Eternal comforter

There are some things in life you didn't ask for. Things you didn't want. Things you don't care for aesthetically. That don't match the rest of your life. Sometimes a thing just shows up on your doorstep and you think you'll just stow it away in a nice box you found for it in the garage. After all, you don't want to hurt anyone's feelings.

This comforter was made by Rob's step-mother at least 20 years ago.  The crochet work is impeccable, but I've never been a big fan of candy corn colors (unless as candy corn) and I vastly prefer wool or cotton or something actually found in the natural world. This could only be considered of the natural world if you count petroleum products. 

No offense meant to my step-mother-in-law, who I adore, but I had no intention of letting it live in the house. Somehow, someway, it snuck its way in and hasn't left. It's comforted all of us here, at one time or another. Me, Rob, Em, Claire, their friends, and all the pups. I'm not sure but it may have even comforted one tortoise, Jasmine, after her swimming pool incident. 

And after twenty years of use and abuse, after thousands of washes, it looks... like... new. I think of all it's been through (including my continual mutterings about those *$#@! colors) and I think of all of us wrapped up in its candy-corn-zig-zag-ness, and it practically makes me weep with joy. This thing that I didn't want or didn't ask for has carefully, painstakingly won my hardened heart. It can stay. For now it's in the closet. Until someone needs comforting.

What we don't see

I realize I'm presenting no big news flash - that what we don't see is at least as important as what we do see (or think we see). Just when we're certain our yellow water balloon is exploding and water drops instantly scattering in every direction, we find out that actually something entirely different is happening. Right before our eyes. Silly us for thinking otherwise.

Enjoy this high-speed photography of a water balloon being popped (by a very enthusiastic Japanese man). 

New relationships and bigger tents (and penguins)

Claire gave me this bracelet for Christmas. The quote stamped into it reads, "forever hold your penguins dear." That's the title of an essay from a blog called 37days which has as its subtitle, "What would you be doing today if you only had 37 days to live?"  

When Claire gave me the bracelet, she also gave me a copy of the essay. However, in the post-Christmas clean-up, the essay was lost and I neglected to look it up online. Yesterday, in cleaning up the guest room for houseguest Robin's arrival, the essay appeared and I sat down to read.

One idea leaped off the page, cemented itself to my consciousness, and has thus far appeared to have taken up permanent residence. The idea is this: death ends a life, but it doesn't end a relationship. All that we need to do is to come to terms with the new relationship. We come to terms with a change. The relationship doesn't look or act like it did before. But it's there. And it hasn't lost any of its power to envelope and sustain and enlighten. That's all.

It's been now about couple of years since my dad passed away. And I chose to spend the day just like any other day. 

In the intervening years since the "new relationship" with dad began, there isn't a day in which I haven't been influenced by something he said or did. The relationship is as real and true and healthy as any in my life and shows no sign of losing strength. Everyone has a different take on these things (thank goodness) but for me, no need for memorials when the relationship is alive and well.

Rob's cousin, the aforementioned houseguest Robin, came to town primarily to see her son, Jason. Robin's husband, Bram, passed away unexpectedly several months after dad. Bram and Rob had adopted each other as brothers a long time ago, and Bram's mother was Rob's "Other Mother." (Rob always loved telling people that his brother married his cousin.) So, in the space of a few months Rob and I lost our dad and our brother. No matter whether or not these were strictly blood relations. They were part of the larger tent of family which welcomes all those that fit harmoniously (if snugly) inside.

Jason works for Rob's company, Dalsa. He got the job without telling Rob and the two spend their days passing in the Dalsa halls pretending like they're not related, even though everyone knows they are. Jason led us on a tour of the facility and all I could think of was how Bram's buttons must be bursting. Bram who counseled each and every one of his friends and family and friends of family about careers and goals and overcoming fears and moving forward. I'm learning that part of the new relationship with Bram is that we shoulder some of his work. Part of the new relationship with dad is that we shoulder some of his work. It's a lot of shouldering. 

