Postcards

Dreams of the Beach

2009-11-07T07:33:00.000-08:00

Mother gave me oil pastels. This was my first attempt at color. The beach with a fog bank hanging just off shore. 1977.

Himself: Feeling and acting much more positive now that a month’s worth of back Un checks arrived. Reading all the articles he can on how to find a job in this new electronic age.

Herself: Still coughing. Much more energy tho before I worked yesterday. I was totally knocked out by something in the back room, Febreze I think. Hit one estate sale and got some exceptional cookbooks. Nightmares today at dawn about the way last week’s house owner died. So very frightening…exactly how G’s mother died.

Reading: Here a bit of HP, there a bit of HP. Cookbooks here and cookbooks there.

Balance: The ability to put some of those cookbooks back when I realized the total was way out of my range.

I wrote over and over in my journals that I was naive. I had truly thought a move to the beach would be good for all of us.

This move the beach found me ending one journal volume, and I bought a bigger sketchbook for the following nine months or so. It was kind of a scary thought to face all that open white paper, and perhaps that’s why I wrote and drew with a faded blue ink.

One day when a group of us was sitting on the lawn, a friend of a friend stopped by to chat. He was looking for a property manager, and I was thinking I was healthy enough to get a job again. Our roommate liked that idea because it freed him up to move north to San Francisco to live with friends.

My journals record that this man just walked up and asked me, and I just said yes.

But yes too, I was still doing drugs on occasion. I was drinking more and more. I was eating more too. If I could find drugs, Lessa could also find drugs.

We moved closer to the beach, and I got reduced rent plus a small pittance for managing the Purple Palace plus collecting rents on all his beach properties.

Here in this old Victorian hotel now painted purple, I had two big rooms. The closets were where the Murphy beds used to be. I had a real bathroom, and a kitchen with a most amazing 1920’s three burner stove in what used to be a tiny closet. Lessa had one of the rooms to herself, and I began a many year journey of sleeping on the sofa so the kids could have a room.

For slowly, after a season or two of just stopping to visiting us, Lenora decided she wanted to go to school after all. We three were together again.

I’d drink and hold court just like in the old days. Now many of my friends had changed. They were all drinkers too. Neighbors. So were my bosses, Han’s and Ron. Grandmamma moved from downtown to just up the block, and we all partied. Not just gatherings every night, but Hans had massive parties like his traditional Christmas In July bash crowded with hundreds of friends in every corner of his over decorated, giant home.

Everyone drank. There was an actual folk bar half a block away that has live music every night. The owners were very nice. There was a little beer and wine bar in the same block that had the best chili. I’d set the kids up with their homework, and I would go out for a glass or two of wine. Of course, the kids didn’t stay doing homework, but how could I know.

Everyone smoked dope or did speed so they could drink more. I was such a failure at smoking dope because one hit would put me to sleep. I couldn’t always get speed any more, but I could still drink.

Many days that I didn’t work or finished early, I would wander down to the beach. For me the beach was a healthy clean place. The river sloughs near the apartment now were channeled, crowded with partiers, vehicles, and fires every night throughout the week. During most of the year, they offered me endless freedoms of sky and air. Sometimes I tried to draw it all, but I was always afraid of failure.

Lenora began elementary school, mid semester, three years behind her classmates. She caught up in under a year. I was inordinately proud of her, yet I couldn't see her clearly. I could only read what she showed me on the surface. Then again, Lessa began to take up all of my time.

Lessa began doing drugs and living life her way at thirteen. The insanity of a runaway teen, insane teen, sleeping around teen, screaming teen, dirty never-clean-her-room-till the smell drove us all mad teen, madness beyond all of my imagining teen, drove me to seek help at last. I put her into therapy. I put myself into therapy. Nothing I could do changed her course. I could begin to see my own insanity, the drugs stopped working, and my drug use tapered off at last. I took my journals to my therapist. I was very proud of them thinking they were artistic. Unfortunately, they were a window into my life and that of my kids.

The river flood control channel in 1977 with it’s weed choked jetty top scattered with holes from erosion.

Bathtubs

2009-11-06T07:24:00.000-08:00

Doesn’t everyone do mandala’s of bathtubs? Purple Palace tub. Volume 2.

Himself: A far, far, better day with four weeks of unemployment money arriving at last. He spent part of the day renewing the old white bookcase. Sanding, filling, getting it ready for primer and paint. Many generations haven’t been kind to it.

Herself: The best I’ve felt so far. I read a conglomerate of #1 to the group, and told them what I was attempting to do here. Now more autobiography than discourse on journals. Workshop, shop to mark, home briefly, back to help set up for the Holiday Bazaar. G helped schlep boxes. I hadn’t known it was a pot luck. I wasn’t alone in not knowing. Embarrassed. I’ll know next year.

Reading: Still HP 1.

Balance: Feeling vastly better at last.

Before the kids came back, for a while between the Front and Fir house and the rest of my life, I was homeless.

I was clean tho.

One caring friend would let me sleep in her tub. I stayed up sometimes for seven days in a row. Sometimes I partied every day all day driving from club to club finally putting myself to sleep with another hand full of speed. The drugs were winning. I believed glass was coming out of every pore. Lack of sleep will do that to you; it did to me. Every chance I had I would move into my friend’s tub from my two-seater sports car.

I wasn’t a nice bather. I’d pick at myself, doze until the water froze, drain it, and add hot water, and repeat.

She threw me out. I deserved it.

Our beach house had two tubs….one of which was a darkroom. The Garrison House and the Front and Fir houses had showers. Oh misery. The studio had a tub, but I had put plywood on top to give Lessa a place of privacy in the chaos of my world. We weren’t there long. The one bedroom apartment had a tub, but frankly I don’t remember it. We weren’t there long either before we moved to the Purple Palace one block from the beach. It had a nice but short, claw foot tub as did the Lotus street cottage.

Perhaps I remember my life tub to tub.

