Persistence

Last month—when I was subsumed in poetry—I came across this shrub in someone’s garden:

I stopped to take a picture of it because I was struck by how determined Nature is. I mean, whatever this plant is, it had clearly—literally—been pruned back to the bone. And yet, here it is, furiously sprouting leaves and new growth.

We should really think twice about messing with Nature.

 

 

Neighborhood buzz

Let me preface this by stipulating that I am not fond of rhododendrons. I like azaleas fine, but I find their cousins creepy and not to be trusted at all.

(This may have been influenced by them proliferating all around Seattle and the fact that on gloomy, drizzly days masses of dripping rhododendrons are a total creepfest. And most days in Seattle are gloomy and drizzly.)

That said, I discovered a couple of rogue rhodys in the ‘hood, and reluctantly had to admit that they were not creepy. Viz:

Also—someone else was definitely a fan, so there’s that in their favor.

Neighborhood watch

So, this is weird. I think.

A couple of months ago, I was walking out of the ‘hood when I noticed an owl fly to a tree. I stopped, pulled out my mobile and aimed. Because: owl.

A woman was standing in front of her house across the parking lot, talking with another woman; she interrupted her conversation to shout pointedly at me, “Can I help you?”

Now, I was coming from the interior of the cluster, not from the street, but she was challenging my right to be there. Or perhaps my right to shoot photos. I pointed toward the owl.

“Tree,” she said, with astonishing brilliance.

“Bird,” I replied.

The noise disturbed the owl, which flew off, and I went on my walk.

Naturally, every time since, when I walk past her house, I mutter, “Asshole” at it. (I refrain from using the word “bitch” because it kind of connotes that a female asshole is somehow different from a male one.)

Well, yesterday I was headed out when I caught another bird in my peripheral vision, in the general vicinity of her house, followed by a raucous squawking. I stopped to try to see what kind of bird it was. And who should approach, from the street, but Mrs. Biddy Officious. She said she always listens to birds, too. I made some brief response and continued my walk.

Well, blow me if she didn’t pull a 180 and follow me into the corporate campus next door to ask me if I live in that cluster. Like—whiskey tango foxtrot?

I replied in the affirmative and kept on walking. Eventually she branched off my path, like that’s what she’d intended to do all along, and I went over to watch the arborists grinding up the big tree that fell over last week.

Here’s the thing, dear readers—I’m White; like probably 97% of the cluster residents. Like Biddy. (And I recognize that if I were not, she'd probably have called the cops on me, given her bolshie approach to a perceived interloper.) I’m probably in her age range. I’m walking on the sidewalk, not peering into people’s windows or rattling their doors. I'm a little scruffy looking after 14 months of lockdown, but I certainly don't look any more suspicious than the other residents who walk around the property several times a day. And while the cluster does have signs warning that this is private property, where in the almighty fuck does Biddy get the unmitigated nerve to challenge my right to put one foot in front of the other?

She can kiss my California ass. I’m pretty sure I can take her in any fair fight.

 

 

Gratitude Monday: supporting the truth

A week ago, I caught a headline on WaPo and immediately clicked on it. I mean—“The politicians who tried to overturn an election—and the local news team that won’t let anyone forget it”; of course.

Evidently it’s a small team at WITF, the NPR affiliate in Pennsylvania’s capital, but they’ve got integrity. All the Big Guys inviting Republicans onto their Sunday blah-blah shows and not clown-horning them every time they tell a porky about the Big Lie and their part in it—WITF is having none of that. Whenever a state legislator rears up on his/her hind legs to pontificate on any subject, WITF reports it…

Then they add words to the effect that “State Rep Bloviator (R-Whatever) spouted the lie that Pennsylvania voters were committing fraud on a massive scale and s/he pushed to bin those voters’ ballots.”

Well—I hadn’t even finished reading the WaPo story before I was on WITF’s website and clicking on the donate button. I’m now a proud sustaining member of the station, and I’ll keep that going until they haul me out of somewhere in a body bag.

It is my contention that all media should be going full Cato the Elder and appending this resplendent truth to every report of every R who grabs a microphone or sends out a press release while avoiding that little dust-up or even perpetuating the lie. These people tried to invalidate the votes of thousands of their own constituents. They deserve to carry that shame with them as long as their asses are in legislative seats. Actually, that shame should grind their political careers to dust, but it probably won’t.

But it’s Gratitude Monday, Bas Bleu, you say—where’s the gratitude?

It’s here: I didn’t even have to think about becoming a supporter, I just hauled out my credit card digits and clicked the button. And I’m grateful that my money is being used to continue the tradition of a free press directly. No truth, no contribution, WAMU.

 

 

 

"It says here..."

I love the musical “Guys and Dolls”, partly because it’s based on the stories of Damon Runyon. And I love his stories. But from the opening “Fugue for Tinhorns” through “Luck Be a Lady” to “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat”, it’s just a delight for me—the songs, the characters, the nonsense.

I don’t know why, but lately I’ve been channeling Miss Adelaide, especially her “Adelaide’s Lament”. So that’s my earworm for you today, Vivian Blaine, who originated the role on Broadway (it was written for her), sings it in the 1955 film.

