Today at Logos

The new sign "we are no longer accepting book donations" is now hanging on the front door and at the desk of Logos. The first step in the lame duck days of Logos.

Sandy and I discussed how many more work days we have to go before it's over.  Very sad.

She had a slow morning and ultimately I had a slow afternoon, though not as slow as her morning had been.  I went to get the book I had confidently put on the shelf with a bookmark in it last week, certain that nobody was going to buy a slim volume about Congo, but it was gone so, anticipating a slow afternoon, I broke my self-imposed rule about not reading Kindle books at Logos, I pulled out my Kindle and by the end of the afternoon had finished Alan Cumming's "You Gotta Get Bigger Dreams."

It was nearly 3 before my first customer bought anything.  It was a young woman resplendent in denim with long black hair.  She hunkered down and was looking at books on alternative medicine and ultimately bought a book on holistic health.

I noticed that we have a new artist on display.  Since the display is scheduled for October-January, I assume this our last display.  This artist is Jeffrey Granett, whose wife Sandy sells greetings cards through Logos.  Granett's show is called "A Day in the Life of r Death and Ms Sis" and is about two creature who "make their living collecting bi-peds (yum)...and then play with the tools and toys the departed bi-peds left behind"  You an see the monster gathering bipeds into a bucket to be eaten later.  Despite the rather grisly topic, the paintings are whimsical and they cover all the walls of the store.

A woman came in looking for a book by Jack London but did not find one.

A woman looking through the foreign language section asked if she could put some books on hold.  I told her no.  She told me a lot, I think about wanting to get these books for her husband, but the combination of her accent and soft voice and my hearing problems, I didn't get most of it.

An older gentleman wanted to know if we had any ancient maps  We didn't, of course, but he browsed anyway and bought two bargain books and a book about Hemmingway. He was shocked to learn about the store's closing.

Bruce came in and bought "The Painted Bird" by Jerzy Kosinski.  We had a nice chat -- our first, I think -- about Kosinski and his books and I checked Wikipedia for him to confirm that the author had committed suicide. "He committed suicide on May 3, 1991, by ingesting a lethal amount of alcohol and drugs and wrapping a plastic bag around his head, suffocating to death. His suicide note read: "I am going to put myself to sleep now for a bit longer than usual. Call it Eternity."

A woman in cream colored slacks and a dark brown and maroon top which somehow seemed too heavy for the slacks bought a book on Bonsai.

Two Latinas spent a long time wandering around the store.  Ultimately one of them bought "Gilgamesh, a book of scary stories and a book on mythology. Her friend bought four contemporary fiction books totaling $36.35, the largest sale of the day.

A man with shoulder length snow white hair under a baseball cap, looking like an old hippie, looked around for a long time and didn't buy anything, but waved a cheery "thank you" to me when he left."

Another older man bought a history book and was also shocked to hear of the impending closing of Logos.

My friend arrived at 4:15 and bought a book of Japanese art.  He hadn't heard about the store closing either and was sad but said it would be "one less stop" he would make on his Thursdays in town.

Two girls looked at the literature section for awhile and then one approached me with four books in her hands. "Have you read anything by John Steinbeck?" she asked, wanting my opinion about which of the books she should buy.  Since Steinbeck is one of my favorites and I have read most of his books, some more than once, and visited the Steinbeck museum, I had lots to share with her.  She ultimately bought "The Portable Steinbeck" an anthology, and a copy of "The Pearl."  She was happy to hear that there is a Steinbeck museum.  She is in the area often and will look for it. She has already visited Cannery Row, disappointed to find that all of the buildings have turned into tourist shops.

The Antiquarian came back and bought two old history books.  He paid by credit card and I found that his name is Joseph, and his last name seems to be six letters with no vowels!  Around his neck this time he had a collectible dime set in gold. It was not as petty as the pendant he wore last week.

A guy with a broken finger came in looking for Doonesbury books.  The broken finger was the middle one and so he is spending his recovery time giving the bird to everyone!  But in looking for some information on Doonesbury on Amazon, I discovered a couple of books I wish we had to look through.  This is one of them.  Gary Trudeau's 30 years of Trump cartoons.