The water lessened the effects of the street drugs I was consuming that kept me awake days at a time, it mellowed out the hangovers, and unbeknownst to me, it washed away my allergies…temporarily.

Here in OB, my blue cardboard sketchbook journals turned into 8x10 black bound acid free sketchbooks. They were very expensive for someone like me. I was always afraid that I couldn’t afford the next one, but I always found the money somewhere. The books felt good under my hands. I loved the time I spent writing in them….early in the morning till ten. Late at night too, on the edge of the bathtubs.

The bathtub in the old Lotus and Abbot officers quarters. Pink tile with maroon trim. Little Mexican scenes here and there on the tiles. 1979.

Volume One

2009-11-05T07:10:00.000-08:00

Beach glimpse. I discovered fountain pens, and that I could take the cartridge out and paint with it.

Himself: A week of few jobs listed online. No response to from anyone. He relisted the bike on Craig’s List. No response to it last week. One email today. We will take it. He’s angry and arguing with me often now.

Herself: Still coughing. Won’t put up with arguing. Went to Store today to mark last of the holiday stuff. Tomorrow first more marking, then class, and finally at 4pm, we set up the holiday boutique. G’s coming to lift boxes.

Reading: For some reason, I find I’m so busy that I get little time to read.

Balance: The fogs.

Changes kept happening.

There we were at the beach. Summer arrived, and Lessa was out of school for the duration. Lenora arrived to spend a few days with us, and I mourned her leaving again even as we spent time together. Lessa and Lenora continually argued unless Lessa needed defending then Lenora was right there on her side.

Her father’s truck broke down, and I celebrated the fact I would have more time with Lenora before she left.

And all of us were living in a small one bedroom beach apartment. My old friend Rob came to be a roommate…in the living room, I had the bedroom, and for privacy Lessa had the walk in closet as her room. The sunny kitchen and tiny bath were shared.

Rob gently called me on my drinking.

I recorded every party, every friend who came to visit, and often I began writing when drunk filling the pages of my book with drivel into the dark hours of the night. I’d wake up in the morning and tape those pages shut. Many of my long term friends couldn’t stand my drinking and drug use any longer and began fading out of my life. They thought I was going to die. I recorded it all fulsomely. Weeping at my aloneness.

Lenora watching TV at F’s house…Grandmama we called him. 1975.

To the Beach

2009-11-04T07:48:00.000-08:00

”May 1, We move to the beach! Whee!” Volume 1.

Himself: Vastly better. Little energy, but his sense of humor has returned.

Herself: Easily tired.

Reading: Newsweek, Harry Potter 1, and anything else printed.

Balance: Window shopping for an hour.

Life always changes rapidly. Perhaps I didn’t know that from my window’s viewpoint.

Almost as soon as I had taken a caretaker’s job at a Front and Fir Victorian for a historical organization, the Garrison house burned. My ex had moved north. I sold our beach house so I could have an income. I was nursing drug induced hallucinations, paranoia, plus hangovers while doing drugs with my delightful next door neighbor and hosting parties every night.

I don’t recommend it.

My dear friend Jo, who must have seen something in me that I didn’t, suggested we go north and get daughter Lessa.

One child, Lenora, was round and looked healthy but liked not going to school. Lessa was yellow, bone thin, frightened and wild…a wild child. It was the saddest, most tragic thing I had ever seen. Jo, her daughter Ronnie, Lessa, and I came home the slow way. Thru the city, down the coast hoping the beauty of the world would soften life’s reentry a bit for Lessa.

She was still a wild and frightened thing when she started back to school after a three year hiatus. I was able to keep food in the house, and once the Victorian found a new owner, I was able to stop doing drugs. For a while.

Living with great amounts of partially burned furniture from the Garrison house, one kid then two, and walls of boxes all crammed into a tiny studio didn’t work. One of Jo’s friends was moving, and I was able to take over his apartment in Ocean Beach. It was a coming home. Naively, I thought the beach would be a good place to bring up one or two children.

The entries in my journals grew a little longer. There were more drawings as I began to feel my way back into a visual world. Even as my ability to draw returned, I still drank and I did drugs. I saw a therapist and rejected AA as a solution. My child ran wild, then when Lenora returned, both my children ran wild.

Into Madness

2009-11-03T08:06:00.001-08:00

Completely mad at the parlor window, Garritson house, 1974.

Himself: Still a little tired but ok. On the mend.

Herself: Good for short bursts of energy but nodding off in the afternoons. Coughing again this morning.

Reading: Harry Potter 1….very well written. No wonder it was/is so popular.

Balance: Afternoon nap.

After being slapped by my husband for being a drug addict, which I was mind you, I left him. After a bit of time downtown near friends, I found myself living in the parlor of the Garritson house that long hot summer of 1974. As I drew closer to drug induced madness, my husband’s mistress suggested I start a journal. What was a journal, I wondered.

At first there were only a few words to be found on a page. Frightening attempts to capture what I thought I saw. Then drawings came unbidden off the end of my pen. More words falling toward madness intermixed with doodles of no content. The first sketchbooks were terrifying moments done in blue on off white. Hard to see and hard to read.

Madness is hard to see in any context. I became not only mad but cynical too.

Teen Aged Angst

2009-11-02T08:32:00.000-08:00

A diarist by 1956; here I am in 1958.

Himself: He thinks he’s going to live. Great speaker last night.

Herself: Life devolved to the symptoms of a common cold. We took a long nap yesterday and only coughed a few times. Only woke a few times in the night too. Progress at last. Following a theme of journal and diary writing.

Reading: Rereading Harry Potter 1.

Balance: That nap.

I began keeping a diary in the middle 1950’s. I used a small, blue fabric covered, three ringed notebook that I’d been given when sent away to boarding school in 1954. When I wasn’t “invited back” to that school mother had to find another solution. She sent me to a military prep school where I was one of only two girls.