Family is a strange thing. Once you hack away at the narrow labels and boundary lines, you open yourself up to some completely unexpected and all-encompassing things. Maybe that's why this day felt like any other day. It seems like the tent is big and bigger. Lately, besides houseguest Robin and her son Jason, the tent included: Sue Outcault who had been watching the dvd tribute about dad and invited us to come down to visit with her cousin Doug from Idaho; Rob and Daoud making plans for a big Afghan meal; me planning a visit with Nazhla during one of my next trips to DC; Uncle Paul and Rob and I interviewing dad's cousin about some family movies; sister-in-law Jenny and I planning our trip to Gettysburg; an email exchange with dad's friend Stuart Jenkins; a note - via my Uncle Dick - from another of dad's friends, Fred Andresen.  And that's just the last few weeks. The tent expands. And the relationships continue to grow.

"Forever hold your penguins dear" means that through all the penguins experienced in their frosty and harsh world, "...in the face of all the hardship and pain, progress continued - gorgeous baby chicks grew up to take the same long walks, to find partnership, to know relationship, to care for an egg through immeasurable odds... 

"And so do we humans... we persevere, even after the most anguished of losses, we continue, we put one foot in front of another for those long and sometimes lonely walks. And we arrive to find things changed." (37days)

Death ends a life. It doesn't end a relationship. It just can't.

Rob explains 3-D

For all you who want to know how hard it is to shoot a 3-D movie, fear not! Rob has written the perfect article for you. It's in the latest American Cinematographer Magazine and yes, once again, Christine my hairdresser will be proud. It's the top of my head that appears in the diagrams (see below and - thank you Christine - note no visible gray hair).  So if you've been wondering about appropriate interocular distance or stereoscopic depth cues and occluded objects, then follow the link below.




Click here for article.  (When the window comes up, click PREVIEW, and then click on CONTENTS at upper left of toolbar. You'll get a drop down menu and then you can select "3-D Cinematography.")

Giving pause

I guess technically Emily gave me "pause." Anyway, she was the one who gave me my pause mug. I love my mug. It's impossible to use a pause mug without periodically pausing.

The word "caesura" means a pause marking a rhythmic break in the flow of sound in a melody. While it's a bit of a stretch to define one's life as a melody, it seems to me that in music (as in life), it's not all about the notes. Maybe it's defined more by the pause. The nanosecond awe about what's just been experienced. The breathless expectation of what's ahead.

A pause may look to some like hesitation, inaction, or delay. Pause looks to me like a moment, a respite, a reprieve. Sometimes for me an entire universe is in a pause. Sometimes that's the pinhole through which I witness a humble peek at reality. Pause giving me pause.

Runner-up

I was cleaning out the garage today and ran across this from my short-lived modeling career at the William Adrian Agency in Pasadena. The agency's best known model at the time was Cheryl Tiegs. She was on the cover of Sports Illustrated three times, and was the subject of one of the most popular posters on the planet. I, on the other hand, was hustled off to a fashion show runway at the local nursing home where the residents voted me Miss Beverly Manor Runner-up, and handed me the plaque shown above. It was merely a sign for Beverly Manor with stick-on letters hastily applied. My stick-on status began to peel off after only 30 years. I'm pretty sure my best friend, Nancy, won the top prize. I'm still bitter.

I was scared to death of Mr. Adrian. I didn't need to be. I don't think he ever noticed me. I don't think he ever remembered my name even once. But one day my dad came to pick me up and Mr. Adrian spent fifteen minutes of class time trying to convince him to join the agency. Somehow he always remembered my dad's name.

I guess it wasn't a total waste. To this day, I still put on my face cream in the way he taught us. And I got a lovely plaque.

Emerge gently...

This is the day the tortoises emerge.  This is the day Rob takes the three file boxes out of the garage and we hold our breath as we lift each lid to behold the wonder of a tortoise alive and well.  

Tortoises are cold blooded, which means only that their internal temperature is not fixed at 98.6 degrees (me and Rob) or 101 degrees (the pups). So when it's cold and rainy outside, they get cold and rainy inside. When winter comes, even a Southern California kind of winter, better to have a big meal, shut down the system, and just sleep off the next six months in a file box in the Hummel garage.  