A guy who sounded Nigerian (I have spent a lot of time with a guy with a Nigerian accent), wearing a pink aloha shirt and a straw had came in looking for Koko Coffee House, which he days is in the university campus.  I pointed him in the direction of the University.

Both Walt and Peter were a little bit late, but not much. 

We had an evening of heavy TV watching ahead of us because there are so many "to be watched" things recorded.  Mostly we needed to watch last week's Blacklist before last night's episode aired.  Whew.  We made it

Tree

Remember that old Mister Rogers song?  I'm sure you remember the lyrics

Tree, tree, tree
Tree, tree, tree,
Tree, tree, tree,
Tree, tree, tree

Such a silly song, yet so simple and, like most of the simple things Mister Rogers talked about, somehow profound...and all these years later, I remember it.

I hope there are trees in heaven.  Trees are the thing that seem to interest my mother the most these days.  Whenever we go out, it's not the flowers or the houses or the gardens that interest her it's the trees.  Fortunately there are lots of beautiful trees in Davis.

My favorite is a weeping willow tree on the corner of a minor intersection.  We've seen that tree go from beautiful and lush, to barely alive, spindly and sad, to now starting to be thriving again. I wanted to plant a weeping willow tree after David died, and again after Paul died.  It was symbolic of how I was feeling, but it never got planted.

My office, when David died, had a tree planted in David's memory.  It's planted at the Veteran Memorial Theater, where our kids performed so often (and where David's memorial service was held)  They asked me what kind of tree I wanted to plant and I eagerly chose the Chinese Pistache tree.  They are all over town and in the fall display the most glorious of color everywhere.

(This isn't David's tree...it's a generic Chinese Pistache.)

Well they display glorious color everywhere except in our own back yard.  We had one planted when we were what I laughingly call "landscaping" our yard and year after year I hope for some show of color, but each year it just goes from green to brown with no hint of color in between.  Fortunately, soon David's tree will turn red again.

There is an evergreen tree also planted at the Veteran's Memorial Theater in Paul's memory.  While David's tree is looking really full and beautiful, 20 years after it was planted, Paul's is living, but not exactly something you are going to point to and say "Isn't that gorgeous?"

I have always loved redwood trees.  Those majestic trees that climb up, up, and up almost beyond belief.  One wonders if you climb one to the top, will you meet Jack's Giant?  There is a redwood grove here in Davis, along the banks of Putah Creek on the university campus.  These are just baby redwoods, not the hundreds of years old regal trees in redwood groves near the coast, but beautiful in their own right--and eventually will also become majestic. This is another place I wanted to share with my mother which she can't walk far enough to get to.

It's part of the university's arboretum, which is so glorious in the spring, especially those trees that burst into blossom at that time.

Of course, our own street has some beautiful trees.  The neighbors met with representatives of the city many years ago after several years of really bad auto accidents from the high school students using our street as a raceway, and going out of control at the slight curve.  The solution suggested was to built an island with trees in it in the middle of the street.  And it has worked.  Not a single accident since then.  Plus, it looks pretty too.

When you have a mother whose main interest is in trees, it's nice to be living in a town with so many of them to appreciate!

The Rest of the World

Walt had the car for a bit of the time today, including going to SF to the opera.  I decided not to go to Atria before he took off with the car, and to spend the day catching up on Pocket letters and on writing to the Compassion kids.  I am probably a more regular writer than a lot of sponsors, but if I haven't written in 3 weeks I start feeling guilty.

I regularly get the odd letter here and there throughout the month, but I went through two months with zero letters, which is very unusual.  Compassion is going through the growing pains of a new mail system and, like Obamacare, it has had its share of glitches  getting up and running.  The end result is supposed to decrease the length of time it takes to get from you to your child and vice versa.  As it is now, kids are answering mail I sent a year ago.  A difficult thing to establish much of a relationship.

But this month came the deluge.  I'm getting two or three letters a day and it's been wonderful, if overwhelming.  I have a huge stack of letters to answer, which I am continuing to work on.

