Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen memories I want to wrap in tissue paper, place in a box, and put right by the door so that in case of catastrophe I can grab them and never lose them.

1. Bringing Jeri home from the hospital, our first baby. Going in the house and walking up stairs to find the place full of pink flowers and a record of music box music going on the record player. So incredibly sweet.
2. Walt’s stage dive at the Thousand Red Roses concert.
3. Sitting behind Gilbert an watching him conduct
4. Sitting in the audience and watching Jeri conduct her own composition
5. Watching toddler David run up our little hill and throw himself into my arms for a big hug.
6. Toddler Tom running in the house, dirt on his face, football under his arm, to leap on my lap and nurse for a couple of minutes before running back outside to play again.
7. Giggling with Peggy in Australia, each of us sitting in office chairs at our computers and just finding everything funny, so good to be back together again.
8. Spending six weeks with my mother after her broken ankle. Sad for her, a blessing for me because of the time we had to spend together...and because out of that accident grew "cousins day"
9. Going with Sister Anne to take lunch to Pat, the blind guy who lived a few blocks from my high school
10. Standing in the supply closet with Sister Anne when she said that she was being transferred to Arizona.
11. Watching June Wilkins, the magnificent Lamplighters contralto, cut the cakes I had decorated for her for "June Wilkins Day."
12. Watching Ned swim the length of the diving pool after he’d done a belly flop off the 3 meter tower. I was so proud of him that day and how he climbed back up on the tower and dove again–this time hitting it right.
13. Paul’s stage dive at Whole Earth Day.

A Day Without Shoes

I have begun to realize that it is important for us to really try to understand the conditions under which people live around the world, not just being aware that "somewhere out there" there were people living in poverty.

Tom's Shoes was having an awareness day yesterday. The deal was that people were to pledge to go a day without shoes to understand what it's like to be a poor person who can't afford shoes.

I did it by default because I didn't go out of the house and I rarely wear shoes in the house, but I live on smooth floors and soft carpet. The video is powerful.

Ned did something I was so proud of him for back in 2000, when this journal was a baby. He lost a bet on his radio station and he had to live as a homeless person on the streets of Sacramento for a couple of days. They allowed him to sleep on the porch of Phil's apartment (this was before Phil and Jeri married, of course) rather than find his own place on the street, but otherwise he lived the life of a homeless person.

I remember that two of the things he came away with were first, realizing how boring it is to be homeless, but more importantly he learned how much his feet hurt from having to be on them most of the day, moving all the time (he tried to talk with other homeless people to get an idea of what their lives were like).

Out of this experience came a radio station drive to raise money to buy shoes for the homeless. Ned lived in a playhouse on a gas station property and he raised ... I don't remember how much. Maybe something like $10,000? I could be wrong, but somehow I have that figure in mind. But they bought shoes and donated them to a local homeless shelter. I was so incredibly proud of him.

We are so less by not being aware...truly aware...of the living conditions of others around the world, and how we can help improve them. Potable water is so scarce in some countries that it is water which kills them. Alice Nan's husband is in Rotary Club and one of their projects is to build wells to bring fresh, clean, drinkable water to a village in Kenya.

Walt and I watched a video, Up the Yangtze the other night. It followed the life of a family whose farm had already been flooded as the waters of the Yangtze rose during the building of the Three Gorges Dam. They had built another lean-to house, where the family of four lived, cooked outside, and tried to figure out where their next meal was coming from, picking over the meager crops they were able to raise, wanting to hang on to what they had, but knowing that this house, too, would be flooded. They sent their daughter to work on a cruise ship in order to bring money to the family.

Just watching the interactions in the family, the beaten look of the mother, the fact that nobody ever touched anybody--the children never knew what physical affection was. I was drawn to that even more than to the information about the building of the dam.

I read the stories and I see the videos of Compassion sponsors who have been able to visit their sponsored children's homes. I watched a very moving video made by a woman who was a sponsored child, as she tearfully told what a difference her sponsor's help, love and encouragement had meant for her and how she had been abe to attend college, where without the help she would never have been able to finish grammar school. She now runs a home for unwed mothers.

