wildbamboo

TURNING 60 AND A NEW YEAR

2009-12-31T22:38:00.000-08:00

Nearly a year since my last entry. Hello? Anybody there?

To my distant friends and family, I'd like to suggest that email and blogs work both ways--not just my little blog/emails--others could share their own if they are hovering around. (Just a hint...)

With that out of the way, I've had a ten days off at the end of this last hectic year and have loved every single second of it (the ten days, not the year which was survivable, just). I had too many tasks planned for this break and have tried to enjoy each moment after no vacations since last year.

Good things in 2009--I finally got my roof replaced ($9,000) by cashing in an IRA. Had to get a new water main that broke in several places ($7,500). Got an old root canal redone (insurance paid for it, thank Gods) and other health maintenance requirements.

Felt the joy of Obama in the White House and the frustration of Republican "mischief" in the Congress, preventing us from getting universal health care. Something is better than nothing, but really--how disappointing.

The grandbabies are doing well and now live in a neighborhood with hundreds, if not thousands, of trees. They still come to see me on the weekends.

Next year, I'm committed to buying no new clothes since I've got more than I need; to get the big bills paid off and the credit cards as low as possible. Goodbye shopping. I'll try to use the time blogging or in some other heady pleasure.

Guilty pleasures? Saw "Sherlock Holmes" with Downey Jr. and loved it. Although Jeremy Brett will always BE Holmes to me, Richie's version is fun, crazy and a pastiche. So inaccurate and tongue-in-cheek, it's funny (and I love the music). Went to LUSH and got three soaps for the price of one and a luscious moisturizer. Reread my favorite Terry Pratchett books and mourn his illness because we'll have few new creations of his in future. Rock on, Terry.

Almost New Year now...Happy to All.

HALLELUJAH & HOW TO KNIT A RUG

2009-03-28T10:57:00.000-07:00

First off, I'm still absolutely thrilled every time I hear someone say or write: "President Obama". President Obama, thank you for not giving up and for giving us hope.

So many of us never thought we would see the day when someone of mixed race would occupy the "White" House. Even more, I feared I'd never see a man or woman of intellect and insight take that role after Cheney/Bush/Rove. May the Bush Team rot in hell. For the first time, I wave an American flag outside my window.

We've turned a big corner. Maybe America has grown up--we'll see. I hope Obama and the Democrats can save our butts from the ruin the Republicans have made of our country. We as a nation let them ruin it and hopefully never will again. If we can get national healthcare--at last--then I think our country will have really evolved in a major way. And America can prosper, economically and culturally.

To the rug:

Last year, I found many rolls of denim cloth cut about 1-1/2 inches wide at my favorite "art shop"--SCRAP on Toland in SF. I'd been wanting to knit a rag rug, but so many rag rugs look, well, raggedy. Not worth all that work.

I got the denim (about $10) and washed the fabric strips first which created huge tangles but fringed and fluffed the edges of the fabric nicely (the cloth was cut on the grain, not the bias). Using huge needles (#15), I knitted this up in a LINEN STICH@ which creates a firm, non-stretchy surface. It took months, but the rug has been a success, keeping my grandbabies warm from the freezing wooden floors in my house. The rug looks handmade and a little funky but not raggedy. Size of the denim rug is about 46" by 42". I handsewed the strips together with denim thread.

I've done a few smaller rugs with stretch polyester and cotton strips for my kitchen and bathroom and they are okay too, though the knit stitch makes the borders a little uneven. These smaller rugs wash perfectly in my machine.

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@LINEN STITCH: CO even number of stitches. Row 1: *K1, slip 1 with yarn in front. Repeat from * across, ending with a K1. Row 2: *P1, slip 1 with yarn in back. Repeat from * across, ending w P1. Repeat these two rows for pattern. When slipping stitches, always slip as if to purl.

The BEST part is that these can all be washed in a machine. For the large denim rug, I'll take it to the laundromat and toss it in the big $5 machine. It will probably take forever to dry, but grow softer with age. Right now I vacuum this rug and it comes up soft and clean.
---------------------------

My life otherwise in short has been: anxiety; election elation; more bodily maintenance issues; work work work; a few days off here and there; knitting; planning; seeing various doctors for foot, hand, brain; kids on the weekend (the now 3-year old is potty trained at last, the nearly 6-year old lovelier than ever); more anxiety; worry; aging mellowly often: books on tape; day trips inland (I hate to be away from the sea); work work work.

Here's to the future:

BOOTED CROW

2008-12-31T12:29:00.001-08:00

While browsing through a rather chichi shop on Berkeley's Fourth Avenue, I spied this image and had to have it. It is a work by Rudi Hurzlmeier from Berlin on an inexpensive postcard. I am enchanted by it and by the mind that could imagine it.

Some time ago, I spent ages looking on the Internet for boots like those of the crow. I always think of the granny boots I bought in my Hippie days, actual nun's shoes. I put colorful beads on the lace tips of those shoes and wore them under bellbottoms on my long walks around San Francisco. The black tooled leather was supple and the heels not too high. They were the best. I wish I had shoes like that again. Lucky crow.

So for the coming year, I'm going to try to have more fun, be sillier and laugh a lot more. Cruising through the art section of Pendragon Books, I found a book dedicated solely to cheese dishes, many of them quite beautiful. But imagine someone dedicating a huge chunk (no pun intended) of their life to cheese dishes--researching, photographing and then printing a definitive book on them. Well, why not? It did tickle me and I laughed aloud.

I've enjoyed my week off work so much. The time has flown by. One book-on-tape I listened to while puttering around my house was "Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follett. I'd hoped for a few historical details of the period, but it was trash--poorly written and even inaccurate at the end, with the villain being hanged for his part in Thomas Beckett's murder in the cathedral. Not true, according to my history pinup Simon Schama: the knights were banished, but not prosecuted. And full of anemic prose with the book way too long. It's a frame for Follett to hang architectural details upon. Plot twists unconvincing, etc. Not recommended.

BUT--another book on tape by Horatio Clare was a real gem: "Running for the Hills; Growing Up On My Mother's Sheep Farm in Wales". An idyllic and raw childhood with an eccentric mother and hundreds of sheep far from civilization. And all described in really beautiful prose, poetic prose.

One more day of freedom. I'll babysit Los Bebes tonight while their mom goes to a Peruvian family party (dancing, card games and eating all night long). The kids and I will snuggle overnight and greet the New Year tomorrow morning.

HAPPY 2009 to the family and friends who occasionally peek at this blog to see what Granny Sue is up to.

ANNUS HORRIBILIS

2008-12-29T11:52:00.000-08:00

Like Elizabeth II, One expects life to grow easier as One ages.

Not true. In all honesty, 2008 was one of the worst years of my life emotionally. I am hoping things around me stablize and go more smoothly in 2009--a new President, a new worldview, a new vision. A new start.
One of the happiest of my days in 2008 was on Thanksgiving. I got up early, packed a lunch and drove alone to Stinson Beach via the rain forest on the north face of Mount Tamalpais.

Boy, did I catch a lot of crap from family members for "opting out" on THE big American Holiday. But I was in dire need of a day just for me: a slow drive playing my own music (French cafe songs and Bach) through the lush green of the mossy trees and rocks, the fog shreds drifting over the heavily wooded hills. At the end, like the treasure at the end of the rainbow, the sea with a fairly clean beach. I enjoyed that day immensely. Then it was back to a hectic schedule and trying to figure out a more balanced life for myself. in the coming year.

At Christmas, I gave in to family wishes and spent the day at my house with my grandkids making decorations for my last-minute tree and trying to keep peace with battling factions. It worked out fairly well. I bought the kids a camping tent so they could have their own "clubhouse" where no grownups are allowed. The tent takes up my whole dining room, and my grandkids' "babies" (all their stuffed toys and animals) are inside but it keeps them from being too bored on rainy days when we can't go out.

THE BRIDGE TO NOWHERE MAVERICK

2008-10-05T19:30:00.000-07:00

To continue on my last post, I watched the VP debate and was relieved that Joe Biden kept his verbosity in check (for once). When I've seen him give interviews in the past, he can go on and on. Because Palin didn't screw up, everyone said she was a success. Compared to Biden's facts and figures, I'd call her performance lame and superficial, especially since she--like Bush--can't even pronounce "nuclear".

Here's the address to Jack Cafferty's comment on CouricGate:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8__aXxXPVc&feature=related

And just to show that Matt Damon isn't just a pretty face, one more comment address I came across:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anxkrm9uEJk&NR=1

Damon refers to Palin's stand that Creationism should be taught in school along with Evolution. Does she also believe in The Rapture? And this person could be the leader of the Free World.

Palin's role now is to play attack-dog on Obama, while McCain tries to look nice and gentlemanly. Her current message leads her folks to believe that Obama has "palled around with terrorists". This refers to Obama's contact with a former Weatherman Bill Ayers, who went underground around 1970 (while Obama was in elementary school).

[By 1976 or 1977...federal charges against Ayers and his wife were dropped due to prosecutorial misconduct (source: Wikipedia).]

Obama served on a charity board with Ayers in Chicago during the mid-90s, and Ayers was present at an organizing meeting in 1995 to kick off Obama's first election campaign for the Illinois State Senate. At that time, Ayers had a doctorate in elementary education and had worked to win a grant for $49.2 million over five years for public school reform in Chicago.

But how many Sarah worshippers will bother to look this stuff up? Or even question her?

I'm hoping/praying that McCain and Palin will trip themselves up in the next month. Right now, Obama's in the lead in the polls, although I caught Karl Rove (the Devil Incarnate) on the Fox Channel today saying McCain has the best chance to win. If Rove is involved in McCain's campaign, you can expect some nasty stuff coming up (see Bush's Brain, a film about Rove and his dirty tactics---against McCain himself).

FOX CHANNEL = THE TWILIGHT ZONE

NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO = THE VOICE OF GOD

ANOTHER EQUINOX

2008-09-27T12:22:00.001-07:00

Last Monday was our most recent Equinox. Instead of my usual biannual reflection and brainstorming, I've been pursuing a crash course in mental illnesses and how to deal with them. I'm also establishing boundaries and researching the "what if?" factor.

What if this person is arrested for unlawful behavior?

What if this person refuses to take medication that can help them (common with the mentally ill)?

What if they turn on me or suddenly disappear for weeks or months (another common pattern)?

What I find amazing is our ignorance as a culture on the subject of mental illness. Learning about it is enlightening. So many of us hide our experiences with mentally ill loved ones or refuse to speak or work publically to change the myths and stigma around the illness.

Such as saying "She's bipolar" instead of "She's got bipolar disease." A small but important linguistic definition.

In the meantime, I'm also in a group--for myself--where we are learning cognitive behavior therapies for our own anxiety and depression. We are basically reteaching ourselves to get out of old patterns and self-destructive or self-neglectful behaviors.

Add to that I had a small benign tumor the size of a small tomato removed from my right foot (7 stitches are still there), so at least I've had some time off the stressful job. What a blessing.

Funnily enough, the (Kaiser) doctors I've been in touch with all believe that our country should establish National Health Care. I love that. One doctor said McCain should have asked Hillary to be his VP partner. He also said with McCain's medical history, McCain is almost bound to have a recurrence of fatal cancer within the next 4 years. That leaves us with a moose hunter for President who will probably try her best to make abortion illegal along with a bunch of other medieval notions.

Looking at our national political situation, I keep thinking: "You couldn't make this up if you tried."

More soon I hope.

NEARLY SEPTEMBER

2008-08-27T21:52:00.000-07:00

I'm always delighted when September comes around; I begin humming Brecht's "September Song". Summer isn't my favorite time. If I were across the Bay in SF with fog nearly every night, I'd be happy. Here in my sunny spot in Oakland, fog is a rarity. My little house faces west and during hot spells, my house warms up like an oven.

Today was my granddaughter's first day of kindergarten and I went with her mom and little brother to pick her up. She was quite poised with her Hello Kitty backpack and polka-dot shoes. Her teachers, Miss April and Miss Johnson were very sweet. My daughter-in-law, kids and I went out for burritos afterward.

I was surprised when logging into my blog to see that I've completed 100 posts. There are sometimes long spells in between them and I feel bad about that. But my life is full of demands of work and family.

Someone very close to me has developed what seems to be a mood disorder/mental illness and it is disconcerting, upsetting, gut-wrenching, but most of all exhausting. I've never been very good with boundaries and this has been a struggle for me. There's a lot of good info on the Net (and a lot of bad info) and I'm reading some books, researching it when I can. So scary and hard to understand because behaviors are not rational, sensible or predictable. Just "crazy". And not many of us can take much of that, even from a loved one.

On the bright side, we liberals have a good chance to kick the Republican bastards out and start cleaning up their god-awful mess. While watching Hillary's speech, I was delighted she mentioned Universal Health Care many times.

If this country provided Universal Health Care, I think our entire economy would radically change. I worked at shit jobs for years just to have insurance for my son and myself and I still work a job I'm not crazy about for the benefits. We could have an entrepeneurial revolution as well as a new Green Economy. So much potential.

My favorite example of revolutionary thinking is a project in Africa in a tiny village where people (meaning women) had to walk miles daily to fetch water. An engineer put in a playground-style merry-go-round that provides the energy to pump water from the distant source into the village so the women now have freedom from that chore. The kids of course love playing on the merry-go-round so there is energy to spare. Brilliant!

LOVE AMERICA; LOATHE BUSH

2008-07-22T11:33:00.000-07:00

The original of this poster used the "F" word, so I substituted the "L" word instead. I posted it on my high school website as a bit of fun, but one ex-classmate complained, so I decided to move it to a more personal space.

I guess the New Yorker Obama cover cartoon spurred me on to post it originally--what a bad choice by the New Yorker editor. It will probably backfire on the conservatives.

Went to see "The Dark Knight" and had to wait in line, even with tickets. It was good, Heath Ledger was amazing, but the writing, especially at the end, was a bit confusing. Later rented "In Bruges" what was much more substantial and moving. Three great actors with a terrific script and lots of moral questions against a backdrop of centuries. Really an amazing film if you don't mind the British and Irish propensity to use the "F" word in between every other word. Ralph Fiennes just gets better and better.

THE SMELL OF MONEY

2008-07-04T12:37:00.000-07:00

After two months of working at my civil service job again, what I notice most is how stinky currency is. It is DIRTY, full of sweat, human cells and all kinds of yuck. As a coworker said to me about her future at this job: "I think I can sit in shit for a few more years." What we do for pensions....

