The Artistic Gene

My aunt was a wonderful artist.  She painted, she drew and everybody's house is filled with her artwork.  One uncle also created great "monsters" that we all love and after his death, everyone took one or more to have.  My father was a musician.  He may have worked for the post office his whole life, but his love was music and the only times I remember him "happy" are when he was either listening to his vast collection of jazz records, or sitting at the piano playing.  I am told that his mother was a good piano player, but gave it up and in all the years I knew her I had no idea of how good she had been in her younger years.  His father was an Irish tenor in vaudeville. All of those genes passed me by, but filtered through me to my children.  All five of them were musical.  Jeri has made a career out of it, but all the boys played guitar.  Ned still sits in with other bands and sometimes performs in public, either on guitar or drum, or both.  He was the drummer for Lawsuit. 

Tom doesn't perform in public, but he can play his guitar.  Dave played guitar too, and Paul was lead singer of Lawsuit and played guitar.

Before she got her degree in music at Berklee College of Music and then joined their faculty, where she has  taught for more than 10 years, Jeri was a theater major and got her masters degree in Theater Design.

While she was here this past week, she cleaned the last of her "stuff" out of the house, mailed a lot to Boston, and threw away lots and lots of her work from college years.  There were two set designs, for example, which are incredibly intricate and which Alice Nan insisted she had to keep, though she had no room for them, so left them here, with instructions to us to throw them away if we wanted to.

Sadly, I can't remember which shows these were for, but Walt particularly liked the top one because the back of it is a map of Ireland. They are both so incredibly intricate that I, with my two left thumbs am amazed that a child of mine can create something like this.

Then there are the costume designs, which she tossed in the garbage and I insisted she take out so I could at least take pictures of them.  These two, for example, from Midsummer Night's Dream:

Puck and Francis P. Flute

She has always drawn great cartoon-y figures and I love how these look.  You can't see it, but the sign pointing to Puck's flower says "squirt flower."  Obviously this was a modern day production.  Sadly, my favorite from the Midsummer collection somehow disappeared, but it was beautiful. 

Then there are these from The Cherry Orchard

And these from Another Part of the Forest

These are the sorts of things that you hate to throw away but really....what is the point of keeping them when you are trying to downsize.  I have now photographed them all, and I guess I'll have to do what Jeri tried to do -- throw them away.  Sadly.

Things Winding Down

Last night we went to see a wonderful production of 42nd Street at the Woodland Opera House.  I sat in the gimp section at the back, but they gave comp tickets to Jeri and Alice Nan too and they were able to sit together closer down.

 

Today was Alice Nan's last day here.  Jeri, who made a delicious dinner last night, pulled together the contents of the refrigerator and made a delicious breakfast.

 

In the early afternoon, before Alice Nan turned her wheels south she came with us to Eldervilla to visit my mother.  She was eating lunch with two other women when we got there.

 

It looks like she's grumpy, but she actually seemed to be enjoying herself.  We sat at the table with her for awhile and I was able to get a nice 2-dog picture.

 

Alice Nan liked her bedroom and she stayed to chat for a bit longer, but finally had to get on the road.  Jeri and I stayed, though Jeri was very sleepy and fell asleep on her grandmother's shoulder, while Simba napped on Jeri's knee and I watched the MSNBC coverage of the newly released Mueller report

 

We finally left and my mother didn't seem to be stressed by our leaving her.  It feels like she is settling in, thank goodness.

Jeri and I came back to Davis and stopped at Borders for an asparagus quesadilla and a nice chat, then home for a bit.  I took a short nap, then cooked dinner and everyone (but me) was off to an early sleep.  Jeri will be going back to Boston tomorrow and we will miss her.

Jeri's Busy Day

We all had cold pizza for breakfast.  Phil taught Walt the joy of a pizza-egg combination, which looked tasty.
 

Jeri and Phil then headed off for coffee with a friend.  They then planned to go to Atria to have lunch with my mother.  Ned was coming here to be with Walt when a pest inspector came to check the house.  I opted out of the Atria visit.

But then Atria called.  My mother had fallen on the patio and they were sending her to the ER in Vacaville.  After lots of tries at all sorts of phone numbers, we managed to connect with Jeri and Phil and plans changed.  Jeri would go with me to Vacaville to the ER, Walt would stay home to wait for Ned and the pest guy.

We got to the ER and, of course my mother didn't know where she was or why she was there.  Jeri, bless her, was just so good with her grandmother.

There was no bad news about results of her fall and she was free to go.  They sold us a walker, which I didn't think my mother would use, but she actually did.

(like mother; like daughter)

Poor Jeri had to both get her grandmother into the car each time, but also get her mother into the car each time, since I cannot lift my legs high enough to get into the car.

We decided to go to Fentons Creamery for lunch and it was the perfect choice.  The noise level was deafening, but my mother ate all of her lunch and had more of a good visit with Jeri.

After lunch, we indulged in hot fudge sundaes.

 Then we went back to Atria, where we handed my mother off to one of the attendants there and Jeri drove me to the Davis Kaiser, where I was supposed to have my blood tested again.  She has been so wonderful about getting me into the car each time.

