Why I Paint My Toes

Why I Paint My Toenails

Why do old ladies paint our toenails?

Yes, it's summer, and we wear sandals much of the time.

But why our toenails? Why not our finger-nails as well?

Look around you. Many of the older women of your acquaintance are wearing polish on their toes, but not their fingers.

WHY??

Our feet don't age.

Our hands now have age spots, raised veins, wrinkled knuckles, SIGNS we are old.

Our feet , at least our tows, do not bear those markers.

My toenails, for the past six or more months, have been glittering silver.

I tell people, "I may not be able to dance, but at least I have twinkle-toes!".

My feet don't show my age.

The rest of my body does.

I paint my toe-nails because it is one part of me that can still not only pretend to be young, but also seem to be so.

Long live pedicures!!

One of those days

Don't ask me why. My lazy bone has come to the fore. I don't WANT to do anything but play dumb games on the computer, read trashy novels I've already read. Drink wine and veg out.
It's summer. I should be over Spring fever. Somewhere, I have lost my ambition, my drive, my willingness to do or be ANYTHING. What causes these major energy-farts, anyway?

I need a new focus. I've done about all that I can with the food pantry. Someone else might be able to stretch it into new directions. I can continue to operate on the same level I now hold it to. But that's about it.

Five years seems to be about my limit at keeping my interest/focus on ANYTHING. Tax Audit, Review, Disclosure, Appeals, Law School , Estate and Gift Tax. I kept changing jobs/focus throughout my career. I'm too shallow to stay with anything long. Except for George. He is the depth to my life.

So I'll post this.

No one reads it, no one follows it, no one knows it's there.

Anonymous on the internet!

The anonymous immortal!

I wish I had thought of THAT as a title when I first wrote on this blog page.

Nothing on the internet is ever lost forever, and no one on the internet knows or cares who I am.

Just another boring blogger. Now, I bet if I googled that, there is such a title. Surely, someone other than I has a similar view of their writing abilities. Must google. Yep. Google Boring Blogger. Page is FULL of links.

Now must try anonymous immortal. Links to anonymous. Group that uses masks in protest. Some of them are "good guys" some not. Depends on your political perspective.

Anyway, so much for my stream-of consciousness drive. (another good blog title). I'll post this, and maybe in anywhere from a day to a month to a decade, I'll post again.

Goodnight, blog

My Life

I brought home some fruit and left it sitting out too long

The next thing you know, I have some sort of fruit flies.

Theses are tiny, gnat-like things. They are generally faster than my ability to swat them, but other than occasionally interrupting my vision, they appear to be begin.

As I recall, fruit-flies have an approximately a 72-hour life-span. Pathetic, no? You are born, you mature, you reproduce, you die. All within 72 (human) hours.

So, compared to some more highly evolved life form, what am I? Perhaps the most significant difference between me and a fruit fly is that I choose not to reproduce.

For all I know, fruit flies have a highly sophisticated social structure, with terrific cultural expressions of dance, music, oration, and other sensory matters we mere humans are not conversant with.

Think about it. What a fruit fly is to us, are we to some larger being? We have studied fruit flies sufficiently to know that they do not construct sophisticated buildings. They do not appear to create anything to affect the next generation of fruit flies.

I am not willing to extend this analogy to ants.

Don't you just love the idea that the entire planet may be the equivalent of some child's ant farm?

I know, I know, that has already been written by much better writers than I.

Still, looking at (and swatting at) today's fruit flies made me think of it again........

Attempt at an Analogy

You have a neighbor you don't know very well. You don't particularly care for him, but mostly, he minds his business and you mind yours.

One night, you hear a big ruckus from your neighbor's house. You wonder about calling the police, but it doesn't seem to be all that serious. Just loud. Very loud. You figure it's his business, it's his life, and you wouldn't want someone calling the cops just because you got a bit loud, would you?

The next day, you see his wife and she has a shiner. Well, maybe you should have done something, but you aren't certain just what. Even if you had called the cops, what would have happened?

Next time happens. The fight is VERY loud. This time, you call the cops. Domestic disturbance, you say. No, not your house, your neighbor. No, you don't know if either of them has a gun. You aren't even certain you know his correct name.

Three or four hours later, the cops show up. There's no noise going on. No one comes out of the house. The husband and wife appear at the door and tell the officers that there is nothing wrong. They would like to know who called, however.

The next day when you walk out your door, they both glare at you. They figure you're the one who called. They don't appreciate it in any way. You've just made BOTH of them mad at you.

What will you do the next time you hear a loud fight?

You talk to some of your other neighbors. They agree that he has a mean temper, and that she is getting the worst of the fights. However, your neighbors point out that although she has made a few half-hearted requests for help, she is unwilling to press charges against him, and she is also unwilling to leave the relationship. Some of your neighbors claim that she is as responsible for the fights as he. Your neighbors say "It's their life. Keep out of it."

What would you do?

Now, replace your neighbor with Syria.