I'd hoped to sleep in late this morning for the holiday, but my next-door neighbor began some sort of major excavation in his yard which sounded like a buzzsaw was working its way through my southwest wall. So up I got at 8 am. I've been melting old beeswax candles for a project and house smells good. Also working on some graphics for my soon-to-be up and running online business. It took a couple of months for the city to clear my studio address for a business address. So now I've got to get serious.

GUILTY PLEASURES

2008-06-08T21:11:00.000-07:00

I've been indulging in a DVD-fest of a BBC show named "Torchwood", a spinoff from "Doctor Who". It's one of those shows/movies that is so bad it's good. It's been called the "Doctor Who for Adults" and "MI-5 On Speed". Low-budget, silly plots, sex everywhere with everyone--like a soap opera, but with aliens. And starring John Barrowman, a not-very-good actor, but just amazing to look at. He looks like a handsome Tom Cruise. I've always seen something feral in Cruise; Barrowman looks like a young gay Superman. Watching "Torchwood" is just another way to waste time. But there are some very funny moments in this series. Here I've rented the first season at $4 a pop and then found the episodes are on YouTube. I know it isn't legal. But it's so convenient. And it's probably not mentally healthy. But better than network shows.

LEARNING LANGUAGE
I confess to being a lover of language. Watching my two-year old grandson learn to speak is just amazing to me. First he found his important nouns. Then a few verbs, then simple combinations. Now he's stringing them together artfully. His older sister has always been subtle. She is very circumspect about what she needs or wants, even with people she knows well, so her language development took a very different curve. She still has a slight speech impediment that is endearing: to say "rolling around on the grass", she says "wolling awound on the gwass". And still calls the TV remote the "merote". Despite these child speech patterns, she has always been like a very cute little old lady. She's prissy and meticulous with her dolls and clothing.

My grandson is direct and stubborn. If you don't understand him, he just keeps going until you (silly adult) get it. At two years old, he's bigger than his petite five-year old sister. His voice is very low and has a drone to it. I think he'll inherit his grandfather and father's "Big Voice", as we call it.

I work with a lot of African-American women. The language I hear daily varies from almost King's English to Hood and Luisiana patois. And the residents of Berkeley I deal with daily are from every background imaginable. Still, the tiring part of my job is the inner politics. Like walking on eggshells. I try to avoid the gossip but it is everywhere. I have, finally, learned to take gossip with a grain of salt. I should gobble up every bit of intersting language I hear and hoard it. My latest favorite is from Terry Pratchett's "Witches Abroad" in which he describes the understanding of human nature as "thinkology".

THE FAT LADY'S REVENGE

2008-05-26T09:55:00.000-07:00

Fay Weldon's first novel was titled "The Fat Woman's Joke". It's about a woman whose husband insist they go on a diet together. Eventually, out of frustration, the wife leaves him and moves into a basement apartment where she cooks and eats and eats and eats. I think of my current state as The Fat Lady's Revenge. Upon whom? Myself? The world? Most of my family members have packed on weight as they got older (no excuse).

I am now (at age 58) heavier than I've ever been, including when I was pregnant. When I was in my teens in high school, I remember reaching 120 lbs and feeling horrified that I'd let myself go. That was before we had terms like anorexic or Women's Lib.

I am tired. After five sweet months off my job on Workers' Comp, I've been back at work for a month and am again working like a serf in Old Russia. When I get home all I want to do is eat and sleep. No excuse, I know. Years ago when I was running several miles a day, I could eat anything I wanted and stay a size 8. No more. Old joints rule out running. (No excuse.) I could set up my bicycle with a stationary bike stand but haven't gotten around to it. (No excuse.) And on and on.

Funnily enough, a lady I know was heavy and had stomach bypass surgery. She's lost over 100 lbs, I'm sure. To me, she doesn't look right. She is big boned and very pleased to be wearing a size 8 (at about 5 foot 8 inches). But to me, it still isn't healthy. Not that being overweight is healthy. But doing it that way, I don't know...

On a lighter note:
Last month, I stopped by Stonemountain & Daughter in Berkeley to get a little sewing gizmo. I also looked at the cotton knit fabrics which cost between $8.50 and $14/yard. I wanted something green and Springy for Mayday/Beltane. Decided against it.

Made the schlepp to SCRAP in San Francisco the next Saturday and bought two different colors of green cotton stretch material for about $1.50. The $1.50 included about 3 yards of a cream cotton knit fabric as well. All I need is the time to cut it out and stitch it up.

I nearly had last weekend off when my daughter-in-law planned a trip out of town for her and kids. But it cancelled at the last minute and I had the kids overnight on Saturday/Sunday. As my granddaughter put it "It's a tradition!" And I do love them sitting on each side of me while we read books together, leaning on me like I'm a strong oak tree. I love how they trust me and hug and kiss me in the pure way children do. We watched a movie about Echo the Elephant and her African family with me skipping the death and mating parts (ever see a bull elephant's erection? God Lord! I don't want to scar the kids for life.) But it wore me out.

Projects on my list:

-Dye some linen fabric and kids' tees with procion dyes in robin's egg blue and
other summer shades.

-Make some clear stamps from beeswax and polymer.

-Exercise for a change--before the days get short again.

THE LAST TIME I SAW PARIS

2008-04-21T10:24:00.000-07:00

Going through old photos, I came across this window display I liked in Paris years ago. I couldn't say why I love it, but it does contain a whimsical fabric "sculpture" made from a tailors sleeve ironing board as well as a Cocteau sketch on one of the book covers.

It's been a long time since I've travelled and now that I'm almost 60, I'd want to travel at least second class. Where would I go?

To be honest, Paris and London are way too big for me to enjoy, except the British Museum in London--worth the trip anyday. The south of France is much nicer, the people down to earth instead of snooty and cosmopolitan.

I'd love to see Patagonia, and the outer Hebrides (breath that clean air again, like honey). Travel around Ireland and Scotland more. Canada is more realistic, I suppose.

All dreams: no money for such luxuries right now.

SPRING

2008-04-12T11:04:00.000-07:00

I've spent days and weeks searching for a method of transferring my images to fabric.

Sounds simple, right?

The most frustrating experience was doing a silkscreen test print on paper which came out looking PERFECT! Then went to tee shirt fabric and the silkscreen came out too light. What's a woman to do?

Iron-on transfers are icky and too chemical. Stencils are good--I did a stencil of birds and stars on my granddaughter's teeshirt with nontoxic glow-in-the-dark pink paint which was fun. But not professional looking enough. I want stunning stuff.

Research, research, research. Found more info on solvent transfers (too toxic), acrylic medium (possible but probably stiff) and my new great hope, Bubble Jet Set. Tested it on muslin and it worked great with a little fading. Great with ancient stone rubbing images:

Tried linen, and tricky, too heavy, got stuck in printer. I will prevail.

Meanwhile, the weather is stunning, Los Bebes are growing like weeds and need Spring clothes. Read a clever mystery novel called Three Bags Full.

Onward.

AFTER A LONG WAIT...

2008-03-22T09:48:00.000-07:00

(above: Pictish Cat stone carving circa 800 AD)

The last month has been a slog so no posting. But things are looking up!

For one thing, I found that my very favorite art supply store is still alive and well. For years while working in San Francisco's financial district, I'd spend lunch hours at ARCH art and drafting supply shop. It saved my sanity. Lately while struggling with fabric printing methods and looking through the yellow pages for San Francisco, I found my darling shop, now a warehouse, on Missouri Street.

So off I went and ARCH is better than ever! They even carry Gocco printers from Japan which were out of production for years until a movement, yes a movement, called "SAVE GOCCO" brought them back. So I was in crafter's heaven for a while.

Then in the process of trying just one more thing to get my designs on to fabric, I found a craft ink at Dharma Trading that works like a charm! So I'm creating printed teeshirts dyed to Easter colors for the kiddies in my life. Next step: testing a photopolymer to make my own stamps.

UPSY DOWNSY

2008-02-22T10:13:00.000-08:00

More rain. The hills are as green as they will ever get here in California, but I crave more color. So I colored some cotton shirts yesterday with procion dyes from Dharma Trading. Getting ready for Spring and St. Pat's Day.

My fun and games with silkscreening have taught me that I should contract with a firm that does silkscreening as a business. My bathtub is stained with photo emulsion and fabric dyes, and there just aren't enough good results to show for it. Trying to do everything yourself can really be a curse.

Read Frank Delaney's "Ireland" which went on forever, but was amusing enough. Now reading Terry Pratchett's "Wintersmith" which is a lot more fun. The Wee Free Men always lift my spirits.

Back to work in a few weeks and that means a huge life change. I'm working to avoid the depression that is already invading my mind and space.

BACK ON TRACK

2008-01-31T16:24:00.000-08:00

Carpal release surgery was performed on my right wrist on Jan 17th--and the healing curve has been much different than that of the left wrist. The left surgery healed quickly and neatly, and feeling came back into my left fingertips immediately. This right wrist incision was icky and oozing for two weeks and is still very painful and puffy, but ice works wonders. I have no tingling and pain in the right fingertips any longer, but the feeling hasn't come back yet either. My doctor says to give it time.

In the meanwhile, I've been researching and testing and messing around with a screenprinting lightbox setup. With rain and clouds for the past weeks, I've had nearly no chance to sun-develop my expensive little StencilPro silkscreen units. I also decided I wanted control over the process so a sunprint doesn't get ruined by a cloud passing by and blocking the sun's UV light.

I spent $40 at OSH on a fluorescent light fixture and then had to try to figure out how to wire it. I finally spliced a cheap lamp plug onto the "hot" and neutral wires in the shop unit with its two 20w cool white rods. I use an extension cord to turn it on and have the unit lying in an Ikea storage box usually full of my grandson's wooden blocks. The covers slide over it and I use that to hold the image and StencilPro unit. I can later use it for real, grownup silkscreening when my wrists have healed and I have enough control to coat a screen evenly.

My first lightbox test was with the Dotted Horse image up above. More on this later (if it works and I don't flip all my circuit breakers).

For the last weeks, I've been driving around to and from physical therapy, paying bills, visiting used bookstores, and watching things on the street. While in Emeryville, I thought I saw a new fountain shooting water into the air near Harlan Avenue. Then I realized this wasn't a fountain. A car had hit a fire hydrant and the water was gushing straight up into the air 10-15 feet. Which was why when I'd flushed the toilet at Home Depot a few minutes before, there'd been no water pressure.

There are so many interesting things going on in the street, but when you work inside an office, you miss it all.

Hooray! The lightbox worked. Now I've got to complete the process and I'll write more about it when it's completed. Glad I did it, because it's pouring outside again today.

A NEW YEAR

2008-01-03T22:56:00.000-08:00

My little house is my own again. My beloved visitor has found his own place and has been straight for awhile. Every morning I wake up knowing it wasn't just a nightmare, and say a quick prayer that all remains smooth for him, for me.

I'm back on my "sabbatical", icing/massaging my post-op left wrist each day and preparing to get the "release surgery" of my right carpal tunnel. What is this surgery? The large, tough tendon stretching over the base of the palm is severed, completely cut. That releases the nerve bundles and blood vessels that have been constricted. The tips of my right hand have been without feeling for years. It's like wearing gloves.

After the left surgery in November, I was thrilled to feel texture again with my left fingertips. The surgery on the right wrist will take longer to heal since the damage is much more advanced. Thank God for Workers' Comp. (But then, the work damaged my wrists in the first place.)

I'm looking through my graphics books collection for goodies to print onto babies' and children's organic cotton shirts. Graphics like this:

Years ago, when a friend adopted a baby, I sent her a fancy little girl's sleeper. She wrote back thanking me, saying now she wouldn't have to wrap the baby in newspapers. To me it was such a thrill to buy little girly clothes after raising a boy myself. All he wanted was blue, blue, blue.

Now that I have two grandbabies age almost-2 and almost-5, I am disheartened by the lack of natural fabrics and unique design in kids clothes. Living near the Temescal District of Oakland, I see lots of babies with Jimi Hendrix teeshirts and such like. I'd like to add my own twist to the younger generations in natural fiber clothing.

If I'd had a daughter, I'd probably have dressed her like this:

And she may have hated me for it. But especially for children, I think clothes should be comfy, warm and fun. Also adorable, as if kids aren't adorable enough.

I'm exploring stencils and silkscreening techniques. More to come. Time for bed.

POST CHRISTMAS

2007-12-26T13:12:00.000-08:00

Here are two Christmas gifts I made up for friends.

An organic cotton teeshirt with a Dover Kells design on the front for my favorite 12-year old almost-a-man person.

And a cotton tote with another Dover Kells design sewn on the front for my friend/the mom of the above.

I had stenciled a design onto the organic teeshirt (twice), but I wasn't happy with it. I washed the fabric paint out as well as possible, and because of time restraints, I ended up transferring the bird design over it.

The Madonna graphic is another Dover black/white graphic that I colored in via PhotoShop, matching the colors to the original Kells page.

For years I've been collecting books of graphics, many of them historic or at least antique and out of copyright protection. I find older drawings more fun and warmer than much of our modern stuff. Old drawings like this:

Not satisfied with Iron-On Transfer graphics (too chemical and flimsy), I'm experimenting with stencils and beginner's silkscreening methods. Fabric paint is nontoxic and has more staying power than the Iron-Ons. Stencilling is very direct and straightforward for blocky graphics but for detailed things like the faerie pigs up above, I want to silkscreen to catch all the fine lines. There are heavy chemicals involved in silkscreen but only once and then you have your template forever.

A film recommendation: Rented "Once" and liked it very much. Some of the music is quite haunting and can be found on the film website:

http://www.foxsearchlight.com/once/

I like simple stories with lots of open meanings and this one sure fills the bill.

ALMOST CHRISTMAS

2007-12-21T08:03:00.000-08:00

No postings for ages, but I'm dealing with a loved one's drug addiction. Anyone who has gone through this knows it is like a living death. You live from day to day; sometimes from hour to hour. You do what you can while watching someone to whom you've given your heart spiral down, down, down. They are oblivious to the fact that those around them who love and care are also getting dragged through the misery, and cleaning up after them. You just wait and try and pray and hope.

