Joystory: February 2007

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

More Loss on the Horizon

Our family, more specifically my husband's family, is bracing for the loss of his 92 year old Grandmother. She went back in the hospital in the wee hours of last Thursday morning during the snowstorm that dropped five inches on the valley floor and felled trees and knocked down powerlines. Her trek to emergency was not precipitated by any of that, it was just another of the more and more frequent attacks in which she can't get her breath. She was sent home from the hospital this afternoon on the hospice plan. There will be no more hospital visits. They consider her to be in endstage lung failure after years of fighting both asthma and emphysema. I thought I would post this quick announcement for those few of you who have been following her story as I've blogged occassionaly about sitting with her while my in-laws run errands or have an afternoon or a week-end rest or recreation. My father-in-law has been her primary caretaker for the past two years, moving in with her nearly eighteen months ago while I was up in Longview, WA attending my father's deathbed with my family.

Loss looms large in the picture of the last six years of my life. This is not a small one.

Prayers for our family are welcome.

Monday, February 26, 2007

The Measure of a Man by Sydney Potier

I really can't call this a review. Not a formal one at any rate. I no longer have the book with me to refer to, nor did I take notes as I read. I was practically speed-reading it Sunday and did not finish until nearly midnight. I set out to write a quick review while it was all fresh but my laptop was in a balky mood and had to be restarted and during the restart I started Stephen King's Lisey's Story. Thirty pages into that it was my eyes that were balking.

I had to let the Potier memoir go back to the library when my husband left for work at seven this morning. I hate trying to do a review without the book in front of me but I just can't let this one go by without commenting on it. It moved me tremendously. He talks about the struggle to live with integrity. He confesses to not always measuring up to his highest standards. He talks about the necessity of confronting one's own darkest impulses, which must begin by acknowledging they exist.

He confesses that if pressed, he will admit to a belief in God. But he considers this to be, not an entity, but an immense consciousness that holds every particle of the entire universe in its awareness at every instance. He is uncomfortable with even this much defining and demurs at naming it even with the word 'god' as he sees naming and defining as the beginning of devisiveness. I am paraphrasing horribly here and hope I have not shredded his meaning too badly. I just had to share this part because this was where I got goosebumbs as I read because he was describing so closely the understanding that I have come to through my own studies and contemplations since I broke with the Fundamentalist interpretation of Christianity in 1992. And like Potier, I still hold a great affinity for the Christian story, its metaphors, images, rituals and aspirations but also like him, I hesitate to name or define. I would go so far as to say that attempting to pin it down with a name is the beginning of idolatry.

My favorite part was the first couple chapters that cover his life from early childhood on Cat Island in the Bahamas to his discovery, in his late teens, of a passion for acting. Events in between had taken him from Cat Island at ten, to Nassau and then to Miami and eventually to New York.

The bulk of the book consists of anecdotes and reflections for each of his major stage and screen roles. I have missed most of them, tho I faintly remember having seen at least part of To Sir With Love as a teenager and having been moved by it, however briefly, to consider becoming a teacher. I remember wishing that I had ever had a teacher who could 'see' me like that teacher 'saw' each of his charges.

I went up on the library's online catalog this morning to see which of his movies were available on DVD. I ordered several of them on my husband's card because after Wednesday, I will be unlikely to be able to check anything more out on my card for at least two weeks as I have to work my card's load down from 97 to under 30 items in order to check out any more of the requests coming to me. I am highly motivated to do so though as among the requests I am next in line for are To Sir With Love and the Defiant Ones. Both Sydney Potier movies. Also Crash and Dangerous Minds and Waking Ned Devine. All three of which I've been waiting months for. So the next couple of weeks are going to be an intense exercise in letting go.

Among the Potier DVDs I ordered on my husband's card were Look Whose Coming to Dinner, Raisin in the Sun and Lillies in the Field (which he won the Oscar for). I, (or rather my husband) got either first or second slot on each these so there is hope I will get to see each of them before April 6. It would be nice if not too much time goes by between reading Potier's commentary on them and actually watching them.

