Wondering, once again...

Ah, the holiday is history. It was laid back this year. My dearest friend and I were orphaned by other ex-spouse's with big houses and wives who cook, so we got together and divied up the traditional dinner. I did the turkey, dressing, sweet potatoes (ever so much better than yams), and pumpkin pie. She did the mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce, and mincemeat pie. And it was all sumptuous, especially the gravy, which was the stuff of dreams. Both of us got prodigious amounts of leftovers, too. Then we headed over to the Thanksgiving Alkathon, a marathon, 24 hours of meetings, every 2 hours, for all of us who struggle through this dreadful season. The host meeting was a step study that uses the 12 & 12, an auxilliary to our Big Book, that goes into the steps (and traditions) in depth. Because of the number of persons, after we read the first step from the book, people who wished to share were asked to come to the podium, and speak into a microphone. Now, I have done that, when I was asked to. But I was loathe to volunteer my wisdom, not knowing if it would be welcomed. So the usual cast of characters bounced up and stood in line to regale us with their sobriety. One woman, who is six days less sober than I, who has been in my face most of my recovery, and always puts herself in front of everyone, said she was standing up for her program. And I wondered if I should have gotten up there after all. When is it pride and when is it just being thankful for my recovery and wanting to share it with a roomful of people? Is it arrogance to waltz out in front of everyone, or is it arrogant to sit in the sweetness of my own wisdom? I do have some good stuff to share. None of it is mine. Well, most of it isn't, anyway. It came from sponsors, sponsees, hundreds of other recovering souls who are trudging the path of happy destiny alongside me, and a few dozen spiritual teachers and books. I am, after all, a seeker of truth and beauty. Haven't arrived at enlightenment yet, at least, not all the time. But I have had little glimpses, moments when it all seemed to be clear and possible. Well, that moment passed, and I sat there, one among many, and listened. We'll see what happens next time. At Christmas. Or New Year's. Because I will be parked there in that folding chair again and again. Perhaps choosing my moment is better than always opening my mouth. I seem to tune out that woman I mentioned automatically, knowing she will say pretty much the same thing every time. Lord, save me from my own platitudes!

Once a mother, always a harried, stressed-out mess...

Here is my dear and lovely daughter with her significant other on the occasion of her graduation from law school. I am happy and relieved to relate that yesterday, she learned that she had passed the California Bar Exam. Phew. It has been a long and hard process, from the LSATs to the application process to the first amazingly difficult year to the moot court competitions to graduation to a summer of bar review to four months of waiting for the results. And now, she can spend her decorating allowance, buy artwork for her new office, and settle into her role as a Doctor of Jurisprudence. And I can lay down my mantle of worry and just watch her blossom. She has grown into a woman of much power and grace. Now, it would be nice to take credit for that, but truly, she is what she was meant to be. A friend once complimented me on her, and I eschewed any credit, but, as my friend pointed out, I didn't go out of my way to screw her up, either. That I will accept. I worked especially hard not to do that. She shows me daily that anything is possible if you want it enough. She is healthier and more focused than I will ever be. Grateful beyond words today.

Random thoughts, Friday edition...

So, I have a cold. Don't you hate it when that happens? Misery on the hoof. I don't believe in suffering. I believe in medication, lots of it. So I am juiced the the eyeballs on daytime severe cold pills, some holistic stuff (zinc, vitamin C), and have Mucinex in reserve, just in case, even though I hate their commercials, and that will usually steer me away from a product, but this stuff really works. I must be feeling better, I made the bed. Yesterday, Boo, Pickle and I were entrenched there all day. Probably overkill for this little headcold, but hey, not anything else on my plate, and I felt like hell, and was really tired after a fitfull night. I did have to dress and make a drugstore run for more pills in the afternoon, and gee, I remembered my gratitude on my last sojourn there about not needing any of that stuff. Around 7 PM, I took a hot bath, and felt ever so much better, for about 20 minutes, afterward. Then it was back to moaning and groaning. Got up early to drive a friend to the local airport, a commitment I made a while back, and I was feeling a whole lot better, thank HP. Just back from breakfast at the airport restaurant. There were a lot of old men around, probably our locals who can afford airplanes, all looking hard bitten by life. Strange to see a neon sign advertising beer in an airport. Conjured up a lot of terrifying images, for sure. My friend is like me, hates to fly, but loves to travel. Anyway, whole big bunch of nothing happening here today, except we are all breathless awaiting the little kiddo's results from her Bar exam. What will be, will be. Let it be sweet, whatever it is.