For those who haven't heard, young folks are into this new cannabis thing; they cook cannabis into milk or butter or olive oil and when ingested, it is superstrong and the effects last for a full day (at least). The comedown is horrible and lasts for days. Even police officers I've spoken to haven't heard of this yet, but it's all over the Internet. Why aren't these kids in Chemistry Club? Why are they killing off their brain cells? Who knows? This is not the dope of the 1960s or 70s. This is Superweed and it is BAD.

A big clue for the suspicious is that after cooking up this brew, the house stinks of burning plastic for days. Phew. The effects are so strong that the ingesters may nod out.

To happier matters:

Before posting this, I checked out my favorite blogs--the Wandering Scribe at:
http://wanderingscribe.blogspot.com/

then a Scottish artist at:
http://callycreates.blogspot.com/

and Jane Underwood's "My Great Breast Cancer Adventure" blog at:
http://janeunderwood.typepad.com/my_great_breast_cancer_ad/

Now it's time for me to get started on my new project for Christmas, a patchwork book for the little ones in my life.

TOUGH TIMES

2007-11-06T12:05:00.000-08:00

I am only one, but I am one. I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do.

-Edward Everett Hale

No posting for some time. I've been keeping body and soul together while dealing with some very nasty stuff.

I type this with one hand, my left wrapped like a giant Q-tip after carpal tunnel surgery yesterday. I hit the wall last July when reassigned to handle cash and lots of small credit card receipts at my job. Shooting, electric-like pains shot up my arms. Amazingly, my job tasks have gotten pettier and pettier, thanks to a manager who dislikes me and my "tell it like it is" style. Her "everything is fine" style drives us all nuts, and the only reason our office runs so well is due to her extremely competent and devoted employees who work around said manager.

While away from the job for a few months 0n Workers' Comp, I'll expand my creative spirit as much as possible (one-handedly). Once my left wrist heals, I'll have surgery on the right. More soon.

BLOG ACTION DAY

2007-10-15T12:53:00.000-07:00

FROM http://www.sewgreen.blogspot.com/

Did you know that October 15th is Blog Action Day ?On October 15th, bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind - the environment. Every blogger will post about the environment in their own way and relating to their own topic. Our aim is to get everyone talking towards a better future.

###

The new generation is full of recyclers extraordinaire. Craftzine, Readymade, Craftmafia, upcycling, etc. It's exciting. A whole new Craft Revolution is on the rise to fight America's mindless consumerism. Craft on, young people, craft on.

And now to my favorite craft topic:

To my old fashioned mind, the most sustainable textile of all is wool. Cotton requires tons of water and chemicals to cultivate and process. Polyester/acrylics--yuck. Hemp--too rough for clothing. Linen is wonderful, but not warm. And when the cold and damp comes in, nothing keeps a body warm, even when wet, like wool. Wool is magic; it is true alchemy: the fleece of a not-too-bright animal being shorn, spun and knitted or woven up to cover us naked animals. When a woolen garment is worn out, you can cut it up and make it into a rug. You can cut and patchwork it into a quilt filling. You can probably even compost it (my next research project).

Working with wool has kept me going during the past few difficult months. Washing it in a great Australian moth-fighting soap called Kookaburra Woolwash (smells terrific), felting it, knitting it. There's a feeling to wool, an animal warmth that I don't get from anything else. And now that it's getting chilly, I can get out my favorite woolen goodies and wrap them around me again.

COMPLETING THE CIRCLE

2007-09-12T14:31:00.000-07:00

More family woes. God, all I want is a quiet little life with enough money to live comfortably and craft my little heart out.

My ex-husband came into town and was very helpful and supportive through these ups and downs. After years of battles over child custody and support, liens on his accounts, family deaths and betrayals, etc., I was able to again see the man I married 35 years ago. A nice man, after all. I felt vindicated.

Now nearing 60, I guess he's finally realizing that family really is more important than money. Family (besides words, as Beckett put it) is all we have. The struggle is not finished but overall, things are better.

I am determined to get Granny Fankle going as soon as possible, if only for my own sanity.

p.s. I postponed jury duty, haven't received authorization for medical treatment yet from the rinky-dink medical service used by my office, but I did pass the promotion test--in the top 10. There may be some hope yet.

HONEST TO GODDESS

2007-08-21T09:25:00.000-07:00

Doesn't it seem like sometimes the Fates conspire against us? Or as current parlance goes: "It's the universe telling you not to do something."

In the next week, I have a 3-1/2 hour promotion test, possible jury duty and possible medical treatments, all on the same day, maybe at the same time. Add to it my home situation is in chaos and the job situation up in the air. I feel like I'm surfing; what wave is coming next? I'll be making some decisions.

On the plus side, I finished reading the last Harry Potter (so-so) and have heard a rumor that Rowling is now writing a detective novel. I hope it's set in Edinburgh where she lives and where I would love to live. I've visited twice (not during Fringe or Hogmany) and fell in love immediately with the stone city, the coolest castle in the world, the city of Jekyl and Hyde, of Rebus and closes and men walking around in sexy kilts.

A city where, as my son put it, everyone looks like me and my relatives.

In 2000, I saw flats for sale at around $40,000. Since then, prices have gone up to San Francisco levels. It's ironic that a city that was undeveloped for decades because of its poverty has retained its charm and wonder and is now some of the most high-priced property in the world.

Kilts are actually Irish but the more I delve into Scots-Irish history, the more entwined the two countries are. For centuries, Celts have gone back and forth and have almost created a new sub-nationality.

Here's a "Millineum Kilt" which is unisex and rainbow-like (who needs clans?)

I doubt any Scot would be caught dead in anything this flashy but it looks like fun.

LOS BEBES

2007-08-12T22:03:00.000-07:00

For loved ones who haven't seen LB for awhile, here they are:

We did a bubble bath this morning with a Lush bubble bomb. The kids loved it and afterwards, because Daddy was a little whiffy, he took a soak too. Then they went off to the museum and I took a nap.

STARDUST

2007-08-09T12:46:00.000-07:00

I'm looking forward to seeing Stardust soon; it opens this weekend. I'm a Neil Gaiman fan and tried to read the book, but it started out too slowly to keep my interest. Witches, pirates, princess, etc. I hope there are a few fairies or trolls in it. I'll take my 12-year old buddy if his mom approves.

I'm reading Paula Poundstone's book with the long strange title and it's funny in her way. She shows some wit and lots of wisdom about raising kids. Show business hasn't seemed to have affected her one bit, much to her credit. After reading her book and thought processes, I'm beginning to think like her. Kind of scary.

I love listening to her on NPR's Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me. I mean, Carl Castle and Paula Poundstone on the same show--fabulous. What more could you want on a Saturday morning while you're cleaning house?

My hands still hurt and not knitting is making me crazy. Maybe I'll try with really big knitting needles. It's the little tiny stuff that makes my hands numb and tingly and sends the pain shooting up my arm. I've done a little felting at home and want to get new photos of Los Bebes up, but after sitting at a computer all day, I don't have the heart for it at home. For fans of Los Bebes, I'll try.

THE SITUATION

2007-08-06T10:39:00.000-07:00

On July 10th, while counting out dozens of dollar bills (not mine), I experienced sharp shooting pains up my fingers and wrists. Went to my supervisor who sent me to the Civil Service Clinic where my doctor looks like Jed Clampett and most of the staff looks like they just got out of prison (very visible tattoos, piercings, signs of past living rough). Our Civil Service always goes with the lowest bidders.

The dollar-bill counting was part of a "re-assignment" of work duties, but after 3 days, the 4-year-long (since I've been in this office) moderate numbness and ache in my hands/wrists turned into sharp pain and total numbness in the fingers. My supervisor asked me why I didn't complain officially before. I told her I was raised as an Irish Presbyterian. The supervisor didn't get it, but a fellow Irish Presbyterian coworker in our office did; she told the story of how proud her aunt was for having a heart attack at the bus stop and walking home before she called the ambulance. Hard to explain this stoicism and denial of physical limitations. It's bred in the bone, I think.

I've been going to physical therapy three times a week for the 15-20 minute ice torture, heat treatments, electrodes, stretches and exercises. I wear wrist braces day and night. I always thought these wrist braces were silly, but they do help by immobilizing your wrist movement. The problem is I feel like a grizzly bear with them on, lumbering around knocking things over. For the occasional moments of feeling a bit of sensation in my fingertips again, it's been worth it.

Add to this my grown son moving back in with me in my tiny house while he completes his externship as a phlebotomist and other family/neighborhood flutters, and I've been wiped out. I still have the grandkids on weekends also and I love them dearly, but the one-year old is teething and suddenly burst into writhing pain and disbelief, accompanied by screams and flailing of strong not-so-little fists and feet.

Also have gone to an acupuncturist, which a very sweet friend recommended and even helped pay for since insurance doesn't cover it. The acupuncturist sees the problem going up my arms to my upper shoulders. Working where I do, it's a miracle, everyone here isn't sick or injured.

I'm told that in a few weeks, I'll probably get the "nerve damage tests" which are about as painful as they sound, according to coworkers who have had them before. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

I've been assigned back to my old duties, answering phones, sorting and processing mail, and other misc office duties for now. The pain doesn't get any worse, but healing is slow.

KAZZY THE CAMEL

2007-08-02T11:19:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged for awhile and will explain that later. Thought it wouldn't make a difference, but two friends who lived out of the country told me they enjoyed the blog and kept up with things through reading it. My friends are back in the USA but far away, so I'll soldier on.

My biggest recent thrill occurred while walking to work after a physical therapy appointment (ice torture) and approaching McKinley St on Bancroft in Berkeley, I came across a camel, standing on the sidewalk near an animal trailer. Looking into the trailer I spotted a miniature horse, about 3-1/2 feet tall. The camel was about 6 feet tall, at the humps. A camel in Berkeley.

Okay, here's a photo:

This is the only photo I could find of Kazzy the camel on the Lyon Farm website. She was terribly sweet and nuzzled me like a dog when I cooed to her.

Turning around from Kazzy's kisses, I saw a parking enforcement officer who had stopped her car in the middle of the street and was pointing open-mouthed, saying, "Is that a camel?" So we are witnesses for one another. An elderly neighbor came over and asked Kazzy's human, "Is she moving in to the neighborhood?"

Kazzy was accompanied by her humans as well as her mini-horse friend. They were all en route to Alta Bates Hospital to do some fun animal therapy with kids who need incentive to reach, stroke, and jump up and down in joy at seeing these lovely animals.

I hope they enjoy these creatures as much as we all did.

NOTA BENE

2007-07-18T11:47:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, family/health/work issues have all hit me at once, so no blogging for a while.

I'm still crafting though and will continue later, possibly in a new craftier blog.

IN LOVE

2007-06-23T11:57:00.001-07:00

"Art is the enemy of the routine, the mechanical and the humdrum. It stops us in our tracks with a high voltage jolt of disturbance; it reminds us of what humanity can do beyond the daily grind. It takes us places we had never dreamed of going; it makes us look again at what we had taken for granted."
- Simon Schama

Last week I received my advance-order of Historian Simon Schama's Power of Art from BBC America, and have been enjoying the episodes on David, Rembrandt, Turner, Caravaggio, Picasso, Bernini, Rothko and Van Gogh. Below is a photo of Schama on the left, with Andy Serkis who plays Van Gogh on the right.

Schama has the gift of storytelling, and this series takes it to the max with some re-enactment. But what I am in love with is the language of Schama's scripts. Our English language is always in flux, changing and growing and shrinking. Schama uses language as a painter uses color and brushes to enchant our imaginations and attention. He is a master.

On YouTube, there's an hour-long lecture by him re: his book Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution given at Google in Mountain View:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmcgwD8VRmI

The P of A series is also showing on KQED Channel 9 in the Bay Area at 9pm on Mondays. Check it out.

There is also a C BBC take-off on YouTube of Schama in which it seems he participated, at least vocally: Simon Schama and the Power Rangers of Art

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4OcVtEUi6k

Americans find Brit humor pretty goofy, but I love it. It shows the Brits still know how to laugh at themselves, unlike us Yanks.

Meanwhile, I've let the laundry pile up and am struggling with the last chapter of my novella. I need to make that last chapter as finished as the first, and that is not easy. I found my original first draft written 7 years ago and it is still nearly word for word with refinement. But the ending, the ending must be changed almost completely.

KNITTA - WOMEN'S GRAFFITI

2007-06-17T18:19:00.000-07:00

After spending millenia cleaning up, how else would women make graffiti?

Here is a tutorial put out by a group calling themselves Knitta who make colorful, cozy and removable/replacable wraps for urban objects:

Here are examples on monorail pillars, parking meters, ambulance antennae and even on a part of the Great Wall of China.

FATHER'S DAY

2007-06-17T17:39:00.001-07:00

A photo of my Dad who would be 97 this year. This photo was taken in the 1930s. Born of sharecroppers, joined the Navy in WWII and, after a wartime marriage, settled in San Francisco.

Happy Father's Day.

AGAINST THE GRAIN

2007-06-15T11:35:00.000-07:00

No posting for some time because I've been wrestling with a conundrum. It's my sixth year working at my current City job and I'm well aware I've never lasted longer than six years at any 9 to 5 job.

By the sixth year, it becomes clear that I have no interest in, or even conception of, office politics; that I resist change (especially at the expense of quality); and I'd rather be somewhere else. I've tried transferring out of my present department at least three times, but there's been no transfer spot for me. Not even at my beloved library, where I'd happily shelve books all day if they'd only let me.

I know I can be hard to get along with, have a bizarre sense of humor, and know so many trivial things from 50 years of compulsive reading that people think I'm a know-it-all.

A friend once told me she has her own business because she can't work for anyone else. She also doesn't support herself from her business; she has rental property and an undeclared side thing going on that really pays her bills.

A coworker put it well: this is a "get-by job". You come in, do your work and just get by. No risk, excitement, or fun.

My excuses are many: Too tired after putting in 8+1 hours a day to do anything else when I get home except the minimum, too busy with my family, too this and too that.

I comb arty neighborhoods for possible studio space. I've even rented space twice but found I never went there to do creative work. Just too tired, etc., etc., etc.

Don't wait too long, I hear a voice inside, railing me. I've lost friends younger than I am now to cancer, heart attack, and stroke.

To be continued....