What do you think we should do?

Planning a picnic

So, I'm planning a picnic with some friends.

Menu -

Steak
Orzo salad,
Saute of squash

Sounds simple?

I also have to put together a picnic kit.

Dishes, utensils (including steak knives), table-cloth, napkins, serving utensils, hot-pads, and dishes for the salad and squash.

We're going to the mountains, to a place called Fenton Lake. That is actually a small, fishing pond in the Jemez mountains.

We'll take charcoal, lighter fluid, matches, Large fork, brush to scour grill, paper towels for clean up. I'll have the squash marinating in white wine and spices; and a grill pan.

And of course, wine.

Perhaps two wines.

I may make some stuffed jalapenos and perhaps some stuffed mushrooms for a starter, to go with an appropriate wine. Of course, I'll have grapes and maybe a good cheese for the finish. (may need another wine for that)
Naturally, a good wine with the main course.

Picnics are a lot more fun to plan and do now. Who needs cold fried chicken and paper napkins? (OK, OK, I'll still have paper napkins)

Copola Sofia rose for the appetizer

Copola Roso for the main course (that might change -- must review reds in wine keeper)

A nice, white ice wine (either German or Canadian) for dessert,

Yep; grown-up picnics are a LOT more fun!!

The World is a Better Place

My high-school sweet-heart just got married.

Richard and I went to the prom together, and hung out and dated until I moved to the LA area in 1978.

We were two days apart in age. We used to joke that we would get married on the day between our 30th birthdays.

At his sister's wedding, I danced with his father who indicated he would be very happy if Richard and I married. I replied, "We're too good of friends to mess it up with marriage."

My father told me, "Richard's a very nice boy, but just remember, he's [ethnicity]" Yes, my father was a bigot.

My mother told me, "Richard's a very nice boy, but remember, he's [religion]" My mother was a religious bigot. (I got back at her by marrying a jack Mormon)

What my parents didn't know (and at that time, Richard's parents didn't know either) was that Richard is gay. He came out to me the summer after our second year of college. We had dated the first year, broken up when I went to school abroad, and re-connected when I came back to the States. His coming out to me made our friendship that much deeper. We enjoyed each other's company. We went to plays, to movies, to gay bars, we had FUN. I was his cover. That was when we came up with the idea of marriage between our 30th's. Clearly, if neither of us had found a man we wanted to spend the rest of our life with, we would spend it together.

Then Richard met John. John and Richard were like two halves of a whole. They FIT together. They were an ideal couple. My female roommate and I were their "dates" when straight social situations arose. After all, this was the late 1970's. Gays were beginning to flex their power, but middle-class social norms were still honored.

Two years later, I got married.

Richard and John have been together all this time. The world around us has changed in many ways. They no longer have to "pretend" on social occasions. But still, although they were a couple, they could not marry.

Today, they got married.

I am SO happy. Their love has held them together for over 30 years. Now, legally the relationship between them is equal to what I have with my husband.

Happy, happy wedding day, Richard and John. Your love has stood the test of time and prejudice. May you have many, many years of wedded bliss.

RAIN!

What you're raised with seems natural. What may be natural elsewhere seems strange if you weren't raised with it.

I was born and raised in Southern California. So were my siblings, and unusually enough, my parents. My mother was born in 1917, my father in 1922. They're both gone now, but their childhood experiences were similar to mine, in the way that we were molded by our environment.

Like children everywhere, especially ones who do not travel much, I thought that what I grew up with was the normal pattern of the world.

The thing most people who do not live there do not understand about Southern California is that Winter is the rainy season. Rain may start as early as October, but usually there is little measurable rain until November. After March, rain is not the norm, although there are occasionally some April showers.

After that, IT DOES NOT RAIN IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. For a period of six to seven months, there will usually be less than one inch of measurable precipitation.

That was the weather pattern my parents grew up with. That was the weather pattern I grew up with. That was what I understood to be normal.

Rain does not fall in the summertime.

After I married, my husband began taking me to other parts of the country. If our trips occurred in the Summer-time, my first purchase was usually an umbrella.

I don't understand Summer rain. In Southern California, thunderheads would sometimes build up over the mountains, but rain did not fall in the valleys. If I heard thunder once a summer, that was an event.

Rain, the rain I knew, fell in the winter, and was generally cold. You bundled up, not only against the wet, but also against the cold of the winter moisture.

Now, I often run out to feel the rain in the summertime. I watch it in a sort of awe. Here, now, the rain comes in showers, short, sometimes hard bursts that may last only five minutes. The long, drizzling soaks of my childhood don't happen with the rain here. Summer rain is different. The sky can cloud up in a brief span of time, bring a measurable amount of rain, and then clear.

And lightening! And thunder! Not an occasional very distant rumble, but big flashes and big, loud bursts and claps.

I have a childlike awe and appreciation of the summer rain. It is (to me) something so totally new and different from anything I experienced before.

It still doesn't seem natural, though.