This is the week of July 4, 2016. I don’t know about you, but this is where my thoughts have been:

 

Baton Rouge. St. Paul. Dallas.
Dallas. St. Paul. Baton Rouge.
St. Paul. Baton Rouge. Dallas
Baghdad. Orlando. Brussels. Paris.
Mother Emmanuel.
Baltimore. Cleveland. Ferguson.
Too many lost.

Some days I just weep for this world. For the lives that won’t be and the ones that won’t be the same. For the ones that were lost and the ones that have lost their way. For a tiny girl who sat in the back seat while her mother’s fiancé was slain for following an official request. For a man on the ground, empty handed, shot at point blank range. For men working to allow their community to safely say “This is not right” who were targeted for just wearing blue.

I don’t have any wisdom for this. I don’t have some pithy offering of observation or clarity or sincere wishes that could mean anything in the face of a mountain of grief. I care. I do. I don’t pretend that is anywhere near enough. Guns and hatred are a foul mix. We need to spit that out and get on with the real business of our days. I refuse to believe that killing each other for petty reasons is part of that.

So here’s what I wish: I wish that each of us reaches a little farther for the best in ourselves and our fellow humans. I wish that some gift of sight allows us to see the grace even in those we don’t agree with. I wish that we all move toward a world where the the value of another’s life is more than our need to express anger. I think of the sweet greeting offered to those around you at the end of some services: Peace be with you. And with you.

Peace be with you.

Ah, guilty pleasures. Yes. We all have them (or at least I hope so!) Those things we love that make us blush to admit it. For me, it’s not food – I never feel guilty about that. It’s food! But it is… competition TV shows. (Yes, I’m blushing.) You name it – cooking, baking, fashion, design, singing – whatever; they’re irresistible. (Still blushing.) There’s something about the creativity, the adrenaline, the imagination, the racing around, the pressure, the personalities… I love hard work – I could watch it all day.

I’ve watched some genres long enough to know many of the players now, so there’s a sense of “Oh, I like her, she’s my peeps -my team… “Or “He’s snarky. Bad attitude – Not my team. But he’s really good… so maybe my team.” “That one is just plain mean. Not my team. Hope that one doesn’t win.” It’s amazing how quickly you become invested in the success of complete strangers working their tails off hundreds or thousands of miles away.

I’ve wondered from time to time why I like these shows so much. I’m not particularly competitive and I shy away from conflict. The personality drama and backstabbing that comes out occasionally turn me off. On the other hand, I enjoy seeing challenges faced and met. Creativity, talent, and genuine humanity usually prevail; the good gal or guy wins much of the time. It gives you a sense that things are “right” in the world.

My other guilty viewing pleasure is home design shows. The whole idea of starting over with a clean slate and a team of professionals is like a two-hour tandem massage followed by Thai food and dark chocolate truffles. I could roll in it. Imagine starting with what you’ve got and getting a whole new kitchen or bedroom or home! The homeowners always doubt, but jump in. The designer and the contractor always fuss at each other about cost or color. And in the end the place looks amazing. And there are always orange pillows. There must be something in the contract. It’s like that brown M&M thing backstage at rock concerts.

But it works. The surfaces are sleek, the walls are pristine with pops of color in the backs of shelving units. There is fruit artfully placed in giant bowls or plates on the obligate kitchen island. The wine fridge makes one or both homeowners squeal like teenage girls. Somebody swoons over a well-appointed bathroom. At some point, someone tears up, and we all reach for a tissue. It’s predictable, it’s not always believable – but it’s so much fun.

I think the secret feelings that draws me to these shows are “Oooo! pretty!” and “If X can do that – I could do that! I could totally do that!” I can imagine being in that place, doing that very thing, and succeeding. And in many cases, I might even be right. Almost anyone can – but there’s an awful lot that happens off camera when a six-week reno is condensed into 60 minutes, including the ads. The other five weeks, six days and 23 hours were probably hard and not quite as much fun as the on-camera bits. I bet there were dust and spiders… The last time demo happened in my house, I came home to find my two large dogs amid the shreds of carpet and a pillow in my living room, while the cat supervised from his perch on the side of an overturned arm chair. Yeah. Let’s not go there.