NEWS FLASH: HANDMADE NATION

2007-05-28T10:08:00.001-07:00

I just caught a mention on a craft blog that there's a new indie film coming out about the hand-crafting revolution. It's called Handmade Nation and the filmmakers are Micaela O'Herlihy and Faythe Levine. You can see a preview here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evDFo6-RBVc

I notice most of the interviewees are of the younger persuasion. I hope there will be more of us Golden Girls in the completed film. We haven't all been sitting back quiet and passive; there were the civil rights, feminist and peace movements in our day, and many of us have been making our own stuff for ages, out of necessity. Who else taught these young whipper-snappers to shop in thrift stores and to use a sewing machine?

Kidding aside, I am SO excited about this film. I think it will be great fun and spread the word and ideas for more crafts and more DIYing. I'm proud to bits of this younger generation questioning consumerism and making their own goods and the fate of this nation, I hope.

Other film news: rented Notes on a Scandal which was okay. The acting was terrific but the story was kind of ho-hum, except for the emotional turmoil inherent in the situation.

Funnily enough, I then rented The War Zone, mostly because I've seen almost everything else in the Video Room, my local movie shop (kudos, they are great). I didn't know what it was about but I adore Ray Winstone and it's set in Wales. Also it's directed by Tim Roth, another favorite, and stars Tilda Swindon, yet another. It was a shoo-in.

Little did I realize that it would keep me awake half of last night. It demonstrated once more to me the power of film and of a well-constructed story, artfully told. As Tim Roth puts it in his commetary, so many "things are said without being said." The emotional impact is enormous, the conclusion inevitable, the truth of it irrevocable. Not for weak stomachs. Serendipity has once again brought me two films on similar themes that exist in different universes: Hollywood and the safe route and art. Correction: Art.

Now can I write these opinions up into a review? My next challenge.

I finished the first rough draft of my novelette, but realize one more chapter is required and some major and minor changes before sending a copy to the Writers' Guild for registration and then embarking on the mission of trying to sell it. More on that anon.

Today is Memorial Day and I want to give proper respectful attention to that observance. Each time I watch the News Hours and it winds up with the silent roll call of fatalities in Iraq, I want to weep: so many childmen and childwomen of 19 and 20 are shown. How can this be right?

WORK COMPLETED-FIRST DRAFT ANYWAY

2007-05-25T21:46:00.000-07:00

I did what I set out to do last week. I got up every morning and headed straight to my computer, wrote, wrote, wrote. Took a break around noon to let my laptop cool off and eat, back to work, another break around 4 pm, then back to work, until 9 or 10 pm.

And I have 103 pages of a novelette in rough draft form. So I proved to myself that it can be done and I can do it.

And this has been one of my best vacations ever, except for my poor back muscles from sitting in this frigging chair. I have definitely been off in a very different space from my workaday world.

There's still work to be done on this story, it's rough. But the bones are done, now to add muscle and flesh to it, tone it up.

Good for me.

On the birthday front, my granddaughter turned four and had a small party as she requested.

Other news: the new location of East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse opened at 47th and Telegraph in Oakland in a store floored with ex-bowling alley wood. The space is sunny and gorgeous:

WORK IN PROGRESS

2007-05-22T09:20:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, and I'm working on Chapter 4 of my Big Project.

The Birthday was a success. Mom and Dad took Princess and Prince to Marineworld and when they returned we had cake and played Princess Monopoly for about an hour. The Birthday Girl kept saying, "I LOVE this game," and "Everyone wins." She was so happy, she was jumping up and down.

We let her win, and the magic day ended.

Yesterday my son asked me to edit a creative writing project for a class which I did. He had poured his heart out in the text and I wanted to cry. It wasn't fiction, but the ring of truth was pure.

Then it was back to my own fiction project.

I'm racing the clock to get a rough draft done before I resume my ho-hum civil service job, my return to servitude.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

2007-05-20T10:32:00.000-07:00

I've been busy churning out things for my granddaughter's fourth birthday which is today. First, a pair of "Hello Kitty" boxers, made on my newly tuned-up sewing machine:

Then a set of summer whites dyed via procion dyes to "orchid":

For the grandson, I iron-transferred childart from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival:

I babysat yesterday, finding that the Princess had drawn purple eyebrows on the cat and the Prince had a baby tattoo on one arm.

We had fun with only one half-meltdown.

As soon as I sat down with the baby on my lap, he went to sleep. I remember when my granddaughter at that age would run up to me on my arrival, cuddle into my shoulder and instantly fall asleep. What's not to love about being a grandmother?

For me: I'm taking a week off for a major, major project. I had five weeks of vacation saved up and decided I need to accomplish something NOW. I know what it is and I know how to do it. It is the doing that is the foil. It is the doing for ME, and not for my kid or grandkids. I've assembled all my materials and will begin work very soon.

Also this afternoon, I have to go check out the new site of East Bay Depot on Telegraph and maybe take some photos, write up an article. I drove by yesterday and there were picketers out in front. I hate crossing a picket line so will talk to them before going in.

Another beautiful sunny day outside. I'll also shop for wrapping paper and a birthday cake.

ON PLANET FLU

2007-05-11T11:18:00.000-07:00

For a week or more, I've had a flu that laid me low. I won't offer details, too gross.

But better now, and I'm making a super-conscious effort to feed this precious body of mine with healthy, fresh "live" food that will build up my immune system.

Other things going on as well, but I shall not digress.

I was well enough on Sunday to have my babies over for luncheon.

Back to my recycling obsession--how cool is this?

A pretty basket made from soda bottle strips. A Japanese inventor, Takashi Utsumi, developed a device with which one can rapidly shred PET bottles into ribbons suitable for use in crafts. There are two types of PET shredder: F-200, which produces 2cm-wide ribbons; F-15/40, which produces 1.5mm to 4mm-wide ribbons. Unfortunately, these aren't available to us yet.

I think it's brilliant!

Although the very best thing we could do is invent a way to convert plastic back into oil. The Big Companies would be out sweeping up all the "trash islands" clogging our oceans and choking our sealife.

So much to do; so little time.

CHINA BEACH

2007-04-30T21:56:00.000-07:00

I took this photo at China Beach on Easter Sunday, during a traditional walk with a friend who lives nearby. She prepared a fabulous dinner for her Italian family and upstairs neighbor and me, as she does each year. There were no kids there however, so it seemed very, very quiet.

I had to interview today for the job I've been doing for four years. The management of our civil service office has "redefined" our positions and all of us had to submit applications, take a two-hour test and interview as if we'd never met the panel before. Civil service is becoming more and more corporate--which I see as becoming more and more bottom line--which equals more work for us and far poorer service for those we serve.

I feel like the old farts who sit around and talk about how the world is going to hell in a handbasket, and we'll all right.

But take heart! Bush has finally admitted that "climate change" may be a problem. He lectured us today on how we need to take a look and find solutions to this issue. Excuse me, I think I'm going to spit up.

SAVED!!!

2007-04-18T11:45:00.000-07:00

My friend/neighbor/mom-of-my-favorite-young-person emailed me after reading my last blog entry:

There's a lovely sewing machine on the floor at the back of my closet in the bedroom, just calling out to you: use me! use me! Last time I had room for it out of storage was when I made the curtains for K's room before he was born [about 12 years ago] --so it may need oil, and it may not be all you're used to, but the woman I inherited it from was a passionate sewer and I loved her machine. Please use it while you wait for yours, if you like.

I have a key to her house where my son is living while she and her son are in Taiwan, so I'll check it out tonight and see what I can whip up with this machine. Thank You, Lady L., and give your precious son a kiss for me.

Mine should be back, all tuned up, on Saturday.

Last night, went to Joanne's (blah!) but even they had no unicorn fabric. I settled for Strawberry Shortcake (sugary sweet, but the granddaughter loves her) and Spongebob Squarepants prints for the kids' spring shorts when at Gaga's house.

Unfortunately/fortunately, I live very close to Poppy Fabric on Broadway and College in Oakland where they have the most beautiful fabrics in the Bay Area. I stop often to check for remnants and sales and have already acquired quite a collection of their fabulous textiles.

Again, thank you, Lady L.

BEREFT

2007-04-17T11:02:00.000-07:00

I took my Brother sewing maching into the shop for a tuneup & overhaul. Now I feel like my right arm is missing. Boohoo, so much fabric and nothing I can do until next weekend. My granddaughter wants a twirly, unicorn skirt. I almost bought some unicorn fabric online, but forgot my wallet this morning.

This aging thing is the pits. And being busy, busy, busy makes it worse.

But my son took a photo of me and the angels last weekend. I look goofy but the kids are gorgeous, so I'll post it here. Especially for my big brother Wild Willy. Hi, guy.

She is either giddy or sulky. He is now walking all over and loves slinking where he's not supposed to be when you're looking the other way. He's partial to kitchens, any kitchen.

She eats like a bird, He eats like a little horse, like his Dad.

I love them to bits. I could even live without a sewing machine if I had them.

SAN FRANCISCO IN 1906

2007-04-13T14:16:00.000-07:00

I found this photo of my home town on Wikipedia (my new love). San Francisco is so recogizable in this photo taken from a kite flying 2000 in the air, six weeks after the Big One.

Except for today's bridges, towers and buildings.

You can engage a high-res version of this photo at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:San_Francisco_in_ruin_edit2.jpg

History, my other love, continues to fascinate me. How things change, yet stay the same.

EDVARD MUNCH

2007-04-12T09:50:00.000-07:00

Last night I watched a Peter Watkins film biography of Munch, an attempt to visually explain the creative process and to film stream-of-consciousness. It was extremely long and, for American viewers I'm sure, slow.

I found it haunting, and especially noted the characters looking into the camera in almost every scene. It's in Norwegian, of course, and has a Scandanavian intensity, probably rooted in the strong Protestantism of the place and time.

I can't help but pity poor Munch who never seemed to find love, and suffered from mental illness as well as TB. I'm still digesting the images and narration/ideas.

GIRL TALK

2007-04-10T14:45:00.000-07:00

Being a grandparent is fabulous. You can't undo whatever mistakes you made raising your kids, but you can try to make it better with the next generation. I learned (the hard way) never to say anything negative about anyone in the family in front of kids.

My teenage son reproached me--many times--for telling him when he was a child that I was angry with his dad. Even that was too much. Because his dad is part of him, no matter what.

I love my "Girl Talks" with my four-year old granddaughter. Usually we have them at night when we're in my big bed and her baby brother is already sound asleep. She tells me her dreams and stories and jokes.

Recently I was driving them somewhere and her brother was napping. She and I were talking about the people we loved.

She will tell me she loves my house and wants to stay, but she is very shy about telling me she loves me, so I asked her, "Do you love Gaga?" She was very serious. She thought and said, "Yes, I love you."

I said, "I love you too, sweetheart, very much."

She then asked with some anxiety, "Do you love my baby brother too?" I told her, "Of course I love him. But I've loved you longer." She broke into a huge grin.

Later I want to tell her that she is special and she shouldn't give her heart or body to just anyone who comes along. She must be careful and patient and wait for people who really love her and will care for her. She's a long way from dating and socializing, but I want her to grow up with the realization of how precious she is.

My parents never told me anything like this. As a kid, I'd go to visit my Italian neighbors who called their children their "treasures". Treasures. What a culture shock. My parents were an very odd couple, Depression folks and Presbyterians, so any emotion was strictly taboo. Except anger and despair. We never would have thought of ourselves as their treasures. More like pains in the neck.

I did my best to give my only son joy and love and everything I could (and I'm still giving). He's nearing 30 now and with two kids, is realizing what his single mom went through. Goes around; comes around. As a friend told me, "Karma works."

MY FAVORITE TREE

2007-04-03T22:00:00.000-07:00

I love this tree and finally got it together to get a photo of it.

Spent the evening playing with an old CD drive that my computer no longer has the driver for. All this craziness when you upgrade and the software companies make two-year old or older stuff obsolete. Maddening.

And maddening to be scolded by my manager today, as if I'm a five-year old child who is misbehaving. I can do one thousand things well and never get a word of praise, but let me stray from her strait gate and she's jumping down my throat.

Stopped by a fabulous little craft center in downtown Oakland called Rock, Scissors, Paper on Telegraph, but it was closed. I must go back and explore this craft revolution locus. Without people who are creative, I'd go stark raving mad.

UP AND ABOUT

2007-03-28T21:48:00.000-07:00

Spent the last two days in bed with pain in head and chest. When I told my son I was coughing up stuff, he asked: "Like what? Sheep? Rabbits?" I wish sometimes he weren't bigger than I am.

Better today after a meal of crackers, cheese and two oranges. Felt well enough to go through some old Zip Discs and found some neat old graphics like this:

I'm back on a graphic quest of magical things like this, for kids and for me.

I want to make a teeshirt for our upcoming pagan festival that says, "Don't Piss Off the Faeries".

In the Ould Countries, Faeries are far from cute and harmless. They are vengeful little buggers who where once overcrowded by humans into the Underworld. They look for every chance to do us mischief. Read Terry Pratchett's Wee Free Men to get an idea of their shenanigans.

I hope my Big Brother Bill is still reading this and is well and happy. I'll try to post more family photos soon. As usual, it's after my bedtime again. Must post and get to bed.

A VERY DOGGY WEEKEND

2007-03-19T10:53:00.000-07:00

Saturday night I took the kids to see a friend who has a two-year old cockapoo. My four-year old granddaughter fell in love with Max, who she said is "the coolest dog". My one-year old grandson, who is now walking, also adored the dog and chased him around the large living room (a room so large you could fit my whole house in it).

Then Sunday morning we met my son (aka "Daddy") where he was dog-sitting two large elderly rescue dogs in Fruitvale and we all walked them. My granddaughter fell in love with quiet gentle Gigi, a greyhound. Gigi looks a lot like this:

We steered clear of Alpha female Winona, a german shepherd who is sweet but very protective.

The baby screamed with joy during the whole walk. It was a chilly morning but gratifying and we talked alot about doggies and the care they need.

Whenever folks say they want to get a dog, I advise them that it's a lot like having a baby that never really grows up. There should be a real commitment to these animals, and they shouldn't be left alone too long--that's the rub. Dogs aren't for people with regular work hours unless they live nearby and can go home at lunch to walk the dog. Even with a large yard, dogs get lonely and bored and start cutting up. I learned this many years ago from experience and won't be a dogowner again until I can make that commitment.

