Meditations on a Championship, Part Deux

composite photo courtesy of Stacey Keenan/Scott Smith/some other person

October 31, 2008


Further thoughts on the Phillies championship...


Is the curse of Billy Penn broken? I am speaking of the trope wherein there have been no championship titles in Philadelphia since the informal but influential building height restriction (no buildings taller than the hat on Billy Penn's statue) was broken twenty-one years ago.


Or, is it just that the newest tall building in the city has a tiny Billy Penn statue at the top, placed there by superstitious workers from Ironworkers Local 401, who were trying to appease his ghost?


And, what kind of benevolent Quaker historical figure is Billy Penn, anyway, that he would curse his beloved city in that fashion? Yesterday I said that Quakers were not showy kind of people, that they were all about community, and inner light, and so forth. They were called the Plain People, for God's sake (granted that Penn was apparently a snazzier dresser than your average Quaker.)


Still, we native Philadelphians are very quick to believe that Billy Penn, our Founding Father, was not content just to have a gigantic statue of himself above City Hall, but also had to lord it over the city by being the tallest thing in it for all eternity.


That in a fit of ghostly pique more fitting for someone like, say, Louis XIV or Napoleon Bonaparte, he prevented the four major league Philadelphia sports teams from winning a championship for over twenty years because of our architectural hubris. Presumably, he made Donovan McNabb sick in Super Bowl XXXIX, he caused Mitch Williams to throw that pitch to Joe Carter in 1993, he caused the 76ers to come up short (literally, in the case of Allan Iverson) in 2001.


Pretty petty stuff for a guy with a whole state named after him.


You would think that having his picture on a gazillion oatmeal boxes would be enough.

But, I digress.

Perhaps the tiny statue glued to the top of the new Comcast Center really did do the trick to placate ol' Bill.

Or, perhaps, he finally just decided not to torture Philadelphia any more. Maybe he thought that Phillies fans, dedicated to the last drop of blood, deserved a victory after all.

Perhaps he looked to the northeast from his perch up there at Broad and Market, and saw a fan so dedicated, so faithful, that he lifted the curse.

We will never really know.

But just look at the happiness on the face of the Phillies fan in the picture at the top of my post.

It is enough to move a statue.

Meditations on a Championship

October 30, 2008.

The Philadelphia Phillies have won the World Series.

That is a sentence that has not been written for a long time. Well, twenty-five years, to be exact.

The Philadelphia Phillies. Have Won. The World Series.

Of all of the birthday gifts that I and my nephew, Vaughn, born on my 47th birthday, could have received, none are more thrilling.

I am sure that many in the country would not, could not, understand why this is such a big deal. But, you would have to have grown up in this Quaker city, which manifests an interesting mixture of passionate civic pride and self-effacement, to know why this is a seminal moment.

Philly has never been a look-at-us city. Perhaps this stems from the Quaker faith itself, an inward-looking religion wherein the "light within" is what guides its faithful, and the common experience of meeting prompts the mystical contemplation of God. Although most Philadelphians are not Quakers, there is a subtle intensity and reflectiveness that people born and raised here feel.

Certainly, there was a mystical experience of a kind last night at Citizens Bank Park. Some of those at the park almost certainly remember the infamous 1964 collapse of the Phillies; this 53 year old woman, a child of eight at the time, remembers reading the standings day by day, watching in horror as the number of games the Phillies led over the second-place Cincinnati Reds dwindle from 6 1/2 to none.

No child of the sixties who grew up in Philadelphia will ever forget that. It has meant that some of us always temper our enthusiasms with the knowledge that outcomes are unpredictable, that wishing for something will not always make it so.

The Phillies are the "oldest, continuous, one-name, one-city franchise in all of professional sports", as their website puts it. This means that some of the fans who have savored this championship are third or fourth or perhaps even fifth generation fans, like my six-year-old nephew Vaughn, who was at the game with his brother Garrett and his dad, my brother Keith; rooting for the Phillies is in his bones, his DNA.

Baseball is just a game, as I have observed before. Next week, something much more momentous will take place that will also involve partisans, passion, and rooting for one's own candidate.

But for today, one city in the US is feeling hopeful, and transformed by the common experience of a joy that unites us.

Let's hope it spreads.

Turn The Clocks Back

October 29, 2008


Today is my 53rd birthday.

I was born on a Saturday in 1955 at about 7:00 in the evening. My mother likes to tell the story about my birth; about how after I was born, following a five-minute, pain-free labor, she was too excited to sleep, and lay in the maternity ward, waiting for morning. I, of course, had been whisked away to some vast baby boomer warehouse nursery, since the hardy, fertile generation who bore us popped us out like guppies in a seemingly endless stream.

As the hours passed, she would ask the night nurse what time it was whenever I was brought in to be fed. At one point, she was told it was 2:00 a.m. An hour passed, and she asked the nurse again. Again she was told it was 2:00 a.m. Incredulous, she asked, "Didn't you tell me that an hour ago?" Yes, said the nurse, but this is the night that we turn the clocks back.

So, since I was born, every several years, my birthday has contained an extra hour. That is, until Congress messed things up for me last year by moving the end of Daylight Savings Time back a week.

In my foolish, misspent youth, when I would be in a bar celebrating, giddy and heedless of the lateness of the evening and confident of the resilience of the young to function the next day, I would revel in those extra hours. It would mean another round of Singapore Slings, or Tequila Sunrises, or another shot of Tullamore Dew. Another chance to charm that good-looking guy I had my eye on all night. Another round of dancing to Thunder Road or What I Like About You until I was sweaty and breathless.

There is no fabulousness like the fabulousness of the young. Clear skin, good joints, great hair, boundless energy, and time to experience everything, even the bad.

Of course, age takes its toll, and the fires of youth are banked. I speak of moderation as if it is a choice, when the process of getting old has mandated it to some extent. If I stay up all night, I pay for it for days. If I eat or drink too much, I regret it.

