They put down the ducky

Interesting story this week, from CNN—and you don’t get to put this sentence together very often: a gigantic inflatable rubber duck that had been floating in Hong Kong Harbour suddenly deflated last Tuesday.

Here’s what it looked like in its heyday:

And here’s how it ended up:

A couple of thoughts about the CNN coverage:

Surely, since it was in water, the flattened fowl would resemble a poached, not a fried, egg? And I really like it that there’s a “duck team”.

The organizers of the art installation (well, not sure how to term it; it’s “installation art”, but can you say “installation art installation”? “Installation art exhibit”?) posted to their Facebook page that the deflation was planned and that the duck would be back in business tout de suite.

While we’re waiting, perhaps we should listen to something appropriate:

I'm telling you, I can't hear that song too many times.

Cookie monster redux

Oh—those cookies I mentioned? The ones I was making to send to my friend Ros?

I just paid $77.23 in postage to mail them to the UK.

I feel like an idiot. But the only box I could fit five dozen cookies into was one of those Priority Mail things; and with those, you pays what you pays based on size. (So yes—size does matter.)

I mentioned this—the $77.23—to a friend of mine. He said, “You should have just sent $20 and the recipe. And you could PayPal the money and email the recipe.”

Well, sure—now I could.

Cookie monster

My friend Ros did me a solid a couple of months ago, so I decided to send her a few dozen chocolate chip cookies. Which meant I had to bake them first.

Why so long, you ask? I only wheedled her snailmail address out of her last week.

& I went into a Force 8 anxiety attack.

Because I don’t think I’ve baked cookies for…well, I must have still been on the East Coast, so it’s some time ago. I wasn’t even sure I knew where my mixer is stored. (Under the stairs, as it turned out, behind some suitcases. Of course.)

I was so freaked out that I went through the recipe about six times, lined up all the measured ingredients like a Food Network automaton (not one of the "eyeball it" ones) & rehearsed all the steps while the butter was thawing.

(Note to self: if you’re going to try to catch up on social media while breaking pecans, at least put the bowl some distance from your laptop, because it turns out that pecan crumbs are just as hard to get out of the keyboard as toast crumbs.)

I also had to remember to take all the pans out of my oven before turning it on, because that’s where I store them. 1) I never use the oven; 2) I almost never use the pans. It's been so long since I used my secondary digital timer, I'd forgot how to set it.

That’s why I’m worried about these damned cookies. I mean—I’ve been baking them since I was in grade school; but…

I’m hoping this baking thing is like riding a bicycle.

Except I haven’t done that since I left the East Coast, either.

Um.

Creative differences, Pt. 2

The second assignment of my “Crash Course on Creativity” MOOC was to take a 30-minute “silent” walk, and observe the hell out of your surroundings.

Okay, the exact wording was: “Take a silent walk for 30 minutes and make note all that you notice. You can walk anywhere - in nature, a city, or a school. Capture your observations in a Mind Map that you will share with the class. While you are observing, pay attention to the sounds, the smells, the textures under your feet, etc. Look at things that are close up and far away, and sit quietly for at least 10 minutes to notice all the things around you.”

I might have fudged a bit, because I took a P&S camera with me to capture some of what I noticed, but since I often frame things around me as photos, I thought, wotthehell.

I chose to walk down Truman Avenue, in Los Altos, because it’s quiet, it’s ordinary and it kind of reminds me of the San Fernando Valley—around Canoga Park-ish. Same mono-storied ranch houses, same dusty yards, same stuck-in-time sensibility.

No doubt—same million-dollar price tags these days.

It was interesting to me that—assuming this development dates from the 50s-60s (which it looked like), all the houses are ranchers; why no Eichlers, as there are in my Sunnyvale neighborhood? Eichler was all the rage at the mid-century.

Also interesting that there are no sidewalks on Truman Avenue or its cross streets between Fremont & Oak. There are little splotches of curbs at the street intersections, but no sidewalks, no gutters, no sign of water runoff planning.

That early in the morning (0625-0705), there wasn’t a lot of activity—the intermittent jogger(s), one pedestrian, one dog walker, one cyclist. One man was visible, sitting at his kitchen table; he didn’t look up as I walked past.

