The Basement

Sunday is Mothers Day

Whenever Mothers Day rolls around, I think about my father and the basement of that flat where we lived in San Francisco for the first 18 years of my life.

Every year around Mothers Day, my father would take me down to the basement so I could wrap his gift for my mother for him.

He always bought her some fancy lingerie but he couldn't wrap gifts at all and was very happy that I could.

 

In the days after they invented the ribbon that stuck to itself when moistened, I mastered the art of making ribbon roses and loved to wrap packages.  

I wish now that I had photos of some of the packages I  wrapped.  I remember one package, a gift for my typing teacher, Sister Anne, that I was sending to her in Phoenix.  The top was covered with ribbon roses and a big bow and I had to build  barricade around them to keep them from squishing when mailing.  She was amazed when it arrived.

I continued to fancy wrap packages until we had kids and wrapping gifts with the comics from the paper took the place of all that time to make roses.  I never went back to those days, though I have occasionally tried different forms of fancy wrap.  Now that bags for gifts are all the rage, I am more likely to take the easy way out and use a bag and tissue paper.

Our basement was an adventure.  The entrance to it was from our tiny cement back yard and we went down a flight of steps, like into the bowels of the earth.  Once my father unlocked the door, we went into a one-person-wide little entry way with dirt walls and into a tiny room, with dirt walls and dirt floor, that was lined with boxes of "stuff."  It had a table, a small work bench, and one bare light bulb hanging over the table.  Off to the side, behind a lot of pipes or other things that did work for the house were a couple of big boxes of Life Magazines.  My father had saved them all through the war and was heartbroken when I discovered that some of them had pictures of Judy Garland and cut those pictures out!

(Later the basement flooded and one of the boxes was ruined, so I was glad I had taken the Garland pictures!)

At the end of the little basement was a door and when you opened it it opened onto this huge cavernous second basement.  It really belonged to the couple  that owned the building, but since my father did handyman work for them and since the guy was too old to work on stuff like that any more, it really became my father's work room.

(When I look at pictures of the flat today on Google images, I see that the basement is now a garage and lord knows they needed it!  When we lived  there it was not out of the question to drive around for half an hour trying to find a place to park!)

My father was an OK handyman, but not a great one.  Things never quite turned out the way he planned.  He built his magnum opus, a record cabinet, in that basement.  I don't know how long it took him, but when it was finished there was space for the record player and then shelves that housed most of, but probably not all of his records.  

He built it to fit in a little cubby hole type of thing near our dining room.  He was most proud that he varnished it to a fair thee well.  Several layers, each dutifully rubbed with soft steel wool before applying the next coat.  Each night he would come up to dinner, bragging about what he had done that day and how smooth the surface of it was going to be.

When it was all finished, he brought the cabinet upstairs and glowed at this magnificent thing he had built. It was lovely and was very smooth.

Then he carried it down the hall to the cubby hole and when he tried to stand it up discovered he had measured wrong and it was 1/2" too tall and would not fit. 

That was NOT a good day in our house.

Adventures in "The Home"

I had quite an extensive "home" experience over the weekend.  And only one day was at Atria.

On Thursday night, we reviewed a show called "Jack of Diamonds"

This was a very funny show which takes place in an upscale retirement community.  It was like walking into Atria.  There are five residents and a Nurse Ratchet-type caregiver, who runs the place like a prison and obviously hates where she has to work (that part isn't like Atria). 

The five have invested their life savings with a friend and hear, over the TV, that he has been arrested in a Ponzi scheme and that they have lost all of their money.  The plot involves trying to figure out how to stay where they are and, when the crook turns up, pretending to be catatonic, at the home, trying to decide how to kill him.  It was a so-so show, but we laughed a lot.

But what made it special for me was the residents who were so familiar from my years around Atria.  And I also got a brainstorm.  One of the characters suffers from narcolepsy and passes out periodically, for short or longer times.  It was exactly like what my mother has done.  She has not had a spell like that in a long time, but if she has one again, I will definitely suggest that possibility to the doctor.

 

The second play was Marjorie Prime, which takes place in 2050 when science has perfected the ability to make holograms which can hold someone's memory.

Marjorie is 85 and has dementia.  Janis Stevens, perhaps the best actress Sacramento has, has perfected the persona of an older woman who still has a thin grasp on her memories, but realizes they are slipping away. Her body language, the way she holds her hands, the way she speaks is spot on.  It was like talking with my mother.

