom of the high seas; raiding coastal villages and dragging fine damsels to their dark and briny demise.
And then, I know not how, they caught me!! Threw me in the brig, they did!
“Beware! This frail birdcage shall not my evil contain! Release me now or suffer consequences beyond your feeble imaginations!” I warned. But did they listen? Tonight you’ll see.
From the faded gardens I arise, Shasta daisies with tears in their eyes sing while I wail. And wail and wail.
To no avail; to no avail for . . . T’is that dim dark part of the year when howling is the norm and howls and wails prevail.
So shake off your spider webs (and spiders), my dear and celebrate the Dead who have nothing to fear! Or do they?
Illustrations courtesy of my very clever neighbors!
A repost from years ago. Sometimes you have to step outside your comfort zone to understand another culture.
I dropped out of college when the chance to live in Europe came along and I didn’t have a chance to return until the mid-eighties when my life hit an unfamiliar period of calm and, because I wasn’t used to calm, I decided to spice life up by returning to UC Berkeley and finishing up my degree. However I needed childcare as my son was just a toddler. Finding childcare is always a sticky-wicket if you don’t have a mother-figure nearby to help.
After fretting over my options for a couple of weeks (potential child abusers versus soulless baby mills), my husband pointed out that we had an extra bedroom with an attached bath, so why not find a college girl willing to trade room and board for help with the children?
He envisioned a buxom blonde from Sweden.I thought more along the lines of a quiet farm girl from Kansas.
My ad read: “Room and Board in exchange for child care a couple of times a week. House is only 15 minutes from campus.”
I’d just returned home from posting the advertisement when the phone rang.On the other end of the line was a young man with a thick accent. “I have sixteen brothers and sisters,” he informed me.“I know all about babies.”
Stunned stupid I mumbled:“But you’re a man.”Something which he’d probably already figured out.
“But your ad didn’t say…”
What a corner I’d painted myself into! I couldn’t say we want a girl, now could I?That would be sexist. Besides, he had a point. There was no “must have a vagina” in my ad.
“I can come in for an interview today.”
“Today? Ah, no, um – that won’t work.Tomorrow, eleven o’clock,”I needed time to figure out how I was going to reject him. Now, I should have said the position was already taken but I’ve never been that quick on my feet.
The next morning at precisely eleven the doorbell rang. How stupid, I thought. I’ve probably just invited a serial killer or a rapist to my house while my husband was at work. I should have arranged to meet him somewhere else, a public place with lots of people around.I should have had him come when my husband was home. But as I said, I’ve never been quick on my feet.
Like a ninny I peered out the living room blinds. At my front door stood a young Omar Sharif in a plaid shirt and slacks, his dark hair cut short.Figuring that serial rapists generally don’t look like Omar Sharif, I opened the door and let him in.
“Just call me Aziz,” he informed me. “Americans can’t pronounce my real name,Azizulah.”
“Azizulah, that’s not such a hard name to pronounce.” You twit, I thought, feeling insulted. I’d traveled the world. I wasn’t a typical American, or so I thought.
He went on to say he was a graduate student from Karachi who had scored fourth in Pakistan’s version of the SATs which guaranteed him entrance into just about any college in the world (lack of confidence was not one of his failings).He took a look at the room and the bath and declared it would suit him just fine as it was far away from the “family” quarters and he liked to touch base with his family in the middle of the night.He also informed me that he expected to be allowed to cook at least one meal a week and asked if the local butcher stocked freshly slaughtered goat.
Aziz with the woman he couldn’t possibly live without and Cam
I was about to tell him that we’d get back to him when my son who was sitting on the floor abusing the dog began to wail.Aziz picked him up, made a funny clacking sound with his tongue and Cam settled right down. They got along so well that I invited him back to meet my husband for dinner that evening.
“Is there anything you don’t eat, other than pork?”
“Peanut butter!”He said, looking as if he’d just smelt a fart.
He stayed with us until he married the woman he claimed he “would die without.” It was true. Whenever she was out of town he couldn’t eat or sleep, often stumbling from his room red-eyed and moaning.I’ve never seen a man so love-sick.
Hindu Marriage Ceremony
Unfortunately, she was a Hindu. And so, of course, his family boycotted their wedding and my children played the roles meant for the groom’s siblings. After a few years and children, fortunately his family softened their stance.
Here are just a few of the things I learned during my years with Aziz:
Peanut Butter is the food of the Devil. Grilled Cheese isn’t far behind.
The worst thing you can call someone in Urdu is a Devil.
Pakistanis do not celebrate birthdays because many of them have no idea when they were born (Aziz was either 24 or 26 depending on whether he believed his mother’s journal entry or his father’s).The date on his passport was made official by a bribe to an immigration official.
Pakistanis also do not believe it is necessary to either give or receive thanks. People are expected to do good deeds for each other without expectation of a thank you.