I've been connected to some of these children for many years and do have a relationship with some of them.  While  the newer kids write the same thing, it seems, each month ("Personal greetings from me.  I am fine together with my family. How are you and your family?  I received your letter and I thank you for your support.  Please pray for me and my family." -- or something to that effect.  It takes awhile -- often years -- to get some sort of personal information.

But in looking at the children and which ones need to get a response, I had to think first of the child from whom I had no letter -- Briana and for two others children, Lovson and Miche.  All three live in Haiti and I know it will be months before I find out how they have been affected by Hurricane Matthew, which devastated the island yesterday.  The last time this happened, the bulk of the damage happened around Port o Prince which is in the southern part of Haiti.  Briana lives in the far north of Haiti.  I am not sure how close to the storm Lovson and Miche live.  

The news has briefly touched on the fact that the hurricane hit the Dominican Republic too.  I have two kids there and even Compassion hasn't mentioned that yet.

Watching the video of the winds whipping and the flooding in the hard hit areas, I wonder what it's like to live in a place like that.  Where do you GO when there is so much wind and water if your house is not strong enough to stand up to it? I watch all this from the security of my recliner, on my nice large screen television set while the sun shines outside and I feel guilty for the children.

When something like this happens you realize how self-centered our news is. All of the news reports I've been able to find concern the storm approaching Florida and how people are preparing.  I want to know how badly Haiti was hit. Even Compassion does not yet have any information on the kids and the centers they attend.  I sent a donation to the Haiti relief, but I still worry about my 3 kids there.

But when letters arrive, like the ones I've been receiving, you realize how completely our lives differ from those of our sponsored children and how little we know of their culture.

Anjali, in India, is the very first child I sponsored.  I love hearing from her because after all these years, she is finally writing chatty letters.  Today she wrote about a couple of Indian holidays she celebrated.  I have to do my homework and check them out.

From Fred in the Philippines (another of my long-term kids -- he'd now 12), I got a letter that refers to a letter I sent many months ago, but also says "Last week when my case worker visited me, I felt so shy because she saw me washing our clothes because my mother got sick and I'm the one doing anything at home."

 

I wish I knew more about the family.  His mother used to be the one translating his letters and she was very chatty and I got to know the family well, but now he is able to write his own letters and so it's nice hearing directly from him, but sad when I get the standard "how are you, I am fine, pray for me" letter.  But over the years there are more personal messages like the time he thanked me for a monetary gift I had sent for his birthday and told me they had used the money to pay for the funeral of one of his siblings.  He is also one of only a couple of kids for whom I have a family portrait

This was taken in February of 2013 and though I have asked about family often, I know nothing else but this photo.

I had a letter from one of my girls who said she had to miss a couple of months to take care of her sister, who had malaria.

Several of the kids have asked me to pray that their fathers (or mothers) can find a job.  One asks me to pray for his mother that he might be able to live with her again (he lives with his grandmother and cares for her).

A boy from Honduras writes that his grandmother won't let him go out of the house to play because it is too dangerous.

Divine in Rwanda confessed that her grades in school have dropped this term and asks for my prayers that she might study harder.

The kids often include Bible verses (which sends me to the internet to find a verse to send back, as I am not a Bible reader normally.  I do wonder what Mercy (age 12) was thinking about when she sent me THIS verse...

Go to the Lord and you will live.  If you do not go he will sweep down like fire one the people of Israel.  The fire will burn up the people of Israel.  The fire will burn up the people of Bethel and no one will be able to put it out.  [Amos 5:6,7]

(Maybe she's heard of all the California wild fires, but I doubt it.)

What are they teaching those kids?  Whatever happened to the God of Love?

Bonk

I am so angry about this photo.  It took a lot of Photoshopping to get it this clear, but it's still blurry.  My cell phone camera is so crappy.  It was on a tripod and I have a shutter release that isn't even connected to the camera, so absolutely NOTHING moved.  This was the 4th and best of four photos, but as I said, it took a lot of fiddling to get it this good.  One of these days Walt will have time to go with me to get a new phone (since Verizon won't let me get it without him there, since he's the account holder) and then I can have one of those newer, better cell phone cameras too.