I do not regret much about my early days. Thrill and heartache now fill the cup of memory with a heady brew. I am glad for the opportunity to sip from it every now and then.

It is like turning the clock back, even if just for an hour.

Re-Leaf

photo courtesy of Spencer Greet


October 26, 2008


Leaves, leaves, leaves.

What am I going to do with all of these leaves?

I'm going to spend another fall in Pennsylvania, to paraphrase Hall and Oates, and that means another round of dealing with the fallout of an acre of deciduous trees.


Already there is an amazing amount of fall foliage covering the driveway, patio, deck, walkway and lawn; and yet, when I look up, it doesn't appear that any leaves have actually fallen. Most of them are still on the trees, towering hardwoods of eighty feet or more.



Don't get me wrong, I love the change of seasons, the cycle of life and death and rebirth that is so vividly manifest here in the Northeast. I live in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia, still rural enough that as I sit here at my computer, I can watch a buzzard wheel lazily over the hillside; a minute has passed and he has still not flapped his wings.


Fall(ing) leaves are a feast for the senses. I have already talked about the colors; they make a very satisfying crunch when you walk on them, they have that wonderful redolent fall aroma when you burn them (in a barrel, of course, no open burning in my township) and jumping into a big pile of leaves is still de rigueur for children of all ages.


But the collection and taming of the leaves - that is a consummation devoutly to be wished. I hate those ubiquitous leaf-blowers, with their particularly annoying combination of buzz and whine, and vacuuming the outdoors just seems stupid. Raking is good exercise, but kind of like emptying the ocean with a teacup, when you are stranded amid a vast sea of leaves with only a little wood and bamboo for help.


We could just let them stay where they are, of course, and try to ignore them. Until, one day, I realize that they have all blown in to my family room whenever anyone enters the house, swirling around the coffee-table every time the door opens, and then I am vacuuming leaves for real. By midwinter, they will have become a thick coating of slime on my driveway, glued to the asphalt and irremovable, and fertile ground for molds and mildews that as yet have not even been discovered or given fancy-sounding Latin names.

That solution seems to go beyond the tenets of moderation to which I now hew so closely.

Plus, if leaves are allowed to wallow on the grass all winter, they could smother it. I certainly don't want that on my conscience.

So, okay, we manage somehow to collect at least a few significant piles of leaves. What then?


The environmentally conscious thing to do would be to mulch or compost them. If we choose to compost, in theory, we would then have some fabulous material to put on our garden next year. But this is an arduous, labor-intensive project, and we are not talking about Olympian levels of get up and go here.


Mulching, on the other hand, just involves cutting the leaves into little pieces. We actually have a leaf mulcher, one of those garden objects that I bought Norm for Christmas one year even though I did not know exactly what it did. So, perhaps we will mulch the leaves.


Or, perhaps, we will just sit outside with a glass of mulled wine, on a chilly fall day, and just contemplate mulching the leaves. We will feel virtuous about the thought of mulching the leaves. We will sip our wine, and watch the buzzard circle the sky.

Dust to Dust

October 24, 2008

Why is my house so dusty?

No kidding, I have the world's dustiest home. Despite all of my best efforts (and let us not forget, since I am the woman whose body exists mostly to keep her head off of the ground, the energy expended is kept to a minimum) there seems always to be a thin layer of grit all over every surface in my house.

Some of this, no doubt, is because we have been The House of Perpetual Renovation for many years now. We purchased this eccentric domicile from one Fred, volunteer firechief and masonry contractor extraordinaire, who built it for himself. Fred, in his inscrutable fire-fighting, bricklaying wisdom, created a home that was equal parts stunning and just plain weird.

Part of this was no doubt due to the fact that every single volunteer firefighter in the entire county worked to build our house. Seriously. Every time I encounter a new heating technician, electrician, or plumber, it turns out that he or his dad almost fell of of the roof, or lost a fingernail in the wall, or put in the supports for the concrete vault in the basement (don't ask). The original house design was modified, and the result was...interesting. The brick fireplaces were gorgeous. The plumbing was downright baroque.

After living in said conundrum for a few years, I became possessed (not to put it lightly) with the desire to solve this enigma of an edifice.

Norm knew to beware the days when I would stalk The House That Fred Built That We Happen To Occupy, tape measure in hand, muttering to myself like the inmate of an asylum for interior designers. I would look at the staircase, which is located approximately three feet from our designated front door (and not where it was supposed to be) and start thinking about how it could be moved, or made circular, or caused to float, or turned into an elevator. Norm would just sigh, roll his eyes, and wait for this episode of madness to pass.


Seventeen years and many renovations after our purchase of the house, we have indeed remade the first floor into something still quite eccentric, but pretty darn cool in my humble opinion. You can look from one end of our downstairs to the other from all four sides of the house, due to the Zen Koan-like principle that Norm intoned: "If it is open, we shall close it. If it is closed, we shall open it. And east shall become west, and north shall become south." I don't know about reversals in polarity, but we did rip out walls and build new ones where we wanted them; we walled over some doorways and opened others.

Consequently, there seems to be drywall dust floating in perpetual motion throughout our home. I can dust, and vacuum, and Swiffer the floors, but still the dust circles, invisible to the eye, waiting for me to leave the room before landing, no doubt snickering to itself, a particulate version of the Myth of Sisyphus.

Of course, it does not help that we have the Worlds's Itchiest Dog, who scratches himself incessantly, despite the allergy shots that I give him every month. Somewhere I heard that most dust is just shed skin particles and the tiny critters that feed on them.

Now, there's a creepy image for you to contemplate.

We also live in a heavily wooded area, so pollen is unquestionably part of the mix.