Let's see what happens if I do THIS...

Here is a little thing I diddled up this morning. Can't decide if I like it, but have found that working on it does not necessarily make it better. I saw this program on Einstein last night, and he formulated his science and his first great theories while working in a patent office. He was not even a scientist when he developed the theory of special relativity. Most of his greatest thinking came out of daydreams! Okay, so great art should emerge from moments like this, when I am just putting paint on the paper, and going hmmmmmm. It was uber-fun to do, and I already have plans for a followup. I did try to be neater than usual, but that didn't seem to happen. What a surprise. Messiness is my trademark, after all. And flaws. there is always a flaw in there. It is all still really new, but the idea is coming, I can feel it unfurling even as we speak. Sweet.

Isn't that interesting...

While stewing here at my computer, accompanied by the cacophony of the concerto for double leaf-blower being executed just outside my office window, I came upon an article while perusing my daily New York Times headlines that they so graciously e-mail to me so that I am not totally cut off from the sturm and drang of the daily life others are so unfortunate as to enjoy. Scientists (those elite minds that propose a hypothesis and spend every waking moment trying to find the proof to support it) think they have found the underlying cause of emotional disorders in the genetic code. There is, they suppose, a battle that ensues between the mother and father genes. If the mother gene wins the war, the result is schizophrenia at the extreme end of the spectrum, whereas if the father dominates, autism results at the other end. Well, it makes sense, if you think about it. Females tend to be hysterical by nature (literally, wandering womb, you know, hysteria), whereas men are more emotionally dead. So the female gene causes hyperactivity of the emotions, and the male gene causes a flat emotional aspect. Do you think it could be that simple? Certainly, I have been acquainted with many men, including my father, who have the emotional life of a prawn. They live for logic, usually of their own construct, and happily inhabit that box all their lives. Women bamboozle them, with their need to be constantly questioning everything about their own existence, the existence of significant others, and not-so-significant others. Where is their logic? As I see it, men sit in the center of their own little insulated universe, and everything revolves around them in concentric orbits. The woman in their life bounces between orbits like those electrons in an atom do. Excite an atom, and the electrons leap about like crazy. Ditto, a man. Women, on the other hand, see themselves as just one part of an intricate web. Everything is connected to them, and if any of the souls they feel woven with is agitated, she is agitated as well, sort of like when one of my dog decides to get up and walk around in circles on the bed in the middle of the night - I am instantly awake, awaiting the next shock. We are such interesting creatures to begin with, and now we are finding that the whole race is divided sharply in mindset, as well. I think it is the moon's fault. Without it, the earth would wobble so drastically on its axis that there would be no stable climate zones that foster agriculture, and we would still be without a civilization, fashioning arrowheads and spears from wood and stone, and happily hunter-gathering in small nomadic tribes. Some days, that sounds pretty comforting, especially when I am reading a newspaper.

I am so validated here!

I just did a Fifth Step, reading aloud my Fourth Step resentment list, going into detail about all the stupid little things (and people) who annoy and vex me. High on the list of things, right behind stoplights and leaf blowers, was shrinkwrap and plastic packaging. Even Pickle arrived all shut up with those thick plastic strips that need wirecutters to sever. I wound up having to unscrew the two parts and take the crate apart to get her out. I often buy packages of things in those blasted clamshell plastic packages, and wind up cutting them open with the kitchen shears. I am lucky I have not yet cut off anything I need, like the end of a finger. I even bought a super-duper set of Fiskars especially for those packages. Well, an article in the New York Times says I am not alone in my misery. This year, toy sets are arriving at the stores in (gasp) cardboard boxes! How original!