No one understood learning disabilities there, but I didn’t care. All those boys. Who cared about anything else.

I began writing about those boys, those young men. I kept their names not only on the inside of those boards but scribbled everywhere on the outside. A diary is a very personal thing, and these writings were very typical scribbles of a teenagers discoveries of boys, boys, boys, and school failures.

Oh, there were other things. Friendships. My grandma. Once two acquaintances burned in a house fire. I remember saving the newspaper clippings and taping them on my pages. I didn’t understand a lot. Perhaps whatever I was went beyond socially inept.

And of course, I whined about my over-educated parents on page after page. My drunken parents. I counted their drinks. I wrote how cruel they were, and I vowed I would never be like them. Never. They vowed I needed an education; I couldn’t understand what I found in school. Life wasn’t simple for a teenager with learning disabilities and alcoholism herself.

I cried, I whined, I wrote endlessly. My teen aged angst filled page after page, and the pages survived my joining the army, marriage, two kids, and only after separating from my first husband in did they vanish into the fire that consumed the Garrison House. From a continuing madness into a cleansing….yet I still have the notebook.

November Journaling Month: NoJoMo 2009

2009-11-01T09:33:00.000-08:00

Archival boxes with mixed ephemera.

Himself: “I think better.”

Herself: Slowest progress I’ve ever had with a bug.

Reading: All those magazines waiting next to my living room chair.

Balance: Coughing less.

It was one of those days. An “Oh, I’ll write something tomorrow” days. It was a “no one will notice if I don’t write” sort of moment until I remembered it was the start of NoJoMo, November Journaling Month in Open Diary.

For the last couple of years I’ve taken part in NoJoMo. Since I write every day, why not…was my initial thinking. This year, slightly sick and creaky, I’m faded but still here.

I used to write and draw doggedly every morning. I’d spend hours with my hard bound journals illustrating each page, doing little doodles that caught the spirit of the moment, and, only later, including a photo or two. Of course, the quantity of them grew until all of them would no longer fit on the bottom shelves of the white bookcase or the bottom plus shelves of this huge old cupboard.

Only years after Chuck gave me a scanner in trade for one of my paintings did I start scanning these journals. As I scanned them, they went into storage. 1974 through the late 1990’s….heavy boxes, they went up into the attic. In many ways, it was a letting go.

“Since I don’t write things by hand anymore,” I thought, “why am I keeping my life, my memories in hard bound books?”

Working at the historical society taught me about archival boxes.

My life is now tidily boxed. Unceremoniously popped into boring grey boxes to be shelved in not neat rows and never looked at again. The old books were messy. Their spines broke. The cats sharpened their claws on the edges. They smelled. Mold won on occasion when we were living in the moldy house. Pages flew loose letting bits of life vanish on the winds. But they were viewed by everyone who passed through our houses. Visitors sat down and popped open a book just to see what was happening, what was new. These awkward heavy books were central for so many years.

Now my boxes are hidden in the dark behind the front door. Ephemera reformatted and unnoticed living only as memory. Perhaps I miss the mess and passion of that reality, but I don’t miss the weight.

Shame On Me

2009-10-31T09:32:00.000-07:00

Just the turquoise for Christmas please.

Himself: He thinks he’s better. Oh, hurrah. An easy morning before working the museum “Family Day” today. He’s promised he will take a chair and sit in the middle of the cars if he feels funny.

Herself: Thought I was better until coughing at work sent me home early totally wiped out. Spent several hours in bed with a book. Still not sleeping well….cough, cough…..all night long.

Reading: Two books I had hopes for now skimmed and back in general circulation.

Balance: Quiet beneath the covers.

It bothers me to go into a store and find Christmas in full bloom, filling the shelves, right now, even before Halloween or Thanksgiving. I understand why, but I still don’t like it. I get suckered in, but I like it even less when I find I’ve been suckered in.

The last few months, I’ve been busily pricing Christmas for the store. I’ve bagged balls, flagged stuffed critters, wood creations, sweaters, plates, dishes, endless mugs, bagged more balls, and taken it all as a matter of course. Then I went into a drug store, and I was knocked over by the aisles of holiday stuff.

They are ready very early for the Christmas rush, but I am not.

The Cancer Society installs their Christmas Boutique on the 5th of November. I have everything that came in priced and ready to go on display. I’ve even dealt with a panicked note from a woman who donated cherished family ornaments and can she please have them back. I’ve searched for them and not seen them, but I’ve called her today and told her a search for them will be on as we install the boutique. I understand the sadness of losing family things.

Worst of all, I’m even shopping on eBay for the old turquoise drops and balls from the fifties for our own holiday tree.

My thinking isn’t matching my deeds. Excuses don’t make it. I’m not a big decorator for the day. I don’t even have giant parties any more. The only thing I decorate is one small, four foot tall tree. Obviously I need to rethink my holiday thinking.

But oh, I so love decorating that tree.

Terry

2009-10-30T07:42:00.001-07:00

Terry G, 2007.

Himself: Bronchitis. Pills, sprays, and potions too.

Herself: Bronchitis and a sinus infection. One pill cures all.

My friend Terry G died two days ago after a long fight with cancer. We all knew there would be a finite time with her, and I will miss her vibrant and joyful presence. I worry now about her husband. They had been married 45 years. She literally changed the lives of thousands, G and I among the crowds, by just being at the right place at the right time.

She gave us the gift of this home just by chance one day. She answered the phone. A man asked if she was Margaret G and that he had $2,500.00 for her. She replied that she was Terry G, but she thought she knew where Margaret was. My mother, Margaret, had died many years ago, but Terry found me and we hit off right away….cousins by a long ago marriage.

I thought this money thing sounded like a scam, but I called the man to find the details. A few bucks of “found” money the man said. I still thought it a scam and called the State Controllers Office to ask about found money next. Terry rejoiced with me as I discovered the sum was many thousands of times more than $2,500.00 bucks forgotten when a savings and loan bank closed. When our CPA informed us we were buying a house with the money, no one enjoyed this condo more than she did.