But anyway, the reason for this photo is to show my lethal cupboard door.  For about a year, I was having stabbing pains in my head.  It didn't seem bad enough to see a doctor about.  One reason I had my head shaved a couple of years ago was to see if there was some sort of abnormality on my scalp, but the scalp looked fine.  One day, I bonked my head on the door again and the thought passed through my mind that just maybe the pain had something to do with how often I bumped my head on the sharp corner of this cabinet.  Being an Aquarian, I rarely remembered to close it when working in the kitchen.

So I made a conscious effort to keep the cupboard door closed at all times.  And whaddya know?  In a couple of months, I wasn't having shooting pains any more.  I envisioned my scalp, under the skin, looking like a pond of ice just before break-up.  Lots of cracks going everywhere.

Since my new leaf, I have been pain free, and I have worked hard at remembering to always close the door. Until yesterday.  I banged it good and almost saw stars.  Since then I have been having shooting pains on the other side of my head from the side where I usually hit it, since this time I was facing the other way when I hit it.

This morning I was supposed to give blood, but I just didn't want to go driving around with sharp pains coming into my scalp so often.  I sat at home with a cold compress on it and by afternoon it wasn't quite so bad, so i was able to go to Atria. I had thought of going for lunch, but now that Atria staff take her to lunch and are working on getting her to accept a walker, I decided to visit her after lunch rather than for lunch.  I don't think she knows the difference. 

I got there at 1:15 and she was still in bed, sound asleep.  Her breakfast was still on a tray in the kitchen and the curtains were still closed.  I checked to make sure she was breathing, and she was, so I left her clean laundry and came home.  I told Walt I have the feeling she is slowly fading away  I can't remember the last time I got to the apartment and she was NOT sleeping, either in her bed or on the couch.  But later someone from Atria called me to tell me about a problem in her apartment they are going to take care of tomorrow, and she says that actually now that she's on assisted living, she seems more lively, so what do I know??  It would be nice if she were right.  One can only hope.

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I had a very fun experience this afternoon.  Jeri was giving her annual clarinet recital, and it was being streamed live by Berklee, so I got to not only listen, but watch the whole thing.

The concert started with a piece by Poulenc (1962).  The Allegro (3rd movement) was particularly fun.

Then there was a Suite for Clarinet and Piano, written by the pianist there, David McGrory.

And then Jeri gave an introduction to her own new piece, Haikus for Clarinet and Piano.  Jeri is a great one for writing haikus, and I'm not enough of a musician to understand how these three pieces were musical haikus, but they were fun to listen to

The livestream camera cut off before the very end, but I saw about 99% of it and loved it that you can watch your kid's concert, even though you are 3,000 miles away.

Gabe's Big Day

We were so honored to be invited to Ashley's baby's baptism this afternoon, and the dinner that followed.  We had not met young Gabe yet.  He's been a very fussy baby since birth, but he couldn't have been better through the ceremony today.

Gabe and a 3-1/2 week old baby named Isabella (who wore the most adorable crown of baby roses, very briefly) were baptised at the same time.  Ashley was afraid Gabe would cry when water was poured on his head, but he didn't

After Gabe was blessed, there was a blessing for both Ashley and David too.

There was lots of photo taking, but Gabe finally decided he'd had enough.

We drove down to Dixon where we had a nice dinner at a restaurant there.  Dessert was made of cupcakes.

After dinner, Walt and I drove home, listening to the end of the audio book, Being There by Jerzy Kosinski.  We still had 7 minutes to go when we got home, so we went driving around town to get it finished!

Not Quite Sunday Stealing

Today is supposed to be the day for Sunday Stealing, but the questions this week are either questions I've answered a lot of times before ("where did you grow up?" "where do you live now?") or questions that you really need to be working to answer  So I'll answer the "new" questions and then I have a whole bunch of memes that I copied years ago and I'll do one of them instead.

1. What do you think about religion?It is a shame that the people who were inspiration for most of the world's religions were people of peace and that religion has been the cause of so much hatred and killing.  I think none of them would recognize their religions now.  I am a "recovering catholic," having left the Catholic church over its attitude toward homosexuality and the priest sex scandal, and some very upsetting things that happened in our local church.  I miss the social aspect of it, but I just can't support the organized religion.