I and Cezanne...

I spent most of yesterday with my tongue between my teeth, slapping away at a canvas in a friend's studio, chatting and splashing and laughing at myself. Here is the resulting image, a sort of Cezanne-y rendering of a basket of gourds and a blue ribbon artfully draped all around. Funnily enough, I kind of like it. It has a sweet luminous quality, and actually looks like an homage to that great master, mostly because I finished it by outlining some of the gourds and the basket ever so lightly, which made them just pop. I will never be a realist, I realize. I will always just slap paint on and hope for the best, and paint over if it doesn't seem to be coming up at that moment. My friend and fellow art student is painting one image a day. I am truly amazed at her productions. She has become an accomplished artist, for sure. I am working on it, still, but, whatever, I sure am having fun here!

God and I go to Walgreen's...

I am a drug store junkie. There are so many wonderful things there: makeup, of course, and hair care products that let me dream that someday, somehow, I will have a head full of thick, glorious locks. Sigh. And lotions, oh, all the glorious goos that promise wrinkle-free skin. It is that time of year when I would just settle on not itching 24/7. Sigh. So, I had a free half hour before my Sunday morning meditation meeting, and I needed some things, so off I went to Walgreen's, which is several miles closer than Walmart, and always promises to be a less expensive proposition as they don't sell clothes or DVDs. I took my time, plying all the aisles of drugstore stuff, and it occurred to me how fortunate I was to not need any of those items: ankle, knee and wrist braces, hearing aid cleaning kits, cold medicine, muscle rub. Well, it is gratitude month, after all. And it is good to be grateful that I don't have the flu, or a bad back, and that my wrist, which was all trussed up in a brace not very long ago, is mucho better. I left with my purchases (moist towlettes, a dandy manicure set, and a card that I could not resist for my dear friend's birthday next month), and heart full of thankfulness that the Cowwoman is all in one piece and still hanging together after 64 years on the Big Blue Ball. See, God lives at Walgreen's, too.

I am both relieved and apalled...

My many moons on the Big Blue Ball have taught me that I am the pawn of the media, and they got me last night. I got all teared up about this proud young man we elected president. While I was in speech class, we watched Martin Luther King Jr.'s I Have a Dream speech. Being an apolitical animal, I had never done that before. What an amazing man, so intelligent, so articulate. I think Obama is one and the same. Still, I know that change is difficult to bring into reality, even with a Congress that will help him along. Take our voters, here in tree-hugging California, who are probably going to endorse an amendment to our state constitution prohibiting gay marriage. I thought we were more grown up than that here. I thought we were tolerant and progressive. I thought bigotry was history. Gosh, guys. Another thing I learned in school, in sociology, was that DNA among humans is less dissimilar than among penguins, who all look alike. Now, let's all contemplate that little factoid for a few, and get, once and for all, that, beneath the skin, beneath the sexual preferences, we are the SAME, damn it. Okay, I feel better. Perhaps the very sane and sober people on our State Supreme Court will look on the voters with more rectitude, and send Prop. 8 packing. Hope, it is springing here in my little heart.

Pickle update...

Little Pickle is now big Pickle, about 12 lbs., with a magnificent fluffy fawn coat and her ears, wow! She is interesting on sooooo many levels. For instance, she snores while awake, and sleeps with her eyes open. And it is now part of our evening bedtime routine to light a candle to counter her perpetual flatulence. Pickle farts swim in the air above the bed with fair regularity. Because she likes Boo-food better than her puppy chow, I changed her to that, but no change in the farting so far. Sometimes I think it would be best just to set her tail on fire. This week, we have a third canine among us, little Beany. He is traumatized by the loss of his master already, but Pickle doesn't help things much. I heard him outside, whining, and finally went to see what was the matter, if anything, as he is terribly morose. I found Pickle blocking the dog door, and refusing to let him back into the house. Now I just yell at Pickle, and she lets him in. Where does she get that spunk? What a character she has become.