In keeping with the spirit of moderation that moves me, I am maintaining my once-a-week dusting ritual, no matter how much of the grayish stuff lands on my knicknacks. I am accepting the fact that dust happens, and we cannot banish it from our lives without installing a whole-house hepa filter.

And until it becomes medically necessary, that, Gentle Reader, is just a Renovation Too Far.

We Are Not Alone

photo courtesy of Spencer Greet

October 22, 2008


I have not written for a few days because Norm and I have been entertaining foreign visitors.

Well, foreign in that they came down from Canada. Our friends Michael, Jan and Ashley, who live in Toronto, stayed with us on Monday and Tuesday. I have known Michael for 23 years, and Jan for almost as long.

Michael is originally from Pennsylvania; we met in 1985 when I became a co-worker and friend of his then-girlfriend Carolyn. He and Carolyn parted ways, but my friendship with Michael endured; he asked me to be the "best man" at his wedding to Jan, but I demurred, preferring to be a bridesmaid instead. After he and Jan married, he relocated to her native Toronto.

It is always interesting when Michael and Jan visit; after we have gotten through the catching-up conversations of what has been happening in the year or so since their last visit, we plunge into the world of politics. Michael has totally embraced the maple leaf; at this point he is as Canadian in his outlook as any native of that country could be.

Over the years I have been amazed at the amount of underlying anger that comes out about the U.S. in our conversations; some of this I have chalked up to a little-brother, big-brother kind of resentment. It is quite instructive to listen to anyone who lives outside of the U.S.; the perspective of an outsider is refreshingly free of the kind of partisanship we are accustomed to. This is not to say that there is no bias, but it is obviously from the perspective of what is perceived to be good for Canada. Canadians in general know a great deal more about the U.S. than we know about Canada (another reason for the aforementioned anger).

This year, I did not detect the underlying anger as much. Perhaps it is because we are seen to be reaping what we have sown, and therefore a little bit of schadenfreude creeps into their observations. Mostly, however, there seems to be anxiety - a fear that we are going down, and will drag everyone else down with us. From talking to Jan and Michael, it was clear that they would like to see a significant change happen in US policies, both economic and foreign policy.

In a CBC poll done in January, 15 percent of respondents said that they would give up their Canadian vote to be able to vote in the U.S.

I am reminded once again of the interconnectedness of humanity; that we do not live on this planet alone. We are tied to the global community by threads that are political, social, and certainly economic. A frequently repeated truism is that "when the U.S. sneezes, the world catches cold."

However the election on November 4 turns out, perhaps we as a nation could once again be mindful of our responsibilities to others in the world, and heed the words of Mahatma Gandhi:

"I offer you peace. I offer you love. I offer you friendship. I see your beauty. I hear your need. I feel your feelings. My wisdom flows from the Highest Source. I salute that Source in you. Let us work together for unity and love."

Or, as Jesus put it, love our neighbors as ourselves.

Time and Money

photo courtesy of Spencer Greet

October 17, 2007

Yesterday was a frustrating day.

My car had been in the shop; we took it over on Wednesday to have a bunch of minor things taken care of. Well, one of the things was a leaky tire, so that was actually not so minor.

It is amazing, however, how "minor things" can add up to big money.

When the cost of the oil change, map light bulb, turn signal bulb, plus two tires and adjustments to the "tire sensor system" were added up, the total came to $632.00.

Ouch.

And that was after I turned down the replacement for the automatic sliding door sensor ($200.00) plus two additional tires that the dealership wanted to sell me (another $200.00).

I'll open that door myself, thanks very much.

All this for a car that is less than two years old, a Chrysler Town & Country minivan (admittedly with high mileage - 55,000. Two drives to Florida this year and weekly trips to the Jersey shore in the summer can add up).

It took a day and a half for the car to be made available. As I am not currently employed outside of the home, this was not a catastrophe, but it was inconvenient; we were practically down to stale crackers and martini olives for dinner. Somehow, even though there are a net total of three other drivers in this household, each with his or her own car, all of them had to be out the door yesterday by 7:30 am.

Fortunately, my friend Joan was available and willing to give me a ride to the dealership, after I called them and demanded my car (nicely) at 10:00 yesterday morning. They said it would be available at 11:00, but when I got there at 12:00 noon, I still had to stand around for twenty minutes waiting for them to get the car.

Later, I had to pick Spencer up from school to go to choir practice. I have discovered that parents start lining up in the car line fully one half hour before school lets out, so that if I get to school at the time it actually ends, I am tenth in the line and have to wait ten or fifteen minutes for Spencer to be actually let out of the building. Then we have Toad's Wild Ride to get to choir practice fifteen miles away in another town. So, I have started arriving earlier and earlier at the school to save the ten minutes, so that I can drive Spence to choir in a more leisurely fashion and in better humor.

Yesterday I got there even earlier, since I had an errand to run in the area of the school. I was first in the car line fully an hour before he was to be let out at 3:20. I figured I would just relax, read a magazine, listen to the radio, and the hour would pass quickly, rather than driving around wasting gas, or going out to a store and spending money (see Wednesday's post).

Spence was on a class trip yesterday afternoon, though, and the letting-out time at school came and went. I sat, and sat, and sat. The rest of the car line came, picked up, and left, and I still sat. The class trip ran very late, and it was 4:00 before his bus came back to school. He was annoyed at the delay, and he ended up missing choir.

Spence and I were both pretty cranky for the rest of the day, which ended up in both of us yelling, about him practicing the viola, of all things. He is, of course, a teenager, and still maturing; I, on the other hand, should have been able to shake off the annoyances, but just couldn't.

Today, I am taking a deep breath. I am reminding myself that it is not worth getting worked up over small things, and that living in moderation is my goal, or better yet, living in the Aristotelian state of eudaimonia. Perhaps a review of Aristotelian ethics would be good for the soul. It is not easy finding the golden mean between spiritlessness and irascibility.

