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Let's see,
There's the Easter Bunny,
And the Great Pumpkin,
Saint Patrick, and Santa, and Uncle Sam...
Now there's the Birthday Bull.
Last time I was in Rochester, MN, Jill and I drove by the birthday bull. I gasped "I must have a picture of that!" Unfortunately, I didn't have a camera with me, and we were on our way somewhere and by the time I got my cell phone out, the bull was far behind.
Jill just came through with a picture.
Happy Birthday, Peggy Jo Johnson!
In case you needed something a bit more upbeat after my last two posts, Jan sent us these:
The middle one looks a lot like my cat, Dandy did when he weighed about 18 pounds less.
Saturday afternoon, wish me luck. I'm participating in Jacksonville Dancing with the Stars. And I have a cold.
I just finished Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. I'd read reviews of it, so I knew what it was about. And I knew Didion's name, though I'd never read anything by her before. She is a novelist, a screenplay writer, and a writer of magazine articles. I had her in my mind as a sophisticated author/personality who would have gone to parties with Truman Capote.
In actuality, it seems that she is a bit of a homebody, and had a very close relationship with her husband, John Gregory Dunne. Closer than most, because they collaborated on screenplays, and worked from home, each with an office, and a pattern to their days which involved a lot of time spent together, talking, swimming, eating, drinking...just being together.
Everything changed on December 30, 2003. First of all, they had just gone home from Beth Israel North, where their daughter and only child, Quintana Roo Dunne, was on a ventilator in the intensive care unit after a bout of the flu took over her whole system and put her in septic shock. Enough to stress the most stoic soul.
They were home, he was in his chair having a drink, while she made a fire, made a salad. He stopped speaking in mid-sentence and when she looked, he was slumped over. More than slumped over. He was dead.
It took her six months to begin writing her thoughts, but on reflection, admits that in some ways, she was insane the whole year after John's death. Her immediate reaction was to take control by calling 911, gathering credit cards and papers that would be needed, going to the hospital. Someone even referred to her as a "cool customer," though she was on autopilot the whole time, standing in line, trying to arrange a transfer to another hospital, anything to deny what was happening.
Later she tried to remember what she did, heard, thought. Over and over again, she wondered if she could have done something to change the events that led up to that day, the events of the day itself. She read piles of medical literature to try to understand what had happened to her husband and what was happening to her daughter. Like mantras, she remembered things that her husband had said, or she had heard about life and death, repeating it over and over in her head, and sharing with the reader the nuanced changes in meaning these phrases took, or the slight changes in context.
Her friends were there, yet she was alone. She gave his clothes away, yet kept a pair of his shoes, because he would need them when he came back.
It is a book about a close relationship between a man and a woman, and what happens when that bond is irrevocably, suddenly broken. It is the story of how she was a little insane in order to stay sane. It is also the story of how much one person can endure, as her daughter goes through her own trials. More happened after the year spanned by the book, which is included in a one-woman play of the same name, starring Vanessa Redgrave, which I hope to see when I next get to New York.
It is much more than a story of this period, it is a study of how we grieve and what grief does to us, what we do to survive.
I mentioned to a friend recently that I couldn't imagine going through what Didion had, and she looked at me and said "you did."
I guess she had a point. I didn't have a daughter undergoing a living nightmare when Red died, and we knew he was sick and declining. Didion and Dunne knew he had heart disease, he had had a stent placed years before ("they call it the widowmaker, pal") and had a pacemaker.
When Red died, he was in the hospital on a morphine drip for the intractable pain he was undergoing. We/I knew he wasn't going home that last time. Friends came to the hospital and left. Call us if there's anything we can do. Tacitly, call us when he has died, and we'll bring you home, or to our home. But when he died, I signed the papers that were put in front of me, walked to my car and drove home. It was three in the morning. I told my friends later that I hadn't wanted to bother them, but in truth, I thought I was fine, though I was as numb as if my blood had been replaced with novocaine. I stayed that way for a long time, too, in retrospect, going through motions, thinking I was okay. I read, watched movies, played computer games, rattled around the house. Thought about the past, especially when I went through old photographs to make a montage for a memorial reception I had at the house. I didn't actually have it...Friends did everything. It was just at my house.
And so, in a way, Didion speaks to me, and I can relate to what she says. There is no self-pity, only clarity of a sort.
From Delmore Schwartz, quoted in the book:
Time is the school in which we learn,/ Time is the fire in which we burn.