Ambient sounds: a continuo of traffic from Highway 85 maybe half a mile away, song birds and crows. Closer to 0700 there were cars on Truman—the preponderance of them going South to North; I wonder where?

Although there were indications that some residents are updating their houses (construction vehicles, supplies, skip, port-a-potty etc.), most of the houses and yards look much as they’ve done for decades. The old yards included one with a hedge of rosemary—old enough and tended enough to be a solid barrier, 56 paces around the corner lot. (That house also had a rather droopy badminton net in the side yard, one of the few signs of yard-use activity in this neighborhood. The other was a swing hanging from a tree limb. Where do kids play?)

There were also lots of old rose bushes—roses from the time when big, blowsy blooms were in fashion. I couldn’t resist patting these puffy things (or running my hands along the rosemary hedge. I’d have rolled in it if I weren’t trying to maintain some degree of circumspection.)

An unexpected splash was this…well, I’m calling it “tree art”.

  

There was some new landscaping—tea roses, “designed” areas, a water feature. But most of the yards were old, more or less tended, but apparently not thought about much.

Looking up, there was a completely cloudless sky (another relentlessly perfect day in the Silicon Valley) and a crescent moon. Later, a small plane flew overhead, and a squirrel crossed the street on the phone cables while I was doing my sitting obbo.

Breathing in—there was the rose scent, the rosemary on my hands, orange blossoms, tangerine blossoms and jasmine.

It was a bit of a struggle for me to slow down—I walk for exercise and my usual pace “in the wild” is between a 13- and 14-minute mile. I had to tell myself to slow down and absorb. I also use exercise periods to work out plot points in my novel; that day on Truman Avenue I had to keep directing my brain back to observation-only mode. No plot points, no dialogue, no character revelations.

For ten minutes I sat on the curb at the junction of Truman and Havenhurst—watched the squirrel, the cyclist, the pod of three joggers. I noticed that the street signs are brown, and that there’s a neighborhood watch in effect. I did some mindful breathing. I sat still. That may be the longest period of time I’ve sat motionless without anesthesia being involved.

Thoughts sparked by this exercise:

Who lived in these houses when they were first built? What was their life like? How and why did they move on?

 Did they not walk? Why were there no sidewalks?

I need to take a course in botany—it’s frustrating not being able to recognize all those trees.

I came across an example of cloud pruning that stopped me in my tracks. That form of training shrubbery is all about the spaces between, a concept that I’m finding increasingly important in my life.

Here’s the bloody mind map I had to create. I spent hours on this damned thing and it pissed me off no end. I understand the concept that laying out information graphically can be a help to organizing your thoughts. Whoop-di-do. And I can be just as graphic as the next guy; sometimes more so. But narrative works just fine for me. 

Whatever serenity or sense of awareness we were supposed to have attained by taking the walk was completely burnt away by having to draw what looks to me like a diseased ganglion.

 

The only creativity that was sparked in me after that was in the ways I'd like to kill the instructors.

Gratitude Monday: Roots & wings

I think mothers deserve more than one day of praise, so here it is, Monday, and I’m still grateful for moms.

All of them.

My BFF, who raised three sons to manhood through really difficult times; who stuck with them no matter what. I had the privilege of seeing the concept of unconditional love put into practice over a period of years. I am in awe.

My friend Carol Ann—mom to two, grandmother to three, videographer, cat-herder, feeder of squirrels and weekly breakfaster. Carol Ann told me that a parent’s responsibility is to give her children roots and; wings; too right, and that’s what she’s done.

My friend Marcia—mom to two, grandmother to four, bell ringer, walker of dogs and feeder of cats; lady of leisure, now (ha!). She’s the ’rent who’s called upon to help with a move or a wedding or a ride to the airport; and she’s always there. With the occasional shinny down the drainpipe. (Just kidding.)

My colleague Hanne, and her mother. Every time Hanne’s mom comes over from Denmark to West Virginia, there’s a sense of joy that even at a distance makes me feel lighter; and I’ve never met the woman.

My choir-mate JQ, who’s now reveling in the accomplishments of her daughter, G-race. You go, girls.