We finally got home, as the pest guy was leaving.  Ned and Jeri went back to Sacrament (where Phil was already) and the Bostonians will be flying back home this evening. 

Having Jeri and Phil here this weekend, and Ned around to provide all sorts of help, made the weekend much easier.  Tomorrow, we are on our own again.

And tonight, my wonderful husband cooked dinner for me.

A Two Baby Day

The population of Davis increased by 2 yesterday.  I love sitting at the Inforation Desk and hearing the music box-like sound of Brahms' Lullaby playing softly over the loudspeaker to let the hospital know that a new baby has just been born.  Though these days, I don't know whether to feel happy or sad about the new little arrival, wondeering what kind of world he/she is entering.

The day started with the four of us (Jeri and Alice were here overnight) sitting around eating cranberry muffins and chatting.  Then Alice got her stuff together and took off for a lunch with a friend in Sacramento.  She would then be starting her trip back to Santa Barbara, so this was goodbye.

Jeri borrowed Walt's bike to go to Atria for lunch with my mother and then spent the afternoon biking around Davis to see if it had changed much since her last time here (it hadn't).

Walt took me out to Sutter where I learned that I had an assistant for the day.  Her name was Beloved and I'm not really sure what she was doing there--it's not like the Information Desk is a 2-person job!  But she told me that she had injured her arm and that she was just filling in in various slots around the hospital while she was healing.

As it turned out, it was kind of a busy day and it was nice to have her to run off to deliver flowers, and guide people to where they were supposed to be for various reasons.  We didn't chat much.  She had brought a book of "find a word" puzzles and spent most of her time working those while I finished my book (Doris Kearns Goodman's "Wait Till Next Year.")

At 4:30, Walt came to pick me up and we came home to sit for a bit before time to go out for Family Movie Night.  We try to go to a movie whenever Jeri is here, even though there was slim pickings right now.  Too many CGI-laden shoot-'em-up adventure movies.  Walt suggested Zootopia, which he wanted to see, but Jeri was lukewarm on it.  She preferred Spotlight, which I had seen but the other two had not.  I said I wouldn't mind seeing it again, so Spotlight it was.  Somehow it had a greater impact on the big screen, bringing back anew the shock of size and scope of the Cathaolic church cover-up of pedophile priests.

When I tried to check out how many exactly it was, I found this:

The Vatican revealed Tuesday that over the past decade, it has defrocked 848 priests who raped or molested children and sanctioned another 2,572 with lesser penalties, providing the first ever breakdown of how it handled the more than 3,400 cases of abuse reported to the Holy See since 2004.

What still galls me the most is that Cardinal Law, who orchestrated secret settlements for abuse claims made against at least seventy of his priests, in which families were paid to stay silent about the molestation and rape of their children, was appointed by John Paul II as Archpriest of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, one of the most prestigious churches in Rome, in 2004.

I'm glad that the Boston Globe shone a light on this scandal and set the stage for world-wide investigation of cases of molestation of children. But what a grievous sin that without the work of the team in Boston, this might have gone on forever with the Church continuing to cover it up and move pedophile priests to new parishes with new children to molest.

It was after 8:30 when we got home.  Walt fixed Jeri a "Dark and Stormy" while I got together one of our Blue Apron dinners, a Cuban Pork sandwich with a salad made of kale and fried plantains.

Jeri was so thrilled to see me fixing something with kale that she felt it deserved a photo!

When we first decided to try Blue Apron, my fear had been that the meals might not be large enough to feed us, but I have found that to be far from the case.  I can rarely finish my portion and last night there was enough for the 3 of us, with leftovers.

It was after 10 by the time we finished dinner and time for everyone to go to sleep.  Jeri is leaving today after she and I have lunch with my mother, then life gets back to whatever "normal" is around here, but it sure has been nice to have her home again, however briefly.

Like Sleeping On A Cloud

I've been having neck problems for the past several months.  Not bad neck problems, but the kind you get when you sleep wrong and you wake up with a stiff neck.

It wasn't that I didn't know why.  I heard somewhere recently that you should get a new pillow every 3 years.  I've been sleeping on mine for over 10 years and it long ago lost its "oomph."  So I know that my neck problems have been caused by sleeping on a bad pillow.  It was just easier to deal with the neck problem than actually going out and buying a new pillow.

Oh, I thought about it a lot.  "I should go get a new pillow."  But somehow just never did.

But JERI is in California.  She arrived on Sunday and has been at Tom's house.  Alice Nan is driving her up here on Wednesday, but they will spend the night with Uncle Norm and Aunt Olivia and then come to Davis on Thursday.  Alice Nan is going to spend the night so she can go with us to have dinner at Todo un Poco and visit with our Mexican daughter, Marie, on Thursday night before going to see friends in Sacramento.

Spending the night!  Ack!  I just never think of folks spending the night here (except Ashley and Dave when they dog-sit for us).  With all the crap around here and the obnoxious dogs it just never seems to be a good idea.  Alice has been so good to host us whenever we go to Santa Barbara but I just feel embarrassed to have her here in all this chaos.