VENICE

2007-03-13T12:12:00.001-07:00

Thinking of "La Serenissima" today.

Other Americans flock to Disneyland; I'll take Venice, where the real magic is.

Why didn't parts of California's Bay Area develop into a Venice-like island network? We had the same kind of lagoon/bay and marshes. We didn't pound pilings into the muck to see if they would petrify. We just filled in vast areas of the San Francisco Bay, and built wooden shacks on the fill. Pity. But there was a Gold Rush and all that. And our weather can be a lot rougher as well.

Just think if we had no cars around the edges of the Bay and went everywere by boat? Instead of bicycles, we'd have little one- and two-rower gondolas. Police boats and garbage boats. Muni would run the vaporettos; the bus-like barges that carry passengers up and down the canals.

On land, we'd still have the cable cars and trollies of course. And, no doubt, automobiles.

Enough dreaming.

A writer I know has a blog titled "My Great Breast Cancer Adventure". You'll find it here:

http://janeunderwood.typepad.com/my_great_breast_cancer_ad/

Jane runs The Writing Salon with classes in San Francisco and Berkeley which I highly recommend. I took a screenwriting class there and loved it; it was worth every penny.

This blog of hers is about her daily life since she was diagnosed with breast cancer, had a lumpectomy, and is foregoing the chemo/radiation path for a more holistic lifestyle. She has much more than that going on, of course, and is a very good writer.

In a recent post, Jane talks about a "Alzheimer's moment" when she woke up, went into her bathroom and almost put toothpaste on her hairbrush.

I had such a moment today when, after having been scolded about coming into work late, I rushed around this morning in order to get out the door and to the office early for a change.

All went well until I arrived at work, realized I'd remembered to put on all of my clothes except for a bra. Luckily I wore an ironed cotton shirt with breast pockets so except for a little wiggling when I walked, I hope no one noticed. It's the first time I've been out of my house bra-less since the 1960's.

A KAHLO BY MCKEAN KIND OF DAY

2007-03-06T11:26:00.000-08:00

It is so lovely outside today I can hardly stand it. And feel a bit freaky-tweaky like Dave McKean and crazy/wild like Frieda. So I found a combo of the two.

Couldn't we all be like either of these scrarily creative folks?

I remember a day like today when I was in a home ec class in high school. The elderly (my age now) teacher was droning on about something: sewing or cooking or some such womanly subject so uninteresting I can't even remember it.

The day outside was perfect like today and I thought why can't we go outside and sit on the grass while she talks? Why am I in here in the first place? Why don't I just get up and walk out and create a life for myself?

And today I'm thinking the same thing, forty years later. Instead of going home after eight hours of incarceration and trying to create in the meager three or four hours left to me, why aren't I working three or four hours and creating eight hours of the day?

Coward? Pragmatist? Realist? Whiner?

One of my favorite creators has a blog called Cally Creates: http://callycreates.blogspot.com/

I found her through art for housewives, my other daily creative dose: http://housewife.splinder.com/

And there are other, so many others.

Here's the rub: The more you explore what others are doing, the less you do yourself. Just as reading makes you feel as if you've been writing. But you haven't been writing; you've been passively reading. Better than passively watching TV or movies, but still not creating.

A REAL ROBIN'S EGG

2007-02-28T15:59:00.000-08:00

This is the color I want to paint my walls for Spring.

I moved my luscious Big Bed and now wake up looking out my favorite window into rose bushes and bamboo.

There is still a ton of things to do to rearrange my house/life but I'll get there. So far, so good.

SPRING

2007-02-21T13:02:00.000-08:00

Trying to plan a total rearrangement of my house; rather a big deal with all my stuff. My main plan is to move my big bed (I LOVE my bed!) into the dining room and then use the one bedroom of my tiny house as a studio where I can leave out sewing, etc. and craft to my heart's content when I'm not here at the Job.

This rearrangement requires disassembling Big Bed and moving it, as well as file cabinets, TV, etc. all around into a new configuration that will also work better when the grandkids are over.

My granddaughter was so easy. I'd tell her not to touch something because "that's not for kids".

"Okay." And that was that.

Not so with my grandson. He shakes his head when I say "No!", waits for me to look away and heads right for the forbidden fruit. Unlike his sister, he is very sensitive to hot and cold as well. My tiny bedroom is freezing in winter, sweltering in summer. So I'll try this.

I'm also considering painting a room a robin's egg blue, something I've fantisized about for years. Right now the entire tiny house is flat white. But I'd like something like this:

Minus the modern chair. I love the feeling of this blue.

GUILTY PLEASURES

2007-02-12T00:04:00.000-08:00

Trying to get it together to begin a new Craft Blog with projects and references regarding the huge craft renaissance going on in the US, UK and Europe, especially on the Internet. I can spend hours surfing, and have done so, many times. Now I want to show photos of my own little craft efforts and reference some of the fabulous designers and crafters I've found on the Net.

I spent $$ on a guilty pleasure today, a Dover ClipArt book (with CD!) of Celtic Designs, mostly from the Book of Kells and the Lindesfarne Gospels. Samples:

I can't wait to transfer these onto some summer teeshirts and/or bookbags. And maybe make up some kids' clothes out of cotton or linen embellished with these images. My granddaughter loves these, and there's a local shop called Siobhan Van Winkle that sells off-the-wall kids' clothing.

Also went to SCRAP and bought a ton of buttons, some for kids' clothing and some for selfish me.

A Civil Servant Story: a coworker interviewed and was offered a promotion to our Manager's office where he wanted to work out his remaining years to retirement with more money and challenges. We threw him a big party and missed him terribly when he left. I call him our Jester because he is so witty and funny, in a sarcastic but charming style.

A month later, I came into work and he was sitting in the cubicle next to me again. I asked if he was visiting, and he said no, he had exercised his "retreat rights" because the new job environment was so cold and impersonal.

The Jester is very sociable and talkative and no one in his new office talked. Ever. He said no one said "Good morning"; if you sneezed, no one would mutter "Good bless you"; and he didn't get mail for two weeks because no one told him where his mailbox was.

Jester is also a diabetic and when chatting with us, he'll whip out his little kit and shoot himself up with insulin when necessary. In his new environment, he was afraid to do this, and went and hid in a toilet cubicle to inject himself. He said he felt like a junkie.

So I have to say there are environments worse than the crazy one I work in. We jokingly call it "The Prison", call the Manager's Office "The Big House" and make a lot of parole and trustee jokes. But I guess there is a lot of warmth among us, as crazy and neurotic as we all are. At least we got our Jester back.

Another guilty pleasure: Broke down and bought the "Concert for George" DVD of the 2002 concert organized by Eric Clapton and friends a year after George Harrison's death. I saw most of it on PBS and these old guys still rock. I've only seen the DVD for sale at one bookstore, so I went ahead and bought it. Always liked George's songs a lot and these musicians are the best and do them all justice. Highly recommended (if you have the cash).

LUCKY US...

2007-02-08T11:09:00.000-08:00

...that we weren't born in 1989.

THE YEAR 1904

2007-02-06T10:30:00.000-08:00

Here are some of the U.S. statistics for 1904:

The average life expectancy in the U.S. was 47 years.

Only 14 percent of the homes in the U.S. had a bathtub.

Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.

A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars.

There were only 8,000 cars in the U.S., and only 144 miles of paved roads.

The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.

Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California.

With a mere 1.4 million residents, California was only the 21st most populous state in the Union.

The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.

The average wage in the U.S. was 22 cents an hour.

The average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year.

A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, a dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.

More than 95 percent of all births in the U.S. took place at home.

Ninety percent of all U.S. physicians had no college education. Instead, they attended medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and by the government as "substandard."

Sugar cost four cents a pound.

Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.

Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.

Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.

Canada passed a law prohibiting poor people from entering the country for any reason.

The five leading causes of death in the U.S. were:

1. Pneumonia and influenza

2. Tuberculosis

3. Diarrhea

4. Heart disease

5. Stroke

The American flag had 45 stars. Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Alaska hadn't been admitted to the Union yet.

The population of Las Vegas, Nevada, was 30.

Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn't been invented.

There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day.

Two of 10 U.S. adults couldn't read or write.

Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated high school.

Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at corner drugstores. According to one pharmacist, "Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health."

Eighteen percent of households in the U.S had at least one full-time servant or domestic.

There were only about 230 reported murders in the entire U.S.

And I forwarded this from someone else without typing it myself, and sent it to you in a matter of seconds.

Try to imagine what it may be like in another 100 years.

FEBRUARY ALREADY

2007-02-04T21:23:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to be creative in a textile sense, but last week was like this, in fast-forward:

Mon-work; Tues-work; Weds-sick/sleep; Thurs-sick/babysit sick granddaughter; Fri-work; Sat-lay around for 1/2 day watching DVDs (The Constant Gardener and I am a Sex Addict). Sat night-take grandkids overnight; recover Sunday afternoon. And now it's Sunday evening and I haven't gotten much done.

I did felt some extra wool fabric and surround in cotton duvet-style covers (photo soon, when I locate my camera). I placed one under my bottom flannel sheet which keeps my bed warm and toasty; much warmer than without. I'd love to find a way to make a prototype and market this or anything made of wool.

Wool is magical. But it's getting harder and harder to find 100% wool these days.

Another creative textile idea is A SHOE QUILT:

What woman doesn't LOVE shoes? I found this graphic on the internet. A great way to use up extra cotton fabric and, of course, use wool batting in-between.

Trying now to think of Spring and Summer goodies for Los Bebes and myself. I've got lots of linen and some cotton.

IT'S A MIRACLE!

2007-01-26T09:50:00.000-08:00

For the last ten days, I've been waiting for the other shoe to drop.

My civil service coworker and I have been overloaded for about the last three years, taking between 50 to 100 phone calls a day, each of us. That's an average of 1,000 phone calls each per month. And we're expected to process payments and paperwork as well, which is of course impossible. Try reading a letter while being interrupted by a headset phone call every two minutes. While working in a software that times out every two minutes.

Every day I have around seven software screens up on my work computer, one software being Internet Explorer to keep my feet on the ground and my sanity while angry customers yell and curse at me. I drift in cyberspace, remembering the real world.

About ten days ago, that changed. Mercifully, because my coworker was in the hospital having tests for chest pains. This usually means over 100 calls for me and a whole lot of yelling from people who have been on hold for over ten minutes. But I only received 50 calls, and my "pending" work stack went down instead of up.

Our software provider finally came through with their contract and are taking half the calls.

Good God. What a difference. I'm still adjusting to being productive again. It will take a while. I'm still in shock. More later.

LONG WEEKEND

2007-01-15T20:37:00.000-08:00

We had an extra day off the job for Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. He's about the closest person we have to an American saint. Flawed but, my God, did he ever change the world.

I've rested and then rested some more, in-between a little housecleaning and trying to find the right proportions of a new poncho I'm knitting. I'm using a yarn unknitted from a Margaret O'Leary sweater, size small, so there's not much room for error. I am not size small.

Watched a BBC rendition of "Wives and Daughters" and find myself quite taken with Elizabeth Gaskell. I've seen "North and South" which was more moralistic or Calvinistic. "Wives" was full of sumptuous costumes and landscape. And Michael Gambon, whom I adore, is at his finest as a gruff but loving country squire.

AND on the special features are interviews with Margaret Drabble and Fay Weldon, two of my very favorite novelists. What a treat!

My grandson, nicknamed Big Bomb, and his sister were over on Sunday. Bomb is standing, dancing, and getting ready to walk and run. I took us all out for breakfast at Tomate, our favorite Berkeley cafe.

The Princess was moody and actually didn't want to leave. Last weekend she didn't want to stay. She is simply a moody child and very sensitive. She is my heart.

How awful for children to have to go from one home to another. Luckily she has always stayed at my house on weekends and feels quite at home here, but the switch from one environment to another is shocking for a small child. Parents separating is trauma; the switching of homes is like a rerun. I don't know if they'll ever take it in their stride.

To my utter amazement, Deirdre Nelson left me a thank-you comment on my blog post mentioning her work. It's like writing a fan letter and having the object of your attention write back. I was thrilled. Here is a photo of her with George, her knitted puffin.

She mixes language and textiles in a unique way. Now she is mixing wildlife and the history of Nova Scotia into her current work. Amazing.

I am more and more in love with history as I grow older. The leaps and errors of our human race. And of course in the present, our messes and successes.

I'm now trying to take my job supervisor's advice and look at my job as comic relief. To laugh at the lies people will come up with to get out of paying a parking ticket. If they could only be that creative with other parts of their lives, what a creative world it would be.

RED SKY AT MORNING...

2007-01-09T20:27:00.000-08:00

...sailor take warning.

Red sky at night
Sailor's delight.

Our skies have been clear and crisp, although I spend most of the day indoors. The webcam from Lawrence Hall of Science in the Berkeley Hills is my window to the world.

In our office, we took a collection to buy flowers for a coworker who died last New Year's Eve. Olive was a lovely woman who had a hard life and fought cancer for many years. We were all hoping she would live through another remission, but no. She once asked me to come in early to the office and join her Christian prayer circle and I was flattered by the offer, though I declined.

This made me think more about my own mortality and what disposition I wish for my own earthly remains.

I've told my son to have my body cremated and bury the ashes under a redwood tree, but I think now I wish for my ashes to be scattered or buried on the Isle of Skye, or anywhere wild in Scotland. Who would do it, and with what money?

As my son said about these wild areas, "There's nothing there."

But the air is the cleanest I have ever breathed. The air there feels so right, it fills your lungs naturally with clean, cold goodness and awakens your body with its freshness.

And something about the colors there, the red and green and brown with a sprinkling of grey rock. While in a gift shop in Portree, I saw a handwoven scarf/shawl with just these colors. The fibre was cashmere and the price was around $300. Of course I didn't buy it, but sometimes I wish I had.

Last weekend's granny duty was tough. The baby had an ear infection and my granddaughter was moody (when is she not?). After awhile she cheered up:

A NEW YEAR - FULL MOON

2007-01-02T08:58:00.000-08:00

Went to see Children of Men over the New Year. Clive Owen is gorgeous (Bent, Croupier, King Arthur, Gosford Park), and acts well in the movie. The theatre was full, but the story didn't translate that well to the screen. The onscreen violence was like spending an hour in Baghdad. Wait for Children on DVD.