I was dissappointed to not find A Patch of Blue in either DVD or VHS in the library system. I was most eager to see that one as it features a blind girl. And I don't believe I have ever seen it. I think I would remember as visual impairment was such an issue in our family with my Mother and her Mother both suffering from RP, and me learning I also had it just before I turned thirty.

Well, back to Lisey's Story. It has been an exercise in delay of gratification to not pick it up again before I at least tried to say something about the book I spent most of Sunday with. The large print of the Potier book has spoiled me tho. That is probably why I was able to read over 300 pages in under ten hours. Something that used to be so common I never thought twice about it but has become as rare as slugs in a salt mine in the last five years. My plan is to intersperse DVDs with reading whenever eyestrain gets the best of me.

They're Coming To Take Him Away, Ha Ha...

They're coming to take him away, ho hope?

What are the implications that this cartoon was puplished in a Nevada newspaper? By its own editorial cartoonist?

Hat Tip Josh Marshall at TPM

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Library visit #229...and the clock is ticking

Friday was my 229th visit to the local library since we moved back here in August of 2001. I know this because I number a little slip of paper and paperclip it to the bib slips I make for each of the books in that batch. I used to number the reciepts too but started letting that slide as I gained more dependable access to my libary account online. I don't know how many more visits there will be before the doors close April 6. Only six more weeks. I have been averaging a visit per week but I won't be now because as of next Thursday, March 1st, they are limiting all patrons to 30 items. After I checked out my card totaled 97. Which means I have to return over 67 items before I can check out more. If any more of my requests come in early next week, I might go pick them up on Wednesday. They will hold a request for eleven days. So I have until March 12th to pick up something that comes in for me on the 1st. Some of the items I'be been waiting my turn for for months.

But quite a few of the items I have checked out right now I watied in queue for weeks or months for. Like Sidney Poitier's The Measure of a Man, which is the Oprah book club selection this month. It was actually due Friday and I kept it over the week-end. I started it last week while staying with my husband's grandmother so my in-laws could go on vacation. I sent for the large print copy, which is why I even got it at all. When I went online to check on it just hours after watching Oprah announced it, the queue was already in the double digits for the regular edition. Looking for large print editions of high-demand books is one of the tricks I have learned. I feel guilty holding onto a book I know so many are wanting right now. But I really want to finish. Not least because its subtitle is a spiritual autobiography. And also so as not be totally lost when I watch the Oprah show in which the book club discusses the book with its author. But mostly because I started it and was already enchanted by his tales of life as a boy on Cat Island in the Bahamas.

I hope to finish the Poitier by Saturday night as next on my agenda is Stephen King's Lisey's Story. It is due next Friday and is over five-hundred pages. I was amazed I got my turn at all as the queue was already in the 70s when I signed on in mid December. But for very high-demand items like King and Harry Potter, they tend to provide enough copies for each of the 15 branches to have their own--and then some. I am quite frustrated that I have had it for two weeks and not started it yet. The day I checked it out was the day I learned I was needed to sit with Grandma for three days in the upcoming week. I knew better than to try to read a King novel under circumstances where frequent interruptions were a given. When I got back home, it was time to do that week's TT--the 13 giggles. And then prepare for the Friday library visit, which entailed fullfilling a vow I had made to myself on the walk home the previous week to return 30 items--I had finished three books and watched 12 DVDs and there were six items that would not renew during that week. I sent back all the novels coming due in the next three weeks and several NF that I knew there was a queue for.

Today, I brought home the new Thomas Pynchon novel. Against the Day. It is over 1000 pages. I know there is a queue for it. I know it will be at least a week before I can start it and I already let it set on the reserve shelf for a week. But I just had to bring it home and hold it in my hands and browse in it and make out a bib slip for it. Plus, my husband expressed an interest in it. But if neither of us has started it by next Friday, I intend to let it go.

