steps

When NASA was looking for a teacher to go into space on the shuttle, I applied. It was close to the deadline. I really had to hustle to submit all the application parts in time. I asked my local mayor for a recommendation. She said sure, but would I write it. That seemed too weird. Instead my friend, Rowena, wrote a wonderful recommendation. The mayor signed it.

That letter was so well written and complimentary that it probably accounted for me making it past the first cut. Just the first cut though. I was out of the running long before Christa McAuliffe was named astronaut teacher.

I was lucky as it turned out. I've enjoyed being alive all this time. On January 28, 1986 the Challenger exploded. All aboard died. The Space Shuttle program, too, was killed.

In a way, I have another chance to participate in the USA space program. (I think I can force through a metaphor or something here.)

Tomorrow is the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 landing on the moon and the famous Neil Armstrong quote: "one small step for man; one giant step for mankind". Tomorrow I'm going to have the first of 3 joint replacements to make me walk well. It will be a bit of an ordeal and entirely insignificant for mankind, but really quite a giant step forward for me.

Of course I'm not looking forward to it. That would be crazy. Oddly though, I am looking forward to the opportunity to test my capacity for courage and grace in difficult circumstances. It's kind of like being an astronaut.

I remember well that Apollo 11 moon landing - July 20, 1969. My only child was almost 4 years old. We let him stay up late to see this momentous event, live, on TV. We tried to explain so he would understand the enormity of the event. When he grasped what we were saying, Greg was incredulous. "Wait a minute," he said. "Do you mean that no one has ever walked on the moon before this?"

The science fiction theme impinged on reality in our family at other times too. A decade later Jimmy Carter was campaigning for a second term against Ronald Reagan. My second son, Mike, was 9 years old. Mike was sure we were fooling him about the challenger's name. He just couldn't believe it. That's because Michael didn't hear 'Ronald Reagan'. He heard 'Ronald Ray-Gun'.

Michael misheard more than once. For years he thought our friend, Dan Thrope, had an infinitely better name: Dan Throw-up. Mr. Throw-Up.

Years passed. More astronauts walked on the moon. The Space Shuttle program was revived. The country took a stand against "The Evil Empire", but also prospered economically, under the stewardship of President Ray-Gun.

And tomorrow I celebrate the bravery and vision of the Apollo 11 astronauts in more ways than one.

Laundry Questions

My youngest daughter is impatient with me because I don't know the finer points of laundry. I do know that you can dump a bunch of dirty clothes and some detergent into the washing machine and then later take fresh clean clothes out of the drier.

She knows this much, and more, herself. She wants details.

A Good Mother, apparently, can answer all laundry-detail questions with authority and accuracy.

"Mom, can I wash my gauzy white blouse with bleach?"

"Sure, Honey."

"It's very fragile though, and the material is thin. Will the bleach ruin the fabric?"

" I don't think so."

"What do you mean 'I don't think so'?"

"Probably not."

"But probably isn't good enough. I have to know whether bleach will ruin this blouse."

"Well, if you have to know for sure, why not google it?"

This turned out to be a Bad Mother comment. The exasperating effect was made even worse by the fact that she mistakenly thought I said 'googler it', which seemed to demonstrate the same near-criminal ignorance of computer lingo as I had of laundry questions.

In fact, I do know some things about laundry. Most of my information was acquired the hard way.

For instance, I learned that you do not machine wash an elegant wine-red velvet dress that has a graceful neckline and long sleeves and covered buttons. You send the dress to the cleaners. I've been able to generalize from that heart-breaking lesson to acquire the broader insight that you do not machine wash and dry any velvet.

The hard way also taught me something about a load of diapers and another load of ordinarily quite washable dresses. Loads of laundry like that - and perhaps this can be broadened to include all laundry - ought not to be left in a New York City laundromat overnight and into the next afternoon.

I've learned other lessons about bleeding dyes, and shrinkable knits, and things in pockets, and fraying seams.

