Annual Tune-Up

Well, I'm ready to go for another year.

* I've had an OK exam from both of my eye doctors.

* I've gotten a clean bill of health from my dentist.

*And even my doctor had nothing but good things to say.

I can't remember when the last time that happened  I'm used to getting good feedback from the eye doctors, but no suggestions for how to do things better from my dentist and no warnings about things I should be doing from my doctor is new for me.

But then I should have expected it.  Maybe at 73 I'm starting to grow up.

Brushing and flossing regularly led to the good dental appointment.  Even the x-rays came out just fine.  Cindy didn't have to warn me about what dire consequences my teeth were in.

And then there is that "taking your medicines daily" business which I have resisted so effectively for such a long time.  But it's amazing when you actually take the damn pills.  Your body starts doing what the pills are designed to help you do.  Whoda thunk?

When the appointment ended, my doctor said she realized I hated to come in and I corrected her.  I said I didn't mind coming in when I had been doing all the things I was supposed to be doing.  I only hated to come in when I knew I had not been following her instructions.  I have no "white coat terror," hating to see a doctor (like my mother does).  If I did, I would not have worked in doctors' offices for most of my working life! I just hate getting scolded for not doing the things I know I should be doing.

Heck, I even got a clean bill of health from my therapist.  I had not seen Deb in a year.  I started gong to her to get over this block I had about taking the damn pills.  She pronounced me graduated after 3 or 4 months of seeing her, maybe less.  But I realized recently that I was sorely in need of another tune-up.  Not for pills this time, but for my mother.

We talked a lot about my mother and coping mechanisms a year ago but lately her dementia has me climbing the walls and I keep joking that she talks about getting to hunnert but she might not do that because I might kill her first.

There was nothing, of course, that Deb could offer me to make it better and definitely not to make it all go away, but I discovered as I talked to her that what I really needed was somewhere to say it all, to let it all out, to rant an rave in a safe, non-judgmental environment.  By the end of the hour, I felt better.  She reminded me that given my mother's robust good health otherwise there was a good chance that she had several more years ahead of her.  She offered me a follow-up appointment, but I realized I didn't need one.

I didn't come away with any plan to make it better for myself, but just having let out all the frustration helped and I'm starting with a clean slate again.

Now if I can just get my driver's license renewed this week, everything will be behind me for another year.  Last year when I went to renew, I had to take a behind the wheel test because I'm now over 70.  But it was more complicated because I had zero vision in my right eye and the tester told me from now on I would have to have my license renewed annually and always have a driving test.  Bummer.

But now I have vision again.  I probably can't get out of the driver's test this year, but I'm hoping that my newly restored vision will change that "yearly" status and I can get rid of the necessity of having a driving test every year.

By next week it will all be behind me.  I hope.

Remembering Richard

http://www.funnytheworld.com/2016/Feb/09.htm

Marvelous Martha

They say deaths come in threes.  Today we lost the third friend in three days.  This one, like Richard's death, hurts.

In between Richard's death on Thursday and today's sad passing of Martha Dickman, Walt lost his co-worker and friend of more than 50 years, Al Almquist, whose 100th birthday party we attended last year.  Obviously his death was not a shock, but every death is a shock, isn't it?

Martha was one of those people that I considered friend, though I don't know that we ever had in-depth conversations.  We just were involved in the same things and around each other often, at various times in our lives and saw each other frequently enough that it never occurred to me that she was anything other than a friend.  I interviewed her several times for one newspaper article or another.

She was a member of the Davis Comic Opera Co. throughout its entire thirty year history, whether performing or helping put the production together.

She was a soloist in a blues band for many years.

When Citizens Who Care, that group that gives care to the frail elderly and their caregivers here in Davis, was looking for a fund raiser, Martha and Stephen Peithman formed a group which performed for some 12 years, the largest CWC fund raiser each year, giving unselfishly of their talents to raise money for a good cause.

I don't know which year this photo was taken, but several years ago.  The make-up of the group changed over the years but Martha and Steve (standing next to her in the back) produced and were in every show.  

When Martha's voice began to lose its oomph, she performed with a mic (by their last performance, in 2014, many other aging performers were now using mics).  Martha also loaned her grand piano, which was transferred to and from the theater every year.

But over and above the performing, I will always remember Martha as a gentle, elegant lady, always willing to help young performers (when, in the early days of Lawsuit, Paul was having trouble sustaining his voice throughout a 2 hour show, she worked with him to give him tricks for how to keep his voice going).

"She was one of a kind. And one of the kindest, most loving and supportive people in my theatre family," wrote someone on Facebook.  "Martha was a personal inspiration and force of nature, and always made my heart sing." wrote another. "A sweet and gentle person."