 

 

 

Local developments

Lotta activity in the ‘hood yesterday. Viz:

Dunno when this happened, exactly, but we had very high winds a few days ago and a couple of gully washers on Tuesday:

Then I noticed that someone has discovered two trees on the corporate campus are just right for a hammock and lazing away the afternoon:

By contrast, this guy was in quite the hurry:

 

 

 

Puffery

As you know, I walk mostly for the purpose of taking photos. Because of National Poetry Month, I have a backlog of them. Viz, shots of dandelions:

I can't seem to get enough of the puffs:

 

 

 

Hooking up

Maybe a couple of years ago, my Internet connection went to hell and I spent about four hours of a Saturday morning with Comcast getting it restored. Since I have their so-called “Triple Play” package, it was kind of necessary.

Somehow in the course of that marathon session, the Comcast support person bypassed my router and dumped wi-fi on the cable modem. I did not notice this until I was trying to hook up Cedric, the Roomba, to the network; it requires 2.4Ghz, and it seems I only have 5Ghz. This means that Cedric just rambles aimlessly around my house until either I guide him back to his docking station or he runs out of juice.

Some time last year, I ordered and assembled an adjustable standing desk to work on, because, frankly, it’s really bad for me to be doing all this work in an Ikea chair. I got it, the docking pod, the external keyboard, the mouse and the monitor all sorted. Then I discovered that that one spot in my house is a black hole in my wireless network.

Poop.

Well, in order to re-establish my router, I had to buy an ethernet cable, plus an adapter to my laptop. I got those about three months ago and they sat in my office like the refugees in Casablanca, just…waiting. Finally, this weekend, I consulted Google, unwrapped the cable and adapter and blow me if I didn’t connect the router.

And double blow me—that fixed the black hole.

Yesterday was the first day since 12 March 2020 that I worked at a desk, with a mouse and monitor and keyboard.

Now I need to sort the 2.4Ghz thing, because Cedric has become quite the slacker. 

 

 

Gratitude Monday: Pivoting

My Friday late-afternoon yoga lesson marks the pivot point between my work week and the weekend. Sometimes not completely—there are times when work slops over into “free” hours, and occasionally my instructor or I have had to reschedule to Saturday instead. But in general, the focus on yoga, followed by Friday night homemade pizza is my transition ritual.

A couple of weeks ago, since we are both two weeks past our second vaccination, my instructor came to my house and we did it in person, which is da absolute bomb. Bridge-up-the-wall is hard to explain over Zoom, but in person it’s pretty much a snap, and it’s one of those poses that you can picture getting you through a product governance meeting when all else fails.

Also, we had quite a post-lesson chat, and I can’t tell you how wonderful that feels to be doing across a room instead of across several router hops.

That evening, my power went out; it went out through the hood, so it wasn’t anything I did. I was sitting at table, watching an old Poirot episode, eating my pizza bianca insalata, when the lights and TV cut. But my pizza was already cooked, and I had my tableful of candles lighting my dinner, so I just continued on in the silence and peace of the start-of-weekend.

Power came back later, long enough to recharge my mobile, which was at 21%, and then it went back off for another hour or so. By the time it came back, I was ready for bed—reset half a dozen clocks and tumbled in.

So here’s my gratitude today: the blessing of yoga, personal instruction, the demarcation between work and not-work, and the reminder that I can get along fine with pizza, candles and my own thoughts.

 

 

Voices from the fringes: a voice was sounding

Welp, here we are at the end of National Poetry Month. I have to say that focusing almost exclusively on the work non-White poets has had much the same effect that spending two weeks visiting battle sites and military graveyards through northern and western France did: it gets really, really dark when you spend time in places where people have done their absolute worst.

It’s possible that—had I searched deeper—I’d have found examples of the black, brown, yellow, red, LBGTQ+ folks contemplating nature, joy, silliness and other things. Because all people experience those things. But I wanted to focus on hearing these voices—mostly new to me—speaking about the things they have to contend with that I don’t even have to think about.

(Actually, thinking about Lorna Dee Cervantes’ poem, “Freeway 280”—the house I grew up in was taken through eminent domain by the state of California for an extension of the Long Beach freeway. But the city of South Pasadena, with ideas far above its station, has effectively blocked construction of the highway, so the house is still there, occupied in rotation by residents at LA County General Hospital. So I connect with her upheaval, although my circumstances are so different.)

In the end—poets write about being human. We all encounter gaps in our time here. We all are swallowed in things we can't name. We all suffer loss, each in our own way. We all strive for meaning and joy and connectedness. And these voices have added to my understanding of what it is to be human. So it’s been a good month for me.

Since this is a Friday, I’m ending the month with a quintessentially American song by a quintessentially American songwriter. Woody Guthrie may have been a White man, but he was definitely not a privileged one. And he wrote on behalf of the little guy, the lost, the deported, the forgotten ones. A couple of years I gave you a recording of “This Land Is Your Land” performed by Woody’s son Arlo, John Mellencamp, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Springsteen and others. This time you’re getting a very different take, from Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, a funk and soul group. Seems like a fitting end to the month.