My 13 year-old niece spent the long weekend with us and she and I had a movie marathon each of the three nights. We watched two Jane Austen novel dramatisations--Northranger Abby and Persuasion. I have turned another young-woman onto Jane Austen! Now she wants to read the novels. We also watched Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. I've read the three novels, turned onto them by another niece over a year ago. We also watched The Glass Menagerie, Now, Voyager, Charade, An Affair to Remember and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. All of these were firsts for me!

That is due in part to being raised Fundamentalist. This past year I have gorged on old movies trying to fill in some of the huge culture gap created by being mostly cut off from my own culture for the first thirty-three years of my life. This is one more thing I can thank a Public Library system for. Just as the Longview, WA Public Library was there for me when I discovered I needed to learn to think for myself in 1992 the Southern Oregon Library System was here for me when my sense of being clueless about essential culture memes became unbearable.

I almost didn't get to go to the library this week. We had five inches of snow over Wednesday night. The power went out for three hours Thursday morning. I was in the middle of visiting TT participants when it cut out at 4am. My laptop still worked on battery but of course we lost the WIFI, so I just hibernated my laptop and lay down in the dark and listened for evidence the power was back on. It hadn't come back on when my husband had to get up to get ready for work at six. He and his Mom both had to get ready for work in a dark house, though in the end she didn't go after learning that the traffic signals were out between here and Ashland. My husband was back home again before noon because the power kept going out there so they couldn't print the tickets for the product to be shipped.

There was still qutie a bit of slush on the pavement Friday morning and I knew I was taking my life in my hands to go out in that. If I put my foot down wrong on a slick patch... If I lost my bearings because a landmark was covered over--for me with severe tunnel vision a landmark is a crack in the pavement, a manhole cover, a painted line... Well, both those things happened several times but no disaster came of it. I did almost walk out into the traffic once when I lost my bearings after stopping to dislodge ice and gravel from the wheels of my rolling backback.

If I hadn't made it, I would have missed out on the visit of a reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle wanting to talk to 'regular people' about to be affected by the libary closure. I guess it is very uncommon, for a whole county to shut down all of its library services, which makes it a story worth crossing a state line to check into.

I was getting ready to leave when the reporters came in and struck up a conversation with the librarian. I didn't understand that they were reporters. I just thought they were patrons chatting about the immenent closure. That has been quite common. I've overheard quite a few exchanges between the librarian and other patrons over this. I am not the only one freaking out over it. But this time they were talking about the history of the building the library is in right now and I hadn't heard it before.

We moved into temporary quarters last May so as to let City Hall move into the old library building. Then the building shared by City Hall and the Police Department was to be knocked down and the new libary built there. We were supposed to already be in our new quarters but the PD had trouble finding their new quarters. Now construction on the new building is to begin as soon as the weather improves. And yes, they are still going to build it even though the chances are high that it won't get to open for business. The funds for the building cannot be used for anything else.

Anyway, I was enthralled listening to the librarian tell how this little 'pocket library' we have right now used to be a dentists office and the dentist lived upstairs. Suddenly the floorplan made sense! The checkout counter was just like a receptionist window at a doctor's office. Next thing I knew, the librarian was coming out from behind the counter and over to the table where I was preparing to put on my coat and squirm into the straps of my backpack. I was wearing it on my back for the return trip and pulling a larger bag--a little old lady's shopping bag that had a larger wheel that could ride over that slush and gravel better. I had brought it folded up and stuffed into the backpack--its not much bigger than a coffee table book when folded up. I had also carrried a small duffle with a shoulder strap full of DVDs on the trip to and it was stuffed with DVDs again but I had stuffed it into the backpack. I had come prepared to take home everything waiting for both me and my husband. I was expecting to stuff all three bags. I am glad I didn't have to wear the backpack full of heavey books though.

I can't stay on track here. And it is no wonder. I can hear my mother-in-law is up and getting ready for work. I've been working on this post for hours.

To wrap up: The librarian introduce me to the reporters. I still didn't get that they were reporters at first and when I started to suspect, I still thought they were local. It wasn't until I had been talking to them for fifteen minutes that I thought to ask and she handed me her business card. Meredith May from the San Francisco Chronicle. She told me the story would be published in the next three or four weeks.

