Sunday Stealing

I've answered several of these before, but we just came from a belated sushi dinner (we always have sushi on Paul's and David's birthdays and should have gone out last night, but we were at Roger's party). I am so stuffed full of food and watching the SAG awards, that I decided to do this collection of questions anyway.

1) Put your iTunes on shuffle. Give me the first 6 songs that pop up.
* Do you Hear What I Hear? (Perry Como Christmas album)
* Belle of the Ball, (Leroy Anderson Favorites )
* The Marvelous Toy, (John Denver)
* Orange Blossom Special, (Johnny Cash)
* I Wanna Be Like You, (Heigh-Ho Mozart)
* Don Oiche Ud I Mbeithil (Glenstel Abbey Monks)

2) If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?
Betty White. I would love to talk with her about animals and her career in television. Another choice would be Daphne Sheldrick, on her haven for orphan elehants and rhinos in Kenya

3) Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17.
"It must be sewn on," she said, in a rather motherish tone. (It's a book of Peter Pan which I'm getting ready to send to one of the Compassion children.

4) What do you think about most?
Dogs

5) What does your latest text message from someone else say?
"Enjoy! I've heard it's good." (Jeri replying to my message about seeing "In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play.")

6) Do you sleep with or without clothes on?
Since I sleep in chair, under a dog, with.

7) What's your strangest talent?
I think I can still wiggle my ears; I haven't done it in years.

8) Women....(finish the sentence) ; Men....(finish the sentence)
Women can be very open with their feelings; men mostly keep feelings bottled up inside (of course there are lots of exceptions to those rules)

9) Ever had a poem or song written about you?
Actually yes. My friend Melody wrote a poem about me for my birthday once, I think.

10) When is the last time you played the air guitar?
Never

11) Do you have any strange phobias?
I am convinced I am going to die by a big semi truck to the right of us on the freeway toppling over on top of our car.

12) Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose?
No.

13) What's your religion?
Recovering Catholic

14) If you are outside, what are you most likely doing?
Picking up mail or getting into the car.

15) Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?
Definitely behind the camera!

16) Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band?
Simple. Lawsuit. Of course, they haven't played as a group since 1997.

17) Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online?
Actually, I don't do either. Most of my interactions are by snail mail or e-mail.

18) Do you believe in karma?
Not really. If there is such a thing as Karma, it's made some big mistakes in my life!

19) What does your URL mean?
"Airy Persiflage" means light banter. It comes from The Mikado, where KoKo asks, "Is this a time for airy persiflage?"

20) What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength?
My greatest weakness is my lack of self control. My greatest strength is that I can be a pretty good friend, given the opportunity.

21) Who is your celebrity crush?
I don't think I have one at present.

22) Have you ever gone skinny dipping?
A couple of times right after my parents got a swimming pool and my father INSISTED that I try it....then made me feel dirty for doing it.

23) How do you vent your anger?
Eat. Cry. Write journal entries that probably don't sound angry, but which I know really are.

24) Do you have a collection of anything?
Dogs. Dust bunnies.

25) What was the last lie you told?
I moved this from #17 to here because the last lie I told (actually small fib) was in one of the previous 24 answers.

Another Milestone Birthday

"You certainly have been going to a lot of birthday parties," my mother said to me when I called her to chat at a rest stop, while we were en route to San Francisco. I hadn't thought about that, but I guess with today and the recent 102nd birthday of Herbert Bauer, we have been to a couple of birthday parties.

We went to San Francisco this afternoon to help our friend Roger Pierson, from The Lamplighters, celebrate his 70th birthday.

Roger hasn't performed with the Lamplighters in many years, but he began his career with the company in 1968, so he is definitely one of the "old timers," and is part of the Gilbert dinner that we hold each year in memory of Gilbert Russak. The members of the company who came to Roger's party were some of our best Lamplighters friends. There were also people from his work, and neighbors and probably other people there. Since the party went from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m., people came and went and while the apartment was always full, it was never crowded.

At some point there was the usual "Happy Birthday" song. It always gives me chills...you have never had that song sung to you until you get a room full of professional singers doing it in multi-part harmony!

The birthday boy wanted his picture taken with everyone who was there, and the apartment size being a limiting factor to taking a group photo, it was done in groups of two or three, and we all lined up for a quick shot with the guest of honor.

I handed my camera to a woman for her to take a picture for me, and then, as she had to leave herself, I became the official photographer, following Roger around and taking pictures for him on his camera.