On the crafting front, I spent some time looking in to the recent work of my favorite Glaswegian textile artist, Deirdre Nelson. And lo and behold, she has knit a puffin.

I first saw a display of Ms Nelson's work in Edinburgh's Tolbooth Museum, a cozy snug of a venue. It was entitled My Dear John, and it was calligraphy on lace and fine linen, as I recall. Apparently the show was written up in a back issue of Fibrearts and I may just have to purchase that back issue so I can see it again. Ms Nelson has a website:

http://dstitched.blogspot.com/

CHRISTMAS

2006-12-26T14:50:00.000-08:00

On Christmas Day, Los Bebes came to see what Santa left them at Grandma's house:

Because Baby Nima is teething, I didn't get the turkey stuffed and into the oven until late--Nima was crying and chewing on my collarbone much of the afternoon. So dinner was Gerber's Organics for him and side dishes for us while the turkey and orange cranberry stuffing roasted away.

Princess Munai was happy with her toy puppy, fairy dolls and a red cardinal Audobon bird that chirps, among other goodies.

The best gift she gave me was when she chatted away in big girl talk about Christmas Eve and Santa and her dreams.

Since her parents split up, she's been talking in baby talk and a mysterious "secret" language which I call Fairy Talk. She's finally communicating freely again. In words that her Daddy and I can understand.

The baby, when not teething, is crawling everywhere and getting into everything possible. Everything normal there.

All of this activity opens up great communication between my son and myself about his own childhood. Which it should.

After the overnight on Saturday and the Christmas Day festivities, I slept for 13 hours.

Now time for New Year's resolutions. During this holiday weekend, my usual news addiction was shut down. Time to tune back in, as desperate as the news is these days.

Tonight going with friends to see "Children of Men", with Clive Owen (my favorite actor), written by P.D. James, one of my favorite writers.

QUILTS, QUILTS, QUILTS

2006-12-18T12:42:00.000-08:00

Went to see the Gee's Bend Quilters' exhibition at the DeYoung Museum in SF.

My favorites:

The new De Young is mind-boggling. I wish I'd had more time.

Saturday night I had Los Bebes and it was freezing cold in my unheated bedroom. Baby boy and I moved into the living room where we cuddled up on the kids' couch donated by Grandma Harriet. I have definite ideas for quilts now ... and plenty of fabric to work with. The Gee's Bend ladies were strong and fearless in their work, as well as their lives.

SPEAK THY MINDE

2006-12-03T19:34:00.000-08:00

I was just notified that my application for a transfer within my department was turned down because I have a "bad attitude". In short, when I think a management decision isn't a very good one, I say so (diplomatically, of course). I also make a lot of suggestions to management. And a few times have made very clear to management that I think we (the front line) are not being treated very well.

As a coworker succinctly put it: "It's not your work that holds you back, it's your mouth."

And I can accept that. After all, this is a free country and I believe in the First Amendment. Others around me also believe in it as long as they aren't being criticized or called to take responsibility.

So I'm good enough to do the shit work, but not good enough (in attitude) for an easier job. And this is civil service. Corporations are even worse. No, I take that back; they are about the same.

You can outwork everyone, have few or no absences for months, accept responsibility for your errors. That won't outweigh coworkers who take lots of time off, talk more on the phone with friends than with customers, and do little work but smile and tell management how well they're doing, even as the place dissolves in chaos.

I know this, but have never been able to accept it. SO the only answer is to start my own business. I have 16 months of car payments, 1-1/2 years until I can cash out some retirement and 3 years until I can get a small pension. It's a crap shoot if I make it that long. In the meantime, I'll have to put more energy into my own business than into my day job. Tant pis.

WEEKEND FUN

2006-11-28T15:02:00.000-08:00

I discovered YouTube by looking up Hugh Laurie and Alan Davies last weekend.

If you like "House", you'll love Hugh Laurie singing his silly hit: "Mystery" at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APPGW82NBNk

and then, I looked for dishy Alan Davies (anyone remember Jonathan Creek?) Imagine my delight to discover the BBC's "QI" (for "quite interesting") with several British comedians on the panel; including Alan Davies. Kind of a Monty Python quiz show but much faster, wittier and now-ier. Hosted by Stephen Fry.

A waste of time really, learning how long a woodpecker's tongue is, but better than television.

I now see why Google snapped up YouTube. No commercials and you can pick what you watch.

Sounds very promising.

FIGHTING THE FORAGING GENE

2006-11-06T17:50:00.000-08:00

While scrounging through baskets and drawers full of others' cast off yarns and fabrics, a chat started up between me and another woman doing the same at EB Depot.

She: "What is it with us women and foraging?"

Me: "Like in nuts and berries?"

She: "Yeah. I always feel like some cavewoman coming in here and scrounging up usable stuff."

Me: "Considering prices in yarn and fabric shops...."

She: "I know. But that's not really why I do it. Don't you have more than enough projects?"

I didn't even have to think that one through. I have tons of supplies, thanks to places like thrift stores, East Bay Depot and SCRAP. And not nearly enough time to do work on the projects I've started.

Me (sighing): "More than enough. "

She: "I think it's a genetic thing. In times of stress we women walk around with one eye open for usable goods."

Me: "Maybe. I know other women who go shopping when they're stressed, to malls. I hate malls."

She: "Do you hoard stuff?"

Me: "Do I? I've got drawers and boxes of stuff."

She: "Honey, some of us have rooms full of stuff."

Maybe that should have made me feel better, that others have this obsessive/compulsive hoarding condition or whatever you call it. But it doesn't.

I confess, I have this image of a coming disaster--a nuclear war or climate crisis where everything will break down. No electricity, no heat except burning what we . We'll actually go back to living like tribes. Kind of like that series Doris Lessing wrote about years ago (Shikasta?).

And I'll be the old lady with fabric and clothes and yarns to make warm things for people during a new Ice Age. Or else we'll start growing fur again....

POST HALLOWEEN

2006-11-01T09:43:00.000-08:00

Oddly, when I showed up at work in my thrift store costume of witch's hat, halloween sweater and long weird fingers (total cost $12), my Christian co-workers kind of creeped out. When I once mentioned to them that I'm not a Christian but more or less a pagan, these Baptists gave me the same look. We had a luncheon and the Born-Agains stated they don't celebrate Halloween because it's the "Devil's Day". Oh dear. We really are in a divided nation. I notice they love decorating Christmas trees and giving kids Easter baskets but they don't realize that is pagan also.

Sadly, I did not get the Library job. Boohoo. But I have other interviews set up to get away from the place I now work. Love the people, hate the job.

BOOBOO AND ME

2006-10-23T21:51:00.000-07:00

Here I am, wrinkles, broken nose, grey hair and all with my grandbaby booboo who is seven months old. We had fun playing last weekend and I caught a fleeting glimpse of what he'll look like as an adult. Once he grows hair, that will change his looks considerably. He is very sweet natured and loves, I mean LOVES women. He always seems to have a hand laying gently on your breast.

He and his big sister took a nap after lunch.

Right now these kids (and my hobbies) keep me sane. On my job for the City of Berkeley, I've been called a Nazi, a white bitch, a rapist and murderer. Last week, a Berkeley resident called me a cunt. Whoever thinks Berkeley citizens or visitors are laid-back and "nice" have it all wrong. Our callers really have entitlement issues.

But great news! I have an interview for a job at a library this week! One of the best inventions ever conceived is The Library. I spend two or three lunch hours per week there as it is, checking out books, films, books on tape. God, I am hoping to finally land a meaningful job. I think it would make my life so much better.

AND at lunchtime today in Berkeley, one of my heroes--Al Gore--made a speech in the civic center park. Of course street crews were steam cleaning the urine off the homeless shelter steps across the street in the early morning, and every police officer in Berkeley was out in full SWAT gear. I listened to him for about 20 minutes (he showed up 45 minutes late) and then went back to my office. It was too hot and I keep up with his campaign as is. The crowd kept shouting, "Run, Al, run!"

To wind up the week, the Piedmont Avenue Halloween parade in Oakland, CA will be held this Saturday. The main street is closed off and hundreds of kids come to parade in costume and trick or treat at all the local shops. I have my witch hat, scary hands and Halloween sweater ready. My granddaughter Munei will be Tinkerbell and Nima will be a Tootsie Roll.

MY LIFE IN MOVIES

2006-10-10T15:59:00.000-07:00

I love to just hang out in my little Oakland house, pottering around. And often that means watching films (or as the Irish say "fillums"), usually borrowed from the library.

During the last three-day weekend I watched The Magdalene Sisters (not for the faint of heart or stomach, or for lovers of the Catholic Church), and a piece of fluff called Love in a Cold Climate (crap).

The most interesting by far was Mirrormask, a teenage fantasy film that introduced me to the art work of Dave McKean. Years ago I saw some of his work while I was visiting Edinburgh; it's work you are not likely to forget. Beautiful but incredibly creepy at the same time.

The screenwriter stated that after a Sony executive saw the film for the first time, he said, "That was like watching Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast, on acid, for kids."

After watching this film, I had some very interesting dreams.

If it were not for the Internet, I think I'd be absolutely crazy by now, doing the work I do, talking to people all day long. The movies give me another life, many other lives.

ALMOST A MONTH...

2006-09-26T23:41:00.000-07:00

...since my last post.

Working 8-10 hour days and some Saturdays has me beat. And every Saturday night I have a date with my two grandbabies, which is great fun but as exhausting as a three-ring circus.

On the side (ha-ha), I've semi-committed to writing an article on my favorite craft supply spot, the EB Depot on San Pablo near Ashby in Berkeley.

http://www.east-bay-depot.org/

Time, time, time is my biggest need right now. I am on vacation this week and just want to sit around my house; procion-dying, knitting and sewing while watching movies or listening to books on tape. Tomorrow I join my son in taking the granddaughter to her early morning gymnastics class. I spent half a day looking for my digital camera and FINALLY found it in my backpack from two weekends ago.

It's nearly midnight. More soon....

Sunday night:
And so I did. For five days, I stayed in my little house, sewing, knitting, listening to books on tape. My son who is house-sitting next door came by each day. I think he was worried about my going off the rails because I had no outside-the-house ambitions. He is such a social animal, always likes people and sound around him. But as he grows older, less and less. Where he lives now doesn't even have a tv so he can try to focus on his microbiology and physiology classes.

In five days, I made 3 pairs of soft pajamas for myself, knitted two hats for my grandson (which are too small), dyed four items a soft bottle-green, finished crocheting an orange blanket with rainbow edging, and made the grandson 3 pairs of pairs of jim-jams for the baby as well. I also experimented with felting 2 thrift-store sweaters into purses, sewed up a carry-bag for my knitting and made a knit/felted toy mouse.

Today we took Los Babes on the Alameda-San Francisco ferry. With little time, we rode over and back and my granddaughter had a blast watching the waves, boats and seagulls. Baby Evan ate pureed bananas and closed his amber-brown eyes to nap for a while wrapped up in my down vest. It was a good day and the visit too short.

And tomorrow it's back to the grind. There were so many things I wanted to do but did not. But it's okay. I was selfish and did what I needed/wanted. My next break will be the last week of the year when we are "asked" to take the week between Christmas and New Year off. I will and gladly. Feel like a human being again and not a wage machine.

WHAT KEEPS ME GOING

2006-09-05T11:02:00.000-07:00

A new week begins, a six-day week because we'll be working next Saturday. Last weekend was good, I took the kids to the Berkeley Botanical Garden and the day was lovely. They both have colds so the sunlight and clean air was good for all of us.

My special treat was going to SCRAP in San Francisco on Saturday morning and looking through the piles of STUFF they have. Wonderful stuff. For a crafter, SCRAP is heaven . Fabrics, yarns, odds/ends, paper, glass, wood. And all dirt cheap. Check it out: http://www.scrap-sf.org/

My ideal life would be to run such a place or spend each day making things with my hands. Sewing, knitting, crocheting, painting. I know I can run down to Target and get a made-in-China baby hat for $3, but I'd rather knit one from yarn I bought for 25 cents.

If I can stand it, in four more years, I'll be able to retire with a pension of $1,000/month. That would be heaven for me. That would pay most of my mortgage. Four more years of opening letters and answering angry phone calls and putting up with insane management. Also four more years of steady wages and excellent benefits. Hmmm.

In the meantime....

My grandson at six months, wearing his dainty three-year old sister's T Rex tee-shirt. Both kids are nearly the same size.

After working five days a week with adults, I'm glad to spend time with children. It balances out the madness of the modern world.

THE SECRET OF ROAN INISH

2006-08-14T14:36:00.000-07:00

Sunday was spent with an 11-year old buddy doing various Sunday things, and later watching this film which I love and have in my DVD library. About 1/3 way through it, he was hooked and kept asking me what would happen. I only assured him it had a happy ending. Over and over again, he tried to prod me about the ending. Then, right before the finale, he started acting up and rough-housing. This again made me think how boys are not very well primed to show or experience emotions, except physically. Or is it testosterone that makes them physically respond to emotional situations? Probably both.

My young buddy is an inch taller than I (at 5'3") am already and I imagine myself giving him a hug when he is a foot taller in about ten years.

At any rate, if you feel like taking a trip to Ireland about 50 years ago, I recommend this film for the half-fairy tale script, and for the music. It's dead magic.

WATCHING THE WORLD GO BY

2006-08-11T10:19:00.000-07:00

At 56 years old, my credo is "Do No Harm". I have said and done so many things in my life at this point, I want to do as little harm as possible in what's left of my years.

I'm watching others around me making decisions that may affect their lives permanently and doing my best not to offer advice unless asked for it.

Don't all decisions affect our lives permanently? A friend from China once told me that the Chinese people are very careful about what they say, because once something is said, it cannot be unsaid. Sure, we can deny or apologize or backtrack, but what is said hovers and refuses to go away.

HOW TO LOSE WEIGHT

2006-08-07T16:01:00.000-07:00

Have your five-month old grandson keep you up all night because he is teething. In a day or two, having fallen asleep over books and meals, you'll find your jeans a little loose around the waist.

Not to complain. Babies are great. When they're unhappy, they suffer. When they're happy, they glow. They don't try to manipulate except on the most basic of terms.

Problem is, as much as I love the babies, I've had little time to work on my passion: textiles.

I've got boxes of fabric and yarn and two bookcases of project instructions.