I was surprised at how easy it was for me to overcome my severe social anxiety to talk to a stranger for so long. It was my passion for the subject that made me forget how shy and socially awkward I am for a few minutes. But at one point, shortly after she had taken down the url of my blog, I started to freak a little bit as I realized that somebody connected to publishing might soon be looking at Joystory and the url might even be published. All I could think of was what a poor showing for a blog I have. It was bad enough when I still thought they were local. But SFGate? San Francisco is a publishing mecca almost equal in stature to New York. This is the kind of attention that those of us who put up web pages to display our writing pine for. And I feel totally unprepared to be observed.

But, hey, if I can't get past that reluctance to attract attention to myself, I might as well get out of the blogging business altogether. Not to mention writing. I don't know whether perfectionism or profound shyness is the worst of my bugaboos. Neither of them are conducive to a writer's productivity. Both of them together are nearly fatal. Blogging was supposed to help me overcome both. And it has helped a great deal. I've come a long way since November 2004. I just wish it had been farhter.

I Was So Bummed...But Now Hope Springs

When I went to the Thursday Thirteen meme hub just after midnight Thursday morning after spending over six hours preparing my TT on supporting the troops and learned that the creator and hostess of the meme was closing it down and that this was the final edition, I was so bummed. It felt like one more thing that was special or meaningful to me was being taken away. Like our library system planning to close its doors due to lack of funding April 6.

I instantly tied my emotional reaction to the loss of TT to the immenent loss of the libary which has obsessed me since I learned of it in early December. I mean, I really don't need any more losses right now. But I was surprised at how strongly I felt about losing TT. At first I thought it was just that it was one more loss to add to the list of recent losses. Relative to loosing my Dad in September 05 this seemed like a trivial loss. But then why was I hit so hard by it? I have spent quite a bit of time contemplating that over the last 48 hours. I think that it is the loss of the sense of community that developed as week by week I would visit other TT and get visits in return. I 'met' a lot of interesting fellow bloggers. I found insight, chuckles when I most needed them, uplift, helpful information on their blogs and the comments left on my TT encouraged me.

TT served to improve my stats, it kept me motivated to post at least that one time each week even as other posting dropped off as my focus turned to the dozens of library items (books and DVDs mostly) I needed to tend to as D-day approached, it became a kind of discipline, it lifted my mood, it forced me to overcome my shyness and de-lurk as commenting was a req and now I've started to find it easier to leave comments impulsively unrelated to TT.

Well, last evening I set to making the obligatory return visits to the commentors on my TT and getting their links posted to the front page. And on one of the last of those I read in someone else's comment that the word on the meme hub was that TT was under new ownership. I went and checked it out and Lo...it appears to be true. Other than the title of the post, there is no info, just the message to stay tuned.

Now, if only the library system can find the funds to stay open before April 6. I might start believing in miracles again!

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Thursday Thirteen #21 Support Our Troops

This post is inspired by the visit this past weekend from our nephew, who is stationed at an Air Force base in the San Francisco Bay area. I have another nephew who recently finished his training as an EMT in the Army and is awaiting orders at a base in Texas. Neither has been deployed to a combat zone yet. I am so proud of them both.

It is no secret that I do not support this administration's foreign policy nor its manifestations in the War on Terror--especially the Iraq war. I posted some serious rants about it in the first few months after debuting Joystory. News of the first nephew's intention to join the Air Force was one of the factors that caused me to tone down my rhetoric and slow the postings on the topic to a trickle. I self-censored because I feared word would get back to certain family members and cause them pain. I about had it sorted out when the second nephew headed for boot camp last summer.

In fact, I am not a stranger to the military family life-style. My husband was a Marine when we married in 78. He was never in a combat zone during his years of service but he was well-trained and well-equipped for it. He is aghast at the way this administration is supporting the troops with little but rhetoric, while stabbing them in the back with every budget proffered. Discussions with him over recent events in the news and much of the reading in my frantic race to finish books I will loose access to when our libraries shut down April 6th has caused a head of steam to build up behind my original convictions. Keeping silent is a betrayal of not only myself but my country and its troops.