I've learned lots, but not everything. I'm not a laundry psychic. I can't predict the future for every piece of clothing in the hamper.

I'd like to though. I would like to draw on personal knowledge to dispense solid laundry advice at will. But I don't want to learn much more the hard way. I prefer the easy way. And I think I know just what to do.

Arcane "Good Mother" Laundry Tips. I'll just googler it.

Hearts

        The spring I turned 9 was the same spring I discovered bleeding hearts.  I remember

the moment well.

  I can still smell it.  Lying in the grassy slope by a rock garden in our new backyard, I was captivated by the little pink and white hearts that dangled from the stems of a mysterious plant.  The hearts swung a little in the breeze.

The intricate perfection of this flower's form filled me with awe.  

I wished I knew the name of this flower.  In fact,  I remember that moment of regretting my misfortune in not being born as the kind of person who knew the names of flowers, of sea shells, and of night time constellations.

Eight years later, when I was almost twice as old, I met this guy.  He knew the names of things.  It wasn't so much a case of being a certain type of person, he explained to me.  He just looked this stuff up in books.

What a talent.  I wanted in.  I married the guy.

All this time and no regrets.  Now I can recognize bleeding hearts and dahlias, scallops and cowry, Orion and Cassiopeia.   And more.

Ban Ki-moon and UNA USA MUN

    This picture, taken just a couple of hours ago, is of Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations.  He is in the General Assembly Hall, talking to 2000 teenagers.   These students have travelled from many U.S. states and from 17 countries to take part in a 3 day model United Nations conference.

     Ban Ki-moon is both relaxed and animated.  I think he likes young people.  He speculates that a future United Nations Secretary General might well be in the audience and he encourages all to consider a life of public service.

     Public service. In spite of what the skeptics think, it's a powerful idea that is still alive.

     Students from the audience ask him questions.  They are so earnest, so idealistic.  Some questions are undisguised challenges.  Ban Ki-moon is also earnest as he replies.  He is respectful of the idealism.  He is respectful of the challenges.   He tells the students that he can learn from them.  "So can the adult delegates who usually sit in these chairs," he says.  "They, too, have much to learn from your energy and enthusiasm."

     We were dismissed after Opening Ceremonies.  By luck, the discharge pattern put me out early.  I walked south on 1st Avenue past the whole United Nations complex.  Groups of lively students crowded the sidewalks.  There was a bench at 42nd Street.  I sat down.  It was twilight and a light rain had started.  Throngs of students moved past.  They looked particularly alert and happy.  Occasionally something would reveal a bit about a student's cultural identity - a group of laughing girls in kerchiefs, three boys running through an open space shouting out to each other in Italian,  a nun in habit with teenagers crowded against her sharing one umbrella. 

     Mostly though, differences were not apparent.  All those young people looked the same: bright and competent.

     Even the warmest supporter on the United Nations, like myself, recognizes serious flaws in the organization.

     But even the most cynical opponent of the U.N., had he sat listening in the General Assembly Hall this evening or watching on the park bench at 42nd and 1st a little later, even the most pessimistic could not have failed to recognize the hopeful promise of these laughing young people eager to carry our future.    

     

     

May Day Joy

     On another May 1st, when I was 10 years old, my mother described the custom for using flowers to spread spring's joy.

     This is how it works:  On the first day of May, you gather bouquets of flowers from spring's floral bounty.  You tie each bouquet with a ribbon or put it in a lace doily cone.  Then you bring it to a neighbor's front door, leave it on the doormat, ring the bell, and run away quickly to hide.  The neighbor answers the door.  Nothing is there but the beautiful flowers left anonymously on the door step.    The neighbor's heart is filled with the joy of spring.

      Really? I was skeptical.  Why hadn't I heard of this custom before?  Mom assured me that children all over the world practiced this delightful May Day ritual.

     Children like the ones that went to my new school?

     Yes, children everywhere, she said.

     But then why hadn't we given flowers to our neighbors last May Day when we lived on that lovely hillside outside of Portland, Oregon?