A rose by any other name...

Back in the olden days, when I was in my 20s, I used to diet by having yogurt for lunch, something from the refrigerator section of the little lunch room downstairs at 550 California Street. And my favorite was prune yogurt, because it reminded me of the stewed prunes with heavy cream my grandmother served up when I stayed at her house. Gee, I hadn't thought about prunes for decades. Then I went on retreat to Maria del Mar convent this last winter, and the nuns put stewed prunes on the breakfast buffet. Of course, I thought. Nuns would eat prunes. It just seemed like a no-brainer. So, I decided to get some and stew them. You think I could find prunes anywhere? When's the last time you saw a container of prune yogurt? Or a prune Danish, remember them? Eventually, on a trip down an unfamiliar aisle at Costco, I found a bag of dried plums. Well, what are prunes but dried plums? I wasn't certain till I got them home, and whoopee, PRUNES! Now that I am on my eating plan again, to ward off incipient fluffiness, I appreciate stewed prunes and plain, non-fat yogurt snacks. Really yummy, and awfully good for this old gal. The best things are those that nourish both my body and my soul. Long live prunes, whatever they're called.

Where is the justice?

My movie buddy and I went to see The Duchess this weekend. She liked it so much, it was her second viewing. And it was a sumptuous film, filled with stunning costumes, neo-classical architecture and loving close-ups of Keira Knightley's amazing face. Here was a film that proved that, despite youth, scintillating beauty and obscene wealth, one can still be abysmally unhappy. I thought a lot about that afterward. And I had one of my AHA moments. The lovely Georgiana lacked only one thing, a sense of being loved. I would say that she lacked value, too, but she did get that big check once she finally produced that male heir, which was her raison d'etre, after all. Women throughout the ages have been treated as property, and only as assets if they fulfill their destiny as the vehicle for heirs. Or, they were a source of (momentary) comfort, a receptacle for men to use to relieve their sexual pressures. And then, they were supposed to fade into the background until needed again, sort of like an appliance that sits on the shelf collecting dust, waiting for its next moment of usefulness. And that is what the Duchess did, after a short time indulging her needs with a much needed affair, because to do otherwise would have ruined, not herself, but her lover, and torn her forever from her children. Okay, she lived in the lap of luxury and outrageous fashion all her life. But that is, after all, just form. Of substance, she knew little. Even her children would, after all, grow up and leave her. It hasn't changed a whole lot in the intervening centuries. Women are still under men, considered to be less because we are smaller (not me, though) than most men, weaker in physical strength. But, remember this, we live longer. And we are left in charge of the new generations. We could be teaching those beloved sons something different, a new way of looking at the world. And if we aren't, shame on us.

Wolf! Wolf!

Who remembers the story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf? Well,time to dredge it up and learn its lesson, all over again. Our presidential and vice-presidential candidates are human beings, and, as such, have some stuff in their previous lives that probably is not savory, but it seems that in this campaign, so many false rumors are flying around, one couldn't discern the truth even if one were up to sorting through all the crap, which, I can tell you, I am not. Most of this mud-slinging seems to be coming from our goody-two-shoes Republican candidate, you know, the one with the cute little arm-candy wife he cheated on his first wife with, the war hero guy who voted the Bush agenda for most of his tenure, the one who chose a totally unsuitable VP because she is a woman, and cute (and one of those who stand outside abortion clinics, screaming). The result is that, if some really enterprising investigative reporter came up with some REAL dirt about Obama, no one of consequence would believe it after all the fallacious stuff that has spewed out of the mouths of these people, who are so very anxious to be elected to the highest post of the entire world. Personally, this all is really frightening, not because of the behavior of these nutbags, but because a whole bunch of folks BELIEVE them. Fanatics of the world, unite! Walk west till your hat floats.