If all else fails, I can always take refuge in a piece of really good chocolate to change my mood.

The Stuff of Life

October 15, 2008

I don't know if I heard, or read, or just thought, that if you spend the first 50 years of your life accumulating things, you should spend the next 30 (or whatever) getting rid of them.

This makes sense to me. Having passed 50 a few years ago, and due to various life events that I will not go into at the moment, I am now gradually trying to pare down the posessions I have accumulated.

It is no secret to anyone who lives in this country that we Americans have a lot of stuff. Way too much stuff.

We have enjoyed sixty years of unparalleled prosperity. We have bought more and more stuff, and bigger and bigger houses to hold the things we have bought; it seems that rather than getting rid of items when the house gets crowded, we just decide we need a bigger house. Then, we need more stuff to fill the bigger house. It's a vicious circle!

The thing is, buying things can be quite enjoyable. There is a whole area of addiction involving compulsive conspicuous consumption, shopaholism, technically known as oniomania; it is thought that 90% of shopaholics are women. And although this problem seems like something that Lucy Ricardo would have, people have been known to spend themselves into bankruptcy, buying things they don't need, or really even want, just to make themselves feel good. Then, of course, they feel bad for spending all of that money, and have to shop again to make themselves feel good...another vicious circle.

I have never felt myself to be a shopaholic, but I have sometimes gone out and bought something when I felt a little blue. Why shopping makes us feel good I don't know. Perhaps, for women, it hearkens back to the gatherer role that women occupied in hunter-gatherer societies.

Whatever the reason, I have decided that having too much stuff is not good, and actually causes anxiety, because it is harder to find things. So, I am starting to pare down. I am trying to keep to a rule that if something new comes into the house, something else must leave. I am going through all of my books - which are located in bookcases, stacks, on tables, under tables, you get the idea - removing the ones I have no interest in, boxing them up and taking them wherever they will be accepted and given a good home.

I am trying not to just throw things away (which would be my husband Norm's choice). While that gets an item out of the house quickly, it does seem wasteful, and then I worry about where it will end up. I would rather donate, or have a yard sale. My rule of thumb is if something is broken, it is trash; if it is still usable, it isn't.

My birthday is coming up in a few weeks, and I have started asking my loved ones for consumable items as gifts - gift certificates for dinner, flowers, chocolate (oh yes, by all means, chocolate) would all be acceptable.

I am looking forward to the day when all of my books fit into bookcases; when the coat closets are not overstuffed; when everything can be "put away".

In the meantime, if you are having a yard sale, let me know. I have this great lamp...

The Smell of Childhood

October 14, 2008

Sometimes writing is hard.

I find it best to write in the morning when my brain is overstimulated by caffeine. As a lifelong coffee junkie, I have depended on this uber-stimulant since adolescence to pull me and my overactive noggin out of whatever universe it visits during my "sleeping hours".

My first encounters with the morning beverage came in early childhood, when my mom and my grandmother would push brother Jim and me, sitting in their grocery carts, through the A&P. These trips almost always involved the purchase of a large bag of Eight O'Clock Coffee beans. These would be dumped into the large grinder at the checkout counter and returned to the bag in a much finer and more aromatic state. Then Jim and I would fight over the privilege of sticking our head in the bag to smell the ground beans. Our brother Keith, still an infant, was too small to participate in this ritual.

Coffee was an ingrained part of the culture in our family, especially in the morning. In her later years, Gram would sit over a cup of coffee all day, which sometimes became the consistency of molasses (with the flavor of old socks) after the percolator was plugged in for several hours.

After I reached twelve or so, I began to enjoy drinking it as much as I liked smelling it, albeit in a barely recognizable form after I larded it with three or four spoonfuls of sugar and diluted it with a lot of milk.

I really was not aware of the discrete effects of caffeine until I reached my forties; a morning cup was more a habit than a need. Then, in middle age, I became aware when the happy buzz of the bean kicked in. My thoughts became clearer, and came much faster, after a cup or two of coffee. I felt like I could conquer the world, no small thing when you are a person whose metabolism slouches along in perpetual first gear.

Alas, at some point my heart began to do this little dance that I like to call "arrhythmia". I began to realize that perhaps three cups of "high-test" were becoming a little too exciting. So, Norm and I started mixing decaffeinated coffee with regular.

Our process of coffee-making, established many years ago, involves grinding beans down to a fine powder by the use of a Krups coffee grinder (making sure that every last scintilla of bean was available for the brew). We use a Mr. Coffee-style coffeemaker, with the basket and the filters, which are always the brown, ecological kind. The coffeemaker is never cleaned, which is probably why we need a new one every few years. Call me crazy, but the coffee never seems to taste as good after all of those old coffee oils are removed.

These days, I find it necessary to moderate the amount of caffeine I ingest even more, so the brew is now two-thirds decaf. We still mostly use Eight O'Clock coffee, mixing decaf and regular, although sometimes recently we have become lazy coffee heretics and use Maxwell House already ground coffee. From a can.

I still love the smell of ground coffee in the morning, though. It smells like...childhood.

The Best of All Possible Worlds

October 13, 2008

On Saturday, Norm and I went to see the musical Candide at the Arden Theater in Philadelphia.

The musical is based on Voltaire's satiric novella, entitled "Candide: Or, All For The Best", which I have often heard referenced, but have never read. It is an interesting time to be exposed to this particular work; there are a number of parallels between the world we live in now and the world as it was when Candide was written.

Voltaire published it in 1759, as a sarcastic response to the au courant philosophy of optimism espoused by Leibnitz, juxtaposed against the horrors that were occurring in the Western world at the time. These horrors included war, such as the conflict we Americans call the French and Indian War (part of a larger conflict called the Seven Years War in Europe) and natural disaster in the form of the catastrophic Lisbon earthquake of 1755 and subsequent tsunami and fires. References to some of these events are written into the novella.