I mean, please! Mice and roach infested accommodations for wounded vets in outpatient care? Homeless vets? Deployed soldiers' families in food lines? Contaminated food and water served to combat troops? Year-plus long waiting lists for help with PTSD? Alcoholism, suicide, divorce and domestic violence on the rise among both deployed and returning vets? Stop loss enslavement? Four tours with little recuperation in between? Cutting the VA budget? Lowering the standards for recruitment to allow felons and undereducated? Depletion and deterioration of equipment? Shortened training? Selling America to the foreign buyers of the bonds that support the deficit that is paying for the first war ever fought without raising taxes? All of this while certain corporations and their stockholders and CEOs are making OBSCENE profits?

Somewhere in my bookmarks and notes there is a link to go with each one of those questions. I typed them off the cuff and don't have time to hunt links down right now. Each one of these questions deserves a post of its own.and I hope to give each one their due over the coming months.

Meanwhile, I offer this list of links to organizations who have found creative ways to put their hands, feet and money where their mouth is..supporting our troops and their families during and after deployment to combat zones. No matter what your political leanings are, no matter how you feel about the war, you will find something here that you can give whole-hearted assent to. You won't find bumper stickers, magnets or T-shirts. At least not on the front pages. Hover the links for extra info. (When I came to post my commentor's links onto the front page, I discovered the hover messages for the links aren't working so I put them back in the body of the post.)

Thirteen Ways to Support Our Troops

1. Homes for our Troops. Building homes to accommodate the needs of wounded vets.

2. Sew Much Comfort. From quilts to prosthetic accomodating clothing, wield your needles to fill a soldier's need.

3.Take a Vet Fishing

4. Operation Top Knot Virtual baby showers for babies born to deployed military personel. I love love love this one. The baby pics are to swoon for.

5. Hire a Hero Soldiers coming home to no jobs and no housing is a blot on our nation's honor. If you are an employer, you can do something about it.

6. Adopt a Soldier's Pet Gaurdian Angels for Soldier's Pets (GASP)

7. AnySoldier letters, care packages and more

8. Soldier's Angels There are a plethora of projects represented on this site. Go explore.

9. Freedom Calls Video conference calls for deployed soldiers to attend significant events in their loved ones lives: births, deathbeds, graduations, etc.

10 American Legion Again, many projects represented here. A well established foundation with experience in this field.

11. Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America They are not impressed by bumperstickers, t-shirts or magnets.

12. Veterans for America They demand we use the freedoms they fought for to ask tough questions. Cheerleading and rubberstamping is not their idea of patriotism or supporting the troops

13. VoteVets Vets of Iraq and Afghanistan willing to continue serving--in public office.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1. Jane 2. Tink 3. Raggedy 4. Chickadee 5. L^2 6. Jamie 7. Lady G~ 8. Susan Helene Gottfried 9. susan 10. Candy Minx 11. Sara 12. Gattina 13. Crystal 14. amy 15. jewlsntexas 16. JennyMcB

(leave your link in comments, I'll add you here!)

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It's easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Thursday Thirteen #20

I needed a giggle or two after the week I just had. I thought maybe I wasn't the only one.

Thirteen Giggles

1st Giggle

2nd Giggle

3rd Giggle

4th Giggle

5th Giggle

6th Giggle

7th Giggle

8th Giggle

9th Giggle

10th Giggle

11th Giggle

12th Giggle

13th Giggle

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1. L^2 2. THE BLUEST BUTTERFLY 3. Robyn Mills 4. Lady G~

(leave your link in comments, I'll add you here!)

Monday, February 12, 2007

Taking Stock

While I was preparing my Thursday Thirteen post last Wedensday, I was realized that I had not posted betweeen Thursdays for several weeks and was determined to not let that happen again this week. As always of late I am push hard against deadlines. I have thirty minutes to get something posted or I won't have another chance until Wednesday afternoon. I started composing a potential post in my head on the walk home from the library Friday and fully intended to get one done before I slept that night. But I learned before dineer Friday evening that I would be spending Monday thru Wednesday with my husband's grandmother so my inlaws can go on ther vacation to the coast. I was taken by surprise because they usually schedule their spring one for late March or early April but I guess my mother-in-law has learned they are going to be booked solid with a full house at the motel where she works through the next two months so she has to take her spring vacation now or not at all.