Is it just me? (Redux)

When I was young, they taught us that playing the stock market was like GAMBLING. You paid your money and you took your chances. What the hell is going on? The government is bailing out investors, bailing out banks that make bad investments. Someone was all het up today because the price of oil fell and now there is speculation that interest in alternative energy sources will wane. Well, if the price of gasoline fell to 95 cents a gallon, then I would worry about that. But $3.35 a gallon? I don't think so. Bring on the hydogen engine that works on air and expels water! Put solar cells on every rooftop! For that matter, paint all the rooftops white to give us extra albedo and reflect back a lot of the heat. Put big reflective patches of foil over our polar regions to save the ice caps. And kick out all those bozos in Washington DC who do little more than diddle their young pages and swill Jack Daniels before carooming around town in their big honking luxury cars, you know the ones who put us in this big pickle to begin with by suckling the corporations that fostered their campaigns in the first place. Really, I am not a political animal. But I am tired of our elected officials stomping all over our Constitution and ignoring the plight of ordinary folk, like me. The only carrot offered to us is aimed at another faction of the population that I avoid like the plague, the fundamental Christians, who wouldn't know morality if it bit them in the ass. Which it should. Okay, that's over for a while. Ready to fill out my absentee ballot and have my teensy weensy say in things.

To be or not to be...

I went to a memorial service today for a woman I met at the very first AA meeting I went to, almost 19 years ago. We call those we get sober with "littermates". Seeing her there week after week gave me courage to believe that I could do this sobriety thing, too. Then, I gravitated to other meetings, and only saw her once in a while. She got drunk. That was a huge wakeup call for me. You mean some people don't stay sober? But she came back, and set her foot back on the path. And she did that over and over again. Recently, while drinking, she had an esophogial bleed, and survived it, to get sober again. She knew that to drink meant she might die. And she did it, anyway. This time, she didn't survive the bleeding. What I saw today was how very much she was loved. And I got that these people felt they had expressed that to her, too. For some reason, it was not enough. And, she, like me, lived alone. She had dogs. The music she listened to is the music I love. She was an artist, like me. And I don't know why she had to struggle, drunk, while I preferred to stuggle, sober. It is a mystery to me, for sure. We joke that drinking is "suicide on the installment plan", and that is exactly what it is, a living death, followed by a real one. I always feel the rip in the fabric of our connectedness whenever one of us leaves the planet. For Sylvia, the pain is ended. Mine goes on.

Wherever I go, there I am...

One of my watercolor classmates told me about this hot deal on watercolor paper, which, by the way, is pretty expensive. Now, I love going to the art supply store. There are all these stringy, artsy, all-natural-fiber folk there, who are just who they are, greying hair and faces bare of makeup, in their sensible shoes and no-nonsense clothes. But, sometimes it gets a little pricey there. Gloria told me that every week, the big craft store puts a coupon in that sheaf of flyers that I always toss without a second look, 40 to 50% off the item of your choice, and they sell the very same paper as the art store. So I checked my mail when I got home, and there it was, 40% off! And off I went yesterday morning, to the craft store. Now, the clientele at Michael's is a little different. There are all these women, all ages, many of them fitness-challenged, dressed in polyester, elastic-wasted pants outfits every color of the rainbow and a few more that I didn't even recognize, frequently sequinned, as well. They were buying knitting yarn or scrapbooking supplies or artificial flowers. I stood in line with my two books of paper and a plastic pallette, feeling out of my element, though I was probably properly attired in my yoga pants and sweatshirt, somewhat subdued, however, in shades of gray. And you know, I don't fit into either of these worlds. I still like the artifice of hair coloring and makeup, but absolutely eschew polyester. I do knit, though. I guess I have to face the fact that I wasn't born to blend, anywhere. And I used to think this was a bad thing. Now I see it as a blessing. HP wants me to become just who I am, sans a category. If I could just figure out what that is, everything will be illuminated!

Planned obsolescence and me...