The last time I saw Martha was at a thank you reception last fall for those involved with CWC, where she was specially honored.  They encouraged her to sing a bit and today I am regretting that I only recorded about 45 seconds of her song....but obviously even at 90, the pipes were still strong.

NOTICE TO THE WORLD:  I do not want to write another obituary for several months, please!

Yesterday at Logos

As slow as it was at Logos last week is as busy as it was this week.  I usually take four little slips of paper to write notes on, but this week I needed 5.  Mike had a busy morning too, though he's trying to be an overachiever, writing down the title of every book sold.  I record by genre (CF for Contemporary Fiction, SF for Sci Fi, BB for Bargain Book etc., with the number of each genre sold "CF (2), BB (2)," etc.)  Poor guy left a note on the sale sheet that things had been too hectic to record the titles of all 8 of the children's books he sold!  I reassured him that such completeness wasn't necessary.

My first customer was a cheery British guy who came in, saying he had a few minutes before his train was due to arrive (we are 2-1/2 blocks from the train station) and he had time to brows.  He found a philosophy book and left a happy camper.

A tall long-haired woman with dark framed glasses, wearing bell bottom pants and a plaid "big shirt" came to the desk with 4 books by Deepok Chopra, then took 2 back, standing at the bookcase for awhile checking her phone.

A guy was happy to find "The Girl in the Spider's Web" by David Lagercrantz, the brave author who is trying to keep the Stieg Larsson Lisbeth Sander series going.  The guy said he was willing to pay $6 to see if it was any good before buying any more of his books.  I suspect he will like it, since the New York Times reviewer said, "Fans of Stieg Larsson’s captivating odd couple of modern detective fiction will not be disappointed.”

A lovey dovey couple looked around for awhile then joined hands, hips and lips as they walked out the door without buying anything.

A guy carrying a frou frou drink with whipped cream on tops of it.  He was wearing a grey t-shirt with a figure that looked like an ultrasound of a pink monster baby inside a bright blue placenta.  He bought a couple of books on European travel.

A guy was looking for a book on The China Study (which he was surprised I didn't know since it was quite well known, he tells me).  He was surprised we had no computer to check to see if we had the book since he didn't want to take the time to check the shelves.  I'm always surprised when people are disappointed that we can't check a computer.  I mean, people, really!  It's a used book store.  We may occasionally have more than one copy of a book, but most of the books are single copies.  Can you imagine the headache of keeping track???

A thin middle aged woman with spiky metallic red hair bought a couple of bargain books and said she was amazed to read the store policy (now posted on the window) about donating to charity.  She said she would bring some books to donate

In the middle of confusion, our Brasilian daughter Sonia called and I asked her to call back later that night (since we were going out to dinner right after I left Logos).

Interesting sight outside--a woman walked past with some pink and white streamers on a pole.  I wonder what that was about!

A woman was wearing an attractive kind of sweater-poncho-hoodie thing in a nice striped pattern.  She bought a book on Chagall and one on travel in Egypt.

A colorful woman in a powder blue jacket with a pink knit cap and a black t-shirt with "Italia" on it in pink bought a couple of bargain books.

A couple with a wirey dog who looked like "Shannon," a dog I remember from my childhood, was looking for "Eugene Onegin" and was happy to find the Proust work.  I was happy to pet the dog.

A girl bought a Lisa Sing book ("Shanghai Girls") but was quite uninterested in my telling her it was an entertaining book and that there was a sequel.

A woman brought "Satanic Verses" to the desk and said "I guess I should finally read this."  I told her that I hoped she would find it was worth all the trouble the book caused when Salman Rushdie wrote it.

The next woman was wearing a purple coat, dark grey Nikes with electric pink trim and aqua laces.  She was there with a guy who was probably her Dad and bought the very thick book, "The Historian" by Kostova Elizabeth.

Two student women types came in, one with long blue hair and a nose ring (how do you blow your nose with a nose ring?) and the other with brown striped hair (striped with blonde) piled on top of her head.  They didn't stay long and didn't buy anything.

A guy with whitish-grey hair, carrying a bag from The Paint Chip (an art supply store) came in, leaning heavily on a cane.  He bought 8 hard back books, some of which were oversized.  I filled up a bag for him, and he added a couple of books to his Paint Chip bag, but each of them was so heavy I didn't know how he was going to carry them while using a cane.  He said he would sit down when he needed to on the way to his car, which was about 4 blocks away.

2 girls came in and one of them bought 3 bargain books, counting out the price in quarters.

My friend arrived at 4:45 and wondered where the humor books had gone.  That was the first time I had noticed that several of the shelves had been rearranged.  The mysteries, which have always been right at my elbow, had now been moved toward the front of the store.  My friend bought 2 bargain books and a sci fi book, "The Flying Sorcerers," a book of short stories, not to be confused with "The Flying Sorcerer," my favorite David Gerrold-Jerry Pournelle shaggy dog story.