I read "Sheba's Song," which is a fictionalized account of the relationship between a retired man in the United States and a young girl in India. The book was written by the adult girl, who could now write to her sponsor and tell him all the things that she knows now, but which she did not realize at the time.

We in this country have so much. When I think that the price of a Starbucks Coffee is the entire month's salary of people in some countries, it makes me re-think frivolous purchases that I might make, without thinking about it twice. I still make some of them, but I think about it and try to be aware of how much I have and how little others have, and then work to help others have a little more.

When I think that the family gift I sent to Fred's family at Christmas bought food so they could have a funeral and bury his little sister and how grateful they were for it... it breaks my heart.

We don't have to do big things. Sometimes going barefoot for a day, feeling the rough pavement or rocks under our feet and realizing that people in other countries do this all the time...and then reminding other people to do something that will make them aware of the plight of people around the world is a good thing.

When I was in grammar school, I strongly wanted to be a missionary. I outgrew that desire, but I guess I never outgrew it completely. I've been trying to do something for kids in third world countries most of my life.

We heard a commercial yesterday from a jewelry store, talking about how important mothers are to us and how we should honor them with a gift of diamonds and gold on Mother's Day. For my birthday this year, Ned and Marta gave me a gift to the Heiffer Project. I believe Marta said that a hive of bees had been donated to a 3rd world family. That meant more to me than any gift of diamonds and/or gold!

China and Pancakes

And no, I don't mean moo goo gai pan or even egg foo yung.

Today was our first class in the study of China, which we are taking through the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at a UC Berkeley building. The OLLI program is designed for old farts like us who want to keep learning stuff. A college course without exams, where you aren't the oldest one in the class and where your butt fits in the seats -- what could be better?

I've heard raves about the program from lots of people (primarily Char, who has taken several courses at Berkeley), but sadly, each campus has its own OLLI program (if you join one, it's not transferrable to another), which means my OLII Berkeley membership is not transferrable to UC Davis, and so far I have not found any courses here in Davis that even begin to sound interesting. But Char was planning to take a course called "From the Silk Road to Shanghai: Modern China." She asked if I was interested.

The course meets at 10 a.m., in Berkeley, every Monday but I decided what the heck--might as well get a little knowledge about China before our trip. As I talked about it, Walt decided he would take the course too, so this morning was our first class, which is why we had to rush home from Santa Barbara on Sunday, instead of staying over one more day to have another day with Brianna (and her parents, of course).

We got home from Santa Barbara around 8 or so and got the car unloaded and the dogs fed and sat down to watch Desperate Housewives at 9. I never saw the end of it. It was like coming home from Bri's party exhausted, though I had done no work whatsoever. I was exhausted after our long drive, even though Walt did all the driving home. I was zonked before 10 p.m. This means, of course, that I did not post a journal entry until morning. I woke up sometime around 1 a.m. and got up just long enough to set the timer on the stove, because I knew if I didn't get the journal entry written between 5 and 6, I wouldn't have time to do it at all.

That's a very long, boring way of saying that we went to Berkeley and met Char at the class, which should give us some background about China, which may make our trip more interesting and meaningful.

Our teacher, Gloria Neumeier, says she's 80.

I did some googling and found that she is a 1952 graduate of Barnard College, with an MA from Dominican college in San Rafael. She is a professor at SF State and Sonoma State and in February of this year was in Hong Kong doing research for course that she is teaching on "The New China." She has spent much of the past 20 years teaching in foreign settings, from Kenya and China to Vietnam and Kosovo. These experiences with ordinary people have shaped her ideas about how societies and government policy interact. She has taught at Dominican College, College of Marin and OLLI at SFSU. The last few years she has spent time visiting NGO projects in Cambodia and Laos . A few years ago she re-visited both Cambodia and Vietnam, as well as traveling from Phnom Penh to Vietnam by boat along the Mekong River. Gloria taught for two years in the People’s Republic of China and visited Shanghai in 2010 as delegate with the San Francisco/Shanghai Sister City Commission to the World Expo.