THE INGEO PROJECT

2006-08-04T10:27:00.000-07:00

During my websurfing, I've discovered bits and pieces about this new product made from corn fibers. It's called Ingeo. Having a passion for recycling and fibers, this completely intrigued me.

http://www.ingeofibers.com/ingeo/products.asp

According to a number of press releases, this product can be made into totally sustainable/ recyclable cloth or yarn. There is already Ingeo yarn available at Southwest Trading and lots of Ingeo roving available for spinners on commercial sites as well as Ebay.

Sounds great, right? I asked for access to the Ingeo "online product library" to find out more and was tersely emailed that only reps from big companies ("preferred partners") are granted the golden keys. With over a year of marketing and press releases about this stuff, I started wondering why it isn't flooding the market yet. The Ingeo website above is terribly secretive and vague.

Hours of online frustration were ended by a blog search of the word. Leave it to Bloggers to come out with what's really going on with this project. Some of the gazillion crafters on the Internet inform us that this fiber melts at 160 degrees F, so cannot be ironed or even washed in hot water. Spinners love spinning it, but apparently it doesn't knit up well. It also smells of corn syrup. For those of us with an acute olfactory sensory apparatus, this just won't do.

Apparently Patagonia was all set to use Ingeo until it learned that the corn being used is genetically engineered. Patagonia, famous for using fleece made from recycled plastic bottles, refuses to use genetically engineered anything, even for clothing.

Europeans refuse to have anything to do with FrankenFood (genetically engineered plants). I can't blame them. They know from centuries of experience how making changes that can't be reversed can wreak havoc on the entire planet. We in the U.S.A. "just do it".

I have ordered a tank top made from Ingeo, just to see what it feels like. But for my own uses, I'll stick with the tried and truly sustainable favorites: wool, organic cotton, linen and recycled acrylic fabric and yarns.

Far more hopeful is knit apparel made from bamboo. I bought a bamboo tank top at the Green Festival last year and it has remained soft and sturdy.

BERKELEY KITE FESTIVAL

2006-07-31T08:31:00.000-07:00

Took the grandbabies to the Berkeley Kite Festival at the Marina. Walked for miles but it was fun. We had no bottle for five-month old Evan, but I bought a plain pretzel and he sucked on that until he went to sleep.

Lots of people, kids, dogs, cops, and KITES!

FOG IS BACK IN BERKELEY

2006-07-27T10:54:00.000-07:00

Thank God. I learned on Monday and Tuesday that there wasn't a fan left for sale in all of the East Bay. I tried 10 more stores, from Richmond to Oakland, and they were all sold out of fans, coolers and air conditioners.

I have one good fan but when the grandkids sleep over, I need a second one for the bedroom.
Today it's cool. Cool enough for me to wear my favorite garment, a lavender down vest.

WHAT GLOBAL WARMING?

2006-07-24T11:28:00.000-07:00

Saturday night was at least 100 degrees in Oakland, CA and my two grandbabies were miserable. As was myself and my grown son. We sat in front of my oscillating fan and drank water and juice by the quart. On Sunday I went to stores in Oakland, Alameda and Emeryville and all the local stores were completely sold out of fans.

A friend who is leaving for London this weekend is concerned because the asphalt on London roads has been melting. Another friend is off on an Alaskan cruise, but I wonder if he will even see any ice or glaciers.

Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth is under attack by the Right Wing and its Poodle Press, which is a pretty good indication of how accurate it is. And we all are inundated by automobile ads and consumerism philosophies.

Reduce, reuse and recycle. Add to this: mend things (which many of us have forgotten how to do); keep things that we can use next year; make things for your own use, cook things instead of eating out; wash things instead of throwing them away and buying new ones.

PRIDE AND JOY

2006-07-18T13:58:00.000-07:00

Here are Los Bebes. Nima, at 4 months is almost as large as his three-year old sister Munai.

After taking care of legal matters this morning, I went to our neighborhood second-hand store for kids' clothes. Spent $47 on 4-5 summer outfits for Los Bebes for when they stay with us.

Some of our legal woes have been laid to rest, but there are more to tackle. All it takes is time and money.

My friend Barbara Rose tells me, "We choose our parents." When I think of my own parents, I wonder why. I look at my grandkids and also wonder why. They have genetic and cultural influences from Scotland to South America to the Middle East.

Then a quote from Terry Pratchett keeps coming into my mind when I think of people going OTT (over the top). "You never know you've gone too far until you've gone too far." And we all have gone too far at one time or another. Can we forgive?

Thomas Hardy's "We are too many," in Jude the Obscure. How careful we must be about what we tell our children, especially when they are small. How much we must love and protect them.

SOMETIMES YOU JUST WANT TO SCREAM

2006-07-11T12:08:00.000-07:00

One of those days.....

My first caller at work called me a g** d*** f***ing white bitch (next time I'll answer, "How do you know I'm white?"), and the last caller had a nervous breakdown on the phone.

And I'm shaving off minutes here and there from a 10-11 hour workday to take care of frivolities like paying bills and other paperwork.

But it could be worse, so much worse.

And there are magic moments: when Oakland is beautiful in spite of itself. Driving from Alameda to Berkeley, I stop at a red light and see a flock of fat Canadian Geese stopping for a snack on the grassy shores of Lake Merritt.

THE SADDEST MOVIE EVER MADE

2006-07-03T15:52:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I watched the film Turtles Can Fly, an Iranian-Iraqi coproduction. The story tells of Kurdish orphans and how they make a subsistance living digging up mines from minefields--because they have no choice. One teenager has had both arms blown off by a mine, but he continues to disarm them--with his teeth.

I didn't think I could stand to watch it until the end, but I did. I don't recommend if for anyone but adults and adults with a very high tolerance for tragedy. It is a film you will never forget.

It also puts our little American problems in perspective.

THE BEST OF TIMES, THE WORST OF TIMES

2006-06-29T10:51:00.000-07:00

Cry baby cry
Make your mother sigh
She's old enough to know better
So cry baby cry

Would you want this little girl to be mad at you?

So families change and grow and learn, sometimes the hard way.

For people who have never been through a married couple's breakup, they think the initial split is the end of it. They don't realize it is only the beginning of what could be 18 years of emotional and legal difficulties.

My 3-year old granddaughter knows something is very, very wrong but she doesn't know what. Her mom has told her nothing. Last week I told the girl that her daddy was staying at my house to help me. She was skeptical. This week I told her Daddy is staying at Gaga's house so Mommy and Daddy won't fight. This, she understood. And it's the truth. She seemed relieved to be told.

Why do adults think children don't understand things? When I ask my four-month old grandson where his sister is, his eyes immediately go to her.

So. If my granddaughter follows the pattern of her mom's family history, she will grow up and eventually be furious with her mother once she understands things from an adult's perspective. If she follows their patterns, melodrama and soap opera will ensue and some unbelievably bizarre behavior will result.

I respect their family for coming from a Third World country to America and working hard to make a better life for themselves and their kids. But when families like this continue to behave in the worst Old World ways, the kids will suffer.

My son's job is to stay close to his kids and help and support them so they know he is there for them. My job is to take care of them when I can, help my granddaughter to not think she is to blame for any of this, and to teach her the highest self-esteem possible. My job is also not to blame anyone in front of her. I might feel anger, but I encourage her to love and respect her Mommy and that side of the family. I will also encourage her when she is older to think and come to her own conclusions.

RUPTURE

2006-06-28T12:36:00.000-07:00

My psuedo-happy family life has been ruptured. If I want to be generous, I can say it's due to the near-sightedness, vindictiveness and selfishness of my daughter-in-law.

Now that you know how I really feel, I'll move on.

My son is back living with me, paying off debts, continuing grad school and we are working to hammer out legal visitation with my grandchildren.

Of course I want to throttle the kids' mother for making certain decisions, and her large family who played a huge part in this breakup. But I do believe that what we do comes back to us in time. And the most important thing now is to stay close with my three-year old granddaughter who has been shattered by this situation. I will bite my tongue, smile when I don't want to, and spend as much time with the child as possible, even among mine enemies.

And hopefully in time, enemies we will be no more. We can always hope.

I was just getting my Ebay house clearance up and running, just starting to write again, and as usual with the in-laws, something exploded.

But this explosion is final, hopefully or will be soon. And then my contingent can have a routine that allows my son and myself (and the girl) some stability and peace.

Trust, like glass, doesn't break on its own. It takes an act of will for it to be broken and once shattered, it cannot be repaired, only replaced.

EBAY WOMAN

2006-06-14T09:32:00.000-07:00

After 9 hours at work, I go home and enter the Ebay universe. My house is a forest of boxes and I am determined to clear all of it, one way or another. And once it's gone, it will really be gone.

Luckily the weather is good. Here's the view from my "computer window". Since our office has no windows (!) [we call it "the Prison"] I keep on my computer screen a live webcam from LBL on the hill overlooking Berkeley.

The weblink is http://sv.berkeley.edu/view/

Sunshine at last.

I think I might add to my "window" a North Pole webcam:

http://psc.apl.washington.edu/northpole/LatestPhoto.html

EBAY ZOMBIE

2006-06-10T01:42:00.000-07:00

Oh my god. I have been moving all my STUFF from my storage space, sorting it, and re-storing in a new, improved storage "room" that I've rented with my grown son.

I need storage space and he needs a study space. So we have rented a room and I'm trying to get rid of everything I don't need. Tossing it or selling it on Ebay.

I used to sell on Ebay a lot. I forgot how much work it is. My ex-possesions will go to good homes, to people who want them and even pay money for them.

It's 2 a.m. and I'm half-asleep. Time for bed.

A FOOT STORY

2006-05-27T10:27:00.000-07:00

I spent Thursday afternoon with my new Kaiser doctor asking about three things: a lump on my foot, red patches on my neck and possible hearing loss.

The red patches, she said, are probably my old friend Rosacia coming back to haunt me. The lump? Probably a cyst. She sent me for an x-ray. The hearing loss? She sent me to the hearing center.

This was magic to me. Why? For years, I was enrolled in HealthNet, which has become stricter and cheaper over the last three years. At age 56 and with a family history of osteoperosis, HealthNet wouldn't authorize a bone density test. When I got a bad rash and a scaly patch on my face, I had to wait three months for an appointment with a HealthNet dermatologist who diagnosed the Rosacia (by then pretty yucky) and said the scaly patch was nothing.

An uncle of mine died of skin cancer. Knowing the patch didn't look like "nothing", I paid out-of-pocket for a local dermatologist who told me, "Oh that's pre-cancerous." And she burned it off with liquid nitrogen immediately.

Two of my co-workers have also switched to Kaiser. One has lifetime diabetes and was getting nickled and dimed on every monthly Rx he requested. After 35 years, he knew what he needed. And HealthNet wouldn't cover syringes.

The other co-worker's daughter has serious asthma and HealthNet was cutting back on her doctor's visits as well as her medication. The mom got sick of seeing her daughter's hands turn blue during attacks and switched to Kaiser. Her daughter is now in school in Southern Cal, but she can get her meds by mail--ahead of time. There's a concept.

So to get an x-ray immediately and get a reference to a hearing center without a struggle or wait was terrific for me. People complain about Kaiser, but I see it as a model for the National Health Care we should all have.

Almost 20 years ago, I moved to Japan where I was immediately signed up for National Health Care, citizen or not. Japanese people assumed we had this in prosperous America. They were shocked to learn that if an American doesn't have health insurance, s/he is out of luck. Twenty years later we still don't have it and the only time the government discusses it is before elections. After elections, no one mentions it.

SPRING IS HERE

2006-05-16T12:33:00.000-07:00

And I'm searching for cotton and linen yarns to knit. It's growing too hot to work with wool.

Mother's Day was a big deal for mi grande familia and it was HOT. The babies were stripped down to diapers and the older kids ran in the sprinklers. Menfolk supplied barbeque.

Rented "A New World" which is now out on DVD. It's a very poetic film. Not rushed, no sex (the actress playing Pocahontas was only 14 yrs old); although there's plenty of violence.

If you don't mind slow, long films, I recommend it along with "Wings of Desire"-the Wim Wenders version, not the L.A. remake. It's also a long, slow love story, with imaginative twists.

News from the Wandering Scribe, the British blogger who is supposedly homeless and living in her car. Here's the last entry:

My news was a book deal. I AM HAVING A BOOK PUBLISHED - hooray! I'm celebrating a bit prematurely because haven't got the thing written yet, but after what I've been through with all this, feels like that might be the easy bit. Sitting at a table after a warm bath, Beethoven on in the background, a glass of something in one hand, my pen in the other, hovering over all those pristine, blank sheets of paper. Writing a book can't be that difficult
;-)

And anyway, all those sheets of paper won't really be blank. Because for months, being here among all these trees, staring up and through them night after night, watching their leaves fall and new ones grow back, their branches snap off in high winds, and stripped clean of bark in rainstorms, laying like bones on the ground around them. Night after night I told bits of my story to them, sometimes talking aloud, sometimes staring it into them - all the things I couldn't tell anyone else, all the things my hunched-up spirit was tired of. Trees absorb pain, and some of these will one day be felled and made into paper, and I have this feeling that if I look really hard into them I'd probably see my story already there, like a watermark on their blank surfaces.

It's that little ";-)" that makes me suspect this has been a hoax all along, a route for entree into the publishing world. The second paragraph reads like a trained, experienced poet's work.

We shall see. If it has been a hoax, I say more power to her/him. It took guts, imagination and talent.

MOTHER'S DAY

2006-05-12T08:20:00.000-07:00

I've often thought how unfair it is that when a mother might have several children, each child should have more than one mother. At least a grandmother, an aunt or next-door neighbor who gives mom a break once in a while.

Having raised a son alone with no grandparents to help, I try hard to help my son's family with childcare whenever I can. I agree it "takes a village" but when there is no village, we have to do the best we can. I am thanked constantly for the help I give my family and the closeness among all of us with child-sharing is immeasurable.

In Japan, there is a Children's Day but no Mother or Father's Day. Everything in that culture is for the children.

According to Jim Hightower, Mother's Day was begun during the Civil War as a war protest by mothers who were sick of their sons and husbands getting slaughtered. As Hightower put it, the best way to celebrate Mother's Day would be to enjoy breakfast in bed and then go off to participate in an anti-war rally.

WHAT DEGREE OF RIDICULOUSNESS ARE YOU?