We introduced Aziz to Thanksgiving turkey, Christmas cookies, and Easter bunnies. He introduced us to curry, Eid and Ramadan. One summer, part of his large family came for a visit, staying at the Claremont Hotel and traveling around the Bay Area in a convoy of vans. They owned a factory on the outskirts of Karachi and made replicas of the kind of furniture you’d find at Versailles which they sold primarily in Europe. They invited me to their home in Karachi but, after Aziz told me the honored guest is always offered (and expected to eat) the eyeball of a freshly slaughtered cow, I declined the invitation!
I used to joke that during the time we were all together, we had the bases covered – the son of a Holocaust survivor, a baptized Christian (drifting towards Buddhism), a Hindu and a Muslim – should the world come to a sudden end; an end which would probably have been caused by one or all of the above religions. Ironic, isn’t it?
Considering the current political climate, I don’t have to tell you the motto to this post, do I?
I can’t imagine visiting Manhattan and not making time to visit the 9-11 Memorial. I’m not a particularly patriotic person but neither were many of the people who died on that day. Just people going to work or traveling home or wandering by. It could have been any of us. I guess that’s what scares us all the most.
These photos are from October 2015. We were staying in Brooklyn where my son was living and more of less followed the crowds (and basic instincts) from the bridge to the site. At that time it was a quiet, sober place with only the sound of water falling endlessly. “Absence Made Visible” as the designer stated was his purpose. The names, I found out later, were not haphazardly etched into the stone. They are arranged so that those poor souls could rest forever near people they knew or worked with or died next to.
We didn’t go into the nearby museum as it was too lovely a day to be inside. Instead we made our way up to Central Park for another of my must sees.
Many years ago, I don’t even remember when, Connemoira’s mother gave me an oil pastel rendering of an angel. “God told me to give you this,” she said.
She was always telling me what God wanted me to do and I was a bit of a wimp. If people wanted to tell me what God wanted me to do I generally listened. Then I usually did what I was going to do anyway. Mrs. Seagrass was very very good to many many people and I will never be able to repay her for all her kindnesses to me when I was growing up. But I wasn’t into angels at the time and so I stored the pastel in the closet. In the back of the closet. Did I feel guilty? Oh yeah. Especially as the years went by and one by one the Seagrasses have disappeared. Some have died and others still dwell down by the river. Much quieter than before.
But the last couple of months I haven’t had any power over what will be. I can see it coming but nothing I can do will stop it. This I know. And so I’ve been rearranging the paintings and furniture like a teenager in a B horror flick desperately trying to outsmart the Devil himself and, in the process, I created a space perfect for a medieval angel.
It is lovely isn’t it? Even if you don’t believe in angels, it’s a fine piece of work. Shame on me for hiding it in a closet.
For those of you soured on newspapers because of all the political brouhaha, this was the picture on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle this morning.
This fluffy chick … let’s call the darling Flammy, shall we? … is one of four wunderkinder who recently hatched at the San Francisco Zoo to great joy. You see, for the past nine years the adults of the species have displayed “plenty of pink plumage — but no passion.” (Sam Whiting, staff writer)
If you guessed little Flammy is a flamingo chick, you guessed right. Apparently they don’t turn pink for two or three years.
I’m sure you’re dying to know what caused the return of the pink passion! Well, it had nothing to do with politics. That’s the good news. I won’t go into detail but the birds didn’t like to be quarantined at night which they had been for several reasons, primarily the bird flu. And so the zoo made several changes and soon the males started standing up straight, shaking their heads left to right and “marching back and forth in unison, an indicator that we are leading up to breeding season.” (Liz Gibbons, birdkeeper)
No news about how the lady birds are feeling. Exhausted, perhaps. Nine years is a long time!
Yesterday I went over to the Community Center early (7 AM) to help set up for our parade. Already it was a scene of complete chaos! The folks in charge had already pulled a couple of all-nighters and were relying on a constant stream of coffee and donuts to keep moving. Bless their wired and stressed-out hearts.
This gentleman belonged to our town’s most prestigious citizen. She was there for the flag raising as I suppose she is every year.
While a group of elderly vets struggled to raise the flag, I watched a girl in a tree next to the flag pole.
“Look at me person!” she said. And then she disappeared. Or did she?
Can you see her? She’s almost as high as the top of the flag post (upper right).
If I zoom in you can see her now. Wood Nymph! That’s what she was. Once up there, she would not come down. Unlike the flag. The vets got it up once, poised for photos and then wandered off in search of the pancake breakfast provided by the Cub Scouts. Next thing we knew, it crashed to the ground. Luckily the Search and Rescue team had a booth nearby.
Here are some other snaps of the actual parade.
A group called The “Funeral Band,” I think. It was hard to hear the announcements over the din of the crowd. Plus, the announcer himself must have been 200 years old.
Also part of the Funeral Band.
This young lady knew how to dress for the occasion.
As does she!
Hopefully this was not the Funeral Band!
“Okay. I’ll pose. But only because this is so boring.”
Poor old Lady Liberty teetering on stilts. Bless her heart. Bless all our hearts.