A Hobbit-looking guy (or maybe the mole-looking Wesen from Grimm) came in with a "small bag of books to donate."

A guy came in with two bags to donate, then two more, then two more.  In all there were 14 bags of books when Susan the Peter got to the store.  Fortunately, he wasn't interested in a receipt.

A UCD looking student bought a book by Edward Gorey and an art book.

A mom with 2 kids, a preteen girl and an older teen boy came in.  The girl bought a fantasy book and the boy bought "Paradise Lost."

At the same time the store was filled with.

• A barrel-chested short guy who reminded me of Richard Dreyfus
• A woman in a uniform from the Calif. Department of Fish and Game
• A short Asian woman with a tall non-Asian man
• A middle aged couple

Only the park ranger bought anything, one of the Alexander McCall-Smith "Ladies #1 Detective Agency" series and was surprised to hear there were others in the series, since she'd never heard of them.

A group of people, all holding yogurt cups from the yogurt store around the corner, paraded by preceded by the afternoon joggers.

And then Walt arrived and we went off to Sushi Unlimited again to "celebrate" what would have been David's 44th birthday.

One of the Good Guys

The Pinata Group lost another one today.  Richard died after a short stay in the hospital following a heart attack.  Richard was one of the good guys.  I really loved that man.

Richard and his wife Michele came into our lives, not through the Newman Club, as all the rest of the Pinata group did, but when we put our kids into Tiny Tots nursery school in Oakland, where their son Eric was also enrolled.

From the beginning, we all just "clicked."  As we began our New Year's Day pinata parties, we always included Michele, Richard and Eric, and in short order they were just one of the group and we forgot where the Newman folks ended and the Havel folks began.

Richard and Michele owned property in Mendocino county, which was nicknamed and is still called "Eric's Property."  We had many, many camping and huckleberry hunting expeditions on that property.  Richard mixed gin fizzes by attaching his blender to the motor of his beloved "White Elephant."  

We have always teased Richard about his built in nose and glasses.  In fact, when he turned 50 (he was the oldest of us, by quite a bit), Michele threw a surprise party for him where everyone, including his 80-something mother and the stripper hired for entertainment, all wore Groucho glasses.  I'd love to post a photo of this event, but we missed it.  We were hosting our first foreign student, Eduardo from Brasil, and we gave him the choice of going to the party or driving up to Washington/Oregon on a camping trip right after Mt. St. Helen's erupted.  Being from Brasil, especially Rio de Janeiro, the prospect of seeing a nude woman was nothing special, but the chance to collect volcanic ash was something he would not get to do in Brasil.  So we missed the party of the century.

When Char and Mike sold their house in Oakland, they sold it to Michele and Richard, to keep it in the family.  They took over their house and their dog Rocky.  We had so many parties in that house, always with a big bowl of clam dip as the center of attention (we made sure the boys didn't hover).

When they sold the house, Ned and Paul made a video about it.

We lost Michele in 2007.  She and Richard had bought a house up in the Sierra foothills.  Richard was delivering Meals on Wheels that morning and when he left the house, he noticed Michele sleeping on the bed.  When he returned home, she hadn't moved and he discovered she was gone.  It was a terrible blow to all of us, because who would have thought that someone so young and so healthy would be one of the first to leave us.  We scattered part of her ashes on Eric's Property and Char and I took some with us to France when we went there with the girls in 2009.  Michele, a French major, always wanted to visit France and never made it.  Now some of her ashes rest somewhere off the coast of Nice.

Richard continued to live in the house, the old man on the hill.  Char and I drove up and visited him a couple of times and have been talking about driving up there again, but now it's too late.  Proving once again the necessity of not putting things like this off.  I don't feel guilty for not going to see him, but sad for us that we missed the chance for one more visit.  I think the last time we saw him was a Mike's funeral.

We are of an age (at 73 I am the youngest of the pinata group) when the death of one of our good friends is not unexpected, but it's always a big punch in the gut to realize that we are a little smaller and a little less rich now.

Richard made it to the other side to be with Michele again...and just in time for David's birthday.

I'm So Relieved

I was relieved three times today...maybe four times, sorta.

First, we went to see The Little Mermaid last night and it has a short run, so I had to get the review in fairly early this morning.  Normally I get a review started and then go to sleep and finish it in the morning.  Last night I conked out before I had a chance to start writing it.  But the strangest thing happened.  It's never happened before.  I woke up at 7 a.m., with the review written in my head!.  The bulk of the review, other than the specifics I had to get from the program, was clear as a bell.  All I needed to do was type it, clean it up a bit, add the names of who played what, and in no time I had sent it off to the paper.  I don't expect this to ever happen again, but given that I was already behind when I went to sleep this was a great relief.