She will be much missed by the many friends she made and kept through love and by chance.

The White Bookcase

2009-10-29T08:09:00.000-07:00

Behind me is a white bookcase filled with stuff and more stuff. It’s been there 16 years.

Himself: Slept sitting up a bit. Still coughing. Not really good yesterday. Still haven’t gotten stuff from the gvt about his un-check now two un-checks soon to be three un-checks.

Herself: I had slept so badly the night before, then last night coughed again so will call the doc to make appointments today.

Reading: Skimmed all the magazines.

Balance: Unearthing the bookcase.

There are things in life you remember fondly and fight to keep. Yesterday, I finished a brief article, illustrated with my own photographs, on ocean liner historians, then moved myself down to the garage. When we first moved in here, we put grandmother’s old white bookcase on the far wall and have used it for storage ever since. I’ve always fought to keep this bookcase.

Perhaps because grandmother loved me without reservations and I was a selfish, self-centered granddaughter, I’ve kept all her belongings and loved them perhaps too well ever since her death.

I was always grateful for this bookcase though I felt it was too small. I remember it half empty on the far wall of grandma’s apartment above Balboa Park. She had kept a full set of Dumas and one shelf had her pewter tea set. Near the central support was her new radio. Something happened to her giant free standing tube set, and this small one was purchased. Gunny, my father, came and installed brackets on the back of both sides of the case and strung antenna wire so she could get better reception. The brackets are still there.

It’s a big and massive wood bookcase and was designed to break down into a packing crate. I’ve never seen it broken down. By the time I met it on “A” street, it was one shelf taller and white. I’ve had custody of it since the early seventies when mother moved from #20 to Shelter Island. I’ve carted it from one house to another sometimes double shelving the books inside it.

When we moved in here, G built me a floor to ceiling case in the living room, and we had the three teachers cases in the bedroom. Grandma’s bookcase stayed in the garage. But now my cookbook collection is totally out of hand. The science fiction is doubled up so there would be more room for the cookbooks. Not expensive cookbooks mind you. Often local organizational fund-raising cookbooks or major author cook books from chef’s like James Beard.

Books have always been my nemesis.

So down I went to move the car, move the truck, put the watercolor stuff away and stare at the poor old, white bookcase. I even cleared off a shelf here or there while I stared. Storing the dining room table on top chipped the paint. One trim piece is falling off. One corner is dinged.

It’s all repairable, says Mr. Geee-zer. Motivation will get it fixed, says Mrs. G eyeing all the cookbooks loose in the living room.

No Guilt

2009-10-28T08:29:00.000-07:00

Southern California’s version of the Matterhorn via Disney. 2009.

Himself: Vastly better. Came to the Store with and moved all the Christmas boxes for me so I could see what had been priced or not. Labeled all boxes. Dinner, meeting, stayed up till 10:30 pm.

Herself: Talked with Bee about everything but her weight loss class. Gotta call her back. Still living “as if” except in painting class. A thank you lunch at a new restaurant. Ate soup and salad. Sorted Christmas Boxes. Worked on a piece about ship historians. Dinner entre and salad then M&M’s….ah, guilt. Only up once in night to reup on cough syrup and drops and the blue pill too.

Reading: Finished a new book about the war years in the Gurnsey’s. Touching.

Balance: Letting go of the massive sense of continuing failure.

Of course I feel guilty letting go of the painting class, but the continual and weighty sense of failure is one I’ve carried around for many years and don’t feel I have to any more.

Oh, but that’s what you are best at….the old argument. What I am best at is what I am doing now. That’s a better argument. I’m letting go of the old and moving on to the new. If I’m not working on a novel, what am I doing. I’m not going to my Wednesday writing class. That too feels freeing. I am going to my Thursday writing class. That feels right.

Life shrinks as you get older. Mine does anyway. Every day seems full, filled to the brim with worthwhile things, causes, and busyness. Never a spare moment, it appears. I, with my common cold, find time even more compressed that usual. If it takes ten minutes to blow my nose, then to take out the tissue, prepare the tissue, blow the nose, and banish the tissue seems to take an hour.

I don’t seem to have a proper perspective on things.

I seem to want to play with my cookbooks and not with my paints. I’m about to launch a barrage of negative notes to an Amazon seller who took my money but didn’t send me my new quilting book. I want to play with my fabrics. I relish this “free” day….only free because I am fading away from a commitment…..and plan on playing all day. When I’m not working on something, that is. Silly me.

Dizzyland

2009-10-27T08:35:00.000-07:00

The hearse in front of the Haunted House, 2009.

Himself: Still coughing but a little better. No jobs to apply for. Couldn’t nap, coughed instead. Himself wanted dinner out instead of quiche and salad.

Herself: Acted as if: Went to morning meeting then priced Christmas stuff at the shop. Slept partially sitting up, and when I woke in the night took one of those mucus pills for a, as my old doc used to say, “a more productive cough.” I’m continuing to act as if minus the water exercise and biking. Knee better with the rest.

Reading: Nothing. Oh, shame on me. Cookbooks expanding out into the living room so beginning to think about bringing grandma’s old white bookcase upstairs to the living room which means a major rotation of furniture.

Balance: Better sleep….and any sleep is better than none.

We did it. We took our uncommon cold to Disneyland last week and dragged it through half our favorite rides. We had fun until at Roger Rabbit when the Geeee-zer asked me what I wanted to do next, and I whined, “I wanna to go home.” We headed home.

It had been over two years since we barreled our way through the happiest place. I wanted to do this. He wanted to do that. Who was I to argue when the cold was really winning. We started at the Pirates….twice, then on to the Haunted House….which seemed awfully happy this year with colors instead of wide swathes of black crepe, then on to Finding Nemo via various and sundry other diversions.