I'm looking at that picture now and noticing something strange. One of the guys there, Bill Neil, who has performed with the Lamplighters off and on since 1965 (he still shows up on occasion for a small role) was commenting about how he's not as tall as he used to be and how when he went to a family gathering he hung out more with the women because he was now shorter than all the other men.

I have always been taller than Walt but with age (and the stooped posture I seem to have permanently acquired), I am now shorter than he is!). And yes, I really do have two boobs, but one seems to be squished in Roger's armpit.

Anyway, it was really a nice, low key party, with Roger supplying all the food as his gift to us, and I got a chance to visit with some of my favorite people.

We left around 8 to get home to feed the dogs and when we got here there was some 'splaining to do to Lizzie because the last thing I did before we left the house was to have a nice conversation with this lovely cat, recently clipped for health reasons.

She rubbed her head all over me and I know Lizzie was confused!

As I head off to sleep, there is a tickle in my throat and that pre-cold feeling in my nose. I hope I have not caught the cold my mother had on cousin's day. When I talked to her today, she was still feeling miserable.

Saturday 9

1. How did you cope with your biggest heartache?
I'll let you know if I ever do. Still working on that one.

2. Who was the last person you visited in the hospital?
My cousin Kathy, who died a week later.

3. How many jobs have you held in your life? How many of those were part of your chosen career field?
About 8, I think. Since I guess my "chosen career field" was clerical, I guess most of them.

4. How did you discover Saturday 9?
From Kwizgiver who has the most interesting memes.

5. If you could take the train from anywhere to anywhere, where would 'anywhere' be?
I have always wanted to take a train across the Canadian Rockies, or else through the Alps.

6. When was the first time you cooked for someone else?
My cousin and I cooked an anniversary dinner for her parents. We chose to make liberal use of food coloring (red mashed potatoes, blue "green" beans, etc.) My uncle took my aunt out for dinner.

7. What is the worst beverage you've ever tasted?
Gatorade

8. Is there anything in life you are "certain" about? Firm in your beliefs? Strong in your convictions?
Nothing in life is certain. Of that I am sure.

9. Do you know anyone who has as very unusual pet?
My friend's daughter is a teacher and their classroom had a gila monster that got to walk the halls free, until it got so big it was attacking people's feet and they had to give it away.

Lunch with Peter Pan

I had lunch with Peter Pan today.

Well, she used to be Peter Pan.

My former roommate, Jeannie, was going to be passing through Sacramento today and suggested that we meet for lunch. The last time we saw each other, I was pregnant with either Tom or Paul...or maybe David. Suffice to say it was a long time ago.

I found a picture of my first roommate, Judi, the one I didn't get along with. Perhaps the fact that she appears only by accident in the background of a group photo give some sort of indication of how I felt about her.

This was our little home on the hill on the campus of UC Berkeley. When looking for lodging before I moved to Berkeley, I secifically chose Mitchell Hall because it was the smallest dorm on campus and I was terrified at the idea of going into a big dorm my first time away from home. I think Mitchell had 50 girls compared to >100 in the other dorms in this 4-building complex and many more in the "new" dorms down on the flat. Also, living in Mitchell meant I got lots of exercise since I had to climb the long hill up Dwight Way every day.

At the end of my first disastrous semester as Judi's roommate, Jeannie took pity on me and invited me to be her roommate. I was delighted.

As I said, Jeannie had been Peter Pan. There was a park called Children's Fairyland in Oakland (it still exists) which was a favorite of little tots and hired older kids (maybe high school age?) to dress as various storybook characters.

I don't know how long Jeannie was Peter Pan, but what a perfect person to play the part. With the air of magic about her and how much she even looked like Mary Martin at the time, they must have hired her without much of an audition.

Her love of Mary Martin was one of the things that helped us be good roommates...she had a passion for Mary Martin that matched mine for Judy Garland, only I had met Judy Garland and she has received a personal letter from Mary Martin.

I have had great guilt for many years about our two semesters together as roommates. During the Judi semester, I had run away to Newman Hall and established a social life there so I didn't have to interact with Judi. Consequently I wasn't the close roommate that I'm sure Jeannie expected because of my social life at Newman, which kept me away from the dorm much of the time (though she did tell me today that I hadn't been such a bad roommate, so I finally feel better about that!)