2. When did you start using online social media?

In the late 1980s, with my first modem when I didn't have a clue what I would use it for. The first 1500 people in this town to sign up got free internet access for a year and I explored AOL and then settled on Compuserve for many years.  When I joined Facebook (I don't remember when) I joined a group called "Am I the oldest person on Facebook...and I was!  But as social media has grown I have less and less use for it.  I have a Twitter account, but rarely check it.  i don'tdo any of the other social media things except rarely Instagram.

3. You are walking down the road and you look down. There is a bug. Do you step on it?
No.  If I don't bother it, it won't bother me.  Of course if it is a BIG bug and it is crawling on me, I may give a different answer.

4. What is one fantasy that you want to come true more than any other?
Trump will not be elected president.  Please, please, please, please.....

5. Someone knocks on your door. Do you look out the window to see who it is before you open it? Do you open it regardless of who it is?
Years ago I realized that I did not have to be a prisoner in my own house.  This was when two sweet LDS ladies came to our door once a week and I just hated having to stand there and listen to them, so I had Walt drill a peep hole in the door.  It's too tall for me and I have to stretch to look out it, but if I don't recognize the person, especially if  they are holding a clip board, I just ignore it.  (At least I haven't gotten as bad as my father, who hung a sign on his door that read "If you have not been invited here, you are trespassing.  Please leave."

6. Have you ever eaten Play Doh?
No.  I was an adult before Play Doh was invented, so I never had that experience.

7. What was your favorite Saturday morning cartoon as a child and why?
I don't remember having Saturday morning cartoons.  I remember afternoon cartoons and I loved Beany and Cecil.

8. Are you a "people watcher"?
Oh my yes,  If I don't have a book, it's my favorite activity.  I hate people watching with my mother, though, because she says aloud the things I might be thinking and that's terribly embarrassing.

8. I have a bowl of fruit. There are apples, oranges & pears. You help yourself to one - which one do you choose?
No bananas?  OK, then I choose orange.  I love pears, but I think pears reach the state of ripeness that I like for about half an hour and before they are too crispy and after they are too mushy.  Oranges, though are fairly predictable. As for the apple, I like my apples cold, so if it's room temperature, I would not be likely to choose it.

9. What is your biggest pet peeve in the blogging world?
In all honesty, it's people whose blogs I read and try to comment on who never comment on mine.  It's so depressing to see folks with dozens of comments when I'm lucky to get one or two.  Mostly it's none. I chalk it up to age, since I'm older than most bloggers.  Also, even I would get bored reading day after day of stories of my frustration with my mother...but I do do interesting things sometimes!  There are times when I wonder why I continue doing this and then I remember I'm doing it for ME, not for anybody else.

10. What is one religion that you could just never see yourself joining?
Mormons.  I remember when I was doing La Leche League in Oakland and it seemed that every woman I met who I really liked a lot and thought was a beautiful person ended up being a Mormon, so I think that Mormons can be lovely people, but I have read too much about the religion, and especially women's place in it, to ever even consider investigating further.

11. What word do you use far too often?
Well, excluding curse words (which would be a toss up between F** and S**), I think it's "delightful."  As a critic, I have had to check the thesaurus every time I'm tempted to say a show was "delightful" because I realized I was using it on nearly every good production.  Now I have alternatives.

12. How long do you spend in the shower?
Less than 5 minutes

13. Your favorite flavor of soup is….?
I haven't made it in years but the recipe is called Lamb Soup of the Middle East.  I also had some exceptional soups on our river cruises.  I remember a mushroom soup that was to die for...but I don't have the recipe.

14. You are sitting on a bench in the park and a bug walks in front of your feet…. do you squash him?
Nah.  Live and let live.  Maybe someday he'll take a thorn out of my toe.

15. What type of dwelling was your first home away from the parents? An apartment, house, condo, duplex, etc.
The very first was a dorm at UC Berkeley, but then I moved into my own apartment, where I lived until I ran up a huge bill and had to move in with Char and Mike to save money to pay it off.