The least I could do was to get new towels.  

So I went to Target yesterday and bought 2 new towel sets, one for Alice and one for Jeri.  And while I was there, I picked out a new pillow.  It seemed so decadent and self-indulgent.  It's not an expensive pillow, but it was at least fluffier than the one I have been sleeping on and seemed to have more body to it.

Well, lemme tell you.  I went into the couch last night, with my new pillow and with an extra layer of blanket (since I seem to sleep more soundly under two blankets instead of just one) and I sank my head into that new pillow and felt like I'd died and gone to heaven.  At the very least I was nestled in my own little cloud.

I also fell asleep in less than 5 minutes, and except for my usual 3 a.m. trip to the bathroom, I slept the entire night through. I had been so comfortable that after getting up at 3, instead of moving to the recliner, as I usually do I went back to the couch and it was light before I woke up again.  I can't remember the last time I've had so much sleep--and awakened without a stiff neck.

I'm also happy to have new towels, as the ones I have been using since we remodeled the bathroom in about 2002 are no longer soft and fluffy...and when Jeri and Alice leave, I can use them!

I put the towel set on the bed where Jeri will sleep in the "big bedroom" and sat in a chair and just looked at that room.  I keep saying we aren't hoarders, but you'd sure be hard pressed to prove that by looking at this room.  Just from where I sat I could see things like a manual typewriter that probably hasn't been used in 25 years, an old VCR -- maybe more than one.  There are mementos of events from decades ago, long since buried, including quilts I'd forgotten we had.  There are boxes of stuff overflowing and baskets of stuff overflowing and don't evenget me started on the books.  I have my very own little Logos going in that bedroom.

But I understood how my mother, whose house was never untidy, would just sit, look around her house and moan "what am I going to do with all this crap?"  The problem is knowing where to even begin to reduce the piles of stuff we are never going to use ever, ever again.

And then there's the "Pepto Room," the pink room where Alice Nan will sleep.  It has become a storage room for empty boxes.  Somehow the  recycle-able Blue Apron boxes get stored here instead of being thrown away, but that's a good thing because I used lots of them to clean out closets and drawers recently.  But there are still more.  I should start putting "crap" from the big bedroom into those empty boxes stll in the Pepto Room.

Char just moved to a new place yesterday and has been going through the "what am I going to do with all this crap" angst for some time now.  But she did it and can now start collecting new crap.  As I sat in the big bedroom this morning I decided what I REALLY need to do is go away fro a few days, get Ned to supervise (not do the work) and hire a crew to remove everything from that room and throw it all away, leaving only the books and the photo albums.

But that won't get done.  Still, it's a lovely dream.  And I even have a lovely new pillow to have that dream on.

Here's to the Ladies Who Lunch

What a fun lunch we had today!

I went over to Atria for my weekly lunch with my mother.  It was a deliciously rainy day and I was happy to find a parking place close to the building. On my way down to her apartment I ran into my friend Peggy and our friend Nancy.  Peggy, to my disappointment, has now moved to a different facility across town.  She has been the one who kept tabs on my mother and reported things to me when she was concerned, or told me when things were going great.  I miss her.  But she had come back for lunch with Nancy and they invited us to join them.

I went and got my mother and the four of us sat together.   Service in the restaurant was absolutely the best it has ever been.   I swear my meal (crab cakes and clam chowder) came within 5 minutes of ordering it.   I have been known to sit there for half an hour waiting for a bowl of soup.  

But today the service time was irrelevant.  We were having too much fun visiting.  Peggy, who in her time at Atria must have learned the name and back story of every person in the building, whether resident, server, or staff.   Everybody loved her and ever few minutes another person would stop by the table to say hello and ask how she liked her new place (where she is now is so close to her daughter's that her grandkids can walk over to visit)

Nancy and my mother are an interesting pair.  My mother is 94, Nancy is 90 and both have some degree of dementia.  But both enjoy each other and laugh at whatever they are saying to each other, whether it makes sense or not.  Peggy and I both treat them as if they have no problem at all and we all end up laughing a lot.

Ultimately I think our lunch lasted 2 hours and then Peggy had to leave to get her hair cut and my mother was ready for a nap.

I had some papers for her to sign.  I found out that California has a program for people with disabilities, including cognitive problems.  She can get a free telephone with big buttons that have pictures on them, so she doesn't have to remember where she put phone numbers. She signed the application, but is afraid it might be "too complicated" for her to understand.  We'll see...our state taxes have been paying for this program for years. Might as well see if we can get some benefit out of it.

In the afternoon I came home to take a nap before reviewing a show tonight.  I was not successful in getting to sleep, but the show was so good it kept me awake, so the nap was not necessary.  But in the late afternoon, I had one of my favorite kinds of internet experiences with Jeri.

She had been working on a production of Legally Blonde at Berklee College of Music.  I didn't get exactly what her role was with this show, but she had been working on the set and we discussed some of her feelings about it.  I asked if the show was going to be live streamed so I could watch it, and it was.

