Wildlife

I was talking yesterday about nature red in tooth and claw, and I recalled this picture of this past spring, when the possums come out from their squat under my house and are killed, perhaps by Jenny Lind. I don't know, I've never seen it happen. One morning I looked out my bedroom window and a vulture was cleaning up a dead possum. It made a very thorough job of it. You can't see the possum in this picture - it's just on the other side of the  walkway. Neither possums nor vultures are cute.

Reading: Started and finished I Can't Remember Anything, so now I have two books to talk about. Started The Plug-In Drug, and Fearless Jones.

Kangaroo rat

I've been thinking a lot at night about the mouse that died in my house. I'd written that it was a kangaroo mouse, but that didn't quite fit, since the mouse's habitat is only in the southwest desert. I thought about what this creature looked like, and aside from its small arms and long, strong legs and its cuteness, its notable feature was a long black tail, in fact a tail that I associate with rats, except it wasn't pink. 


Here is a picture of a Kangaroo Rat, genus dipodomys - not mouse nor rat. The pictures I've found of the kangaroo mouse, genus microdipodops, show them to be nearly identical, so we'll go with habitat.

'6

This will maybe teach me to do better research before I dispose of my subject, and before I start writing about it!


Rest in peace, little dipodomys.


Finished The Women's Room and will start Nora Ephron's I Remember Nothing. Norah Ephron died June 26, 2012, was also the Class of '62, Wellesley. I have much to say about The Women's Room - tomorrow.

Movies

Men In Black

Kangaroo Mouse

Sad to report that a kangaroo mouse died in my house last night. I saw it in the evening when XieXie (cat) brought it in. Saw it huddling under a chair. Got a bowl to try to catch it to put it outside. I was amazed to see it hop a foot in the air and forward. It then scuttled under a defunct woofer, with the cat after it. Put XieXie and Jenny Lind (dog) outside and tried again to catch the mouse. It ran behind a piece of furniture and I gave up my rescue attempts. Went to bed, and hoped it would be able to be peacefully in the night, and hoped that XieXie would not bring it to me in bed. This morning, it was crouched on the rug, and looked alive, but too still. I swept it up and sent it off over the back fence. 


I just went to Google to see if I could find out more about kangaroo mice, and find that they are an endangered species found only in the southwest desert. Either this was not a kangaroo mouse or it had been imported, perhaps as a pet. It did have very small arms, and larger, more powerful legs, and a very long tail.

On reading and writing

“There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.”

- Bertrand Russell

A third reason that may span Russell's two, is that you can think and talk about it. My reading of late has been of this third sort. 

from The Women's Room: "The idea seemed a great truth..: a space to be and a witness... It was enough, or if not enough, it was all, all that we could do, in the end, for each other." 

This writing in this blogspace, is exactly that - a space to be, and you are my witnesses and I become my own witness, which seems even more important as my age carries me, willy-nilly, toward a sort of internal maturity.

It is enough that I am here, writing, and that we are here, witnessing.

Murphys

There's a new coffee shop in Murphys, and no, it's not Starbucks. It's a reincarnation of an older one, The Gold Country Roastery, that has been here longer than I have. It really is a roastery, and the smell of the roasting beans used to fill the east (I think it's east) corner of Main Street every Monday morning. The big, beautiful, copper roaster, in its old location was in the center of the room, like a behemoth of a pot belly stove. Now, in place a block away, the roaster sits in state behind a huge window of glass and looks like something in a museum. But it is still roasting our coffee - very good Italian dark. The space used to be a photography studio, and its walls are painted a color we were told was purple chocolate. (There I was again, without my camera, but I can go back seven days a week, and there will be another chance.) Barbaranne and I sat at a little table in the window, looking out on Scott Street. While we were drinking our coffee, we were each knitting spa washcloths for sale at the October Independence Hall Quilters Faire boutique. I've never used the technique before of knitting from both ends of the ball of yarn before, and spent much of my time untangling. I'll get the idea before I finish my eighth washcloth, I am sure.