We met for lunch at a Thai restaurant Marta had recommended and we sat and talked for 2½ hrs over some of the best pad thai I've ever had. We discovered that there was no awkwardness, despite the passage of >40 years. We slipped into chatter as if we had just seen each other yesterday.

We talked about our time at the dorm, and I was pleased when she rolled her eyes when I mentioned Judi. She also remember Char and I gave her the history of the Pinata Group. We discussed our grandchildren and books we had read.

We talked computers and cell phones. We talked music, and her feeling that her husband, who was a music teacher, would love to talk with Jeri, should the occasion arise. We also talked theater, since her husband has done lighting design and they have been active in theater (mostly in the musical part) for many years.

Jeannie has a masters degree in religious studies and she now teaches English to a group of Afghani women, which led to a discussion about the middle east. . She positively glows when she talks about her students and proudly showed off pictures of them. I swear, if more people would get to know people of other nationalities, colors, sexual orientation, religion, there would be less hate and more friendship in the world.

We compared notes on places where we had both been (especially the South of France, which we both loved).

The time just flew by and I was sad that we both had to leave. We parted in the parking lot with the hope that we will find an excuse to get together sooner than 40 years from now.

I was so pleased to discover the same person I remember from so long ago, just a little bit older, but still with that sparkle of pixie dust in her eyes and an enthusiasm for life that I remembered so fondly. She is Peter Pan, all grown up, but retaining the magic that made her special in the first place..

Sunday Stealing

For once Jim of Jim's Journal beat me to this meme.

36. Have you watched American Horror Story?
Nope. I don't know what that is.

37. Baseball hat or toque?
I am not a hat person, not by choice, by size of head. I have almost never found a "one size fits all" hat that is large enough for my head. I can't even wear baseball caps because at the largest setting, they aren't big enough. I did buy a hat on the ship in China, it fit, it did the job (kept the sun off my face), looked incredibly stupid!@

38. Do you shampoo or soap up first in the shower?
Shampoo.

39. Wet the toothbrush or brush dry with the toothpaste?
Eww...definitely wet!

40. Pen or pencil?
Pen, I think. I've been trying to find my "pen personality" and at the moment I am using a Sharpie ultra fine point. It's tricky finding the right pen when you are left handed.

41. Have you ever gambled at a casino?
Oh sure. When you live this close to Nevada, you end up taking a lot of people there to try it out. But I don't like it. I'm not lucky and whatever money I gamble, I lose. Walt and I once lost all the money we had playing the slot machines at StateLine, Nevada. Fortunately we were playing penny slots and only had 13 cents between us, but that was enough to get me to swear off gambling forever.

42. Have you thrown up on a plane?
No. I've been queasy a couple of times in rough patches, but fortunately I've never had to use that flight bag.

43. Have you thrown up in a car?
Oh lord, yes. When I was a kid my father hated to drive anywhere with me, especially on a winding road (which we had to take to get to my grandmother's house) because I always threw up. Fortunately that doesn't happen now--I can even read in the car.

44. Have you thrown up at work?
No.

45. Do you scream on roller coasters?
I don't do roller coasters.

46. How many shoes do you have?
There are 4 pairs of shoes that I wear--Birkinstocks, loafers, trainers, and some shoes that I bought as "good shoes." They are old lady clunky, but they are comfortable.

47. Who was your first roommate?
Like everyone with a same-gender sibling, my sister was my first roommate. When I moved to college, I roomed for a semester with a girl named Judi who was the only one who still needed a roommate. It didn't take me long to realize why she was the only girl in the dorm without a roommate...I changed roommates the next semester.

48. What alcoholic beverage did you drink when you got drunk for the first time?
I don't remember, but it was probably some sort of frou-frou rum drink. We drank a lot of those when I was in college

49. What was your first job?
I washed bloody test tubes and poopy slides for a medical laboratory. I also held the arm of terrified people getting blood tests.

50. What was your first car?
I have never owned my own car.

51. When did you go to your first funeral?
I have never figured out why my grandparents took me to the viewing of a friend of theirs when I was five years old. All I remember about it (and I remember it vividly!) was that the room was small and filled with people, so very hot. The casket had a blanket of gardenias and to this day they make me sick to my stomach. And I could only see the woman's nose sticking up out of the coffin.

52. How old were you when you first moved away from your hometown?
I was 18 and left home to go to UC Berkeley (and move into the dorm with Judi!). I never went back. I was never so glad to be out of a house as I was that house.