So, in the TV world, I can imagine my perfectly renovated home, see myself laying out dish after dish of perfect appetizers on a sparkling four-acre countertop while my friends lounge in the open-concept living room, chatting about their novels and the classes they have lined up. Someone’s kids are hugging the dogs and everything spilled hovers magically above the hardwood floor.

Oops.

The hovering spills give away the fantasy every time. Even house TV magic can’t make that happen. My current budget for time and resources doesn’t quite stretch to massive makeovers, so  I’ll imagine those counter tops while my actual guests are happy with crusty bread everyone loves served in a basket on the table that’s been in my family for over 40 years. They’ll grab a plate, bite into a doctored brownie that’ll make their eyes roll, and sink into the old couch, even if it is a little “fluffier” than when it was made. And I did not make it with a staple gun and parts from ’98 Impala.

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Stay tuned for more on the Here’s a Quarter blog next week! As always, your thoughts and comments are always welcome – they are moderated (I know – adulting again), so they may take a little while to appear, but I read them all and appreciate that you were here. Thank you!

Happy Sunday, friends!
It is a happy one for me. The word of the week is “DETOUR”, so I’m taking a little one from my regular blog subjects to tell you about my recent travels. Hang on – it was a slightly bumpy ride…

Last weekend I was on my way to British Columbia for a photography workshop – one of those wonderful opportunities to learn from pro wildlife photographers in a gorgeous setting, while sleeping very little and eating like a queen. I was all set, in a hotel at my departure airport the night before leaving and I just, y’know, casually clicked my way into the website to check in for my flight the next morning. Whereupon I discovered it had been (cue ‘dum-dum-duuummmmm’ music) CANCELLED.

No warning, no notice, just – cancelled. So I called my booking agent. And discovered that the airline had helpfully rebooked me on a flight leaving 6 hours later than planned and arriving only 10 hours later than planned – at midnight, in a far away place where I would need to drive a rental car to find a secluded lodge in the dark. And they were going to spring this on me when I arrived at the airport in the wee hours of the morning for the cancelled 6:30 am flight, thereby allowing me the pleasure of losing four hours sleep while being sent to wander the purgatory of the concourses for five and a half hours. (If you would like to know which carrier was so callous, it starts with the stuff we breathe and ends with our dear friends to the north.)

I said “no, thank you”.

Well. That’s not really what I said, but I’m sure you can fill in with some local color.

Having acknowledged my displeasure, the booking agent finally found me an alternate flight plan – one that was mysteriously not covered by my trip insurance and cost about an additional $50 for every hour I saved getting there, but at least I got there, in daylight, and did not miss the evening activities for my workshop. As an unexpected bonus I was introduced to the lovely service given by WestJet and their crack teams of smiling, good-humored, efficient employees. And their gorgeous flying machines – I don’t know when I’ve ever seen such pretty jets. Even the sweet little double prop Bombardier going from Calgary to points west was bright, clean, and had plenty of luggage and leg room. After my evening freak out, I was more than happy to be treated to a little luxury. Kudos, WestJet – you rock.

The workshop itself was fabulous – birds, sweet northern air, being out on pontoon boats enough of every day to have that oddly pleasant sea sway in my head. And there were baby loons. Baby loons! (I will offer images soon – you’ll find out in a minute why I don’t have them yet.) Continue reading →

Greetings, dear HaQ readers! Where- and whenever you are finding this – I hope it finds you well. It’s June here, running from spring to summer, getting warm enough to almost melt from one to the next. Sometimes even that heat is sweet. It brings back memories of porches and breezes and radios playing through open screens. Which brings me to this week’s topic. I decided I would continue my confessions with new subject near to my heart: Music.