Reading: The Women's Room is quite confusing and maybe the reason I don't remember any of it is because I didn't finish it. There's a first person, an "I," who appears from time to time, and this person just this moment owned up to the snarls of time. The book was written in 1977, and so far takes place mostly in 1955 to '59. Mostly, I say, because there are small sections which seem to be 1967. The women are about a half a generation ahead of me, so all is familiar and nothing is familiar.

Blackboard

I have a blackboard on my wall (a real, black chalkboard, and real white chalk, and a real wall). Sometimes I use it to write down telephone numbers, but never whose number it is, or names of people to call a month ago. Recently, I've been writing things to do - I think I've even written Today at the top of the list. There were four or five things a week or so ago and all but one has been rubbed out. How satisfying it is to run my thumb and leave only a white dusty trace of a task. The one thing left is Read. It's almost silly, since I might as well write Breathe. In fact, maybe I should write Breathe in case I forget in odd moments. It's reassuring that today I will always accomplish at least one thing on the board; Although tomorrow morning I might add Empty dishwasher, Sew,  Write, but Read will still be there, and it's reassuring that I will accomplish at least one item.


Reading: Today I finished reading The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,  Deborah Moggach. The book is dark and edgy, but with characters from English cosies. Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson - can't wait to see the movie!


Started: The Women's Room, Marilyn French. From 1977, I remember the opening, in the ladies' room, with Ladies' crossed out and Women's written in. From that point, the book jogs no memory, but today I am surprised that it's early days in women's liberation. I thought we were further along then - I thought I was further along.

Doldrums

I was thinking earlier this afternoon that I was in the doldrums. As with many words, I suddenly wonder if it means what I think it means. Remember Tweedledee and Tweedledum who told Alice that if you try to make words mean what they don't that you have to pay them overtime? Recently, I've looked up words much more often, to make sure I am not going into debt. Plus I have a dictionary on my phone and one on my Kindle and that makes it easy to look up words any time and any place.


The word reminds me of Patrick O'Brien's books - I remember Maturin and Aubrey being in the doldrums in at least one of the books and it seemed fairly dangerous. Ships could be stranded in the hot sun for days, weeks, with water and supplies low. Perhaps to allow myself to be in the doldrums for very long is equally dangerous.


Just looking up the word changed my mood, as I read that the origin is "perhaps from dull, on the pattern of tantrums." Tantrum itself is of unknown origin, according to the New Oxford American Dictionary on my Kindle.


Between the two, I'll choose tantrums from now on.

Television

I have not watched television for about six weeks. The last time I was watching it, in the middle of a program, the picture went. I confess I don't remember what I was watching; nothing that I watch is particularly memorable. Electrical Thorazine. Tune in; drop out. DirecTV said, six weeks ago, that the signal was coming into my house, so there was nothing they could do. I mulled it over for the six weeks, and decided that I was just fine without TV, so I called to cancel. This disturbed them so much that they reduced my fees by two-thirds, and sent someone out. Problem found, and worked around, me left with a lot of worthless equipment, but working television.


That was Tuesday, and it's now Friday, and I made a decision this evening to take the plunge back into oblivion, and watch (or erase) the shows I've TiVo'd over the past month and a half. With embarrassing effort, I unglued myself from the screen, and picked up my laptop to write, and to confess how easily I am addicted to anything that will take me out of myself. But at least I get to watch the end of House.

Beetles

Here are my beetles. They are very small, and without a real micro lens, it's hard to get a good picture, and the bright blue is just hinted at here. The thing is, they have all died. I don't know whether it was a pesticide or the natural lifetime of this beetle, but I found them dead, scattered around the base of the tree where I first observed them. 

Solstice

Today is the longest day of the year, and by chance, I will be seeing every daylight hour. 



Woke up at 4:30 this morning, before there was any light in the sky. Left Murphys at 5:15 for a three-hour trip to San Rafael, where my dentist is, to take care of the aforementioned dental issue. Most of the heavy traffic was a two-lane road along beautiful San Pablo Bay. I saw a mother egret and egretlets, ducks, swans. Not a bad traffic jam.


9:45 and now I am sitting in Starbucks in San Rafael, CA, next door to the San Rafael Theater where American Graffiti was filmed in 1973. 