2006-05-09T12:36:00.000-07:00

In a fit of passion, rage, fatigue, grief, hunger, and spite, the person closest to me called me "a ridiculous person." Because of who I am, how I live, what I do and don't do.

Well, yes, but we are all ridiculous in some way or other, some more than others. I don't mind that. I am happy to learn from the Internet that there are plenty, if not millions, of people just as ridiculous as I, doing the same silly things.

Nothing brings home the ridiculous nature of one as much as watching a video of oneself; one's gestures, weight, hairstyle, wardrobe, speech. Clive Owen said in an interview that it was very humbling to realize how he walks, talks and looks by watching a 20-foot high image of himself.

Maybe instead of going to church every Sunday, we should all watch videos of ourselves over Sunday brunch interacting with other people to see our true selves more objectively. Not staged film, but impromptu stuff.

This could really help us keep a sense of proportion and humor--and humility.

A WEEKEND IN HELL...

2006-05-08T12:07:00.000-07:00

...is a weekend in the pediatric ward of my local hospital, watching saline drip into the veins of a beloved three-year old child.

But the good news is she is better and home again and laughing. And I am so grateful to be living in a place with health insurance and hospitals and good doctors and kind pediatric nurses.

K.T. TUNSTALL...

2006-04-29T15:56:00.000-07:00

...is huge over the water in Scotland, Ireland and the U.K. and is now seeping into the U.S.A.'s music world. I heard some of her music being used as background for U.S. TV's "Desperate Housewives". (How big can you get?) So I suppose her music isn't a secret anymore.

I awoke one Saturday morning to a Scott Simon interview with her that made me run out and buy her collection of songs ("Eye to the Telescope"); the first music I've bought in I don't know how many years.

Her radio performance knocked me out, but also her presence, background, musical techniques, all of it; the whole package.

I've just been watching some of her videos on the internet and have to say I'm sorry so many music videos have been homogenized into pap. When MTV first started, the videos were exciting and creative and fabulous. Now: pap or soft porn. Or maybe I'm talking out of my (ahem) hat--I haven't watched MTV for years.

BUT I do recommend watching her "Under the Weather" and "Suddenly I See" videos. They are fun.

Like in films, books, and everything else, I guess we have to hunt for the good stuff.

http://www.kttunstall.com/

I need to be patient
And I need to be brave

I need to discover how I need to behave
And I'll find out the questions when I know what to ask.

But I speak a different language
And everybody's talking too fast.

(From "Miniature Disasters; Minor Catastrophes")

THE JOB

2006-04-25T15:43:00.000-07:00

I guess I like jobs where you see it all: like the hotel employees in Dirty, Pretty Things. I used to work for the police department and loved all the stories about human behavior that I couldn't even dream up if I tried, as nasty as it can be.

Now I have a mid-level civil service job where I deal with regular folks as well as crackheads, drunks, three- and four-party conversations, screamers, stutterers--all on the phone, thank God. It's a living, a wage with benefits. But when I told my tax lady what I do for a living she looked at me and said, "They don't pay you enough."

Some days, like today, it's really a hard job to do. I try to compartmentalize and dream up creative thoughts. Surf the net and find 14th century woodcuts or yarn made from soybeans. Anything to keep myself sane.

Started reading the Wandering Scribe blog.

http://wanderingscribe.blogspot.com/

At first, I wanted to log on to PayPal and send this poor woman some cash. But then doubts crept in.

This text is remarkably well-written for someone who is going through a "breakdown". (I've been there myself and I don't think I was especially coherent at the time.) Of course, everyone is so very different, and she'd have nothing to lose--the ultimate freedom.

And I've been to the UK and can't see the local police (or neighbors, certainly) allowing someone to live in a car on the outskirts of a city. Is this blog a scam? It seems almost sacrireligious to question what may be a poor homeless woman at the end of her tether. But it might be a clever young writer creating a new character-based artform. How can one know? Have the Scribe cut and paste her PayPal account onto her blog to show s/he isn't collecting lots of money from sympathetic readers? What other course do young writers have?

Heard on the radio last night of a big book publishing deal (half a million dollars) given to a 17-year old Harvard student who hadn't even written a book yet, but had a good idea for one. Yeah, right. If only life were so simple.

After her book was published, it was noted that whole passages were lifted from another writer's works and a plagiarism suit was pursued.

More details:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/26/books/26cnd-book.html?hp&ex=1146110400&en=4e2286108c6b1392&ei=5094&partner=homepage

BAD MOVIES, GOOD MOVIE

2006-04-25T09:09:00.000-07:00

Part of my post-weekend malaise was seeing two crap movies: Vanity Fair and Pride and Prejudice. Something is so "off" with these Hollywood type productions. Even when the acting is excellent, as in P & P, the direction or editing or something kills the story and you feel dissatisfied after watching.

On a whim I rented Dirty Pretty Things and watched it last night.

Wow.

That's the kind of story I love. A real city story, where you feel like you are in London, a real London, not a film set. Actors who are the characters, not actors playing characters. And a terrific story. A believable thriller/romance with not one kiss between the two lovers.

It lifted my spirits. There is hope after all.

HOW IS THE WORLD TREATING YOU?

2006-04-24T09:23:00.000-07:00

Although my ddil doesn't want photos of the kids on the blog, I figure this one of newborn Nema is okay because he has changed so completely since it was taken almost 2 months ago. He is smiling more now, especially when his belly is full. He has always reminded me of a miniature balding little old man.

There is always this struggle: if you work enough to make enough money to get ahead financially, there's no time to enjoy your home and family. If you take the time to enjoy home and family, you're stressed out about not having enough money.

I discussed this a bit with my son and ddil who are both burning the candle at both ends. I watch the economy tighten until it almost cracks, our money doesn't go as far as it did. I feel for younger folks. They've grown up with the tsunami of consumerism that tells them buy, buy, buy more and you'll be happy.

I just discovered on the BBC a serendipitous article about a homeless woman, living in her car, but keeping a blog called

http://wanderingscribe.blogspot.com/

The fear of homelessness is behind a lot of us who work jobs we dislike but tolerate. When my son was young and complained about us not having enough money to buy him fancy basketball shoes, I'd take him down to Mission and Fifth Street and tell him if he wanted to live in that neighborhood, we would have more free cash. He understood.

CONUNDRUM

2006-04-14T10:16:00.000-07:00

If I don't post photos of my little grand-angels, I'm kinda at a loss here... Oh my God, I'll have to be creative!

The eldest granddaughter-in-law is four-year old Papaya, one-quarter Nigerian, half Peruvian and one-quarter African American. She is expressive, explosive and full of life, a Force of Nature. Tall, lanky and long-legged with a head full of wild curls.

Next is my blood granddaughter Munai, three years old in May of this year. Her genetic background is one-quarter Persian, half-Peruvian and one-quarter Scots-Irish (me). She inherited my blue eyes and is short, petite and can walk on her toes . She's my child in that she hates crowds and noise, loves books and crafts, spends hours playing by herself, and has mood swings from giddy to silent.

Eight-month old grandbaby-in-law Matthew already weighs 24 lbs and is half-Cuban, half-Peruvian. He loves his food and is a Watcher. If he isn't where the action is and watching it, he isn't happy. Everyone thinks he is at least one year old.

The newest grandson is Nema, my other blood-grandchild, only six weeks old. Born with almost no hair (?) unlike his sister and daddy. His eyes are deep brown and he eats like...well, like a boy. He weighed nine lbs. at birth. Temper, yes. And he is a grunter. All night long, he grunts in his sleep.

I'll try to "Monet" them w/Photoshop and see if that gives me any luck...

It's pretty sad when you're so afraid of pedophiles targeting your babies that you can't even put them up on your blog. But what IS it with these pedophile people anyway? Recently a veteran Berkeley firefighter was caught viewing kiddie porn with himself doing the deeds AT WORK!!! Trust me, I work for Berkeley. They go through very thorough vetting and background checks of their employees. What is going on in our world?

But then during the Crusades, good Christian Knights and soldiers skewered, roasted and ate infidel children (source: Terry Jones of Monty Python's THE CRUSDADES DVD). I don't know what is worse: killing, killing and eating, or raping? Another conundrum.

CLEAR SKIES

2006-03-30T10:55:00.000-08:00

My dear daughter-in-law has requested that I remove any photos and names of the grandkids. She is concerned with child predators and rightfully so. So I will be posting other goodies on here, mostly all about my Craft Dimension which balances out my (eeyew!) Work/Job Dimension and the foibles of modern life. For friends/relatives, I'll be sending photos of the babies in emails.

Ciao.

RAIN, RAIN, RAIN

2006-03-29T15:30:00.000-08:00

This is pretty much how I feel today. More rain (of course) and worry about my roof and the usual complete disorganization and lack of concern about anything from our supervisors.

The job that pays for my roof and the food I put in my mouth. So shaddup.

2 FINISHED PROJECTS

2006-03-19T19:57:00.000-08:00

Making it up as I went along, I knitted another little hat for my grandson using Snuggly baby yarn.

VERY SIMPLE BABY HAT

Using No. 4 dp needles, I cast on 60 stitches (marking the join) and knit 2, purl 2 in rounds for about an inch. Then I used the same size needles and increased 4 stitches in the first round by knitting in the front and back of each 15th stitch. I repeated, increasing 4 stitches in the next round by knitting in the front and back of each 16th stitch. There was now a total of 68 stitches on my needles.

Then simple stockinette stitch in rounds for approx. 3.5 inches. I put markers every 17 stitches to mark the round in fourths. I knit two together before each marker to make the swirled top and when down to about 12 stitches, cut a tail and pulled through a double thickness of yarn to gather and tie off the top. After washing and drying, I presented to my grandson.

REALLY SIMPLE BAG

Again, I made this up as I went along. I washed and dried some really cool upholstery fabric, made a tube which I turned inside out, sewed shut one end and then, with the side seam turned inside, sewed shut the other end. Adding some matching polyester strap and clips from the sewing shop, I made a handbag with astrap long enough to hang across my body, from left shoulder to right hip. The bag is self-lined and washable.

3 WEEK HIATUS

2006-03-18T08:45:00.000-08:00

My three weeks of Family Medical Leave is nearly over.

I had so many plans for this time. But it was taken up with the necessities of each day--errands, helping the post-op DDIL (dear daughter-in-law) and helping my granddaughter adjust to no longer living as the princess of the castle. She must now share with her baby brother, whom she adores. There are lots of emotions to sort out (for everyone) and lots of new work to be done. I recently heard the expression, "Twice the kids, triple the work."

As for knitting, I've made several tiny hats (K2,P2 beanies) for the newborn because it is still so damned cold. And I have wished I had more woolen socks. Nylon just doesn't keep your feet warm in the cold. So I guess it's time to get down to sock knitting for this Spring and next winter.

At least I've had a taste of what retirement will be like. If retirement ever really comes.

The best part about the last three weeks has been having a clear mind, not a mind crowded up with work tasks, schedules, voices, and that most time-consuming of all, office politics. What a waste of energy and time.

SNOW IN SAN FRANCISCO

2006-03-11T08:34:00.000-08:00

Can you believe it? Approximately every 25 years, there is a light snow in San Francisco. And this was the year. In my Oakland neighborhood, all I got was a heavy hail, but on the local news, snow was the major story (a nice change).

And I also finished the Big Blue Blankie (made from Baby Soft acrylic yarn):

For Lazy Moms and Grandmas, you can always buzz down to the local fabric shop and get a yard or two of cute fleece for a blankie. If you're feeling enthusiastic, you can edge it with rickrack or crochet, or just use as is:

Now I can start on something else. Finally.

HE HAS ARRIVED!

2006-03-06T19:08:00.000-08:00

Nearly nine pounds, my grandson was delivered this morning, a week before his due date.

All went and is going well.

Big Sister Adalia went through some changes for a few hours, but soon warmed to her new baby brother. She spent the day in bed with Mommy:

Daddy calmed down a little also:

And here are the two proud grandmothers, Abuela Charo on the left, and yours truly (known as Gaga) on the right:

I'm still working on the knitted Blue Blankie.

I FORGOT TO MENTION...

2006-03-06T18:41:00.000-08:00

that my son, the expectant father, was a little nervous last night:

LONG TIME, NO BLOG

2006-03-05T14:16:00.000-08:00

Soooo busy and then 2-3 weeks off for Family Medical Leave. The past week has been heaven. I spent one whole day sitting on my couch, listening to a book on tape, knitting. Otherwise, I ran errands, helped my son and daughter-in-law prepare for the new baby, and took my granddaughter every other night. Each time I brought her home the next morning, she would search for her baby brother in her mommy's bed and then see her mommy's stomach was still huge. I don't think she believes this is ever really going to happen.

But, tomorrow is Baby Evan's birthday (after a couple of false alarms earlier this week). I've nearly finished the Big Blue Blankie, but not quite yet.

I'll be spending a lot of time at the hospital tomorrow before, during, and after the Caesarian. The obstetrician stated that with a baby as big as this one, my petite daughter-in-law Charito and baby would have a 20% chance of survival with a natural childbirth.

We have to remember that the Good Old Days often saw childbirth deaths of both mother and baby. I'm all for natural childbirth, but there are times when I'd rather err on the side of caution. My own son's birth should have been Caesarian, and after a forceps delivery, my bladder was ruptured and required major surgery the following day.

I bought 1,000 stickers for my granddaughter, who has been an emotional Jekyll and Hyde this week. She always relaxes and zones out while peeling off stickers one by one and carefully placing them in groups on paper. We each have our different therapies and can bring them to the hospital with us.

Last Thursday, I met with two friends for lunch at Garibaldi's on College.

These are ladies I worked with back when Reagan was Governor of California. They both stuck with Civil Service careers and are both now retired. I am so jealous (especially after last week off), I can hardly stand it.

We all lost touch and then one morning, Sandra (the lady on the right) walked into my office for a meeting. We hadn't been in contact for about 30 years. Now she, Mary (the lady on the left) and I try to get together for luncheons.

One of the owners of Garibaldi's, Ann, is another friend:

All of these ladies are wonderful people with their own stories and I feel very lucky to know them as friends.

Today, Sunday, is freezing cold and so windy, what tiles remain on my roof are blowing off, I'm sure. Reminds me of the cold in Skye:

but without the clean, sweet air.