Isn’t it interesting how, looking back, our lives seem to have a soundtrack? The songs that played during the prom, or the summer you had that job, or what you sang to driving to and from your favorite vacation spot – they’re indelible. Music has always been a part of my life and my tastes are, shall we say, a tad eclectic. I love everything from the Brandenburg Concerti to AC/DC to a hilarious bit of electronica called “Bunnies and Muffins” from  Mochipet. (That’s real – I swear. And completely infectious.)

So here’s this week’s oddment: Listening to Stevie Ray Vaughn makes me cry.

I was a fan, way back in the day, late ’80’s. I had tapes of his music I’d play in the car, a Subaru Justy the size (and temperature) of a toaster. With the windows rolled down in the Connecticut summer, I’d drive along belting “Little Sister” and ignoring the stares and snickers, feeling the chords run straight through my ribs to vibrate my backbone. He pulled notes out of a guitar that were different from anyone else’s. I heard him live at Lake Compounce, getting there early enough to see him playing on scooters with his band and to hear the sound check that riveted me to the pavement. Just a few notes of Crossfire – but I would have known that hand anywhere. He played a blistering set with the band on a mid-July night. It left me so stunned, note-drunk, that I couldn’t stand to stay for the second act (Joe Cocker – no slouch himself). I drove home, still feeling the hum of those strings.

That was six weeks before the helicopter crash. I was driving through New Jersey, on my way to Cape May when I heard about it. I sobbed my way through the Pine Barrens. For months I couldn’t hear Stevie Ray’s music on the radio without breaking into tears. It was a long time before I could play the tapes again. Long enough that they were all CDs by then.

He was one of those artists that just sink into you. We have the same birthday and almost nothing else in common; I still feel a connection to him that is hard to explain.  There’s a soulfulness to his music, something that reaches right into me and pulls out a matching wail. It feels like being reborn in Texas under a full moon, while a jaguar prowls the banks of the Rio Grande. It is feral and fully human at once. So raw. So real. Wood and leather, grainy and soft from use. Nothing lacquered or fake about it. That was why I left the concert while Joe Cocker growled and swiveled with two glittery backup singers. It was too polished. After soaking in real sweat and tears, I wasn’t about to settle for what felt like a spangled substitute. Stevie Ray ruined me for other musicians for a long time.

I eventually came out of it. I love live music and I have seen Paul McCartney, Alice Cooper, Kenny Chesney, and John Prine, and the amazing Leo Kottke. It was all great fun. The artist who came closest to being as piercingly real as SRV was kd lang. She played Mountain Stage, in my town, on my 40^th birthday. I took three friends to see the show. She came out in a brown shirt and blue jeans and bare feet. Plain as a sparrow, funny, at ease. And then she closed her eyes and laid back her head and that voice took over. Like Stevie Ray’s guitar, kd lang’s voice rips open the barrier between earth and heaven and makes you believe in some Larger Something that gives us humans gifts. Her voice is so powerful, so beautiful, so expressive. It’s like listening to a van Gogh painting*. Extraordinary.

I love moments like that. Knowing there are transcendent gifts in the world and that I’ve been privileged to bear witness. So grateful. Even when I sit sobbing once again, twenty six years later.

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If you want to hear some music from back then and from now, here are a couple to try: This is Stevie Ray performing Texas Flood on Austin City Limits in 1983. Raw and beautiful. https://vimeo.com/92351110

This is an amazing band called Disturbed doing the Simon and Garfunkel standard The Sound of Silence, posted last December. A little dark, but it gave me chills and thrills. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9Dg-g7t2l4

*PS. If you have ever seen a van Gogh, in person, a few feet from you on a wall, with it’s colors and textures, you will know what I mean. If you haven’t – GO. I saw them in the van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, with nothing between me and them, and I was – in the technical parlance – gobsmacked. It’s a bit like having your guts ripped out through your eyes, but it is also beyond extraordinary.