The only "off" thing about it was that while Marjorie's demented moments were perfect, she also had moments of greater lucidity, when she could discuss some of her memories.  Presumably, as her dementia increases she will lose this ability.  If I try to remind my mother of events from her past, she is more likely to say "I know you're talking, but I can't understand a thing you're saying."

However, in the play, the holograms are programmed to hold all of the memories of the one who is slipping away and has the patience to tell her the same stories over and over again, hopefully bringing back some of the life that she no longer remembers.

And then I went to Atria and found all the people in the cast of Jack of Diamonds.  My mother and I sat in the common room with Tony (I still don't know if he speaks or not) and watched people bowling.  My mother got a headache the instant someone invited her to join the game. 

She left me and went out into the patio.  I followed and sat with her in the shade at the other end.  Then she got up and walked back to where we had started.  I was about a minute behind her and when I opened the door to go into the common room, she was so surprised to see me...and where had I been?  She was so glad to see me again.

If I could get a Mildred Prime, I might actually consider it.

My Hero(ine)

I came of age in the 50s-60s when the picture at the left would have been the epitome of the perfect woman.

How I fantasized about Scarlett O'Hara and her 18" waist and even went through a period of starving myself in the 60s to try to achieve it.  Only one time in my life do I remember my mother being concerned because I was too thin.  That in itself was a sort of a backward reward (from the woman who once told me, as a 7 year old, that I was too fat to dance ballet).

If only I had realized that in the same period that I was despairing of ever having an 18" waist, there was a very popular model who is all but forgotten now. It was Hilda, whose picture I innocently posted yesterday.  Hilda, the voluptuous model who found joy in life and didn't care what size she was.

Hilda was the brainchild of illustrator Duane Bryers and, as it says in the article I read, "pin up art's best kept secret."  She was apparently the only plus-sized model printed on calendars from the 1950s to the 1980s, but she never achieved great popularity.  One reason given is that Bryers sometimes used models, sometimes used his imagination and so there was an inconsistency in Hilda's appearance, though I find it hard to believe the look on her face would have been the limiting factor.

Hilda was not afraid to answer the door in the all together.  Perhaps holding a tray of .... uh ...hot buns?

or to do her housework in the all together

She was a voracious reader

but she sometimes got tired.

And then she'd take herself to bed with more books and snacks.

Maybe if more of us "normal" girls had Hilda for a role model we would not have wasted so much time trying to look like Scarlet O'Hara.  Heck, even Marilyn Monroe couldn't keep up with those standards!

Surprise!

I've had a couple of surprise parties in my day.  I remember one on my 30th, where Walt was taking me out to dinner and when we got to the restaurant, it was full of friends.

There was another one too, but I can't remember which year it was.  

When I turned 70 the kids knew they could never keep it secret, so told me about the party, but the "surprise" was when Jeri and Phil turned up.

Surprises are fun, and we surprised our friend Pat on her birthday today.  Her husband had set it up for a 4:45 surprise at a local restaurant and we were all in place when she got there.

There were 11 of us, and I felt very honored that we were included in the august body of guests, some of our best friends in Davis.

First there was wine.

 

We even had a special wine label.

 

When we looked over the menu, I didn't get any further than "Dungeness crab mac 'n' cheese."  Talk about wonderful comfort food!  I struggled between that and Dungeness crab fetuccini but ultimately went with the mac n cheese. 

It was a wonderfully sinful choice.

 

We had such a great evening and at our end of the table, we learned a lot about what happens when thousands of bees take up residence in your house.

At the end of the night, Pat's husband carried the balloons home.

 
What a delightful evening, and I know Pat enjoyed it.  Am very happy that we were able to help her celebrate her birthday

Block Lifted

Life Guidance (the real name of the memory unit) was on lock-down for about a week due to people having the flu.  Residents were asked to stay in their rooms, they ate their meals in their rooms.  And, of course no visitors.

There were 17 residents (out of about 50), in all, who had the flu, one of them my mother.  And you can't call her because she doesn't really understand the phone and wouldn't have clue why you were calling.

Yesterday there was a meeting scheduled at 4 p.m. to meet the new director of Life Guidance, so I went to Atria at 3 so I'd have an hour to be with my mother before the meeting.  She was asleep when I got there an slept for half an hour while I sat and watched her.