     Mom didn't have to explain.  I knew why.  On one side our neighbors were a bunch of sheep.  They would have eaten the bouquet and with no particular joy.  There was an open meadow on the other side - a sea of tall grass surrounded by evergreens.  When I played there, grass almost hid me.  There was not a natural recipient for the May Day joy in the direction of the meadow any more than on the side of the sheep.   Behind the house was woods as far as you could go.  If you were a kid.  In front, there was a stand of pine trees and a forgotten garden that still offered up rhubarb every year.

     In San Gabriel, California, where my mother introduced us to the May Day custom, houses were closer together.  Mom thought it would be a good idea for my brothers and sister and I to deliver a bouquet to our next door neighbors.

     I was resistant.  Two cranky old ladies lived next door.  They kept their window shades down.  They didn't like us.  It didn't seem as if they had much use for joy anyway.  But in this matter my mother was insistently persuasive.  We agreed to bring them May Day flowers.

     There was another obstacle though.  Where were the flowers?  We had a magnificent yard in San Gabriel.  There were 14 fruit trees, not counting the huge walnut tree or the non-bearing grapefruit and avocado.  There weren't any flowers except the lovely camelias on the patio and surely those were out of bounds for picking.

     We selected the best from the ample supply of dandelions.  The milky fluid in their stems ran down our arms and got on our clothes.  There were some violets too.  We added some other pretty things, like feathers and little sticks, to fill out the bouquet.  It looked pitiful.  The short-stemmed dandelions and violets wilted before delivery.  We didn't have any ribbon in the house on that particular day and I doubt we ever had lace doily cones.   Nevertheless, we deposited our homely bouquet on the old ladies' doormat, rang their doorbell, and ran for cover.  The crabbier of the two opened the door.  She looked around, but not down.  She put her hands on her hips and muttered something out of keeping with the spirit of the happy season, and went back inside.

     There weren't any other frolicking children leaving spring joy on their neighbors' doorsteps.  However many children followed this custom elsewhere, it was apparently unheard of in southern California.

     Although my May Day adventure was unsuccessful then, I find myself enchanted with the idea now.  Lilacs are blooming just outside my front door.  They are so pretty.  Their fragrance is is an elixir.  I'd like to leave them on your doorsteps.

     Perhaps their magic can be transmitted electronically.  For anyone who chances upon my blog, I leave you these lilacs, and the spring joy that comes with them.

      

Chandelier

This is the chandelier in the French Embassy on 5th Avenue.  Outside the windows you can glimpse dusk over Central Park

computer room

     Eight of these students set up a blog yesterday.  They're teenagers, so they all learned this stuff fast.  Faster, actually, than I taught.  Some of their blogs push the limits of propriety.  Perhaps that's to be expected.  You can check them out tomorrow when I enter links.  

sunlight

     Late afternoon sun lights up one's heart.  Here it is on my mantle piece.

     Probably bringing photos of my life into this blog will safeguard my way back out.  This kind of sunlight is always something to return to.

Not Quite Yet Swallowed Whole by the Blogosphere

     Last month I couldn't have confidently explained the difference between Blogosphere and Blagojevich.  Now I know.  Rod Blagojevich is a foul-talking and corrupt politician purveying as much sleazy charm as he can muster on the talk show circuit in an effort to undermine the rule of law and win acquittal in celebrity court.  The Blogosphere is much more pernicious.

      This blogosphere business came into my life innocently enough.  And late.  Even as recently as mid February, I'd never read one.  Didn't know how.

     Then a friend set up a blog for our literature club.  What a delight!  We all thought so.

     Once I realized this is an outlet accessible to people actually older than 23, I tried my hand.  It was easy.  It was fun.  I set up three.  I used different names and each blog has a different focus.   Then I set one up for a friend and then a customer and then my bookstore.  What a blast!  That wasn't the pernicious part, although I can see that it could still become so.