Next I went to Atria to deliver my mother's clean undies.  She wasn't there when I first got there, so I left them on her bed and went looking for her.  She was just finishing lunch, so I walked her back to her apartment, where we had a decent visit.  I had to cut it kind of short because I had an appointment at 3, but I didn't leave there frustrated, like I so often do.  That was a relief.

Then, remember when I wrote about my angst finding my favorite strawberry field gone?  Well, I also mentioned it on Facebook and someone told me that it wasn't gone, it had just moved 200 yards east of where it once was, and that the original plot of land was going to be planted in almond trees (which are as abundant around here as vineyards are in the Napa Valley).

So I took the back road to the freeway and sure enough.  I had to stop and take a photo.

The "Local Grown Fresh..." sign is where the old stand sat.  And around it is all the dirt where there used to be blackberry vines.  Behind me is all the dirt where there used to be strawberry fields.

BUT, that little white block up by the trees in back is the new stand.  Right now it's not much and there isn't even a road to get to it, but it's there, so it will rise again...and I am very relieved.

But the biggest relief was yet to come.  I've had such depression over my mother lately that I sometimes feel like I want to explode,  I come home from Atria and all I can do for awhile is sit in a chair and stare off into space.  I am remembering my father during his nervous breakdown, sitting in the living room, with all the lights off, the only thing was the red glow from the tip of his cigarette.  He would sit there for hours. I think about that memory a lot these days, when I just can't find the energy to do anything because I feel so weighted down by concern for my mother and frustration over her worsening symptoms (even though by comparison to so many people dealing with dementia in loved ones, I have it so very easy).

So I finally made an appointment with the therapist I saw about a year ago, for a few months to discuss, among other things, my mother.  She was the therapist I got by accident because the one I had my original appointment with had a conflict.  But since I didn't know either of them, it made no difference to me who I saw.  

It turned out to be the best "accident" because Deb is just perfect for me.  She got me through the problems I had gone to see her about originally and today I discovered, as I talked, that intellectually I know all the right words and the right answers, but emotionally I needed help with how to continue to cope.  What I needed was a safe place to explode and let it all out...and I did.  And it felt good.  There are no answers, of course.  She made a couple of suggestions I will follow up on, but she told me what I needed to hear, which was given my mother's robust physical health we are possibly looking at several more years of dealing with her dementia and she may well live past 100.

(I showed her the before and after picture of my mother's visit with her old beautician and the difference in her caused Deb to give a surprised gasp)

I didn't make a return appointment because nothing is going to change between now and a few weeks from now and I felt so much better just having had the chance to let it all out and get feedback from her.  I told her I wished I were in worse shape because I enjoy her company and would like to come back again, but can't justify making another appointment.  She gave me a big hug and her phone number and said to call anytime if I need to explode again.  I may do that, but for right now, I'm feeling like a huge load has been lifted from my solar plexus and I can pick up and go back to Atria with renewed strength to face the next chapter.

Strawberry Fields--Not Forever

I was shocked to drive out Covell Blvd. the other day, on my way to the back road to I-80. and find...nothing.

No ramshackle hut, no resting fields, no dead vines.  Nothing,

The strawberry field and shack was just....gone!

To my great surprise  when I mentioned the strawberry stand to Walt a few days ago, he was not aware there was one there. 

It was about a mile and a half out of Davis and in my mind's eye had been there forever.  I looked forward each year to the stand reopening so I could start buying strawberries again.

It was run by an Asian family and had the best, cheapest, sweetest strawberries around.  When you bought them (and I always bought at least a flat) they were warm and sweet and you could hardly wait to get them home and do something with them.

The shack itself always looked like it could be blown down in a strong wind...and it never looked any different.  Some boards thrown up along the sides, always a pile of rubbish, and that American flag waving proudly over it.

For the first years I started buying there they only had strawberries, but lately they have branched out to blackberries with tall vines stretching out into the field opposite the strawberries.

But now there is nothing.  The shack is gone, the plants are gone and all you see is a brown field stretching off into the distance.

My heart is broken!

The proprietor was always a cheery guy who would throw in some other stuff for you at bargain prices...things like zucchini or green beans or some other bit of produce he happened to have on hand.

About half a mile from the stand there was a truck which also sold strawberries from the field to people who weren't likely to turn in at the stand itself.  Sometimes I bought my strawberries there.

What will I do now when strawberry season rolls around?  There is always the farmers market and the fruit stand on the freeway, but it won't be the same as this, my favorite fruit stand.  It was similar in appearance to the cherry stand in Gilroy that we frequent in cherry season as we are driving to Santa Barbara.

But this was in our own back yard.  And now it is gone.

It's going to be a big readjustment this spring....