Certainly Candide hammers its point home about foolish optimism in a world filled with evil, but it does so in a manner that is witty and very funny, with some great music. The story is all over the place, but roughly follows the idea of the Fall of Man in Genesis: an idealistic and innocent young man (Candide) lives in a castle-paradise owned by a Baron and his family, including the Baron's lovely daughter. The younger occupants of the castle are taught by Dr. Pangloss that they are living in "the best of all possible worlds."

All is well until Candide and the Baron's daughter Cunegonde kiss, and then Candide is thrown out of the castle, to begin his wanderings in an evil world, wherein he is treated very badly. Cunegonde also loses her paradise, and is subjected to all manner of abuse. The abuses and degradations suffered by the characters are presented in a very unsentimental, matter-of-fact way, and are so excessive that they become ridiculous.

The characters also spend much of their time pursuing wealth in any way they can get it other than performing actual work, but usually it slips through their fingers. Cunegonde sells out her erstwhile lover Candide a number of times, even though he remains true to her. By the end of the play, the characters are older, sadder, wiser, poorer, (and in the case of Cunegonde, uglier), and ready to start "tending their own gardens", as Voltaire puts it, meaning apparently that they will live real lives of honest work, and be responsible for themselves.

In addition to the skewering of optimism as a life philosophy, there is much philosophical discussion about the meaning of life in general and the nature of and reason for evil; there is no real resolution of any of these weighty subjects, and critics still argue about what Voltaire was advocating by his ending.

In some ways Candide could have been written recently. The terrible things that happen to the characters, the conflicts, natural disasters and greed are all too familiar to modern readers, especially after the last few weeks, when greed apparently almost brought down the global economic system.

Although Voltaire does not leave us with any real philosophy (other than pessimism), the idea of living lives that are simpler and more reality-based is a good thing to take away from the story. Perhaps it is that life is just not simply good, and we will have to work to ameliorate its horrors.

Some of us may literally be "making our own gardens grow", if food prices continue to skyrocket.

The musical version of Candide is really more of an operetta than a musical, with a wonderful score by Leonard Bernstein that makes some significant demands on a soprano (I am speaking specifically of the tour-de-force "Glitter and Be Gay"). I have tried to sing along with this recording of Dawn Upshaw, but she leaves me in the dust when she gets to that high E-flat.

The production at the Arden is really well done, and quite enjoyable. The production was theater-in-the-round, and utilized an unusual device wherein the stage floor was a giant round chalkboard, and various set-pieces are suggested by drawings which are then erased by men with mops.

In addition to the solos, there are some terrific choral pieces, one of which Norm and I have sung ("Make Our Garden Grow"). It is an acapella song, challenging to sing, with complex harmonic lines, and ends the play on an uplifting note.

Lumen

photo courtesy of Spencer Greet


October 10, 2008


I find myself preoccupied with light these days.

The sunlight in the fall, perhaps because of the increasingly oblique angle of the sun, seems to illuminate the outside world more richly and with more contrast than the light in the summer. From my perch at the computer, I can see verdant grass, turning leaves, and elongated shadows. The air is very clear, and the sky is periwinkle without a trace of clouds. Houses, trees, chrysanthemums on the lawn - all have a vivid, painterly quality. You just want to drink it in.

Inside the house, due to recent renovations, there are many recessed ceiling lights. Before the kitchen was re-done, it was lighted mostly by a large traditional fluorescent ceiling light. It gave the kind of light that fluorescent lighting gives - strangely cold, and harsh. The new lights are incandescent floods with rheostats on them; these lights have the mellower, softer quality associated with incandescent lighting.

At first, we were thinking about putting the newer type of fluorescent flood lamp in the ceiling lights. Traditional incandescent lights use more energy because much of the energy they use is consumed by the production of heat rather than light. Mindful of the need for all of us to be more prudent about energy consumption, we thought that the switch to fluorescent would be a good thing. New fluorescents are available whose spectrum of light is closer to incandescent, or the full-spectrum light of daylight.

We routinely dim the lights at night when some of us go to bed, and others are still out, so that the latecomers will not come in to a dark house. It seems wasteful to leave a lot of lights on at full blast when no one is in the room, and the rheostats reduce the amount of energy used by the bulbs. I also like the dimmed light as it gets closer to bedtime; it helps to get into the frame of mind for sleep.

Plus, dimmed incandescent lighting is so much better for the appearance of les femmes d'une certaine age. It makes us look like fitting subjects for a painting by Rembrandt, or Renoir. Of course, candlelight cherishes mature female skin more than any light, but is too impractical for everyday use.

Regrettably, fluorescent lights cannot be dimmed, at least by the use of a traditional rheostat.


Another potential issue with fluorescent bulbs is the mercury they contain. The electrician who installed the new lighting made me aware of this issue. According to some scientists, though, the amount of mercury contained in the bulbs is miniscule, and the bulbs just need to be recycled properly.


The buildup of heat around the base of the fluorescent lamp is also problematic; these bulbs need ventilation, which they do not get in recessed ceiling lighting. The buildup of heat means that the bulb will not last as long.


We have switched to compact flurescent bulbs in table lamps with shades, and other areas where there is adequate ventilation. We are continuing to use the incandescent floods with dimmers in our ceiling lights, until the technology of dimmable fluorescent bulbs has been worked out. And we let the sunshine in while we still have it.

Dogged Devotion

photo courtesy of Spencer Greet

October 9, 2008


I sit here at the computer with a living, hairy rug at my feet.

Our family dog, Joey, is what the Westminster Dog Show announcer calls "a companion animal". This means that Joey will follow family members into the bathroom if we don't stop him.