[Image from Didion's collection of photos, used in the New York Times]
Death, it seems is everywhere around me, lurking, imminent.
I've had many friends recently diagnosed with breast cancer, having mastectomies, chemotherapy. Depressing. Scary.
This was going to be a post about a book about death. Interesting, but not scary, nor maudlin. Rather the examination of one woman's thoughts and feelings after the unthinkable happens. The book is The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion. It is a wonderful book, and deserves, and will get, its own post.
I finished the book yesterday. Last night, I got a call from Keith, my landscaper. He's become a fixture around here much as Eldin was in Murphy Brown's life. About the time Keith started this project, his wife was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer, after years of smoking. Keith smokes too. Terrible addiction, that. Toni had radical surgery and now breathes through a hole in her neck. It will be allowed to close at some point down the line, but for now, she breathes through it, and is fed through a tube in her stomach. She's visited here to look over the project (The Project). She's sweet and funny. She saw her primary physician yesterday, and, according to her, according to him, the doctor told her to get her affairs in order, she won't be here this time next year.
There are many problems with this...starting with the deplorable bedside manner, then leaving her alone in an exam room to deal with this by herself. In addition, her surgeon had seen the same films and didn't think there was tumor, but treated her for infection. And she's gained six pounds on a high calorie diet.
So Keith called me last night. He'd obviously been crying. He hadn't been with her on this visit to the doctor, it was a routine visit, so he felt guilty as well as shocked and depressed. They're going to get a second opinion. It's scary as Hell. Toni's only 45.
This morning, I got a call from work. I was supposed to be off this week, but due to various other things, have worked every day and will work tomorrow. The caller, my friend, informed me that our friend Jack's oldest son had been found dead. Jack's son, actually stepson, but it never mattered, was about 20, beautiful to look at, smart as a whip, but always a bit antisocial, trouble with drugs and alcohol, motor vehicle accidents, dramatic battles with his parents. She thought that was the son who'd been found dead. The other boy, Jack's biological son, is much more of a "good kid" type, so I think it's the other boy. It's no better or worst, though. A terrible loss, no matter whom, no matter how, no matter why.
That's all I have to say. I have the blues. I have the right to have the blues, though all this is peripheral to my life. It affects people I care about, and reminds me , as Didion often says in her book, in one way or another: It was just an ordinary day "And then...gone."
We'll all be there. It's just a matter of when.
["Christian on the Borders of the Valley of the Shadow of Death" by Joyce Zucker, from the Journal of the American Institute for Conservation.
It's been ten days since some of my friends and I went to a reception for Mikhail Baryshnikov. I don't know why it's taken me so long to do a post about it.
Yes I do. I wanted to do it justice, find a day when I had lots of time to do it right. The problem with that is that there is no such day, and I just need to do it.
The reception was at J. Johnson Art Gallery. The proceeds from the ticket sales went to The Nature Conservancy, and most of the proceeds from sales of signed prints of one of Baryshnikov's dance photographs from his Dominican series went to my favorite place in Florida, White Oak Conservation Center. In the course of the evening, 500 people were admitted.
We got there early. The beautiful gallery was filled with Mr. Baryshnikov's photographs. We wandered in different directions, some to the open bar, others to look at the art work.
I was looking at art, when I saw a small group of people walk into the room. In the center was the master himself, small in stature, but a dominant presence. I rushed over and introduced myself and told him what a huge fan I am of White Oak. I was basically a blithering idiot, trying to think of something to say, while getting the attention of others in my group. He shook my hand, then graciously allowed us to get a few photographs. He was pretty swamped through the whole evening.
Through it all, wait staff wandered through the crowd with trays of the most luscious hors d'oeuvres. Shrimp and steak au poivre, mini crab cakes, and my personal favorite, ahi tuna on small cubes of watermelon, topped with a dab of wasabi. OMG, to die for! The catering trucks said "Catering by Liz" on the sides, so I knew the food was from chef Liz Grenamyer. Grenamyer was the owner/chef of our first favorite fancy restaurant in Jacksonville, 24 Miramar. It closed its doors in 2003 as she made the decision to concentrate on catering only. From what I experienced at the reception, this venture is every bit as successful as her restaurants had been.
At 59, Baryshnikov looked his age, and he was smaller than I'd expected, maybe 5'4" or so. But still trim and compact, physically not much different from the impression I'd had the day before watching "White Nights". Unfortunately, he didn't dance for us.