She reminds me some of Walt's mother, a tiny woman, but a dynamo, who certainly does not look her age, though they really should keep laser pointers away from old people with shaky hands!

Today's lecture dwelt on the various regions of China, its ethnic and cultural differences and the problem of trying to unify a country larger than the United States with so many tribal regions so far removed from the central government. There was a slide show, which I loved, because it showed some "caves," which had featured prominently in the mystery I read about the building of the Three Gorges Dam. I have a mental image of a "cave" in this country, but in China, there are whole cities built in the walls of cliffs. They look for all the world as ornate as a hotel you might find elsewhere, but that's only the facade...inside it is built into the side of the cliff. It was nice to have that frame of reference.

I don't know how much I retained of this first lecture (Char and Walt took notes), but I look forward to next week's class. We will miss the last class because we will be on our field trip--in China.

When the class was over, we went to our respective garages to get our respective cars and then I suggested to Walt that he and I have lunch at Bette's Ocean View diner, where I had eaten some months ago, on suggestion from the local PBS program Check Please, Bay Area, a program where a group of 3 submit their favorite restaurants, all eat at each other's choice, and then everyone sits around and discusses/critiques it. Everything from fancy schmancy expensive places, to little hole in the walls like Bette's.

Bette's Ocean View Diner is a misnomer. It's in Berkeley and the only view is of the shops across the street. But even if you removed the buildings you'd still have to go a few more blocks west, cross the freeway, cross a few more blocks, cross the San Francisco Bay and duck under the Golden Gate Bridge before you'd actually be at ocean. But apparently a very long time ago, before there was a freeway, there was a housing development called (optimistically) "Ocean View" and Bette's is a remnant of that development.

It's a great place and it is famous for its pancakes, so the wall art features a buttermilk pancake.

This is a real diner, with the black and white linoleum on the floor, a juke box in the corner, plush booths plus a counter where you can watch the cooks cook and if you sat in front, you sat under a huge piece of cherry pie.

Though it was lunch time, we both opted for breakfast. I had the pancakes because it's their specialty (they even sell pancake mix and a book of pancake recipes) and I love pancakes anyway. Walt had a Philadelphia breakfast, so he could find out what scrapple is.

After lunch, we walked around a little bit on the street where the diner is located. I always say I hate shopping, but if I lived in a neighborhood like this with all the cute, unusual shops, I'd be in debt by the end of the first week.

Walt drove home while I finished my James Patterson book, and now I'm trying to get caught up on all the little things that I either need to do or wanted to do when we got home again after our trip (mostly involving things to write or transcribe). So nice that I will be HOME most of this week and can get caught up.

The Long Road Home

I crashed again last night. Was sound asleep before 9:30 and didn't wake up until 6 a.m. Missed the end of Desperate Housewives and didn't do a thing on the computer. I don't know why I was so tired--Walt did all the driving.

It was nearly noon before we left Santa Barbara, since everyone slept late after Brianna's party. But after a lovely breakfast, cooked by Joe, we started on our ride home. Nobody hit our car as we left town, which we took that as a good omen.

If you are about to start an 8 hour drive, it's lovely to be driving into this:

The skies were this wonderful blue with fluffy clouds most of the way home.

On the way into Santa Barbara, we had passed a hillside--or several of them--which were covered with mustard so gorgeous it blinded your eyes. I decided we had to stop at the rest stop on the way out so I coulod get a picture. Unfortunately the rest stop was "behind the mountain" which hid all the mustard, but I did get this hint of things as we flew by in the car.