16. What are the three most important things to have when first starting out on your own...other than money. Why?
Assuming the place is furnished, I'd need a coffee pot, an all purpose pot that can I can cook many things in, and, being be, a TV.

17. What was the reason you left your home with your parents?
I moved away to go to college.  I never moved back.

18. What is your fondest memories of your first home?
I can't think of fond memories of my first apartments, but I loved the first house we bought.  We had friendly neighbors and a sense of "neighborhood."  The house had this marvelous porch where you could sit and chat with people passing by (one reason why there was a great sense of "neighborhood).  The kitchen had a huge counter and a stove with a built-in stock pot where I could have soup ingredients simmering all the time. And there was a huge Meyer lemon tree in the back yard. I still miss that house.

Saturday 9

The Last Time I Saw Him

Welcome to Saturday 9. What we've committed to our readers is that we will post 9 questions every Saturday. Sometimes the post will have a theme, and at other times the questions will be totally unrelated. Those weeks we do "random questions," so-to-speak. We encourage you to visit other participants posts and leave a comment. Because we don't have any rules, it is your choice. We hate rules. We love memes, however, and here is today's meme!

Saturday 9: The Last Time I Saw Him (1973)

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.


1) In this song, Miss Ross sings of a tender farewell at the bus station. When did you last say goodbye to someone at an airport, dock, train or bus station?

Last weekend when I took Walt to the airport to catch his plane to So. California to attend granddaughter Lacie's 5th birthday party.  (I stayed home to dog sit since our dog sitter has a newborn baby at the moment)>

2) Continuing with the theme of "lasts," who received the last gift you gave?

Probably Lacie. We bought her a chef outfit for her American Girl doll, to go along with the MasterChef theme of her birthday party.

3) Who last did you a favor?

My colleague, Jeff, a critic for the Sacramento paper and his Capital Public Radio show, agreed to review a show for me for the Davis paper, since I have a conflict with another show I have to be reviewing at the same time. (this is the weekend from hell for all four of us reviewers!)

4) What's the last thing you dropped or broke?

I drop things so often.  I think the last thing I dropped was the keys to my mother's apartment.  I can't remember the last thing I broke, though.

5) What's the last thing you borrowed or lent?

I borrow books from Logos all the time.  If I start reading a book during my volunteer stint, I take it home, finish it, and bring it back the next week.

6) When is the last time you danced?

At Tom & Laurel's wedding in 2003, I think.

7) When were you last nervous?

Last weekend.  I had to ride to Sacramento with two guys, since Walt was out of town.  On a good day under good circumstances I am always nervous on the freeway, but the driver this time drove in the fast lane (I never drive in the fast lane), 80 mph (I rarely go over 65 mph), and was tailgating.  The only way I could keep from freaking out was by keeping my eyes closed for the whole trip.

8) What was your last DIY project?

I don't do a lot of DIY, but I do enjoy making pocket letters.  The last one I made was showing autumn colors.  I always take pictures of pocket letters when I finish them, but I forgot to take one of this page.  (It was not one of my better ones).

9) When did you last check your horoscope? Was it accurate?

I'm not a believer in horoscopes and I only read it for laughs, and then rarely.  I can't rememberthe last time, but sometimes they are so out there that you have to laugh.

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I met my friend Kathy for our monthly lunch.  I think we exploded to each other for a good 15 minutes about Donald Trump before we even ordered our lunch, and we sat there long after our lunch was finished, still talking.  I so look forward to these lunches!  It is nice to have someone who shares so many of my feelings, political and otherwise,to talk with!

I went to Atria afterwards, but my mother was asleep in bed and the housekeeper was cleaning her bathroom, so I wrote her a note and left.  I don't know ifshe will(a) find the note, or (b) understand it.  I know she won't remember it tomorrow.  But she must be ready for clean underwear, so I need to go and pick up her laundry tomorrow.

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In the evening, we went to see “Gospel According to First Squad,”written by Tom Burmester, a guy I have known since he was a little kid (he's now pushing 50 and I guess I should stop thinking of him as a kid!). I wrote a feature article about him and his War Cycle, which was published in the paper today.  Very powerful play that takes the audience into the reality of battle and the men who fight it every day.