Noon. Been to the Apple store in The Village at Corte Madera and in about 30 seconds they corrected a setting that I had changed and then couldn't find out to change back. Now at Peet's coffee right next door to Apple. Best coffee in the San Francisco Bay Area.


7:21pm and I'm home. Dentist and computer both a success and with no charge either place! Well worth the tank of gas I put into it.


8:28 The longest day of the year is now officially over. It will be a while before dark, still, and I'll probably see the light out.

Diary-ish

Maybe because I'm reading a diary-ish kind of book - D.E. Stevenson's Mrs. Tim of the Regiment, I am impelled to write in a diary-ish form today. I will try to use pronouns, for she doesn't, and it's very annoying.


This afternoon I find a feeling of sad emptiness, as if suddenly the party is over and now what am I going to do. Today the reunion has been over for too long - until now, I was in Cambridge just yesterday and now Cambridge is far away and I miss it.


There were two fairly long-standing electronics issues resolved today. Venus, my ruling planet, is in retrograde this year from May 15 to June 27, so today, is four days into the second half of its retrograde and that might explain my feeling of just coming down from the apogee of a swing. Venus is also my planet of health and work. This could explain electronic malfunctions and repairs. Sadly, not everything could be repaired, but what's dead is a piece of electronics that was purchased (with my money, as I recall) by someone that is not and cannot be a friend any more. My health is fine, though my electronics are ailing.


Tomorrow I will visit the dentist and the Genius Bar. In case there is a sad silence from this end, understand that it all fits with Venus. I do trust that the dentist and the Genius will do their work and my laptop and I will return safe and sound.

Beetles

I just finished up a story of some beetles, and then, poof, it was gone while I tried putting in a picture. It's with some gnashing of teeth that I now write again.


Every morning and evening, the dog and my cat and I take a walk to the empty lot next door. I often wait in the shade of a tree, while the animals search the ground and grasses and bushes for news. The other day, I noticed that there was a line of iridescent beetles, each smaller than a baby's pinky fingernail, moving fluidly up and down the trunk of the tree, like ants often do. I guess that ants are going for food and taking it back to their underground nest, but I don't know what the beetles were up to.


The next day there were many fewer beetles, and I said to myself, "Huh" and thought about where they had come from and gone to. On the third day, I found them all clustered on the base of the trunk, in an oval less than a foot long, with just a few still making the trunk march. I stared and wondered.


 In lieu of an actual photograph of what I saw, here is a sheet of coleoptera, or beetles, photographed from my laptop screen. See the one at the upper right hand corner? That's mine, I think. 

Mem Church Photo

I wended my way through the labyrinth of finding and downloading a photo of Mem Church in Harvard Yard. I guess being accepted by and graduated from this college (Radcliffe it was then) was not a mistake as I had always thought.

The Music !!

The day before I left CT for Cambridge, I thought that maybe I would sing, after all. Maybe. If I got there early enough for the 4 o'clock rehearsal. If that all were to happen - and I was beginning to feel brave - then I needed to print out the music which I hadn't done at home in California when I wasn't feeling brave. I went to Kinkos, who understands about people like me, emailed them the files, and picked them the morning I left Old Saybrook. 85 cents.

I drove to Cambridge, was ushered to Kirkland House where I was to stay for two nights, dropped my bags, and walk through the drizzle to Mem Church. Got lost. I misremembered where Mem Church, or else they moved it during the past 50 years. Damply consulted maps, oriented myself only by Weidner (and was that Sever over there?) I turned a brick corner and found the white spire of Mem Church. Entered, peeked, asked, "Where is the choir rehearsal?" I was a little late, but heard no sound of rehearsal. Mem Church is big - usually you can hear choir rehearsal the minute you walk into the kind of churches I've sung in. Kind directions took me down some stairs marked "Closed to the Public Beyond This Point." I felt like the public! How did I belong here? I passed a room full of students glued to computers - what were they doing? Google to God? Underground CIA training? Even walking the corridors of the basement, it was a long time before I heard music, singing.