Sadly this year the Hummels were not quite as in tune with tortoise timing as they should have been. I probably shouldn't admit this publicly, but Bob's box showed scars of not a little struggle to get out.  He actually pushed upward and knocked over Jasmine and Dribble's boxes. Fortunately, all survived the upheaval and the annual liberation went on without further event. Right out of the gate, Bob began to chase Jasmine, whom he thinks of as his girlfriend (though she seems to think otherwise), and Dribble did his thing, which is basically to impersonate a rock.

At the same time that they're ready to run free, I'm ready for hibernation. I envy their ability to stop, save their energy, and come back rested and renewed. Unlike people, their muscles don't seem to atrophy with lack of use. It might be our imaginations, but they seem to come back stronger each year. Bob runs after Jasmine, Jasmine runs from Bob, and Dribble digs a hole to hide. Nothing lost. Everything gained. Emerge.

My post-graduate education at the Tides Motel

What's the deal with current college graduates? They seem filled with ideas about what they want to do. I, on the other hand, graduated with a design-your-own major, which amounted to a lot of biology classes mixed with a K-12 "emergency" (their term, not mine) California teaching credential. And little desire to teach.  Or to ever play genetic god with a fruit fly again.

I didn't know the who-what-when-where-why of life after graduation. I suppose perhaps there are worse places to have landed than the parental home overlooking the ocean in Laguna Beach. I'm asking no sympathy for that, mind you. But in what would later prove to be an unimaginably strange yet fortuitous move, I ended up as a maid in what is now the Tides Motel in Laguna.  

My adventures with wiping hairs out of sinks, vacuuming toenail clippings, and placing the paper sash around the clean toilet only lasted a few months until I decided to run off to Europe on the money I'd made at the motel. But it's not a bad thing to a.) be humbled upon entering the work force, b.) be reminded that there is no job that is ever ever ever beneath you, and c.) learn to appreciate the work of women who don't know you or love you but are ready and willing to clean up after you.

There hasn't been a motel or hotel room I've stayed in since the summer of '76 where I haven't thought about my stint as a maid. In every hotel room, I carefully wipe out the sink. I never leave toenail clippings. All used towels placed in one pile. No diet coke cans or candy wrappers left on the bedside table. I secretly imagine the maids saying to themselves, "What a thoughtful guest!  I hope she'll come back soon!" (This is similar to how I imagine the Macy's saleswoman's reaction upon seeing how neatly I've hung up the bathing suits I've just tried on - the influence of two summers working at the Wet Seal on Balboa Island during high school.)

What am I hoping for as my daughters and nieces and nephews and their friends look for their next job? I hope they find a job where they can learn something about life. I hope that they take away lessons that will feed them forever. Like never leaving your toenail clippings for someone else to vacuum up.

Daughter Emily sent me the following questions from a book called, Rules of the Red Rubber Ball: Find and Sustain your Life's Work and they seem like perfect questions to ponder whether young or old.  Here they are.  I'm not answering them here and now.  But maybe later.  I have to ponder....

What would you do for free?

What activities enthrall you?

What in life do you find irresistible, a source of inspiration, a reason to get out of bed?

What dreams do you chase?

What topics do you love to discuss and ponder?

What's your primal source of joy?

 

Where d'ya get those bags at?

I love my reusable shopping bags, but never so much as today when the teenage boy behind me in line at the grocery store said, "Hey, where d'ya get those bags at?" I mean, there isn't much about me and my possessions that's of even mild interest to a teenage boy, so to have one coveting my shopping bags was a real thrill. 

Now, if only the bag boys at Gelson's would stop trying to cram the contents of an entire aisle into each one. The bags are strong. I'm not.

If anyone's interested, I got the bags at this website: Click here for reusable shopping bags lusted after by teen boy.

Everything that's not on the music...

If you have some time (32 minutes, to be exact), this is a profoundly moving lecture & demonstration by Evelyn Glennie, a masterful Scottish percussionist. She lost her hearing around the age of twelve.  Her talk (and her life) is all about listening. My dad went to one of her performances a few years ago and was raving about it, when I asked if he knew that she was deaf. He said, no - she couldn't possibly be. I guess he didn't read the program. At the beginning of this talk, she takes off her shoes so, I believe, she can hear with her feet as well as with her hands, arms, head, and other assorted body parts. She may be deaf, but I suspect she hears more than the rest of us put together.