Stay tuned for more on the Here’s a Quarter blog next week! As always, your thoughts and comments are always welcome – they are moderated (I know – adulting again), so they may take a little while to appear, but I read them all and appreciate that you were here. Thank you!

So let’s review, shall we? In the last few weeks we’ve established that, in the realm of adulthood I am socially gawky, politically aware, and both vertically and organizationally challenged. I may have gotten that stamp for adulting, but some of the corners are not glued down.

However, in at least one area of adult practice, I am pretty self-sufficient – I learned to cook as a kid and have always felt at home in a kitchen. Anyone’s kitchen. If the option is available, I will always gravitate to the food prep area at a party. There’s something settling about the backstage area of a kitchen, the slight mess and bustle, the place where the magic sweats and bakes and really happens. Back in the day, I had a few dinner parties of my own, cooking for hours – or even days – and basking the glow of contentment afterwards.

There is both art and precision in cooking that simultaneously satisfies my scientific and creative sides. I can spend hours researching the perfect combinations of food, creating my own recipes from ones that I like, but aren’t quite it. I have spent an entire afternoon soaking rice paper wrappers one at a time, making dozens of spring rolls. I once spent two days making a roasted butternut squash soup for a club banquet, roasting vegetables to make my own vegetable stock the first day, then roasting the squash, apples, and onions the second day to create a soup so creamy, no one could believe there was no cream in it. It didn’t win any prizes in the evening’s competition, but I didn’t bring home much, because so many people asked for some. That was prize enough for me.

I love feeding people. It feeds the nourisher in me. That look on someone’s face when they taste something you made and want more – it’s gold. It’s also something I learned from my Dad. Many of my earliest memories center around fun and food. He loved to cook and loved learning new techniques and recipes. He learned the finer points of entire cuisines for the pure fun of it. He loved food and all the joy it could bring. He loved sharing that with others, including me, and I love that we shared it. We cooked together, every time we were together. During my summer trips to see my folks, Dad and I would spend whole days planning and cooking meals. During one family vacation on Cape Cod, I remember him coming back from the fish shop in Wellfleet. He handed me a package of mystery stuff. “Here – cook.” I looked through the packages and looked in the cookbooks I’d brought with me and I cooked. Yes – I brought cookbooks on vacation. That was what vacation was for. Living in a landlocked state, I never got to cook really good seafood otherwise. It was glorious fun.

Dad passed away a few years ago. Among the many things I miss, I miss being in his kitchen, having him in mine. We loved with full hearts and full flavor. I get my sense of adventure and enjoyment from him. I still cook from his recipes, especially his bread. Watching Dad knead the dough was like watching a virtuoso play a solo. He gave his entire

attention to it. Once I learned how to bake, I could see why.  There is something spiritual and blessed about growing a living loaf from a few assorted powders and liquids, having it come alive, resilient under my hands. I tell people I like making bread because I like to play with my food (really – that “adult” thing is not glued on too tight); in reality, the alchemy of it is sensual, alive, and irresistible. It’s possible to feel the moment a kneaded dough reaches that point of springiness that says it’s ready to rise. And once it has risen – there is nothing like the pillowy softness of that first punch down, with a release of sweet, yeasty breath. It’s exquisite. The fact that, in the end, you get to eat this magic – even though I’ve probably baked hundreds of breads – still amazes me. If you’ve never made bread – go, buy fresh yeast, and give it a try. It will bring you joy. Every adult needs some of that.

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Stay tuned for more on the Here’s a Quarter blog next week! Your thoughts and comments are always welcome – they are moderated (I know – adulting again), so they may take a little while to appear, but I read them all and appreciate that you were here. Thank you!

OK, let’s just say it – in considering adulthood the other elephant in the room is: the room. In the annals of adulting it is well known that if you have a house, housekeeping comes with it. Uh-oh. I have always had a little trouble with that whole “clean your room” thing. I love clean spaces. I thrill to a kitchen with acres of counters and double ovens the size of Volkswagens. One of my favorite guilty pleasures is a marathon of home improvement TV. You’d never know it though – I’ve never been good at it. I have limited skills for organization or de-cluttering. What I am very good at is accumulating things I like, but can’t figure out where to put. They just accumulate.