When she finally woke up, she was, as always, disoriented and though we sort of had a conversation, it was mostly me agreeing with what unintelligible question she was asking me.  As is her new thing, she got up and left after awhile and went to the bathroom, but never came back. 

She finally did and was absorbed in making her bed several times.  I finally told her I was going to the meeting, but would return.

When I finally found the meeting, the group was just getting ready to move back to Life Guidance where it would be more quiet.

Jennifer, the new director, seems to be great.  She has lots of experience with dementia patients and her ideas for Life Guidance seem kind of exciting.  She wants to get the people away from the TV (where they seem to spend most of their time) and either out in the patio, or on short walks outside the building, or on a one-on-one basis maybe taking someone with her when she goes to pick up mail...anything to get them out of the rut they have been in.

She also hopes to do short bus tours around Davis.  They had tours like that in the early years she was at Atria but she was afraid to get on a bus unless I went with her -- which was not my idea of her participating in the activity!

I mentioned that at the place in Santa Barbara where Walt's mother lived, they occasionally had young mothers' groups come with their babies and just let the kids play for awhile while the residents watched.  She had never heard of that but agreed it sounded like a good idea and will check on it.  (That's the answer I always got before and nothing ever got done, but this woman seems more on the ball and more looking for  things to do with the residents to give their brains and bodies a bit more exercise.)  

The biggest surprise of all happened in the middle of the meeting.  We were on one side of the room and the big TV, where  they show movies, videos and sing-alongs, was on the other side, with couches and chairs for the viewers.  The  TV off.

Suddenly I saw my mother shuffling in and she sat down on one of the couches and I realized she was sitting next to Tony, the guy they have told me is her special friend.  I was kind of smiling looking at the two of them when my mother cozied up to him and rested her head on his shoulder.

My mouth dropped open and everyone in the meeting turned to see what had shocked me.  The three staff members smiled and said that the couple had become very lovey-dovey.

She sat with him for awhile, her hand on his knee, then she got up and shuffled out to the patio.  A few minutes later he followed her and sat down.  She went to where he was and they were talking (I have never heard Tony "talk" and don't know if he makes sense or not), then she walked away again and I didn't see her, though Tony came back in and sat down again.

When we left, the residents were at dinner, my mother and Tony sitting to different tables.

Well...it will be interesting to see how this "relationship" progresses.

I wonder how old Tony is...

What's Up, Doc?

I had a craving for carrots yesterday.

CARROTS?

I don't crave carrots!

I crave donuts, or pancakes, or freshly baked bread, or any sort of pastry, but not -- carrots.

I had a hard time with carrots as a kid.  I couldn't eat them.  I don't mean I didn't like them, I literally could not eat raw carrots. I would chew and chew and chew and get the carrots just like a cud in my mouth, but I simply could not swallow them.

I could eat, and did enjoy, buttered cooked carrots (the operative word being "buttered," of course!) but it was years and years before I was able to swallow raw carrots.

I did, in time, learn to eat raw carrots and especially liked carrot-raisin salad.  Why I suddenly had a craving for it yesterday, I don't have a clue, but I knew we had a big bag of carrots in the refrigerator and so I got them out and made myself a big batch of salad.

I shredded a bunch of carrots, added a handful of golden raisins and then, as a last idea, also shredded up an apple that was starting to look tired.  Then I added a bit of mayonnaise and some orange juice and mixed the whole thing up.

The thing about carrot-raisin salad is that you can't eat it right away.  It has to sit long enough to let the flavors blend.  But within an hour, I had a small bowl and it was just what I had been craving.  I had so much left over that we had it for dinner last night and I finished off the bowl.  Craving satisfied!

---

I heard this morning that it was the 35th anniversary of the big earthquake.  I immediately thought it was of the Loma Prieta quake, which hit the Bay Area hard and since I am San Francisco centric, I didn't realize it was the anniversary of the Coalinga quake in Southern California.  The Loma Prieta quake happened in October of 1989, which is not to dismiss Coalinga, but I didn't have that experience and the report of the anniversary set me to remembering that terrible day in October.

I was working for The Typing Company, which was in an upstairs office in Davis and suddenly we felt a little jolt.  I knew that if we were feeling a jolt, it must have been a big one in the San Francisco area.