So I had to shift my expectations for the weekend. Especially regarding the library due-dates for the coming week. I would have to finish with the items due on Tuesday before Monday monring now. PLus I would need to get laundry done, shampoo my hair, pack my bags, get my sleep schedule swung around from days back to nights again....

I got all of that done before I slept Sunday night. Except for a handful of last minute things. I accomplished this by not sleeping at all Saturday night. But then I ended up with a headache all day Sunday coupled with an anxiety attack that had my heart racing and my chest feeling tight for a solid ten hours on Sunday. This made it difficult to sleep even tho I hadn't slept since Saturday morning.

Several things have contributed to the lack of posting here in the last several weeks. The looming closing of our local library doors on April 6 is the principle one. I am trying to get finished with a lot items I may not get a chance with again for who knows how long. To make matters worse, I learned the last Friday of January that as of March !st all patrons would be limited to 30 items. I typically carry over three times that many on my card. I decided that weekend that the fastest way to bring down the total would be to have a movie marathon over the next week. That would be an average of 2 hours per item. Less than I anticipated for books. Over the next ten days I watched forty movies. I also had to finish up with books coming due over those days too.

Releasing books as they came due used to be easy as I could expect to send for them again in a monty or so If I wasn't done with them. Now, releasing them probably means months or even an indefinite hiatus with them. And the projects they are related to...

As if I needed more trouble, that very weekend I came down with a virus--possibley the flu. And I broke my reading glasses by packing them wrong in my laptop's bag and then tossing it into the back seat of the car as I was leaving Grandma's after spending the morning with her. It was over five days before I got a replacement. They wern't my perscription reading glasses. Just those drugstore magnifying glasses. I ruined my prescription reading glasses a year ago by wearing them on top of my head when not in use. The lens were damaged by my hair gel.

So over this weekend besides getting ready to leave for half a week, I got nearly thirty items ready to go back to the library. I watched seven movies and read two books cover to cover and prepared twenty-some more books for return by spending from thirty to sixty minutes per book getting what I could out of them and letting them go. That was probably the primary source of the anxiety that I worked up yesterday.

Well, i gotts go get ready to leave now. Will be working on a post about my stay with grandma while I am gone. No access to the internet until I get back. I am going to have serious withdrawal....

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Thursday Thirteen #19

My TT last week was a sort of tribute to Molly. I was intending to write a more voluable one later but I was sick all week so instead I collected other peoples tributes and thouroughly intimidated myself. This little obsession of mine took second place only to the major movie marathon I was engaged in as I attempted to watch all of the thirty some DVDs coming due at the library over the past ten days.

So when it came time for TT again this week, my choice of topic seemed limited to movies or Molly tributes if I wasn't to have to wrench my focus away from what was engaging it. Molly won hands down because I really wanted to do one more thing to honor her and engaging in thie project was an antidote to the funk I sunk into as the virus had its way with me and the anxiety that consumes me as the library's closure date looms ever closer..

Thirteen Tributes to Molly Ivins

1. Matthew Rothschild: Molly Ivins, In Memoriam

2. John Nichols: Remembering Molly Ivins

3. Paul Krugman: Missing Molly Ivins

4. Bill Moyers: Remembering Molly

5.James Galbraith: A Tribute to Molly Ivins

6. Ralph Nader: For Molly Ivins

7. Linda Milazzo: Ann Richards and Molly Ivins Ain't Done with Us Yet!

8. Maya Angelou: Molly Ivins: America's Jericho Voice

9. Jay Root: What it was like to know Molly

10. Dan Rather: A Tribute to Molly Ivins from Friends, Colleagues, and Occasional Targets

11. Garrison Keillor :A Tribute to Molly Ivins from Friends, Colleagues, and Occasional Targets