It was streamed last night, but I was working and couldn't see it, but it was streamed again tonight, and so at 4:30, Pacific time, I was connected to the Berklee College of Music theater in Boston watching the live production of Legally Blonde, while chatting by text with Jeri, who was in the orchestra pit of a theater across town at Boston College playing Thoroughly Modern Millie just before I had to leave the house go to review A Chorus Line here in Davis.

This is what it is to be part of a theater family!!

Today is Jeri's birthday.  I want to write something profound, but I did.  Several times:

http://www.funnytheworld.com/2011/Apr/26.htm

http://www.funnytheworld.com/2000/Apr/26.htm

and a group message I put together for her

http://www.funnytheworld.com/2003/Apr/26.htm

Happy birthday to the woman who changed my life 48 years ago today.   Dad was right back then...life was never the same...it was better.  I love you, Jeri.

Depleted

I can't remember (which seems oddly appropriate!) when I have ever been this mentally exhausted.  And we are at the start of this thing.   I cannot tell you how many times I answered the same questions from my mother over the last two days.  I know that you reach a point with your aging parents where you just do it, but Lord, does it wear you down.

When I called Customer Service and was trying to get a replacement credit card for my mother (who insists it disappeared from her dining room table and that she never took it out of the house) and the person on the telephone asked for the last 4 numbers of her SS number, my mother first handed me her Safeway card, then her Costco card, then her AAA card -- all had numbers, right?  Surely one of those would work.

 

If this had happened at the beginning of my two days with her, I probably would have laughed about it--because, really, it's pretty funny. But happening at the end of the two days, it was the straw that broke the camel's back and I just had to get out of there.

Must. practice. patience.

I had lunch with my friend Ruth yesterday, and then drove down to my mother's to "hang out" with her and Jeri for the afternoon.  We had a good time, did lots of talking and visiting.  Jeri and I went out to the store for my mother and enjoyed the alone time to talk about what was a very, very bad memory day.  

We had pizza leftover from the night before for dinner and Jeri chuckled noting that my mother heated the pizza on a tray in the oven, then transferred it to a serving plate, brought the plate to the table and put a piece on our plates, then took the serving plate back to the kitchen.  Why just mess up 2 plates when 3 would make so much more sense?

We were in the middle of eating our pizza when the lights went out.   She couldn't remember where her flashlight was, but we found a couple of candles and got those set up, expecting that the power would come back on again soon.  We took pictures by candlelight.

We left the dining room table and settled into the living room.   Jeri had an hour and a half to kill before I had to drive her to the bus.  For a time my mother told Jeri about things she remembered from her years living on the ranch, when she was a toddler up until mid-way through grammar school.  Jeri went into the other room, and in pitch black played the piano, making up a tune as she went along that I thought surely was from the score of the musical she had written last year.  I was very impressed when she told me she had "just made it up."

The lights were still out when I left to take Jeri to downtown San Rafael.  Driving along the streets, and the freeway, I could see how extensive the outage was.  Coming back from downtown, the whole swath of neighborhoods ahead of me was totally black.  I later found out 20,000 residents were affected.

When I got back to the house, my mother's stepson's daughter was there.  She lives close by and since she was unable to reach my mother by phone (the electrical power to the phone was also out!) she came by and brought her a lantern with an LED light, which was brighter (and definitely safer!) than the candles we were using (this morning I found the flashlights--it helps if you have light to see when you are looking!).   The lights came back on about 10 minutes after Denise left, but my mother was exhausted and was in bed by 9:30.

I won't try to explain how today went.  We had two things to do:   She had a doctor's appointment at 12 and we were going to stop at the bank to get replacement debit and credit cards for the cards she has lost.  I can't begin to describe how complicated those two tasks became.

And, as I predicted, when the doctor asked her how she was feeling, she said everything wasn't very bad, but that I had panicked.  I explained to the doctor exactly how it had been presented to me ("everything hurts.  I feel terrible.  I think I need to see the doctor") and also talked about her dizzy spells, which the doctor was able to recreate rather dramatically in the office, so she knew it wasn't just my "panicking" that brought my mother to the office!

A sample of how the day went all day long is our conversation going to the lab to get blood work done.

What am I getting?
Blood tests.
Am I getting an x-ray?
No.  Blood tests.
Why am I here again?
To get blood work.
Are they going to give me a shot?
No.  Just blood work.

etc. for about 10 minutes

The bank experience was even worse.  Much, much worse.  But before that, we went to lunch at a wonderful Basque restaurant where I had one of the best French Onion Soups that I've ever had.

I also had artichoke bottoms, in a lemon butter sauce.

Then, loins girded, we went to the bank.  When that ordeal was over, I was ready to return to Davis ASAP and as soon as we had the new credit card ordered, I did just that.

I know she's 93.  I know she can't help having zero memory some times.  I love her and I really do try to be patient and understanding, but some days it just kind of overwhelms me and I have to put some space between us for a bit.