Last time we were there, the Submarine Ride was long gone and all that remained was a hole in the ground. This time, the subs had been rehabilitated, and hole in the ground was filled with magic. Who cared about the story line with light and color all around. We didn’t. I delighted in the whole thing including live sea gulls competing with the fake ones sitting on their buoy.

On to “It’s A Small World” of all things.

There inside its Mary Blair inspired façade, we toodled through the refreshed, repainted children smiling all the way. I had always read that Mary Blair, a major Disney designer, did this ride for the 1964 World’s Fair. Instead, it was a group of Disney designers and imagineers that put together this ride with Mary Blair in a short period for Pepsi Co….who didn’t like it. Much of the work was done at the last minute. Wade Sampson writes in “Mouse Planet” that designers Rolly Crump said of the last minute crush to open, “We were living off black coffee in the morning, and martinis for lunch. Mary [Blair] and I were kind of kidding, that if it hadn’t been for gin, we never would have opened Small World on time.”

So we rode and sang, and this time took volumes of photographs. Then after a whirl with Roger Rabbit, we wandered our way back out of the park, back onto the freeway, meandering our way home to tuck our colds into bed at last.

Wordless Monday

2009-10-26T08:44:00.000-07:00

Homeless time everywhere here. This woman is sitting in front of the Star of India.

Himself: A very lazy and grumpy day. A coughing night.

Herself: Stayed quiet all day, cough worse all night. I’m still not in the morning water class yet, and not in anything usual yet except coughing. I borrow this blog suggestion from another good blogger with apolgies.

Reading: Finished ”Unplanned Parenthood,” by Liz Carpenter.

Balance: The Speakers Meeting Last night.

Gone Gettying

2009-10-25T10:59:00.000-07:00

Los Angeles from the Getty. The closest tall buildings are the Wilshire District and far away is the main downtown of Los Angeles. Oct 2009.

Himself: Still fuzzy but better at last. State is reissuing form and issuing a double check. Progress.

Herself: Fuzzier but vastly better. Wrote this. Ate an avocado sandwich because I dropped the avocado. Reality always leads one on.

Reading: Delighted in Liz Carpenter’s ”Ruffles and Flourishes,” tho now we know much more that went on behind the façade of the LBJ years and can read more into the book

Balance: Watching ”Top Chef’s” two newest episodes on Saturday afternoon. We do like top chef but always are a week behind.

The Getty Museum sits high on a hillside in Los Angeles viewing the many cities below only if there isn’t smog. We were lucky this day. Tho we were terribly fuzzy from our colds, the world was clear.

Two old friends at the Getty, Oct 2009.

We picked Bee up at her place, and drove down through the mazes of freeways that I used to take for granted. One enters the Getty torturously below the hill, up the canyon, under the freeway, only arriving to discover that parking has now gone up to fifteen bucks. The museum is free, mind you.

It took more than Twelve years to construct the museum, , (video works only in Internet Explorer), then the massive quantities of stored art were installed to an enthralled public.

Bee and G. Oct 2009.

Where I once was in love with the Malibu Getty, which is now open again, here I found the art mediocre, the building a massively repititive white stone series of boxes, and only the gardens innovative but rigid in their design. Oh, opinionated me.

Not on opposite sides. Oct 2009.

This visit I loudly cheered that the museum had acquired Irving Penn’s Small Trade’s series. The Geeee-zers initial opinion, tinged by his virus, was that the show was boring, and perhaps many others will feel the poses repetitious. As he walked through the galleries he gained enthusiasm and perspective on the works. Smiling when he left.

I love Penn’s work. His were some of the first photographs I saw that moved me deeply. I felt these works were clean and simple offering a backdrop to the portrait within, and the portraits were powerful and moving pieces that captured real people.

In this series, Penn had set out to photograph some of the vanishing trades, and he photographed the workers with their tools. Many of these small crafts are now gone.

“What’s a Tinker?” One European gentleman asked me as we stood before a print.

I did my best to explain that the traveling tinker we were looking at perhaps mended pots and pans. He worked with metal, and often carried small metal tools for the housewife such as needles and pins. I don’t think the gentleman fully understood what I was saying. He did understand that there were no more tinkers.

RGB Photo. Oct 2009.

We had done a quick viewing of the show, a run through, while waiting for Michael to get off work. When he joined us, we toured the galleries slowly taking time to see that often Penn made both silver and platinum prints of each photograph. I was much moved by many of the people Penn portrayed, their pride, their uniqueness, their special realities captured by his lens.

Later we ate an excellent burger overlooking the city, and talked of whatever old friends will talk about. These are special, creative, and flexible friends….I just don’t like to drive with them. Did I say that.

The Getty seen from the 405 freeway on our way home. Oct 2009.

A Double Sided Screen

2009-10-24T08:33:00.000-07:00

The left hand panel of three by Emanuele Luzzati from the MV STELLA OCEANIS Minos Lounge. Aureole's bell peeks out from behind the screen.

Himself: Not well yesterday. Did finally get through to the State UN folks after two days on the phone.

Herself: Much better yesterday. Had fun doing books at work, and I found a paperback version of “Ruffles and Flourishes” that I had been looking years for. Coughed four hours last night.

Reading: ”Ruffles and Flourishes”

Balance: Quietly reading while he played computer games.

On our visit to Mr. Peter Knego, I spied leaning up against the fireplace the left of three pieces from Emanuele Luzzati’s Sculpted Metal Screen from The Minos Lounge on the MV STELLA OCEANIS (#2). On this page, Peter Knego shows photos of the intact screen in situ on board the STELLA OCEANIS.

Archaic in their styling yet modern in intent, Luzzati’s works added an unusual depth and richness to many ships of this period. His works brought historic interest into what could have been just one more sleek, modern ocean liner.

Peter Knego wrote in an article that Emanuele Luzzati only used this medium on the three final Sun Line ships and one private commission in England. He first made a ceramic sculpture, cast a mold of each side of the sculpture, poured in a resin compound, then stuck the two sides together. Only at the end was a metal coating applied.