Right. I’ll just jump in and admit that wording is a hint at the source of the problem. “They” accumulate. As if things (mostly books) magically ordered themselves off of Amazon and were “poof!” transported to my various rooms to lounge in piles on the floor like exotic lizards.  As opposed to what really happens – I accumulate them. Guilty as charged. Especially books. In ridiculously large numbers. (I’m an unrepentant academic and a writer, I read.)  The only rooms in my house without bookshelves are the bathrooms. Which is not to say that books don’t make their appearance in there. Just not in the numbers that live in the other rooms.

One of my other challenges is that I do not live alone – I have four legged companions and in some spots it looks like I leave the housekeeping up to them. Which is not too far from the truth. I have two dogs and two cats; pet hair is somewhere between a sacrament and a condiment in our home. I don’t worry too much about getting enough fiber.

My living room is “decorated” in a style sometimes referred to as Late 20th Century Pet – they have as much furniture in there as I do, in part because they have, quite literally, eaten some of mine. They’ve chewed up some of theirs, too, so they’re not just being mean. These items are large and not particularly mobile, so they are there to stay. I don’t know whether to consider it resourceful or seriously odd that the dog crate has on occasion been used as an occasional table.

My pets are also responsible for the “interior” decoration of my office – that is, the floor is often liberally decked out in the interior batting from every stuffed toy I’ve ever given my Jack Russell terrier. She loves her toys and it is her express mission to ensure that no tiniest puff of batting remains inside them. That’s what it looks like, anyway. There is no appliance that will pick up that stuff, it goes everywhere, and I have resorted to raking it. And then sighing as I find yet another tuft peeking out from under some piece of furniture seconds before company arrives.

With my tendency toward geological sorting (it’s a layered approach – or maybe that’s just
piles) and the fact that shedding season never ends, my methods of housekeeping have more in common with Tony Stewart than the estimable Martha. On the semi-rare occasions that I entertain, my vacuum and I circuit the available floor space as quickly as possible, with multiple pit stops to offload debris. After circling the house for what feels like hours, I usually have several full trash bags, the vehicle is heated up, I have found several messes I did not know about, and I’m likely to be waving a white flag instead of a checkered one. At least you can (usually) see the original color of the carpets.

If I had to name my style it would be “Welcome, friends – don’t look over there”. My friends, bless them, for the most part, do not. So even if my relationship with adulthood is somewhere between tenuous and “it’s complicated”, I am still trying. And I am grateful.

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Stay tuned for more on the Here’s a Quarter blog next week! Your thoughts and comments are always welcome – they are moderated (I know – adulting again), so they may take a little while to appear, but I read them all and appreciate that you were here. Thank you!

What is adulthood? We all know, but from where I sit the boundaries are a little mushy. It seems there are several parts.

First, there’s doing the stuff for yourself you relied on your parents for as a child: driving, shopping, food service, and anything else involving flames or sharp objects. So adulthood can mean self-sufficiency. Or at least the ability to staunch the bleeding. What comes with this is being able to earn money to pay for self-sufficiency – although conditions now seem to make that harder and harder on more and more people. Still, lots of people make the attempt; rent, mortgages, and car loans are relatively common. We even think of the acquisition of our first apartment, house, or car worth celebrating as a rite of passage.

On top of that, there’s a knowledge base to self-sufficiency that is partially covered by education, and partly you learn on the fly. The hypotenuse is rarely part of the calculations I need to make these days, though I enjoyed doing those problems at the time. Geometry seemed a clean form of entertainment in the days when Richard Nixon was still in the White House and the Watergate hearings were the other offering.