I am really looking forward to getting her moved to a facility where I know that there will be someone around all the time to make sure she's OK which the rest of us, no matter how diligent we are, can't possibly do.  But she told Jeri that she didn't think she would move until the end of the year.  I hope her stepson and I can convince her that sooner is better!  Her doctor was VERY supportive and even gave rave reviews to one particular Catholic assisted living facility, with which my mother was already familiar, and suggests we check out next time I'm in town.  Fingers crossed.

Short but Sweet

Well, Jeri was only here with us for a very short time, but what fun we had with her.  It's so nice when you like your children.

This morning she borrowed Walt's bike and went off riding around town to "run errands."  I found out later that one of the "errands" she ran was to stop at the 7-11 across from the cemetery, buy a tiny bottle of Jim Beam, go to the cemetery, stand over Paul and David's grave, call my mother and the two of them together "drank a toast" to the boys and she poured the rest on the grave marker.  I love that she did that.

She got all her stuff packed up as soon as she got home again and we were on the road to my mother's.  I had told her that we would be there for lunch.   There have been so many schedule changes since Jeri first left Boston that it has been very confusing for someone who already has memory problems.  She called me around 4 last night to ask if she was expecting anybody for dinner that night.   We told her again that we would see her today and would be there in time for lunch and stay for dinner.  I really didn't want to do anything else to confuse her further!

We had a nice lunch.  She had fixed clam chowder, stuff for sandwiches, and fixings for a salad, which seemed pretty good for someone who says she never cooks and has forgotten how.

After lunch, I gave out the last of the Christmas presents, set up my mother's Sentsy, which she will probably never use much because I forgot that one of her "now that I'm in my 90s I have these problems" problems is that she is losing her sense of smell, so she could barely smell it when she held the scented blocks to her nose and I don't think she smelled it at all when it was up and running.  Owell.   It's a nice decoration.

Of course we had to take the traditional Grandma/Jeri picture.

And we even took a 3-generation picture.

While we were at it, Jeri took a picture of Walt and me too.

In the middle of the afternoon, we went for a walk around the lagoon in the park where my mother lives.  Her doctor has suggested she do this every day, twice a day, if possible.  I can't remember how far around the lagoon it is but I think it's something like 1/2 to 3/4 mile.  With her back problems, my mother has to stop frequently to sit and rest for a bit but there are benches spaced all around the water so this is easy for her.  I loved watching her and Jeri walking along the water, deep in conversation.

There are several kinds of water birds that frequent the lagoon.   I loved this guy, who spent quite a long time drying out his wings.

There was also a large flock of American coots along the path, who all turned tail and waddled off when Jeri and my mother approached.

Then we had dinner.  If lunch had been "nice," dinner was a huge surprise.  The woman who has forgotten everything she ever knew about cooking, had made spaghetti sauce with meatballs and we had spaghetti and meatballs, a great salad and French bread for dinner.  She never ceases to amaze me.

After dinner we watched Huell Howser's program, "California Gold."  Howser, a California television legend for many years, had just died two days ago and neither Jeri nor my mother had heard of this unique broadcaster (who was a favorite of Walt's mother), so we had to show them an example.  In starting to write this journal entry, I did some Googling about Howser and found this link to an article that included a lot of reactions on Twitter.  You MUST scroll down far enough to see the video of the avocado-eating dog, which is classic Howser,

(Earlier in the day, Ned had put together a special tribute to Howser on his radio station and texted us what time it would be on, so we sat here and tuned in Jack-FM and listened to Huell Howser there.)

Having done our duty by the memory of Huell Howser, we bid the two others goodbye and headed home to feed the dogs, who were very happy to see us (Sheila had not eaten Polly after all).  

It was just a great, if brief, visit with Jeri.  She doesn't fly home until Friday, but will spend the next couple of days with Grandma, having dinner with Uncle Norm and Olivia, and visiting her friends in the East Bay.  She definitely makes the most of her time when she is in California.

Miserable

8 January 2013

There is one thing you can say about those revolution-era French peasants...they were definitely "miserable," and more miserable in the sweeping movie saga than can be presented in the stage version of Les Miserables.   (The stage version, for one thing, can't begin to give anyone a feel for how disgusting it REALLY is to be mucking around in the sewers of Paris!)

Yes, we have seen yet another movie.  Almost every time Jeri comes, we end up having "family movie night" where we pick a movie to see together.  Since we were on our way to celebrate a belated Christmas with Ned and Marta in the evening, we had "family movie morning" today, since the first showing of Les Miserables was at 11:30.

Everything you may have read about this movie is true.  It's a spectacle, most of the performers are incredible, Ann Hathaway should win an Oscar for her performance of Fantine, and what in God's name was the director thinking casting Russell Crowe as Javert?  

If there is anything that takes this movie down, it's every scene that Crowe is in.  Instead of giving us the power of a Gladiator, he is stiff as a board.  He may have the voice of a pop singer (which means he can carry a tune, sort of), but is hopelessly out-sung by the quality of the voices of everyone else in the show, even down to little Gavroche.  Maybe he was cast to add "star power" to the marquee, but he certainly is not an asset to this otherwise wonderful film.