Joey is an Irish Water Spaniel. His breed is pretty rare in the U.S., and we had to drive to Virginia to get him. When we (meaning I) decided that the family needed a dog, I turned to the Internet to research breeds of dog that are less allergenic; these tend to be dogs with hair instead of fur. Irish Water Spaniels have curly, poodle-like hair that is soft to the touch.

I was attracted to the characteristic long knot of curls that can grow down from the top of his head, which combined with his long curly ears makes him look like a doggy version of King Charles II. I was a bit worried about the high spirits characteristic of this breed, but Joey has turned out to be a lovely addition to our family. My son Spencer frequently curls up around him much like another dog would probably do.

Of the many ways that people can be divided into two groups, one of those divisions is "dog people" versus "cat people". I suppose that I am a dog person for several reasons, not the least of which is that I am allergic to cats.

The reasons go much deeper than that, though. The more I get to know dogs as a species, the more I admire them.

For one thing, I have come to realize that within the limits of their abilities, dogs are terrific communicators. I read a study about a year ago that said that dogs are more obsessed with human behavior than any other species, even chimps. This is certainly true of Joey. He watches us constantly, seeking eye contact. If we don't look at him, he will dance around until we do: "Are you looking? Are you? Are you? Great, you're looking!" Or, he will sit at my side and stare, unblinking, until I finally turn to look.

Once he has obtained eye contact, he can communicate what he wants, with amazing effectiveness, if we just pay attention. His wants are pretty simple; food, water, affection, recreation, an opportunity to visit the outside toilet.

Pretty much the basic wants of humans, too, with the exception of the outside toilet part.

Research has shown that dogs are selective imitators, meaning that they can interpret and repeat behaviors based on observation and inference, like a human child. Sophisticated thinking for an animal that amuses itself by chasing its own tail.

Intellect and communication abilities notwithstanding, the qualities I most admire in dogs are twofold: the fact that they are completely present at all times, and their forgiving and nonjudgmental nature (of course, I am talking about cherished pets here, not mistreated or brutalized animals).

Dogs live totally in the now. A dog exhibits tremendous qualities of mindfulness - he is here, right now, with all of his being and senses. He is not worrying about what may happen or what did happen. He does not care what you did ten minutes ago, even though you yelled at him for scratching at the oriental carpet to "soften it up" before lying down on it. He forgives, does not judge, and moves on.

He will care for you when you are sick. This sounds ridiculous, except that when Norm has been suffering from one of his serious health scares, Joey would go over to him and lick his face all over for a sustained five minutes in a manner that Norm has called "giving me a treatment". Joey has never done this to anyone else. Recently in the news, a trained companion dog dialed 911 when his owner suffered a seizure.

There are those who say that people merely project human behaviors onto dogs; that they operate on an instinctive level, driven by Pavlovian conditioning and nothing else. I think that dogs condition us to be kinder, more compassionate, more forgiving, and more present; to borrow a phrase from Lincoln, they appeal to "the better angels of our nature".

The Internal Summer of Our Discontent

photo courtesy of Spencer Greet

October 8, 2008

So it is October, and the nights (and days) are getting cooler. Summer is gone, and with it the excessive heat and high humidity that life at the 40th parallel can bring.

This, to paraphrase Shakespeare, is a consummation devoutly to be wished, especially for those women among us who are located somewhere north of 50. I am not sure exactly what I expected of the "change of life", but the phrase certainly is apt. Especially in the area of heat tolerance.

Once upon a time, I was a person who almost always felt cold. I always needed a cover on the bed, even in the midst of summer. Husband Norm, on the other hand, seemed to be a perpetual inferno. It could never be too cool for him.

When we purchased our home 17 years ago, it had no air conditioning. After suffering through several hot summers in a home with an acre of trees to the west but no shade to the south or east, we started to install window air conditioners. That meant in a sultry July our house was a vast Sahara through which we would flee to get to the various air-conditioned oases, arriving sweaty and thankful for the respite. Finally, we retro-fit the house for central air.

Just in time for my own internal summer to arrive.

Since we moved to our home in 1991, I have gone from being the person most likely to be wearing a sweater to the one whose temperature comfort zone ranges from 63 to 68 degrees Fahrenheit. If the temperature rises above 68 degrees, I immediately begin to perspire and shed clothing like an ecdysiast.

Sometimes I wonder if there is a Karmic principle at work here, as I was probably less than tolerant of Norm's discomfort during my chillier days.

Of course, during the same period that I was experiencing personal climate change, global warming has become a much more intensely discussed topic. We are all much more aware of the effects of our own energy consumption upon the world. And, oil prices and other energy sources have skyrocketed, although oil has come down somewhat in the last few turbulent weeks.

This has led me to think much more about my thermostat settings, and the need to keep temperature within reasonable levels in our house. I have just installed programmable thermostats on our cooling and heating systems, and my own rule of thumb has been to keep the winter thermostat setting to the Energy Star settings whenever possible - no warmer than 70 degrees for heat, and setbacks of at least 8 degrees at night or during the day (summer settings are 78 degrees, with a setup of 7 degrees during the day and 4 degrees at night.)

The winter settings, I admit, are easier for me than the summer. Sixty-two degrees is still fairly comfortable for me. Still, when the other members of my household complain that it is too cold in the house in the winter, I find myself saying to them (with secret satisfaction) what my mother said to me when I felt cold in the winters of my youth:

"Put on a sweater!"

Fade to Gray

October 6, 2008


In my last post, I complained about less-than-truthful manufacturers who change food packaging in order to shrink it, while charging the same price and remaining mum on the subject.

I feel a bit hypocritical about that, when I consider my own packaging, or at least a part of it. So, in the spirit of truth in advertising, I will make the following declaration:


I color my hair.


My hair is not (naturally) now, and has never (naturally) been the shade of red that I currently sport. Or any other shade of red, for that matter.


Not auburn, not strawberry, not roan. Not copper, or carrot.