It was Nixon who triggered my passage to political awareness, another aspect of maturing, so I owe him a debt there. Though, in the current year when Donald Trump and his various appendages, or his woot-off with Ted Cruz over their wives, are what pass for topics of political discussion, I’m not sure this is a good thing. Nixon’s potty mouth now seems vastly more innocent than the slate of Neanderthals puffing their chests and strutting through this year’s political play-offs. March Madness, indeed. Nixon, at least, had some clue about foreign policy and even a modest acquaintance with the truth, even if he pretended not to know it when meeting it in public. If gerrymandering and pure ugly pandering are part of political adulthood, count me out.

Socially, adulthood seems to require a certain fitting-in; that goes OK for a lot of people, though for others the fit is on the itchy, choky side. If adulthood was a suit, I would be able to fit one arm in, but the other would be unpredictable. The skirt would not quite cover my ass, and I would just give up on the pantyhose – I tried to wear them once and they squeezed me so hard I got sick to my stomach. I do prefer the sparkly penguin socks. Yes – that picture is of my own sartorially splendid ankle.

Part of this itchiness is my profession. Yes, I have one, which is very adult-ish. I am a university professor (uh oh) and a scientist (oh). I get that a lot. When others learn what I do I immediately get pegged as someone who “knows stuff”. Often it’s stuff other people do not want to know and feel uncomfortable about. It’s stuff I love. I remember the first time I saw the world as an integrated, living, breathing entity; it took my breath away.  I see the poetry in it; however, dealing in data means I have a short fuse for those who wander from the truth. It makes me a prickly prospect at times. So, I have never taken part in that other rite that is often a passage rite of adulting – marriage.

So here I am, well into my sixth decade, severely opinionated, and perennially single. I’m that “extra” dinner guest people dread. (Though, can we talk about that? The dinner table is not the ark and dining doesn’t require a spotter – why do participants have to come in twos?) I have short hair. I can’t stand nail polish. I know how to use power tools and I buy cars and appliances on my own. I get the points for self-sufficiency, while losing out on the pairing bonus. It’s a nice life, just a few degrees off of plumb. Perhaps that’s due to my natural bent and my environs. More about that next time.

 

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Stay tuned for more on the Here’s a Quarter blog next week! Your thoughts and comments are always welcome – they are moderated (I know – adulting again), so they may take a little while to appear, but I read them all and appreciate that you were here. Thank you!

 

New series: Here goes!

No one ever tells you adulthood is a moving target – you find out when you never get there. I have been saying “when I grow up” for approximately 45 years. It’s probably safe to assume it either already has, or never will happen. I do not know which. Maybe this is a good thing. Maybe not. Either way, it’s my thing – so I’m owning it.

Let’s run the numbers: I am 57, 5’2″ high, and slightly wider than is recommended (You didn’t seriously think I was going to volunteer that number, did you?) I have been an academic for over 20 years, or all my life, depending on who and what you ask. I’m tenured and mildly (or freakishly) burnt out (again depending on who and what you ask). I have been a writer since I could print with a log-sized pencil on manila paper with those wide-spaced lines. I would sit in the back of the station wagon on family road trips and write haiku. (Yes, I grew up before seat belts and bike helmets were a thing. And lived to tell about it.) I’ve kept a journal more or less continuously since I was twelve. I have seven novels and rafts of shorter works in various stages of completion. Blame NaNoWriMo or my imagination or both.

So here I am deciding to start another “thing” – whatever it’s going to turn out to be. We’ll just start with the random downloads and see where it goes. Or doesn’t. Maybe this is a moving target, too.

Hang around – this might get interesting. You can even hit the “follow” button at the bottom right corner. No spam – pinky swear.

PS. Yes – the title is from that song by Travis Tritt (check it out – he’s fun to listen to [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLG2jaVdUMo]. I chose it because each of these posts started out as a fifteen minute download of whatever I was thinking on the day. So – here’s a quarter (hour) 2-bits of my thoughts, I do care, and I hope you find a little light in here, too.