When I was a kid, TVs had cathode ray tubes, kind of like fancy, tube-shaped light bulbs. Every once in a while, one would blow out, and you called the TV repairman, who came, pulled out the chassis and replaced it. Even the big one, the PICTURE tube, could be replaced for less than the cost of a new TV. Not any more. Now, we just chuck the whole thing and buy a new one, at half the price of the one we are throwing away. Kind of sad, yes? Partly, this is because technology has been on a tear for the last few decades, and everything electric or electronic is doomed to be obsolete before you can get it out the door of Best Buy. Which brings me to my current denouement. I broke the lid of my mini-Cusinart. Well, you might think I could still cover the top with something, anyway, except the lever that works the whole thing is what broke off of the lid. And I had a moment of grief, imagining my dear little workhorse nestled among the coffee grounds and egg shells in the kitchen trash. Then I had one of those AHA moments, googled Cuisinart parts, and ordered a new lid, for $17. It comes with a new bowl, but what the heck, I like shiny newness. This is about half what a new machine would cost me, so it is a bargain. And I need that little sucker. It whips up my pancake batter for me every day, and it chops garlic, such a dear little friend who helps me stay infection-free. And nuts, oh, I love chopped nuts on, well, EVERYTHING. Maybe having two bowls is a really good idea?

I want my country back!

I saw this program about South Korea the other night, about how 1/3 of the country now considers the United States the greatest threat to their national security. Gee, 30,000 Americans died on their soil so they could express that opinion. But that generation, the one that remembers the Korean War, is dying off. The young ones only see what Geo. W. has done. That bozo, and all the others who voted for him, TWICE, should be twisting in the wind. Our international reputation has always been problematical, what with the astonishing prosperity and power we possess, and now, it is in shreds. Even our allies are looking at us askance. Shoot, I remember putting together little care packages for our soldiers over there: needles and thread, bandaids, things like that, in school. Of course, I also remember air raid drills, when we all dived under our desks and covered our head, hid our eyes so they wouldn't be toasted by the atomic blast. Now that threat is behind us, and we have a gigantic internal implosion going on. One of the things I saw when I was in Italy is how young our country really is in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps we needed to be taught a lesson or two, lessons that much more seasoned countries have already learned. I was listening to Hooked on Classics last night, sort of slumming for intellectuals, and remembered the thrill of a Souza march on the 4th of July, a great sense of pride that I am an American, and America stands for freedom. Apparently, that doesn't extend outside our borders, not any more.

Immortal Pickle...

Here she is, all immortalized in art. I did this from a photo of her lying beside me on the red couch, which is now blue, courtesy of futon covers. This was a while ago, before her bottom teeth started showing all the time, and before her ears fluffed up alarmingly. I love my Pickle. And I can barely wait for her to be all grown up and, hopefully, settled down. My Boo is sweet, but not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Pickle is a pistol, smart as they come, full of herself and an amazing amount of energy. She just keeps going, and going, and going. Now, I don't know if this is art, but, to me, it is precious. I hope not too precious, though. I want to avoid coyness in my art, always. My dear friend who was my first teacher once did an enormous painting of a buffalo, very carefully rendered, but, for some reason, something around the eyes, I think, it looked like it was shy and about to blush. I take that lesson seriously. Animals are not toys, you know. This little one has a fierce spirit, for sure.

From the sublime to the ridiculous...

Here is a little watercolor I did at my class yesterday. Remember when I was the oldest person in every room at school? Well, now I am the youngest senior in the room. All the others are these sweet little ladies who name their pets Mandy and Skipper, and paint careful little scenes with picket fences. Me, I just start slopping paint all over the place and call it "painterly". Bill, one of two token guys in the class, noticed that. It is also evident that I am an oil painter by nature, as I like lots and lots of color. Actually, watercolors do some rather neat things all by themselves. I have come to depend on that happening in my work. I don't have a clue what I am doing, but it sure is fun. I stayed for almost the whole session working away at this oeuvre, and that's a first for me. Usually, I get done and head out after about 1 1/2 hours. Oh, and I didn't get my picture in to the teacher in time to be hung in this fall's show, sort of flaked out. Whatever. Next time.