Now.  That said.  What happens when three theater people, all of whom have seen this musical many times (and Jeri has played it many times) begin to analyze the movie, which we all agreed we liked very much?  We nit-pick it to death.

We went to Panera restaurant for a late light lunch after the show and started to analyze both the movie and the story.  It is not a plot that stands up to close scrutiny.  Take Javert, for example.  I have never understood why he is obsessed with a guy whose crime was stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving family and who has served his time (19 years of hard labor) to the point where Javert chases the guy for more than 20 years, trying to capture him and, I guess, return him to jail after he has served his time and has been released (well he had jumped parole).  Twenty years chasing this guy.  Are there no other crimes in France?  Is Jean Valjean really on France's Most Wanted list?

Secondly, I have never understood this rebellion in the first place, from the first time I saw the show on stage, and it makes less sense in the movie version where the scale is grander. This isn't "the French Revolution" but merely the "June Rebellion" (the sequel to the "July Rebellion" two years eariler).  They gather all the furniture they can find, they block off a street, and this rag-tag band of rebels with just a few guns take on the entire French army--and their canons.  After spending half the show getting ready for the fight, the battle lasts about 5 minutes, almost everyone is killed and the soldiers take their canons and presumably go back to the barracks. 

This battle didn't even last as long as the Six-days War.  

I'm sure there was more to it than that in real life, but it always struck me as an exercise in futility and a sure-fire way to end your life quickly...and if that was the purpose, it works beautifully.

Also, Javert takes time off from chasing Valjean to lead the soldiers into battle against the rebels, but he also is the spy for them.  Are there no other competent soldiers in the French army?  Does Javert have to do it all himself? And if there ARE no other competent soldiers, why were they not beaten handily by the rebels?  After Valjean spares his life (nobody questions his assertion that yes, he did shoot the guy, though nobody asks to see the body either because they heard the gun go off), Javert is instantly back in full uniform and leading the charge.

See?  The movie, at least, does not hold up to scrutiny.   There are more explanatory details in the book, and perhaps even fewer discrepancies in the stage show.  Also we all hated that the Thernardiers, the couple who have been taking care of Cosette for her mother, are supposed to bring comic relief to all the gloom and doom and misery, but they were even more gloomy and doomy and miserable and did nothing to lighten the mood.

But that said, we all did love the movie and I'm glad we had a chance to see it with Jeri.

In the evening, we drove in to Sacramento to see Ned & Marta's new place (last time I saw it, they were still unpacking boxes).  The five of us went to a neighborhood Mexican restaurant called Three Sisters (apparently no connection to the chain Tres Hermanas!) and had a lovely dinner.

I've said it before...one of my very favorite things is watching my adult children interacting with each other, and how happy I am that they all get along so well.

After dinner, we went back to the house so I could finally give them all their Christmas presents.  The Superhero dog toys were a big hit with The Bouncer.

And Ned seemed pleased with his "waddle family" (family joke)

my father with his waddle family in the late 1950s

Unfortunately, I had brought the wrong present for Marta and gave her my mother's, not hers, so I brought that back home again and will give her the "real" present when I next see her.  Everybody (my mother, Jeri, Laurel, Alice Nan, and Marta) got Sentsy warmers and 3 different scents.  All have theirs now, except my mother -- and Marta, of course!

We left around 9 so Ned and Marta could get to bed, since they have work in the morning.  The rest of us were pretty sleepy, too, from our big day.   Tomorrow we take Jeri and leave her at my mother's, where she will spend the rest of her brief vacation here.

A Short Post

"Airy Persiflage" is a mirror image to entries posted on my journal "Funny the World." Today's FTW entry mostly concerned testing a new guestbook, so I've eliminated that for this Blogger entry, since there is no problem with the Blogger guestbook.  Hence, what is left is a short entry!

I felt like I had kids back in school again, briefly, this morning.  Jeri spent the night here last night so Walt could take her to the train station at 6 a.m.   She's going to Santa Barbara to spend a few days there and then drive up to San Rafael with Tom et al. so we can all be here for my mother's 93rd birthday party later this week.  (My mother can finally meet Lacie, who will be a year old next month!)

She was getting up at 5, so I made sure I was up then to fix coffee (turns out she didn't have any...but she could have!).  But then I packed a lunch for her--sandwich, banana, carrots, and yogurt with a spoon.  Put it in a nice little sandwich bag and packed it with some flax seed vegetable chips that Walt had.  I haven't packed her lunch in about 20 years or more!  I thought I should have taken a picture of her with her bags in hand when she left for the train, just as I usually did on "first day of school"s.

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When I looked at the Photo of the Day, I knew I had to play around with it for a bit.  I do love Photoshop!

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Tonight was the final production of the 2012 Music Circus season, Crazy for You, an extensive rewrite of the 1930 classic, Girl Crazy (a stage vehicle for Ethel Merman, movie version for Judy Garland). What a fun production. Noah Racey, the guy playing the Mickey Rooney part, was amazing.  I love stuff like that!