     Browsing the blogosphere, that's where the real danger lies.  Wow!  There's so much interesting stuff!  Douglas DC airplanes and trips to other countries and tips on extreme survival and witty writers and quirky photographers and  Nathan Bransford.  And more. 

     It's so fascinating that real life can't compete.  The blogosphere becomes real life because that's what occupies one's consciousness.  Well, not to go Matrix on you.  But I'm saying this: the blogosphere is compelling and persuasive.

     I'd like to say I'm giving it up.  And maybe I will.  Sometime later.  For now though, I'm going back in.  Going to check out some random blogs.  Maybe leave some comments.  I hope this is not "goodbye" to my formerly fine life.   But even if it is, hello fellow bloggsters.  

Daisy Duck

   A little too often Daisy Duck will throw up her wing hands, purse swinging and face red, squawk-quacking  like all get out.  She's excitable.

   It isn't an attractive mannerism. It doesn't make her look smart or urbane or mysterious.  I wish I could (honestly) say that I do not resemble Daisy in the least.   If I had to go Disney, I would rather be Cinderella.  She's contained and forgiving.  Even mysteriously so.  She is beautiful.  Besides, she has all those good-seamstress little mouse friends.  

   Cinderella gets a very pretty dress and a fairy godmother and also the prince.  Daisy gets Donald,  purse and shoes always second in fanciness to Minnie's,  and a bad headache because of all that flapping commotion.

    Actually, I did get a prince.  My life should be perfect.  And it would be too, if I could just tone down my public squack-quacking. 

Ironing

Most people don’t iron any more. There are dry cleaners on every corner, an array of no-iron fabrics, and –as is my case – the untroubled willingness to wear wrinkly clothing. These have combined to make ironing a forgotten chore, a lost art.

My mother and father both ironed. Dad ironed in morning chaos. Breakfast was being made, spilled, and eaten. Kids bumbled about in unfocused preparation for school before the bus honked outside. In this confusion Dad often opened the ironing board to iron his pants before work. He called it ‘pressing his trousers’. Dad pressed his trousers and he pressed his dollars. Dad liked nice crisp bills. His ironing money was one of several entertaining features of Dad’s morning ironing.
Mom’s ironing was less colorful. She was a serene ironer, often unconsciously humming. Mom ironed at a different time of day, when rambunctious offspring were less likely to trip over the chord and bring down the board and iron. Dad was a stand-up ironer but Mom opened the board halfway and positioned a chair beside it. That was the first step in the ritual. She spread Dad’s shirts on the dining table one by one. She sprinkled each with water and then rolled it up. When she had all the shirts rolled into moist balls, and arranged on the end of the ironing board, she started ironing.

Once I was standing beside the dining table, almost tall enough to see over the top. My noisy sister and brothers were quiet. Napping perhaps. Mom was ironing and a small propeller plane was stirring up the air outside. It was a profoundly peaceful moment. Both prop planes and ironing seem peaceful to me to this day.
The ironing scene was a little different in our next house. We moved to the Quonset hut when I was in 2nd grade, just before the Christmas play. That house had marvelous details. The drawers in the counter between the kitchen and dining room, for instance, went all the way through. You could open them from either room. There was a hook in the fireplace that swung out, so you could hang an iron pot over the fire. If you had an iron pot. The kitchen had a split Dutch door. There were built-in closet shelves that we climbed up into and a round coat closet and a built-in bed in the living room.
This fascinating house had a fascinating ironing board. Open a closet and pull down the board. It was a Murphy bed ironing board!
Honestly, I think a 2nd grader is too young to iron, but all during my childhood my mother mistook me for an adult. I was allowed the privilege of ironing on the Murphy bed ironing board.
It’s no surprise that I burnt myself. It happened during a tricky maneuver between buttons. The side of the iron caught me. For many years I carried a trapezoidal burn scar on my forearm. Mom continued to iron in the Quonset hut but I didn’t have the same enthusiasm for it.