Friday Lite

2009-10-23T07:52:00.000-07:00

Inlay of mother and daughter in wood panel from an Ocean Liner. PKPro collection. 2009.

Himself: His cold still holding him in thrall, he spent much of his day on the phone on hold, talking to no one, when his Un-check didn’t arrive. Nap.

Herself: No voice. Coughing. Not a happy camper. Regressing.

Reading: Smithsonian Magazine

Life all boils down to getting rid of our common cold….tho there seems little common about this one. It’s as if we were stuck on day three for the week.

Peter Knego posted fulsome comments about our visit on his Facebook site. I for one was just as delighted to be there immersed in his wonderful things. I discovered yesterday that you can see a ship by ship historic roster on his web site on his Mid-ShipCentury Ship Index Because of my head cold, I had to do some research for yesterday’s post. Here were the answers.

Staying out of your children’s lives unless asked is the best thing I can do. I did ask for my grandmother’s Shaker rocker back “on loan” as Lenora is packing to move north. It went through the fire when the Garrison house burned, and over the years has become even more fragile and dry. Just bringing it home, even padded, one of the back supports broke. While Lenora had it, one of the rockers broke. It has no value with all its mends but a sentimental one. How to rehydrate a dried out chair is the next job.

I’m going to work at the shop today. Way in the back room, in a far corner, if I don’t hug anyone or cough on anyone, I should be able to keep the cold to myself. G will be on hold on the phone again all day hoping to find out why his UN check didn’t arrive.

A Magic Visit with a Ship Historian

2009-10-22T14:01:00.000-07:00

A painting of the AUREOL in the Bay of Biscay by Don Stoltenberg hangs over her second class bar surrounded by paneling and unique lighting of the era. 2009.

We arrived early as we always seem to, and had stopped a moment for breakfast before descending on poor Peter Knego. We easily found his home far out of town in the rolling hills of Reganland. The only outward giveaway that there might be something different within the doors of this house was a wonderful 1950’s rail by the front door.

Two doors carefully mounted in the dining room hide wondrous art. Leaning in the front are two hunt paintings by Archibald Forbes from the EMPRESS OF BRITAIN’s Club Room. A single door with Peter.

Then there he was. Taller, leaner, just as I imagined him, and I couldn’t hug him because of my awful cold. He was just back from a two ship odyssey, his blog of these trips is here, and he hadn’t quite recovered from the time lag. Despite our colds and his lag, we met in the middle wonderfully.

Charming tables and chairs from a variety of eras mix well in the 21’st century.

His eagerness was contagious. His knowledge inspiring. He rattled off facts and information far faster than my virus clogged brain could remember, yet all that mattered in the end was his enthusiasm and our interest.

A truly well done, small painting among a few forgotten in the officer’s quarters when all the other art was removed from the ship.

What creates a ship historian? Passion of course, and the ability to nurture this passion. Peter’s early enthusiasms were stirred by ocean liner ephemera, and it was only later he discovered that there was more to ocean liners than ashtrays and tiny ship models. Now, not only does his interest in liners encompass ephemera, but he salvages and brings home as much of the actual ships as he can.

RMS IVERNIA’s starboard bridge telegraph. He allowed me to move the lever which left me with a smile of childish delight.

We reveled in the restored furnishings, we followed his every word tho retention was tough stuff with our colds. We sipped coffee and excellent cookies while he talked about the designers, artists, and artisans that worked on these ocean liners. We glanced at his acres of paper ephemera now filed in cabinets lining the two car garage. We looked at bottoms of chairs, tables, and ottomans….one chair still had the lanyard to attach it to the floor in rough seas. We ogled the IVERNIA’s bowed glass fronted library cases that actually arrived intact from Alang. We so enjoyed the bar, now in his living room, that arrived in a container as a “surprise.”

Two dressers and two of FRANCONIA’s ottomans sit below a stunning etched mirror that arrived intact. The ottoman has original upholstery fabric.

Central to all in his home, surrounding the masses of beauty and art that he has salvaged off these ships as they were broken up in Alang, is the IVERNIA’s stair rail. (You can see in situ pictures of it here half way down this page.) IVERNIA was built in 1955 for Cunard. She was rebuilt as Cunard's cruise ship FRANCONIA in 1963 and was sold to the Soviets in 1971 becoming the FEDOR SHALYAPIN. She was beached in 2004 as the SALONA an almost intact museum of early Cunard style.

The IVERNIA’s stair rail surrounded by other ship memorabilia.

When we visited the garage, it was with great amazement we saw still more rail packed in its original shipping burlap. Seeing the railings in the condition they came off the ship was a shock and made us realize the great amount of work that Peter puts in on every piece he restores.

A treasure trove of ephemera.

More of IVERNIA’s stair tower railing.

Still later, as we visited his storage units, I appreciated his efforts at salvage even more. Stools here, ottoman’s there, chairs of regal style, comfort, color, and variety everywhere. Glass and silver, paintings, brass and nickel silver work in every corner or detail. Rolls of plans a decorative layer. Each piece is just waiting for the right buyer or the right museum all saved by this very special Ocean Liner historian. It was a very special visit.

Chair seats and ships names. You save what you can.

Small Trades and Memorabilia:

2009-10-19T08:13:00.000-07:00

...an email to a friend.

Small Trades in the 21st Century: Red dog, security guard, and a blue cat.

Himself: He’s bounding around.

Herself: Scrap quilting book hasn’t arrived. Ah well. Got through yesterday with only ibuprofen and zinc. Today I feel vastly worse so will try dayquil. Sleeping too.

Reading: Mysteries.

Balance: The quiet.

Dear you......

Thanks for the frank discussion about my socks. Stripes indeed. I do have a giant drawer full of colorful foot casings, and if they weren't all so worn out I'd send you a bushel.