Perhaps titian would have described it. That is the word used to describe Nancy Drew's hair in the earlier books in the series that I devoured as a child. The word comes from Titian, the Renaissance artist, who frequently painted redheads.


While titian is a perfectly lovely color, it is not quite red. It is sort of half-red. My brothers were both blessed with actual red hair, although most certainly neither of them would have described this feature as anything like a blessing. Red hair on guys was not cool. Especially growing up in the 1960s. Plus, redheads are very pale, and prone to freckles. Also not cool.


But still, they were good-looking boys whose hair color stood out (only 1-2% of the population has naturally red hair). Older brother Jim had the auburn variety, a perfectly lovely color in my book. It looks great on women. Younger brother Keith had hair of a coppery shade that would glow in a translucent way in the light. Also beautiful on a female head. Both sort of wasted on the boys who wore them, who did not want to stand out in this particular way.


I had the not-quite-red. Until I met up with Robin, my friend and hair stylist. She was the person who informed me that I should have been a red head, because of my skin color. I was in my early thirties, and did not need much convincing. So, a redhead I became.


And have remained, except for the nine months when I carried Spencer and didn't want to mess with the chemicals. I graciously accepted all compliments about my hair, which because of Robin's vast skill and artistry looked as if it grew out of my head that shade. The color has varied a bit over the years, sometimes more coppery, sometimes a little more auburn, but always a perfect fit.


Lately, however, I have been wondering if continuing to color my hair well into my fifties is such a good thing. Every time someone looks at my son Spencer's naturally coppery head and then at my own and jokes that, of course, I would be Spencer's mom, I feel a little...duplicitous. At this point, my real hair color is probably not even titian, but more of a dull brown with some gray shot through.


Red hair in general usually changes in color as people age, turning brown or sandy. Dyed red hair is similarly difficult to maintain, as the dye is more unstable than other colors. So, a woman in her mid-fifties with coppery hair most likely dyes it regularly, which can be expensive, and gives her "roots".

Aging is a part of life that we all need to accept. It is not reasonable to expect that we will continue to look as if we are in our thirties when we pass the half-century mark. Why can't we just look like attractive, well-groomed people who are aging gracefully?

Getting Small

October 4, 2008

Yesterday I griped about the slightly obscene size of juice containers that are sold in supermarket aisles (I didn't add the omnipresent two-liter soda bottle to this screed, but I could have). Today I am zeroing in on the opposite trend in food marketing. I call it The Incredible Shrinking Container syndrome.

For some time now, the size of containers of all kinds has been shrinking. I first noticed this about ten years ago, when the juice boxes I was buying for Spencer shrank from eight ounces to six and a half. It was a subtle change; the boxes just grew a little narrower. Considering that Spencer was the kind of kindergartener whose teacher complained that "he must live on air, he eats so little", I figured that practically speaking, he still would not finish the container anyway, although I was somewhat annoyed at the concept of getting less product for the same price. It was really the sneakiness of the shrinkage that bothered me.

Change the package, shrink it a little, no one will notice.

Then, a few years ago, I noticed that the half-gallon of ice cream I was buying looked a little, well, slimmed down. When I checked the size of the container listed at the bottom, lo and behold, it had indeed shrunken to 1.75 quarts. I was incredulous; the "half-gallon" of ice cream was not just a size, it was a standard. Were we now supposed to put "one-and-three-quarter-quarts of vanilla ice cream" on the grocery list?

It would be lovely to think of this as the manufacturer's attempt to moderate our eating habits of this high-calorie, high-cholesterol delight, but of course, that had nothing to do with the size change. It was a way of charging more without the perception of charging more.

The most insulting aspect of this change was, again, the sneakiness - no mention was made of the fact that the package was smaller. The half-gallon of ice cream had just quietly faded into history, along with the seven-dollar adult movie ticket and $3.00-per-gallon gas.

Recently, Breyers has gone even further, shrinking the container to 1.5 quarts. That is barely more than one-third of a gallon! And Tropicana just did a similar sleight-of-hand with the 96-ounce orange juice container; the container was redesigned, it trumpeted a better-designed pour spout, and oh, yes, was now only 89 ounces. Not that this was mentioned, except in the fine print at the bottom of the container.

Cereal boxes are also going on surreptitious diets. Caveat emptor, indeed.

I don't have a problem with smaller containers, actually; as I mentioned in my last post, some really large bottles don't fit well in refrigerators and are resource-wasteful. I do mind the lack of truthfulness.

Interestingly, the shrinking containers are usually the ones that contain actual food, such as ice cream or orange juice, or even cereal. The really junky stuff, containing ingredients that came from a test tube, is still big and cheap.

I know that globally, food prices are increasing. I also think that this gives us an opportunity to think more about what we eat and, perhaps, to consume less.

It would just be nice if manufacturers could treat us with some respect.

A Big Thirst

October 3, 2008

I have declared war on big plastic bottles.

There has already been uproar in the media about the ubiquitous plastic water bottle and its effect on the environment and oil consumption. But today I am exercised about its large cousins.

Have you ever wandered down the "juice" aisle in the supermarket? There must be thousands of plastic bottles, from the 12-oz "exercise beverage" bottles that come in eight-packs, to the 128 ounce behemoths that anchor the bottom shelf of the display.

All of them are filled with some kind of juice-like substance, in all of the colors of the rainbow, ranging from the deep indigo of grape juice to the pink, chartreuse and electric blue - a color not even found in nature - of the aforementioned electrolyte-restoring fluid.

I will save serious critique of the contents for another day. Right now, I am talking about the containers, and how much space they take up in the recycling bucket once they have been emptied. You get two or three of those biggies in the can, and not much else fits in there. Some of the bottles are almost as big as the bucket I am trying to fit them in.

Of course, what happens to them after they are recycled is another whole issue.