The Big Table

Jeri came to town for the weekend. She had some frequent flyer miles available and decided that she doesn't spend enough time with her grandmother, so just flew in on Friday and will fly out Monday morning. She thought we could all get together for dinner on Sunday, including Walt's brother and his wife.

I agreed to make a lasagna, Jeri would make garlic bread, Olivia would bring a salad and my mother would provide dessert. Ned made his bread dip for hors d'oeuvre. He and Marta also brought The Bouncer.

No way could I bring any of our dogs with us and have them be that well behaved!

In order to have dinner, my mother had to have help putting two leaves into her big, heavy, round table. How many people does it take to add leaves to a table? (apparently everybody and the dog, except the one taking pictures!)

But eventually it did get pulled apart, leaves inserted, table set, and we had a fun dinner.

And when dinner was over, the technogeeks sat around and compared various gadgets.

Then it was time to say goodbye to Jeri again, as she prepares to fly back to Boston. It was a short visit, but sweet!

Being a Mother

Being a mother is a mixed bag. Sometimes you think you've screwed things up horribly and you wonder where it all went wrong...and then one of your kids writes this to you and you sit there crying thinking--maybe I didn't do so badly after all:

1. She raised 5 kids and still maintains (most of) her sanity.

2. She kept incredibly detailed baby books and a diary of our childhood - so we could look back and see how much we threatened her sanity.

3. She encouraged me to throw pies at other people at a young age.

4. She made bread with her own two hands.

5. She encouraged us to get involved in theatre - and didn't worry if we stayed out late doing it.

6. She came to almost every performance of every little thing I ever did. She even flew across the country to do that, more than once.

7. She let me wear what I wanted to wear, when I needed that independence.

8. IBM selectric: the sound of my childhood.

9. She took in a huge number of foreign exchange students, and that had a tremendous impact on my view of the world - having dear friends all over the world makes it a smaller place.

10. She and my dad took us camping in remote places many parents would be afraid to take their children. And we loved it.

11. She takes pictures of everything, so I have a fantastic archive of my whole life.

12. She always remembers to bring the clam dip.

13. She made me a chicken pox birthday cake when I was five and had chicken pox on my birthday.

14. She threw a lot of amazing Christmas dinner parties for upwards of 20 people.

15. She made me a dolphin costume and a dress I loved, even though she claims not to know how to sew.

16. She made me learn how to type, a skill that is more valuable to me than I ever imagined it would be.

17. She and my dad took me to see plays and concerts from a very young age - giving me a love of live performance that continues to this day.

18. She bought me a clarinet for my 18th birthday, and a flute for christmas.

19. She paid for twelve years of piano lessons.

20. She encouraged me to study theatre in college, and never cared if I made money doing it.

21. She went to more Lawsuit concerts than just about anybody - and never felt awkward in a bar full of drunk college kids.

22. She trusted me to make good decisions in my young adult life.

23. She can drop musical theatre quotes into any conversation.

24. She flew across the country to surprise me on my 40th birthday.

25. She volunteers for all kinds of things, and gives her time to people most people would rather ignore.

26. She has marched in the gay pride parade.

27. She donates blood on a regular basis.

28. She has bottle fed at least a hundred orphan puppies.

29. One of those puppies now weighs 60 pounds and is sleeping at my feet right now - thanks mom!

30. She sends me photo messages almost every day.

31. She mastered the internet long before most of us were even paying attention.

32. She has written a daily essay about herself and posted it online almost every day for the last eleven years.

33. She has a bazillion Facebook friends - and I bet they're all really her friends.

34. She feels very strongly about a lot of political issues - and is never afraid to say what she really thinks, out loud, in public. And she's never afraid to make people angry.

35. She's reviewed about a million plays - and still finds something intelligent and constructive to say about every one, even when she thinks she's out of her element.

36. She calls her mother way more often than I call mine. She puts me to shame.

37. She reads more books than seems humanly possible.

38. She's a really good writer.

39. She's traveled all over the world.

40. She kept up on our grueling walking tour of France and Italy, even when she wanted to give up. And then she came home and started planning her next trip.

41. She's famous in Davis.

42. She cares. And she listens.

43. She sends me little presents, just because.

44. She loves her kids and her grandkid a whole lot.

45. She thought up 45 nice things about me, and that is a really serious task!

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

Thank you, Jeri

45 Things

This is Jeri's 45th birthday and I thought it might be fun to list 45 things about Jeri that are part of who she is.

1. I love her independence. She has done more by herself than I ever have.

2. I love that we can talk in theater quotes.

3. I like it when she texts from the orchestra pit during the run of a show.

4. Jeri gets more pure joy out of life than most people I know.

5. She's married to a neat guy too.

6. ...and I love their dog

7. I love how she always spreads her time out here by giving as much time to all her friends and relatives as she can.

8. I love her close relationship with her grandmothers (obviously including Walt's mother up until the end).

9. I have enjoyed watching her progression from neophyte teacher to popular teacher.

10. I like it when I see her self standing up for herself.

11. I love her dedication to staying in touch with her friends and family.

12. She's a great dog mommy.

13. I love listening to her play music. Her "Amazing Grace" at funerals is enough to un-harden the hardest of hearts.

14. I remember how David delighted in listening to her play the flute.

15. I remember how desperately she wanted a sister and how disappointed she was whenever we brought another brother home from the hospital for her.