No dancing, no thinking, no art, no nada here today at all on my part. George is wonderful having leapt up the stairs with my coffee and slid off to the pool carrying my apologies. The dentist doesn't want me for my 9 o'clock cleaning, but my crazy friends in LA still want me to visit. G's driving; I'll doze, and if I get enough dozing in maybe I can be a bit properly sociable and appreciative.

Tieuppark for an Ocean Liner memorabilia visitation first. Even as a lump, I'm excited about this. You can find us here until oneish.

MidShipCentury

Then later in the day, we will head down to Bee’s where we will see all her newest house remodel stuff. (You wouldn't believe it all.) Later we will head to the Getty and see the Penn show.

William Penn: Small Trades....this site offers a slideshow, and I think you will enjoy it.

I be a veg in bed today. Gentle hugs and thoughts from afar..........I’ll be home Wednesday night after a day of crawling around Disneyland and may write Thursday. Luv, Mage

Oh Dear.

2009-10-18T08:02:00.000-07:00

Dozing here…..floating away, later……Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz………..

Himself: Did an estate sale, lunch, worked at the museum, and out to dinner with the Feasters.

Herself: Estate sale, worked at the Discovery shop, dinner with feasters, and home to get sick.

Reading: James Beard Cook books.

Balance: None today.

Three nights ago, I was awake because I was freezing and thought we had moved to Alaska. Two nights ago, I was too hot and threw off the covers. Last night I couldn’t get to sleep.

And here at work, sorting those mountains of things, those great, giant donation piles that arrived this Saturday and every Saturday, I had thought I was just being allergic to the dust. Those sleepless nights I thought the same things. I awoke half dreaming of the cracked 1800’s dishes that were thrown away. We couldn’t sell them. I awoke tossing and turning with a runny nose but feeling fine at four to get up at five.

Nope, it appears that dust may not be the cause. I may have a bit of a common cold….one of those tickle the sinus things that slowly blossoms into something lethal. So far it’s creeping downward only to be thwarted by Zicam and Tylenol. Once I realized that disease be me, I let the dinner friends of yesterday know and the folks we were to visit in LA know too.

I don’t think they will want me either. I certainly don’t tho I refuse to admit the problem or I will be stuck in bed wrapped in comforter warmth with gallons of water and chicken soup by my side. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz……………..

Waterless

2009-10-17T08:25:00.000-07:00

G and Grumpy.

Himself: We were both disappointed. Delightful dinner with MB who swooned over the raspberry, shrimp, avocado, salad at Brian’s.

Herself: Knee fractionally better. I guess riding the bike wasn’t a good idea.

Reading: Finished the victoriansims.

Balance: Dinner and conversation. Making arrangements to go see Peter K and Bee in LA on Tuesday.

Click and Clack, the authors of that classic automotive column in the paper and on NPR Car Talk, revised my thinking this morning. No longer do you have to drive modern cars and trucks to blow the carbon out of the pistons, now it is to blow the water out of the exhaust.

Today’s questioner’s sister rarely drives her car. “Cars are designed to be driven,” Click and Clack tell us, but now with modern fuel injection fuel buildup doesn’t happen in the chambers any more. And here I had been thinking that we needed to drive
Grumpy more often to blow those chambers out.

Nope. Now water builds up in the exhaust system.

So this morning, you will find us driving to an estate sale. Clairmont and back to OB should blow a little water out of Grumpy. Later as himself heads to the park, I’ll sort Christmas at the Discovery Shop, head home to OB, to Rudfords for dinner with the Feasters, and back to OB again all of which should leave Grumpy without a puddle in his muffler, fer sure.

Somewhere in there I’ll be looking for those elusive 1950’s turquoise Christmas Tree ornaments. Waterless of course.

Friday Lite

2009-10-16T06:26:00.001-07:00

MJ and G who is wearing the old coat and pants….unfortunately out of focus. Mea Culpa.

Himself: Swam, job interview, visited Jean9, went to two Ross Dress For Less and one Marshalls. Meatloaf sandwiches.

Herself: Wrote, poetry group, Visit Jean9, Ross and Marshalls. Meatloaf and mayo sandwiches. Knee better. Found a Coldwater Creek ad with clothes in black, white, and a red sweater that I can copy with the addition the red cardigan. I found the red cardigan at Ross.

Reading: Good Housekeeping. Yes, I said that.

Balance: Geee-zer.

Post Modernism: Oh, I took my little postmodern, all on the surface theater of the absurd, to my poetry workshop yesterday. Modernist writing creates a situation where the author controls the readers response. Postmodernism, open writing that lets the readers create their own < http://vc.ws.edu/engl2265/unit4/Modernism/all.htm>connections, didn’t yesterday. Ah well, I had fun in the creation of those meme’s, those unconnected poetic words.

In the clothes make the man category, yesterday himself looked like a baggy old street person in his old, once well crafted, long ago fashionable clothes. Going to a job interview as Mr. Baggy wasn’t the way I thought he would get a job. The shirt and tie were great. The pleated pants offered a frontal tutu, and the very genteel, high quality 1970’s wool, blue blazer was too “long” with matching sleeves. Nope. Since he thought he didn’t get the job because he wanted too much money, and I thought he looked like Mr. 1970’s Baggy, I could do something with the clothes.

Good old Ross offered up several dark blue wool Ralphies…fractionally several sizes too small. I’m a brand snob….watch me. Marshalls had nothing at all, and the Ross near us had that same blue Ralphie blazer only one size too small. Perry Ellis grey dress slacks with no pleats too. Yeah, he doesn’t want to dress better than the next interviewer, but that Lauren should last more than six years.

So moving on into thinking of the future, we made meatloaf sandwiches using that Better Homes and Gardens 1939 cookbook. It’s the one that says, “scald one cup of milk.” Right. We sat, we ate while watching mindless, comfort food TV such as the new Judge Judy or Cash Cab, and suddenly G sat up truly awake. His phone was vibrating. “I hope you don’t mind if I take over here,” said a big boss sort of voice. G returned the call to leave a message. Perhaps when he goes back tomorrow garbed like a member of the 21st century, maybe they will dicker on pay.