You have to wonder how much petroleum product is tied up in these oversized containers. Some companies are starting to produce greener alternatives to conventional plastics, which break down more easily, and produce fewer toxins, but they are not yet in widespread use.

Why does anyone need so much "juice" that it has to come in a container the size of an oil drum? I can understand if someone is buying provisions for a summer camp, or school lunch, but for the average consumer, they are kind of ridiculous - they don't fit in the refrigerator when full, and they take up a lot of space when empty.

How thirsty are we, anyway? Are we afraid that we will run out of "juice" and, desiccated arms outstretched toward the kitchen, die a parched death in our living rooms while we watch Survivor?

I think it is a holdover from the whole oversize trend that was happening. Bigger just had to be better - cars, houses, beverages. If a lot was good, more had to be even better. Especially if the beverages in question are mostly water, with some high fructose corn syrup and food coloring added.

When I was a kid - and beware any sentence written by a fiftysomething that starts with those words - we drank a lot of powdered ice tea mix. There were no big plastic jugs. There were waxed cardboard cartons for orange juice, and milk came in glass bottles that were reused.

So, to minimize the purchase of the plastic, I have gone back to the powdered drink mixes, or I make ice tea from actual teabags. I re-use the plastic jugs, or when possible use a pitcher.

Of course, the healthiest thing to do is just skip the additives and drink water.

From the tap.

The Color of Fun

photo courtesy of Spencer Greet

October 2, 2008

October is my favorite month.

What's not to like, at least here in the Northeast? The crisp, clear weather? The smell of burning leaves? The colors?

Certainly it is the most colorful month. It starts, here in Pennsylvania, with the leaves on all of the trees mostly green. Then, day by day, the gradual transformation occurs, and the trees show their true colors - red and orange for maple, gold for oak - as if they could finally go home, shed their nice but dull workaday uniform and change into something much more festive.

It is time to party, the trees are saying.

Of course, October culminates in the annual costume-wearing, pumpkin-carving, candy-eating bacchanale that is Halloween. It has ancient origins, going back to the early Celtic festival of Samhain, the word for November. It was the end of one harvest year and the beginning of another, but also the beginning of a period of increasing darkness; Ireland and Scotland, the Celtic nations, are located in northern latitudes where the midwinter day is a feeble few hours.

No wonder, then, that a party seemed called for. A bonfire was lit on the Hill of Tara, the ancient seat of Irish kings, and all were summoned to light their own fires against the coming night. Around the fire, stories were told in honor of the dead, and crop offerings were burned to the Celtic deities. Food was prepared for the coming winter.

My family has an annual ritual of pumpkin picking at Milky Way Farm. We climb on a haywagon, ride out to the pumpkin patch, and look for the absolute best pumpkin to carve. We usually select too many, because no one can decide on just one pumpkin. One year I was eight months pregnant, and the inevitable jokes about pumpkin-smuggling ensued.

After the pumpkins are picked, we have the obligatory photo session, wherein Jim and Norm replace their heads with pumpkins, and observations are made about the improvement in their appearance this affords. At that point,some of us slackers ride the wagon back to the farm; other, more virtuous family members walk back, hauling their pumpkins as best they can. Next on the agenda is petting the farm animals. Then, we go eat ice cream made from the milk of the farm's own dairy cows.

Not exactly the fires of Samhain, but still a celebration of the harvest.

It is always a reminder, walking through the fields, picking up the pumpkins, looking into the eyes of a calf, that life is about more than work, more than the Internet, more than television, more than exercising in the gym. It is about being outside on a beautiful fall day, taking time to use our senses to take in the world.

It is also a reminder of how fortunate we are; that once upon a time we might have been reaping grain and slaughtering cows for sustenance through the winter. Now, we can enjoy a pumpkin just for its color and shape and carve-ability.

Come to think of it, they also make great pies.

The Power of the People

October 1, 2008

Yesterday I talked about applying moderation to our driving habits.

In an interesting coincidence, today I saw an article about how traffic accidents increase on Election Day.

Now, why would that be?

The article goes on to mention that perhaps unfamiliar routes, more drivers on the road, or rushing to the polls before they close could contribute to this phenomenon (observed by Canadian researchers, no less). Perhaps these are the reasons, but I have to wonder if it is not because people are so distracted by all of the hyperbole and craziness surrounding presidential elections these days. Are we turning our vehicles into guided missles, subconsciously aiming them at anyone who may disagree with us?

Elections, especially presidential ones, are big events in a democratic society. We actually get the chance to determine who will run the country for the next four years, still a relatively recent development in recorded world history, although not as recent as many of us think. We would have to go back to our mentors in many things, the ancient Greeks, to get to the start of democracy.

Greece at that time was not one unified nation, but a collection of democratic city-states; the best known and most successful of which was Athens. But all residents in Athens were not elegible to vote, only adult Athenian men, born of two Athenians, could participate.

Fortunately, democracy, especially in the US, has changed a lot since then. But, traffic accidents notwithstanding, many of us forgo the opportunity to participate in the democratic process, and do not vote at all.

Some of us vote in the spirit of vengeance.

Aristotle saw politics as a practical science whose object was the noble action or happiness of the citizens. Yet politics as it is practiced now seems to lead to anything but happiness or noble action.

In the last twenty years, elections have become more and more about superficialities, and less and less about things that really matter to everyone. Extremism, personal attacks, and partisanship on both sides of the political debate have polarized us, and to some extent, traumatized us. We find ourselves losing our balance, and reason is trumped by small-mindedness.

Is it any wonder, then, that we lose control of our cars? We have lost control of ourselves.

Perhaps this year we can go to the polls in the spirit of moderation and reason, using the principles of mindfulness to keep us calm, and safe. We can have our opinions, and others can have theirs. Only one will win the election, but all will have had the opportunity to participate.

And the power of the people will be manifest once again.