What a treat.
Dee Ray sent us an email about the remarkable Naica Crystal Caves, hundreds of feet below the Naica Mountain in the desert of Chihuahua, Mexico.
The mountain was formed by volcanic activity, and filled with anhydrite. When the lava cooled to below 156 degrees Fahrenheit (58 degrees Celsius), the anhydrite formed huge translucent gypsum crystals up to 36 feet in length, weighing up to 55 tons.
The cave, which is about 30 feet by 90 feet has a crystalline floor and large jagged crystals sticking out of the walls. It was discovered by two miners in 2000. An international team of scientists from Spain, Italy and the US have come to Mexico to study the caves. Their scientific specialties include speleology, geology, mineralogy, topography, biology, exobiology, physics, medicine, scientific philosophy and ecology among others.
[Images from Crystal Cave of Giants, Mexico]
Last night, I had dinner with my folks. One of the items on the menu was red cabbage. It's a dish I've always loved, the sweet and sour cabbage goes so well with pork, beef, pasta, chicken. It's a vegetable that can stand alone.
Before we ate, I took some pictures of the dish, figuring on sharing it with you all. I used my cell phone since I didn't have my camera with me, and for some reason, it blocked all three photos together. One of those options I then could not figure out how to get rid of.
Here's the recipe for Rotkohl mit Apfeln (Red Cabbage with Apples). In parentheses are notes on variations my mother employed. She feels strongly that three cups of water is plenty, that you don't want a soaking dish of cabbage, rather it should be a bit dry.
A 2-2 1/2-pound head of red cabbage
2/3 cup red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons lard or bacon fat
2 medium-sized cooking apples (Mom used Granny Smith) peeled, cored and cut into 1/8-inch-thick wedges
1/2 cup finely chopped onions
1 whole onion, peeled and pierced with 2 whole cloves (Mom just threw in 2 cloves, rather than studding them into an onion)
1 small bay leaf
5 cups boiling water (Mom used 3)
3 tablespoons dry red wine
3 tablespoons red currant jelly (optional)
Wash the head of cabbage under cold running water, remove the rough outer leaves and cut the cabbage into quarters. To shred the cabbage, cut out the core and slice the quarters crosswise into 1/8-inch strips.
Drop the cabbage into a large mixing bowl, sprinkle it with the vinegar, sugar and salt, then toss the shreds about with a spoon to coat them evenly with the mixture. In a heavy 4- to 5-quart casserole, melt the lard or bacon fat over moderate heat. Add the apples and chopped onions and cook, stirring frequently, for 5 minutes, or until the apples are lightly browned. Add the cabbage, the whole onion with cloves, and the bay leaf; stir thoroughly and pour in the boiling water. Bring to a boil over high heat, stirring occasionally, and reduce the heat to its lowest possible point. Cover and simmer for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, or until the cabbage is tender. Check from time to time to make sure that the cabbage is moist. If it seems dry, add a tablespoon of boiling water. When the cabbage is done, there should be almost no liquid left in the casserole. Just before serving, remove the onion and bay leaf, and stir in the wine and the currant jelly. Taste for seasoning, then transfer the entire contents of the casserole to a heated platter or bowl and serve.
[This recipe is from the Time-Life series, Foods of the World, in The Cooking of Germany by Nika Standen Hazelton.]
The word of the week this week...er, month, or maybe fortnight, is mastilagnia.
I've taken to browsing through Rod Evans's The Gilded Tongue, looking at strange words, and seeing if I could figure out what they mean. Usually, I think I can, but I'm wrong.
Today's word is a case in point. "Mast", I thought..."breast"..."mastectomy," "mastopexy". And "lag", I thought, maybe a corruption or contraction of "lac"..."milk", like "lactation" or "lactic acid."
Something to do with breast feeding.
I couldn't have been more wrong. I was again thinking Latin, when I should have thought Greek. The mast is from "mastigos" and "mastix" for "whip."
"Whoops", thought I.
And "lagneia" is lust.
Mastilagnia is sexual pleasure derived from being whipped.
I don't know what I'd have done without this word in my vocabulary.
I read about Shimu in the Sunday paper. It was pretty disturbing. Disturbing enough that I just dug last Sunday's paper out of the recycle bin and found the article. The article is by Emily Wax, of the Washington Post, and its title is : Bangladeshi Child Star Hopes Life will Mirror Art. Lead of Show about Girls' Education Fights to Stay in School.