0615: I’ll probably add to this entry as the day goes by. We are practicing cautious optimism here.

1357: One of those, "We will call you back next week things, darn it.

Tabor's Meme

2009-10-15T06:57:00.000-07:00

Play….far away from the maddening crowd.

A meme, pronounced to rhyme with crème, is a “postulated unit or element of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, and is transmitted from one mind to another through speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena. (The etymology of the term relates to the Greek word mimema for "something imitated.” This whole official definition is very engineer speak in confusing me.

Wikipedia’s explanation left me even more confused. I needed something so simple that even my brain could understand. “What’s a meme” tells me that meme’s on blogs are often questionnaires. If you get five other folks to do one, it becomes a viral meme. Not a lot content here….but I understand “questionnaire” and “viral," "passed on" or "evolve."

Blog writer, Tabor, who is off on another adventure, left me this meme’s words to ponder. Instead of pondering, I seem to have been free associating:

Play: Throw wide your arms and let inhibitions fly free. Let loose the cultural norms and have fun at any time of any day. Dance madly in the streets at three am; play stick ball deep in the inner city; let good cheer dance among the canyons of the buildings or in the shadows of the tallest trees. Let time halt, let laughter reign. Free yourself of cares….just for the moment. Be a child again and let loose the imagination. Fun…..play is fun.

Impact: I pound my drums, and my rhythm reaches out to others. Some of us have more of an impact than others. I pound my drums.

Ambient: Completely surrounded by sound, weather, music, voices; encompassing; enclose, envelope, to go around on all sides while surrounded by…..which leaves me wondering who else is out there among the stars. What sounds can be heard deep into the country side. Silence certainly must be ambient. Here in the inner city, life is never silent.

Pretend: Do I do that any more? I used to daydream every day leaving behind a world where I did not quite fit and certainly didn’t understand. Instantly I could leap into my pretend world I’d built and become anything I ever wanted. Success. No failure here. No reality. When did I stop pretending. Is denial the opposite.

Gorgeous: I was, we all are, and now I understand that even wrinkled, worn and tired is gorgeous too. But boy, in my arrested development it took me forever to understand this. I’m a product of my culture. I’m an echo of my past and my damaged thinking. Art could be beautiful but not gorgeous. Humans never. The elegant richness of that word never reached my heart. The free passion of that word went right over my head. There was nothing brilliant about me in my youth, for the clarity of that word never reached me. Oh, to confess such shallowness.

In the end, perhaps a meme is just truth passed on.

Morning Star

2009-10-14T07:09:00.000-07:00

There’s another drawer with lunch knives, and I obviously need to put the salad forks and teaspoons there too.

Himself: Swam, no jobs at all yesterday, put finish on boxes, played games.

Herself: Pushing for the return of the dining room table.

Reading: Victorianisms.

Balance: Sewed and pinned that last bit of binding on the red quilt.

I stood. Most of the day I stood in the kitchen and polished silver.

I have to admit, it seemed an endless job. I was dogged tho. I stood there and polished that new set of silver and then polished the old set we bought years ago. And polished and counted pieces while I polished.

We can serve eight folks dinner on Morning Star with a mixed bag of lunch and dinner knives and forks. We can actually serve six folks dinner with just the dinner service. You wouldn’t believe the luxury of teaspoons only two of which look as if they went through a dishwasher and only one through a saw.

The Geezer asked, “Are these all the serving pieces we have?” He was looking at just the few we got with the new lunch set. Nope, they weren’t. Over there in a box waited more big spoons one slotted, a nice salad set, three butter knives, two sugar spoons, one delightful pickle fork, and a partridge in a pear tree.

This morning, I opened the drawer to get a spoon and was near blinded by the glitter of it all. Sometimes it's the small things like this that make a day perfect.

Christmas Pricing

2009-10-13T07:03:00.000-07:00

Turquoise Christmas tree ornaments, circa 2004.

Himself: Swam. Set up Lessa’s computer, went to a site that asked him to “call back,” job hunted and played games. Dinner soup and salad at Olive Garden. Before 4pm it’s only seven bucks.

Herself: Swam….oh, hurrah, wrote, Alanon, priced Christmas, and home to Geeeee-zer.

Reading: Victorianisms.

Balance: The water exercises are so good for the soul.

Donation’s are down coupled with the fact we had “Christmas In July” sale earlier this year. There will be less for sale out on the floor at the end of November. Still, there is a whole room of “stuff” that needs pricing.

“Oh, it’s the Christmas Lady, said one dear volunteer. Now I know I am in trouble. “Didn’t you come in last January and start pricing then,” she asked. Yes, I had.

And here I am again pricing things and finding few treasures. We have no old tree to donate this year, but someone else will come through with something special. Who knows what lurks in the back rooms of thrift stores.

Images

2009-10-12T09:25:00.000-07:00

PAH, me, Godmother Louise Marie, Lenora, and at the bottom is Lessa at #20.

Himself: Bought a monitor yesterday. Is right now giving our older one to Lessa along with the old computer.

Herself: Bought underwear, socks, and lunch. Great hamburger at that Kearny Mesa Diner. Right now off to an Alanon Meeting.

Reading: Swiss Family Robinson. I’d forgotten the Victorian sensibilities and male centricities of the book.

Balance: Hearing a really good speaker last night.

Yesterday morning, I dragged and dropped all pictures I had of Lessa onto her new computer. Everything from baby pictures, through today pictures.

Lessa’s 13th birthday at Jo’s house in Chula Vista.

Lenora’s graduation from High School. Lessa smiles while Lenora and I have open mouths.

Lessa in 1989 with Alex, who is will soon be assigned to Camp Pendleton, and Lessa with MJ, 2009.

I’ll be really pissed if someone steals this computer.