She says that if she holds on to the sticks too tightly, they feel "strangely detached" and there is more of a shock to her arms. However, if she holds them loosely, allowing her hands to be merely a "support system" to the sticks, that's when she feels more at one with them and with the instrument, and thus with the music. True in percussion. True in life.

I will refrain from describing the entire talk. It's sooooo much better with a Scottish accent. Click on the video below to begin.

Answering the age old question - Christian Science or Scientology?

Repurposed

Our house is made of repurposed things.  Old siding flipped over became our living room ceiling.  Cedar fence planks became part of our kitchen ceiling.  A log by the side of La Tuna Canyon Road became both our coffee bar and our mantle.  A pallet carrying slate became our medicine cabinet.  And a prop for a disco scene in a movie became a trellis for our wandering grape vine.

Maybe that's why I love this crocodile from the Noah's Ark exhibit at the Skirball Center. (Click on image to enlarge.) It started as a violin case, violin, ladies black glove, and a tire, and together, against all odds, it became a crocodile. 

Maybe that's what I love about the idea of being repurposed. The old and unnecessary becomes the new and essential. Or at the least, the new and surprising. Maybe that's why the crocodile has me thinking about how, most likely, we're all being repurposed within every moment. Snippets of our lives we thought unworkable and ready for the blue bin, are shaped into something of wonder and glory. Thoughts that looked tired and worn are shocked into originality. Memories crushed and cramped in a dusty brain are fitted to receive a crown. 

Just when we think we've got the pieces of our lives computed and sorted, we see it all being reconsidered, rearranged, repurposed. We don't have any choice but to stop and stare. There's nothing we can do about it. We are witnesses to our own new purpose. And that of the universe. We're all becoming crocodiles.

Behold I make all things new.

The Institute of Uncle Jack

Uncle Jack just got his own institute, appropriately named the Jack F. Kemp Institute for Public Economy at Pepperdine's School of Public Policy. Pepperdine is the recipient of his papers and other records of his accomplishments and work and in addition to maintaining the Kemp archive, will be sponsoring a distinguished visiting chair in his name, as well as hosting lectures and conferences. The photo above is from 1989 when he was sworn in as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development by a prim Sandra Day O'Connor, with a happy George Bush Sr. close at hand. (I think Aunt Joanne is the cutest of the bunch.)

If you're interested in finding out more about democratic capitalism, job creation, free markets, and Judeo-Christian values, or just want to see what fuss is about, then click here for a link to the Jack F. Kemp Institute.

If you're feeling the urge for a little Bulgarian music...

Once upon a time I was a singer in Slaveja, a womens' choir that was a part of Avaz, one of the two folkdance troupes in L.A. I say once upon a time, because now there are exactly ZERO folkdance troupes in L.A.

We sang Bulgarian, Croatian, Macedonian, Bosnian, Hungarian, and Russian songs. Once upon a time, some of these countries were bound together in a sham unification called Yugoslavia. We folkdancers knew that Serbia was Serbia, Croatia was Croatia, Bosnia was Bosnia, etc. Different cultures. Different costumes. Different dances. Different rhythms and tones. Sad that it took a war to sort it all out.

Recently some of Avaz' performances were put up on You Tube. Apparently no one had video cameras when I was singing, but the singers and songs didn't change much over the years, so I'm posting one Bulgarian song that's a pretty good likeness to what we looked like (somber elderly farm women) and how we sounded (ethereal).

The rhythm and harmonies are not familiar ones to Western ears. We like our rhythms in 3's and 4's, or multiples thereof. This song is in 11's. Not something that's easy to clap to. Also, we like our harmonies in spreads of 3 or 5. This song sometimes goes into tones that are so close to each other as to sound out of tune. It feels tense. But it eventually gets resolved into something beautiful. At least beautiful to me (and to the Bulgarians).