Walt was working in DC, Ned was living with Marta and working at a video store in Oakland, Tom and David were at the World Series game in San Francisco, Jeri was working in South San Francisco and only Paul was here in town.  I immediately called Marta and found out that yes, it was a big one but she and Ned were fine.

I left work right away, worried about what happened to all those people at the ball game but by the time I got to the car they were reporting no serious problems at the game, so I wasn't worried about the kids.

But the earthquake happened at the time Jeri would be driving home from work, from South San Francisco across the bridge to the east bay and there was a report that part of the Bay Bridge had collapsed (but no details about how bad it was...not as bad, as it turned out, as I feared)

What actually happened was that a small section of the bridge collapsed onto the bottom section of the bridge.  One person was killed but that was by stupidity  Nobody was killed by the collapse, but someone decided that their car could jump over the break, tried it, and fell onto the bottom deck and was killed.  

I finally heard from Tom and David, who had gone home with Walt's brother and his wife and would stay in with them that night.

It was 10 p.m. before I heard from Jeri.  The Bay Bridge is built in two sections which meet at a tunnel on Treasure island, which was built for the International Exposition in 1939 (where, coincidentally, my father met my aunt, who introduced him to my mother).  After the exposition, it became a military base and though the base closed in 1991, it was still an active military base in 1989.  

The collapse had taken place on the far side of the island, so you could not get from San Francisco to the east bay.  They had to take all of the cars, lined up bumper to bumper across the bridge, off at Treasure island, where they could turn around and head back to San Francisco.  It took hours.  Jeri called in tears from a pay phone.  She was alone in the city and didn't know where to go.  All the lights in the city were out.  I thought of a friend she could stay with and gave her the phone number.  She was able to find the house and spent the night but it was a bad night for her, and so hard for me to be in Davis with almost my entire family scattered across the country and unable to do much to help any of them.

You realize how helpless you are in moments like that.  I felt like a mother hen whose chicks had all scattered and I couldn't get to them.

There's No Place Like Homeland

I had only one episode of Homeland to watch before the finale, but I couldn't stay awake, so I gave up.  But when I woke up at 4 and was, as usual, wide awake, I decided to watch it.  Yes! I finished. So I went to check and see when the finale was going to be shown and discovered it had already aired and was there OnDemand for me, so I had to watch that too.

There is absolutely no question about whether or not there will be a Season 8 or there will be fans storming the Showtime offices and demanding one.

This means, though, that I have binge watched all 12 episodes of this show in 2-1/2 days.  I haven't watched so completely since I tried to catch up on 5 seasons of The Sopranos.

Of course the nice part about binge watching is the instant gratification of solving that cliff hanger that most episodes end on!  But that's one huge cliff that the finally left us all with!

---

Last night we went to the last (of 3) night of the Alfred Hitchcock film festival.

The previous two weeks we have seen a movie each time, Saboteur and Shadow of a Doubt.  I had not seen Saboteur and was happy to see it.  I had seen Shadow of a Doubt but had forgotten most of it, especially how it ended.

Both movies and the cozy, fun atmosphere in the showing, were such fun we decided to return for the last one.  This week it was 3 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, the TV anthology which ran from 1955 to 1965.  

We hadn't planned to go to it, but we enjoyed all the background information that our friend Derrick Bang gave as an intro to each film and thought it would be fun to hear what he had to say about this week too.

I have strong memories of watching Alfred Hitchcock Presents when it was on, but as I do a little research I realized that most of the ones I remember were actually  Twilight Zone shows (like William Shatner on a plane terrified by a creature on the wing 

 

or Burgess Meredith as a myopic misanthrope who wants everyone to go away so he can spend his time reading, then after there is some sort of disaster that kills everybody and leaves the world in rubble, he is delighted that it's only himself and books...and then drops his glasses and breaks them.

But the one I remember the most was a Hitchcock episode and, as it turns out, one of the favorites. I was pleased that it was one of the three that Derrick chose to show -- the one where an angry wife kills her husband by hitting him over the head with a frozen leg of lamb, then cooks it and serves the roast to the police who are searching the house for the murder weapon.  Favorite line from that is from one of the investigators, sitting with all the police, enjoying their meal, saying "I have a feeling the weapon is right under our noses."  Slow pan in to picture of the wife, sitting and smiling.

So the Hitchcock festival is now over.  They do another film festival in the fall and I think we will be looking forward to it.