Shimu is 13 years old. On Wednesday nights, more than 10 million Bangladeshis tune in to watch her story. She doesn't make much money, but surely it is enough that her family doesn't have to marry her off so they have one less mouth to feed.
Young women in this country take their rights for granted, sure that the wheel of repression won't turn back on them. I submit that it has come alarmingly close in recent years. But this article brought home the fact that much of the world is very different from the United States and Europe we are familiar with. Women still shame their families becuase they are no longer virgins, even though they lost that virginity to rape. Genital mutilation remains popular in some places.
Arranged marriages remain common. I know a young Indian man, a surgical resident in a well regarded program, who just got married to a woman he'd never met. Figures that he developed a huge zit on his nose the week before the wedding. I won't have much to say about arranged marriages, I believe in love, but also believe that our heady emotions lead us to some pretty unwise liaisons. I doubt that parents arranging marriages for their children could do much worse than many of us do on our own. Witness the divorce rate. Of course, I doubt that too many people in arranged marriages get divorced. That would be frowned upon. The woman just gets killed, and that's the end of that, no messy divorce.
But I digress. This is Shimu's story, not my stream of consciousness. The information is taken from Ms. Wax's article.
Shimu is 13 and beautiful. She plays an 11-year-old named Alo in Alo Amar Alo (Lignt my Light), Bangladesh's most popular television drama. Her poster hangs in classrooms across the country, and she is symbolic of the struggle to keep girls in school.
Yet her 49-year-old grandmother, who was herself married at 12, wants her to quit seventh grade and get married. Her mother left her behind when she was 4 1/2. Older boys who loiter in muddy alleys send her notes saying they will abduct her if she won't agree to wed. Her mother says "boys want to marry her. They are always harassing her. Evn though she is known for her acting, it's very hard to make a living here. If she were married, we wouldn't have to worry about feeding her. Shimu is small and slight. I doubt that she eats all that much.
The brutal poverty in Bangladesh leads to one of the highest rates of early marriage in the world, and, not surprisingly, suicide is the leading cause of death among teenage girls. Two in five girsl aged 15 to 17 are married, though the minimum legal age is 18. Wax goes on to say that every year there are thousands of cases of child brides being drenched in acid for refusing sex, talking back to mothers-in-law, or not doing enough housework. Sounds like the older generation of women forgets what it was like for them.
Shimu's character, Alo, is a fifth-grader whose family wants her to quit school, work in a garment factory, get married. A film star comes to her village to shoot a scene, and notices Alo weeping. Alo explains her plight, and the actress helps persuade her parents to let her go back to school. Over 26 episodes, so there's a bit more to it than that.
Shimu began acting in a theater group for street children when she was very young. In 2005, when UNICEF recruited her for a show promoting education, that show became the top-rated program on state television. According to the article, the actors receive modest stipends. Not enough, however, to keep her grandmother from sending her to live with an uncle. She was able to return and go back to school only by convincing her grandmother that she should keep studying so she could better support her family in the future. I find it incredible that apparently, UNICEF doesn't pay her enough to satisfy her grandmother.
The story shocked me. If you read it in the paper, I hope you were shocked too. I wanted to share it with some of those who missed it.
I don't have an answer.
I think all young American women should know that this type of thing exists in the world, to get involved in activism. And to never, ever be certain that it can't happen here.
[Image from the Washington Post article]
Peggy sent us some pictures by hyperrealist sculptor Ron Mueck. The Australian began his career making models and puppets for television, then moved to London starting business in animatronics.
Eventually, he decided to sculpt the human body, and to make it completely detailed from all angles, except in size, which is generally larger than life...his "Boy 1999" is a squatting child, over 5 meters high (more than 15 feet). Others are quite small ("Two Women" is 33 1/2 inches high). He feels that life-sized figures aren't that interesting, that we meet life-sized people every day.
Most of his figures are nudes though some are clothed and others, notably his woman "In Bed", draped in keeping with the setting.
He works in fiberglass, but uses silicone to soften the face, and to allow implantation of real hair into the skin. It's all there, genitals, cellulite, nails, chest hair... warts and all.
Here's a conversation with Ron Mueck by Sarah Tanguy from Scupture magazine.
Browse a wonderful gallery of his sculptures through this link to washingtonpost.com
[I"Pregnant Woman" via BBC Collective]
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