I was able to find a seat without creating a disturbance, and take out the music I had not looked at, much less rehearsed. I had glanced at it enough to see that the soprano parts had high notes - they didn't. No one looked at me askance, no one questioned my qualifications. Perhaps my neighboring sopranos came to do so as they heard some mistakes in my sight reading, but they didn't glare at me. Probably they were listening to themselves anyway. More people arrived, and I saw one old friend. In fact, Priscilla had offered via email to bring me a copy of the music, which she did, and it was gratefully accepted by someone who hadn't brought music at all. At least I'd gotten the music printed! Maybe I'm not so bad.

We rehearsed valiantly for a couple of hours - for some of it we did get out of the basement to the church itself. One of the important things in singing in a chorus or choir is how to get on and off stage. We do it badly, often. The rehearsal was a miracle in itself. Like herding cats. Cats who think they know the best way to be herded and want to tell everyone else about it. Director? I'll tell him a thing or two. Meow.

The rehearsal peaked for me when I heard a voice in my head saying, "I can do this!" That voice came back a few times during the next two days. Funny, I'd never heard them while I was actually in college. I wanted to start over as a freshman, I didn't want to leave. I wanted to study, to sing, this time to really learn.

Wet Birkenstocks, damp clothes, head held high, I got lost walking back to Kirkland House. For the rest of the two days I followed my friends. They knew where they were going. I never had.

The Music!

The music, ah yes. There was my re-entry into 1958 and my re-entry into now.

Music had become a large part of my life. I married a violinist, my daughter took up violin and is now a professional violinist in LA. That's Los Angeles, not Louisiana. I sang in many choirs and choruses; I sang in Scotland, in Carnegie Hall, at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, in Grace Cathedral. And then the Crash. This is hard to write.

In my 70th year, my husband left me. I was devastated, immobilized, changed, hospitalized, therapized, for two and a half years. One of the things he took with him was music. It became impossible for me to listen to any kind of music at all; waiting rooms were a torture, the few concerts I tried to go to set me back on my heels for days. I tried to continue with the local community chorus, but could not.

While I was actively singing, before the Crash, I was struck at my college days' stupor that didn't tell me that I could sing with the chorus. I often wondered if the stream of my life would have taken a different course had I done that. (I've often wondered what course the stream of my life has taken!)

Around came the 45th reunion, and I promised to go, stay with my old roommate, Karen, and sing in the Memorial Choir. This was before the Crash, but clearly, I was already in bad enough shape that I backed out - skulked out - shortly before the reunion. Maybe it was money; maybe it was ill health; maybe it was the unperceived state of my marriage; I can't recall. The thought just came into my head that maybe I was, in those late days of my marriage, waiting for my husband to love me before I did anything.

This year, I struggled out of my despair, and called Karen and promised her again that I would go. I took the leap of sending in the five hundred dollars or so to reserve my place. I answered Jamie's call for the chorus, got the music, didn't look at it. Didn't print it out. Certainly didn't practice. Two days before I was to leave for the east coast, I was talking to mentors about perhaps not going. Some said that I didn't have to; others said that I did have to. Up to me now.

Somehow, I packed, left my dog and cat and house in good hands, and got on the airplane.

I think this is a place to stop, until tomorrow, where you'll find me in the basement of Mem Church.

Memorial Church; memorial choir; memories.

50th Reunion

Exactly a month ago, I left my little Gold Country town in Northern California, to attend my 50th college reunion, with apprehension. In fact, as late as two days before leaving, I thought I might not go. Okay, I'll go, but I won't sing. Then I found myself (I hope in many meanings of the phrase) in the basement of Mem Church at a rehearsal of the Memorial Choir. It was drizzling outside, and that perhaps made everything close and intimate in the Yard. If the sun had been shining, the dazzle might have paled and separated the randomly placed red brick buildings that, on that day, closed in around me with a new but familiar comfort. I want to write about it, the reunion, my memories, my life there and after. And maybe before - can't imagine anything more deadly boring than "I was born on..."

I titled this badly, I think, but can't see how to change it and start over - a metaphor already. So Class of '62 it will remain. A writing of 72 years and more.