53. Who was your first grade teacher?
Sister Mary St. Patrice, a nun of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or the BVMs, as we called them.

54. Where did you go on your first airplane ride?
We flew home from So. California. I had won a cruise ship ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles in an essasy contest. But it was one way and the ship was headed off to Hawaii, so we spent the weekend, went to see Disneyland, and then flew home. This would have been about 1957. My father was 72 when he died and he had never been on an airplane.

55. When you snuck out of your house for the first time, who was it with?
I don't remember ever sneaking out. You really didn't do that in San Francisco, I don't think.

56. Who was your first best friend and are you still friends with them?
Gayle Tarzia and I walked to school together for all of grammar school, and I spent a lot of time at her house because she had TV and I didn't. I found her a few years back on Facebook and friended her. She accepted my friend request and to date has not so much as said "hello" to me. Could be because our views on things seem to be diametrically opposed!!!

57. Where did you live the first time you moved out of your parents’ house?
Mitchell Dormitory, on the UC Berkeley campus

58. Who is the first person you call when you have a bad day?
I can't think of a person. I would probably sit down here and write a journal entry.

59. Whose wedding were you in the first time you were a bridesmaid?
My cousin Peach's wedding.

60. What is the first thing you do in the morning?
Feed the dogs

61. What was the first concert you attended?
Judy Garland played a week at the San Francisco Opera House. I had saved up enough money that I was able to make it to 3 of the concerts. (When she brought her Carnegie Hall concert through several years later, I was able to see that too)

62. First tattoo or piercing?
My only piercings are one in each ear. Ned was a baby when I got my ears pierced (that would have been 1967). I left him with my father and went to a jewelry store downtown to have it done. I felt like I was having an abortion, because in my Catholic school only the "bad" girls had pierced ears. But I've never regretted it!

63. First celebrity crush?
Judy Garland, after seeing A Star Is Born in 1955.

The Grace of a Gazelle

I was really looking forward to writing this entry today. It was going to be filled with cute little puppy pictures and telling you all about the little 2 week old doxie puppy that I was now bottle-feeding.

Sharon (SPCA) sent me a text to ask if I wanted to take him and I enthusiastically said yes, but asked if I could wait a day to get him because we would be in out of town.

I hadn't heard from her by the time we got home, and then there was still nothing from her in the morning, so I sent a note asking if I was going to be picking him up today. She eventually answered that yes, and that she was just waiting to find out what time he would be dropped off and ready for pickup and would get back to me when she knew the time and place.

Later in the afternoon an e-mail arrived saying that "The vet tech that was taking the dog over the weekend decided to foster until placement through animal services, so the puppy will not be coming to us after all."

I guess he was just too cute. So no cute puppy stories. No cute puppy pictures. And especially no cute puppy at all.

This is probably best because I'm working at Logos tomorrow, going to Cousins Day the next 2 days (my mother would have LOVED to have a bottle feeding doxie--she loves them) and then reviewing two shows on the weekend, as well as having lunch with my college roommate (the good one), whom I have probably not seen in 50 years. Fitting bottle feeding in around all those activities was not impossible, but it would just be easier if I didn't have to.

But that left me with the question of what I was going to write about tonight, since all I did today was fold laundry, write letters, clean my desk, and watch 9 episodes of Dexter, as I try to get through all five seasons before 1/31 when they will be taken off OnDemand.

As I sat at the dinner table watching a glob of meatloaf roll gently down the front of my favorite sweatshirt and into Polly's mouth, leaving behind a little trail of grease, I decided I needed to address one of my biggest problems: I am a real klutz.

This shirt, for example, is a great sweatshirt which my friend Olivia gave me when I visited her in Salt Lake City. It sports the logo of the business she owned then, and I wear it pretty much all winter long, unless it's in the washer. Which it is almost every day because of spillage of juice or something off of my dinner plate, or a glop of yogurt, or melted butter from a warmed tortilla. The shirt is falling apart, probably mostly because of how often it has been washed. (I ordered a new one, without logo, from Amazon yesterday--and hope it is going to fit as well and be as comfortable. I have no doubt that it will be bounding meatloaf off of itself as well.)

Polly lives under my chair at meal time. Sometimes I share bits of my dinner with the dogs, but, like a dog under a toddler's high chair, Polly and Lizzie won't leave my side because they are pretty sure that sooner or later something will fall on the floor.