We were all set with the end of the book we had listened to on the way down, David Baldacci's "Absolute Power." He does tend to go on a bit. There was a long stretch as you go toward the end where, if I had been reading this in book form, I would have flipped through the pages quickly. When you are about ready to find out who the murderer is, you don't want to spend a lot of time on endless descriptions and recaps! As an audio book, the suspension mounts but you end up rolling your eyes and saying things like "oh just pull the trigger, already!" I don't want to hear about the sweat in your eyes or how your stomach feels or what the air around you feels like at this particular point in the book, thankyouverymuch!

We stopped for gas in San Luis Obispo at a Shell Station near the Madonna Inn. The Madonna Inn is a wonder.

The outside of the place is painted a bright pink. We've only been there, once, for lunch--just to see the place. This is the motel where all the rooms are in different themes (I still want to see the Cave Man room some day!). When we went there many years ago for what I remember was a pretty expensive lunch, Walt told me I had to see the urinal in the men's room. He stood guard while I went in to explore.

But there was no exploring today. We were hurrying home ... and they were closing in on figuring out who was responsible for the murders.

It was coming up on 4 when we saw the familiar water tower at Gonzales. The water tower is across the highway from the Burger Queen, so, of course, we had to stop for a late lunch/early dinner.

This time I did not have the mushroom swiss burger an onion rings, like I usually do, but a simple hamburger and fries. It did the trick and got us back on the road again in no time.

We still had an hour and 23 minutes left to go in the book and I couldn't figure out why since everything had pretty much been figured out and all that remained was to actually confront the mastermind of the crime. Why would that take nearly an hour and a half.

Well, it turned out that it didn't. The book finished and there was a bonus short story attached, also quite good. But finally we got it all finished and we turned on music to accompany us on the rest of the ride home.

The dogs were excited to see us and when I went back outside to start to unload the car, Polly uttered a sound of such surprise and disappointment that I was leaving again that I just had to giggle.

"WHY?"

If there is ever a word that Brianna has perfected, it's "why?" She learns a lot, but a conversation can be exhausting, as she responds with every answer with another "why?" I learned yesterday that if you can get your own "why?" in first, you can have some pretty interesting conversations, as she can go off on a tangent and create some pretty interesting stories.

Yesterday was the birthday party and it was just perfect. A little disappointing for Laurel, who had expected 30 people, based on RSVPs, and had so few show up (probably because of the inclement weather), but it was just a very nice small group and the guest of honor was at the top of her game.

She spent a lot of time interacting with Uncle Norm, starting when the two of them watched ants crawl down a crack in the cement to, as Bri decided, "eat lobsters."

The kids, big and little, played in the bouncy house again. (I decided that the reason Tom rents one each year is because HE likes playing in it!) Bri liked bouncing with Grandpa.

She had a good time with her friends, Hudson and Scott.

And at some point she and Scott dressed up as king and queen, though I believe Bri was the king...not sure about that. I'm sure Scott won't want these pictures shown around when he gets into high school!

In keeping with the Toy Story theme, Laurel had decorated cupcakes as several of the characters from the movie.

Her best friend and constant companion, Piggy, got his own special lady bug cake.

Later, Bri got a helmet to wear when she rides her Strider bike. This is a new one for me. It looks just like a bicycle, but has no pedals, so you sit on it and walk it around. Apparently by the time she's old enough for a real bike, she will have the idea about how to sit and move on a bike.

Laurel had requested no gifts, but a few of us ignored that request, so late in the evening, Bri opened a few gifts.

She got a lot of books, so Uncle Norm read several of them to her. This one is "Everybody Poops," which I bought at the sale at Borders the other day. I knew Ned would want me to.

Bri was very attentive.

But I think this is my favorite picture of the night.

It was really a beautiful day. Bri was in good spirits all day long and just a delight to watch. When all the kids had left and we had eaten dinner, we went outside to release all the helium balloons into the air. "They're going up to Tutu," she said. At the end of the day, she went off to her new big girl bedroom...

...and we came back here to Alice Nan and Joe's. I was so tired I collapsed and didn't wake up until 4 a.m., when I got up to write this entry.