I have no recollection of any ironing activity in our next house, a wonderful one in San Gabriel California. I’ve plenty of interesting laundry memories, but I think Mom must have ironed when we were in school.
Mom ironed a few years later in Manhattan Beach California. I know because it annoyed me. I was a teenager by that time. Ironing seemed a form of gender subjugation. While I tried my best to tear away the chains of repression strangling my poor mother, she just smiled and hummed and ironed my father’s work shirts. I pushed her to stand up for her rights. She set the iron up so it wouldn’t burn the board and mildly reproved me. “Your father indulges my idiosyncratic preferences,” she told me. “And I’m glad to indulge his.” So that was that. An interesting lesson in harmonious marital dynamics was there if I’d been receptive.
I ventured off to college and set up a life of my own. Ironing wasn’t involved.
My parents and younger siblings moved again. They bought a house in a NY suburb. Inexplicably this house had a heavy-duty chain suspended from the ceiling in the dining room. It could support weight. My grown brothers swung on that chain, kicking off from the fireplace wall out into the room. It was fun. I did it too.

Time had passed but my mother was still happy to indulge my father’s idiosyncratic preferences. She’d set up the ironing board at half height by that chain and settle herself in a dining chair. As she finished each shirt, she put it on a hanger and hung it on a link of the chain. Mom ironed and hummed until finally the whole mound of moist shirt balls was gone and a chain full of freshly ironed shirts hung ready for the closet.

End note:
My mother doesn’t iron anymore. My father died more than 15 years ago and now Mom wears no-iron garments. I don’t know anyone who irons.
I’m on a mission. Let’s not let ironing slip from our racial memory. I encourage all to contribute anecdotes and interesting ironing facts as comments.

Animals - part 1

The birds were all atwitter this morning. Not just twitter, but ooot-oo, her-up, and coydoy. I think they were celebrating. Snow's gone.
A young woman, visiting recently from Spain, was enchanted with the plentiful birds and squirrels in the U.S.
Squirrels? I thought they were ubiquitous.
Then I remembered a trip to California. In Sacramento my mother and siblings and I spent a long time in a public park waiting for my father to reemerge from some bookstore or other. We couldn't believe it. There were real, live squirrels in this park!
My brothers and I ran after some. Even my baby sister toddled along in optimistic pursuit. Those wily little creatures scampered off, ever just beyond reach, but that's not the point. The point is that we saw squirrels, running wild. We were thrilled.
My early childhood unfolded in woodlands outside of Portland, Oregon. Apparently squirrels don't live there. I don't remember any, that's for sure. I don't remember any wildlife. Just those sheep.
The Meekers kept sheep. The sheep were as tall as I was and much bulkier. I didn't like them. Sometimes they crowded up against the wire fence between our properties and I had to notice them when I skipped down the dirt path into the woods to swing on the monkey vines or play some other game. The sheep were always dusty and always munching grass.
My mother loved that house. She loved the woods behind it and the mountainous vista all around and Portland down in the valley, often submerged under a silvery fog lake.
Mom thought it would be a good idea to get a burro for us kids. We could ride it and feed it hay. I think she even proposed names for the burro.
Even though there weren't squirrels, there were birds in those woods. Kildeer is the Oregon state bird. I made a hansome paper mache replica of a kildeer but never actually saw one.
I did see lots of other birds and a goodly number of those giant garden slugs that inch along in the early morning hours and leave a shimmery trail of slime.
But birds, slugs, the Meeker's sheep and the prospective burro were all I knew of Oregon wildlife.

Big Shell

Back when I was in high school, the district built a brand new auditorium. The roof was shaped like a giant sea shell. What's the name of those shells that spread out like a fan?
That high school isn't far from LAX. Planes, taking off, swooped first over the Pacific Ocean so that if they crashed during take-off the heavily populated land below would not have human life and property smashed to smithereens. This was a needless precaution really. Planes don't crash much. But the safety route does afford passengers a wonderful view of Balboa's Pacific. If they know where to look, they can also see the gigantic seashell roof of my high school's auditorium.