16. I still can't believe that we put her on a city bus, alone, to ride up the hill to her 1st grade class.

17. She was always my godsend when I had to decorate a cake because I knew how to put designs in frosting, but didn't have the imagination to come up with the picture in the first place, and Jeri would draw it for me.

18. I remember the vacation when she read "Little House on the Prairie" over and over and over again.

19. She wanted to be Pippi Longstockings.

20. I was always in awe of her cavorting on stage with Marta and the rest of the Horns of Adequacy.

21. Jeri did usually know better.

22. I love it that she can fix an electrical appliance.

23. I remember the horrible night she was trapped on the bridge in San Francisco after the Loma Prieta earthquake.

24. I remember her inadvertently busking on the steps of a building in Dublin, when she played an Irish flute and people started giving her money.

25. Watching Aunt Jeri playing with Brianna is a true joy.

26. I remember her first ballet recital in Oakland, and subsequent performances in Davis (the dwarf beard was particularly fetching)

27. I look forward to her letters and she has inspired me to get back into writing snail mail.

28. I admire her lack of materialism.

29. She's one of hardest working people I know.

30. I will never forget the feelings of pride when I sat in the audience and watched her conduct the orchestra playing her own composition.

31. Or the feelings of pride watching You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, which she directed.

32. Or the feelings of pride watching The Peabody Duck, for which she was the set designer.

33. So proud when she was offered a full-time teaching position at Berklee.

34. Such fun hearing about her starting a musical theatre course at Berklee -- and how successful it has become

35. Such joy sharing with her the magic of fireflies during her time doing summer stock in Ohio.

36. Amazement that she doesn't care about television (my daughter??)

37. I love how much she loves Lester, "my baby."

38. She's so good about sharing pictures of Lester on their daily walks.

39. Her relationship with Walt has always been such a beautiful thing.

40. I loved sharing France and Italy with her.

41. So grateful for her support on that trip. I never could have made it without her constant "You can do it, Mom!"

42. "My fake Italian is better than my fake French"

43. Her lifelong friendship with the Blackford women is something very special.

44. She is better at sustaining friendships than anybody I know.

45. She's my firstborn, my only daughter, my friend and a beautiful person

Happy Birthday, Jeri!

A Day (More or Less) with Jeri

It was nice having Jeri in town all day, and she was able to get some errands run while here.

We all kind of slept late (7 is late for me!) and eventually, sometime before noon, I started making pecan waffles.

No, it wasn't "Waffle Wednesday," but Tuesday was close enough, when Jeri was in town. The waffles were delicious.

Jeri eventually went off on Walt's bike to get some errands run and we made plans to meet for lunch "or something" around 3 p.m. (since we were all full from breakfast at noon).

At 3 we went to Ciocolat, a lovely little bistro type restaurant in downtown Davis. As we were mulling over menu options, Kate, who is a friend of ours and who owns the restaurant, recommended the chicken noodle soup, with noodles made on the premises. It was a good recommendation, with a rich flavorful broth, delicious noodles and a side caesar salad with slivers of parmesan and foccacia bread....and lots of croutons, my favorite.

After our mid-afternoon snack, we walked over to the downtown post office so Jeri could get a box to mail some stuff home to herself. On the way we passed the "Compassion David."

I had read about him in Davis Life Magazine (from where I stole the photo--it's actually grey and cold today and he was bundled up in a heavy coat). He began a quest earlier this year to define the word "compassion." He started this quest when he lived in Oakland after seeing a speech on compassion by Karen Armstrong, a former nun, who created a “Charter for Compassion” based on the idea that “compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethnical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be trusted.”

He stands on the corner with a notebook in hand and he stops people to ask if they would mind writing down their definition of "compassion." He has over 3,300 signatures in his books. I added mine, because I wanted to talk to him. I defined "compassion" as "caring about others more than yourself, and being kind to animals." I asked David what his definition of compassion is and I'm afraid it was too lofty for me to understand!

A few steps farther down the street (Jeri and Walt had gone on ahead to the post office while I spoke with David), I ran into a woman I used to work with and haven't seen in many years. She retired 2 years ago and was telling me about her difficulties adjusting to retirement and her realization that she needs to get a volunteer job, possibly at the hospital. It was nice to see her again.

We returned to the house and Jeri packed up her stuff while waiting for a friend who was going with her to a concert (and then driving her to Grandma's house to spend the night).

I was full from lunch, so Walt finished my leftover half turkey stuffing sandwich from Trader Joe's, supplemented with some yogurt and some party mix our next door neighbor had given us, for dinner.

We are child-less again (if you don't count the 4-footed ones), but it's always nice to spend a day with one of our kids. And the evening ended with this fabulous music video that Ned posted on YouTube. I hope you watch it.