When Peggy and I were together, whether here or in Australia, she so often rolled her eyes at my klutziness. At least twice she ordered me out of small shops after I tripped and nearly knocked something over. "Wait outside," she would say sternly, pointing at the door.

One night at dinner in Australia she told me that she could tell me why I always spilled food down my front. It was, she said, because I needed to get closer to the plate. I've tried that here at home, but it seems that even having my chin ON the plate itself is no guarantee of no spillage. My chest just seems to be a food magnet. Perhaps the bountiful endowment that seems the blessing of the Scott women may have something to do with that.

I can't leave my office without knocking something over. Truly. It is about 8 steps from my desk to the door and even knowing that I am prone to knocking things over and taking precautions not to touch anything, I still do. Papers go flying, notebooks topple, the TV remote crashes to the ground and the batteries roll out. This has been going on for years -- and since I go in and out of my office dozens of times each day, you'd think I'd have devised a solution by now.

Walking from the family room to the bathroom, I trip over things on the floor, or the door of the dog crate, or one of the dogs or one of their toys. I knock things off of the dresser in the family room.

Now of course some of this could be solved by having pristeen surfaces, but I think we can all agree that's unlikely to happen.

So I will just, I guess, keep knocking and spilling my way through life and hoping that my final act won't be to knock myself out hitting the corner of a dresser while tripping over a dog when I was trying to get to a wipe to remove some food from my shirt.

Though, if you think about it, what a perfect way for my life to end!

I have let it be known that after my death, I want to be cremated. I'm betting that somewhere, someone is going to spill the ashes.

Losing Another One

It was March of 2011 before we had our first (of 11) death (Walt's mother) last year.

January isn't over yet and we have already learned of the death of a second friend.

I met Mike Kelley first on line in one of the CompuServe forums back in the late 1980s. He and his husband Bill (who, we learned later, through comparing genealogy records, was a very distant cousin of mine) were both active in the Gay/Lesbian Issues forum (Section 17), one of two forums I was most active in (the other being Women's Issues, Section 16).

I never had much to do with him on line, but of course read all the stuff he posted.

It was probably 1994 or 95 when Section 17 had its first social gathering. Walt and I joined the group in Reno for a weekend and that was when I met Mike and Bill for the first time. It was no surprise that he was ascerbic and funny and...yes...campy. I enjoyed being part of the group.

Mike loved to party and Tanqueray was his beverage of choice--he was kind enough to share some with me in Reno.

Someone on line had once called Mike a "hateful old cow" and he adopted the moniker and made it fabulous. He was "the Hoc" and he had the largest collection of cow crap. Everybody gave him things in a cow theme. Naturally, I carried it to extremes. I sent him a cow mailbox once and Walt and I bought a lawn ornament in Maryland that had to be disassembled to fit in my suitcase.

Everyone in that group was so supportive when David died. They were very solicitous when Walt and I joined them in Las Vegas in 1996 to celebrate the 50th birthday of Merrell Frankel (who left us in 2010). The highlight of that trip was a tour of the Liberace museum. Trust me, you haven't lived until you've gone through the Liberace Museum with a group of gay guys!

In October of 1996, we went to Washington DC for the last display of the entire AIDS quilt and for the candlelight march from the capitol to the Lincoln Memorial.

Somewhere there was also a trip to San Diego with the group (where the "camping" picture above was taken).

Then there was the month I spent with Mike and Bill in Houston, after Bill had been released from the hospital and Mike was afraid to leave him home alone, because he didn't want Bill to die while Mike was out. So I moved into their house and cooked and cleaned for them. (Houston. July. Was I insane?) A big part of what I did was to carry Mike's laundry to the laundromat...he had a huge collection of white t-shirts with various logos on them and sent a bunch out to be cleaned each week.

I returned to Houston a couple of times after that but Mike and I had a disagreement on my last trip and though I continued to communicate with Bill until his death (I spoke with him on the phone the morning of the day he died), I didn't really hear much from Mike.

He went through an "event" that nearly killed him -- I'm still not sure what exactly happened and what the aftermath was, but he was forced to leave his job because he couldn't handle it any more.

We became Facebook friends, when all the Section 17 people were gradually finding Facebook. I was, quite frankly, surprised to see photos of him because he had aged so much and didn't look like the Mike I knew. (But then I'm sure I had too!)

I think of Mike and Merrell and Bill all fit and healthy and together again, maybe laughing the way they always did, and it makes me smile, but with a little tear in my eye too.