On Our Own

Walt and I were left all on our own today. It's strange to be all on our own in Santa Barbara without spending a day in the convalescent hospital. We were kind of at 6s and 7s. But we managed to find a way to fill the day.

First, we took part in a very sad event.

The other Borders downtown had closed months ago, but now this one, near Alice Nan and Joe's house was closing. Me. A book store. A sale. It was predictable, but I did get a lot of things I can use and probably would not have bought otherwise.

After that we went to Playa Azul, a restaurant Tom had recommended to me 3 years ago, as a good place for crab enchiladas. And it was. We got there around 2 and sat on the veranda in the warm Santa Barbara air (sorry, all you guys who got another blast of winter today!)

Downtown Santa Barbara is really very lovely. Most of the buildings are in the old Spanish style, with the white walls and adobe tile for the roofs. I saw postcards labeling it the "red tile city." Now, in the spring, we were surrounded by gorgeous bougainvillea bushes as well.

We stopped at Michael's craft store on the way home and let's say that they probably won't be closing any time soon because I left a lot of contributions in their coffers!

Then home for naps for the two of us and then after a chat with Tom, we were invited to dinner at their house. Bri wanted me to hold ALL of her toys and got very impatient if I put any of them down.

Brianna remembered her "trick" from when we were here last and did her Grandpa impression.

Finally, she showed off her brand new big girl's bed, with the mini canopy and (you can't see them in the picture) butterflies and Tinker Bell stenciled on the walls. I couldn't get a good photo because she was busy covering up all of her stuffed animals to protect them from the dinosaur.

We left shortly after dinner. There is a birthday party tomorrow for about 30 adults and 8 kids and it had already been a long day for Laurel. We didn't want to get in her way!

By the time we got back to Alice Nan's, Uncle Norm was here, so the family will all be together again at Bri's party tomorrow.

The Sound of (Kinda) Silence

It is an 8 hour drive from Davis to Santa Barbara and Walt and I spoke almost not a single word to each other during the drive.

We are here to celebrate Brianna's 3rd birthday (my word, I can't believeshe's 3 already!). My resolve to send at least one snail mail a day may be tested. But I believe I handled today just fine.

The stack of letters, post cards and cards today included my very first attempt to make an envelope. It wasn't good, but I did it. I'll get better.

I found a teenager who asked people to go through drawers and send her random things that you find there, which sounded like fun. This is what I sent:

This is a Mickey Mouse card I bought years ago, a photo of Michael Connelly from the book signing we attended, a little sheet of mini stickers (including one from the Jello museum), a tissue that Peggy sent me a package of years ago, and two Dora the Explorer bandaids. I think that qualifies as sufficiently eclectic!

We left the house at 11:45 and said almost nothing for many hours. The reason was that we were glued to my audio book, David Baldacci's first novel, "Absolute Power." What a gripper. I was several hours into it before we got on the road so Walt would have to stop me from time to time to ask what was going on, but he caught up quickly. (I do have to admit that neither one of us was particularly happy with the fact that one of the principal characters was an "old man" of 65...and that they kept referring to him as an old man, with failing faculties, and at the end of his life. Not an upper for a 68 and 71 year old!!!)

We were engrossed until we got to Gonzales and our usual hamburger joint

(Can you believe we look forward to hitting this joint going north or south whenever we travel to Santa Barbara?)

We got back in the car, plugged the iPod back in again and said almost nothing until we arrived at Alice Nan & Joe's house.

We were at a crucial point in the book, so were sad to arrive at our destination, but we talked with Alice Nan and she suggested that we drive into town to meet her and Joe for dinner (since they were both still at work). Yippee. 20 more minutes for the book!

We had a nice dinner at the Santa Barbara Brewing Company, where there was wall to wall TVs, each tuned to a different sporting event. We watched the Giants lose to the Dodgers before we finished dinner...then another 20 minute drive back home again.

We spent most of the day in silence, but we sure are enjoying the book!