My friend Chris—loving mother, daughter and sister. Who phoned her son Robbie in Hawaii from a Cazimero Brothers concert at Wolf Trap, leaving snippets of the songs on his voice mail.

My friend Amy, the girl from Oklahoma who’s home-schooling her kids in Latin and chemistry, and took them panning for gold.

My friend Penelope, mother, opera-lover and athlete. Who got on the case to clear up that little matter of her son's EU work authorization. Do not underestimate mother-power. Ever.

So many others, too. I apologize for not naming all the names. But you know who you are.

The legacy they are creating is amazing.

Motherland

It’s Mother’s Day in the US. All over the country, moms are getting cornflakes and muffins in bed, receiving handmade or Hallmark cards, being taken out to brunch and are hoping there won’t be too much of a mess left over to clean up tomorrow.

So, let’s talk mothers. I’m thinking of two, for starters: my own and my Mama II.

I’m struggling with trying to understand how Mom shaped me—or how she could shape my two sisters and me so differently. I’ve often posited that babies were switched at the hospital when I was born, but that doesn’t account for the nurture part of the equation.

You know how you go through a period (usually from about ages 13 to 26) where you hope to God that you won’t turn out anything like your parents? And then—from any time after maybe 30—you find that you are indeed replicating them in more ways than you’d have expected? And finally you see some areas where you wish you’d paid more attention and had followed this or that advice or example?

Somehow I inherited my mom’s propensity for clutter without getting her natural ability to organize key elements of the environment. (This may be why one of the protagonists of my novel built out his flat with not one thing "out" on any surface: floor, kitchen counter, walls, tables—everything is as bare as a Zen monastery.)  I only just realized this a few months ago, and was so gobsmacked by it that I’ve had to write a bloody list of areas of clutter to clear and schedule time on the calendar to file papers so I can actually, you know, find them when I need them. Like for taxes.

And that brings me to lists.

My mother had so many lists, she actually had a list to keep track of the lists. There is something in me (maybe my Bulgarian gypsy genetic structure—you know, from my birth family; before babies got switched at the Hospital of the Good Samaritan) that absolutely refuses to do that. But as I come across my various lists written on the backs of grocery receipts, sticky notes and hotel notepads, at least I think about it.

Here’s my last memory of Mom: we were in another hospital, Huntington Memorial, one night. (I was in my senior year of college, so I took night shift to be with her and then went out to Claremont for classes.) She was pretty well wasted, between the cancer and the morphine, which was a dreadful thing to see. All my life she was competent, efficient and coherent, so the changes wrought by the disease were terrifying and to be in a room with basically the shell of this woman felt like I'd fallen into a Dalì painting.

My family mostly did not hold with extravagant expressions of emotion, and I don’t know whether I wanted her to hear it or for me to hear it, but she was lying there so small and frail in that dim hospital room, so I said, “Mom, I love you.”

That seemed to penetrate, and she said, “I love you too, dear.” As last words from anyone to anyone, not the worst.

Some days after that as a family we agreed that the doctors should give her morphine around the clock, which essentially…well—the soul was separated from the shell.

My Mama II was Elizabeth, my BFF’s mother. Now that I think of it, Mama II was in many ways similar to Mom—civic-minded, card-playing, quick-witted. Yet so different as to be exotic to me. She raised her daughter alone, and was well ensconced in the Episcopal Church, which seemed pretty way out there to me.

But here’s one of my most vivid memories of Mama II: she was leaning against the counter in her cousin Char’s kitchen (where she and BFF lived), telling us a joke about a newlywed and Lent. And when she got to the punch line, which she practically howled, “Well—to whom…And for how long?” I about wet myself.

She told it with such zest and had the most amazing laugh (which my BFF has inherited), and I could not imagine my own mother coming up with such a story (yes, I was a little prig).

It’s a hard job, being a mother; there are about twelve bazillion ways to screw things up. (I’m thinking half a banana and a glass of milk every afternoon after school, here.) I’m betting that there are very few moms who don’t worry about that. And I also bet that the vast majority of them are doing the best job they can.

I personally am very grateful to have had two mothers in my life, to get a wider perspective on the world, and to have as part of my makeup.

That Lent joke still cracks me up.