birthday ... continued

the overriding theme of cards this year was cats
including one that looks a lot like ketzl
followed by butterflies and bees.

today was a lovely breakfast (compromise on bagel and chocolate croissant when i took a batch of towels from sierra trading post down to the jcc for the mikvah). rabbi leslie says i will know when is the right time for me to have my first mikvah experience.
then yummy spicy chile relleno lunch with an old friend (older than me by 3 yrs and a few weeks). accomplishful at work in getting the bulletin in the mail.

got a nice card from hospice of the valley. they send things out periodically. small quotes, reminders to take care of ourselves. that whatever we are feeling is OK.

i love the new ad for service america. wow. a president who does tv ads.
amazing that obama has been in office less than two weeks. it is pretty much a blur.

news of the strange:
this January is the 3rd warmest on record since 1889. wow. average temp: 63 degrees.
ethical question: what kind of doctor does in vitro for an unmarried woman who already has 6 children ranging in age from 2 to 7 (the one who just gave birth to the octuplets in southern california this week).

it's weekend.
for those of you who don't know it yet, off freecycle i got a fabulous mascot head (a cartoon-like head, of a guy named Horace). amazing. great halloween costume. fabulous. i am very happy. freecycle rocks.

Dining with Deborah, Act I

Tonight was a lovely dinner at House of Siam for me and 15 friends and family. We stretched out over the entire back area where we sat on cushions with our feet hanging down below the table. I order appetizers which arrived pretty quickly including the favorite sweet potato fries. yum. and of course sticky rice with mango for dessert which i ordered and fried bananas with ice cream on the house (with candles). sweet. then i couldn't find my keys which were deep in my coat pocket and a bunch of us spent some time looking until i figured it out.

there will be Act II after some people get back to town, like Christine who with her son Caspar made it to the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro!! woo hoo!!!!!

So I feel birthday-ed, with lots of calls and singing of songs, almond coffee cake for breakfast and boston cream pie (?) for snack in the afternoon (more candles) at work. emails and cards (many with cat themes). it's been a good day.

thanks, y'all.

birthday eve for me...

tonite as daphne and i left the synagogue, i looked over the wall and thru the trees and saw the sliver of a moon. it was really quite striking. a new month. a new year.

a birthday is so many things. the day that someone actually was born and took breaths of air on this earth. a day celebrating that event. the culmination of 365 days since the previous celebration ... a look backward. you made it through "another one." or the beginning of the new year that is starting. a look forward. so the actual birthday is a pivot point. a point of balance. a fulcrum between the past and the future. i guess that's sort of how i feel. working on balance. so here i am, getting ready to turn 63, the next in the list of "firsts" ... things without Linda. no guarantee that the 2nd time around will be any easier, but gotta get thru the firsts. that's why hospice stays connected for 13 months, getting thru the entire year of firsts.

this year "we" will celebrate with thai food and sticky rice with mango (a requirement) at house of siam in downtown san jose. i could not for the life of me remember what we did last year, so i went back to linda's blog (which i was writing) and found that i took the day off from work, linda and i went out to breakfast, then to dr. cohen, and saw "27 dresses." i actually still have no recollection, even after reading the words. it is still a blur. i don't know how i had the strength to go back to the posts on linda's blog that followed my birthday. not all of them, but up to and including april 13. tissue alert. it was nice to see the reading that kaaren read that night: we who mourn the loss of a friend should not dwell on that loss, but rather should be thankful for the gift of her presence in our lives.

we had a nice art activity in the support group: creating a collage using pictures of our partner, quotes, things from magazines. it was a fun experience and a lot of nice quotes. Jack Lemmon: "death is the end of a life, but not a relationship." will share more of them later.

tonight we had a yummy dinner (at jerusalem cafe, 3064 el camino real in santa clara, thank you jay and cindy), and when i got home, allowed myself to eat the LAST persimmon from the backyard for dessert. quite wonderful.

so happy birthday to me. thanks for the cards, the calls, and warm wishes. there are actually two other people sharing my birthday among my 91 friends on facebook. i find that a very interesting statistic. i will drag this out for as long as people want to celebrate (mostly cuz there are a lot of people unavailable on a weds nite or actually out of town).

ketzl` is loving up the laptop. wonder how many key strokes he will get in. zs1`` make it 5 we had a nice walk when i first got home. it was california cold and i did a good job of wrapping a scarf so i could breathe warm air (it was one of linda's scarves) and a black Linda hat. warm.

it's often better without an agenda....

a walk with ketzl works well
not even on my cell phone
just walking
the cloud cover keeping it fairly warm
garbage cans out in ones, twos and threes.
no cars on the street. the sound of a plane overhead, moving away; another takes its place. ketzl finds a slug and several things that move. this morning he bisected a worm. which, after a pause, started moving again, both pieces. tonight he sniffs the 8th bush for the 15th time. rubbed his head on the ball of a trailer hitch. stopped to bristle at something of interest behind the trailer at the corner.

caroline kennedy withdraws. strange.

too close for comfort:
joel grey (now age 76) as dr. alexander on "private practice" (not a great show; background while i was doing garbage, after "grey's anatomy" which i try to watch)
dying of 4th stage pancreatic cancer. pain management at the end. yikes.
i miss joel grey's acting. i miss linda.

after the play on sunday, i went to my favorite used bookstore in mt. view, book buyers, and found several cd's for 99cents. one is vox femina los angeles, a fabulous women's chorus that sings, among other things, "simply love," by holly near, which was on the tape that linda made for me in 1999, sung by Muse, the women's chorus from Cincinnati. very powerful song, very powerful sound. i just checked out their website and they sing other Muse songs, like sky dancers. wow. not on the cd i have but i may need to get more. great music.

ketzl likes red pepper. crunchy. cute.

first consult with the landscape designer and installer this afternoon.
it's going to be a fun process, i hope.

what a weekend is coming up: rock shabbat services, haircut and diaspora dinner on saturday, sunday is blood drive, leonardo exhibit and chinese dinner. phew. and i need to book my next trip(s) to LA to get some kind of decent prices. vox femina is playing in LA in March. that might be fun. not sure if that's my weekend, but i'm sure it can work.

where's the cat?

history was made on this momentous day

so i played a couple of hours of hooky this morning.
wow what a wonderful day this was
even rick warren wasn't too terrible.
the poem by Elizabeth Alexander was amazing. "Praise Song for the Day."
the music with Itzak Perlman and Yo Yo Ma was wonderful. the pianist with fingerless gloves. the musicians represented a wonderful diversity.
the microphones on the podium were so sensitive that small snippets of conversation sneak through.
and the energy, the change of feeling evident in the crowd.
that it is all of us (as will.i.am says, you and me, together). "because we, the people, remain true to our forebears."
right now i'm watching a replay of Aretha Franklin singing. what a fabulous hat! and voice. that too.
so much to remember and reflect on.
i have really enjoyed listening to the correspondents and professors talking about the nuances of obama's speech.
"on this day we come together because we have chosen peace over war."
"the time has come to choose our better history."
"greatness is never a gift; it must be earned."
"the question is not whether government is too big or too small but whether it works."
"the tempering qualities of humility and restraint."
"guided by these principles once more..."
to the world "our spirit is stronger and you cannot defeat us."
"a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves.."
those values upon which our success depends, honesty and hard work, ... loyalty and patriotism. these things are old, these things are true." "what is demanded is a return to these truths, a new era of responsibility."
"in the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship.
with hope and virtue let us endure what storms may come."
let it be said by our children's children that when faced with....
we did not turn back nor did we falter.... we delivered the gift of freedom to future generations."

wow i liked it way more the second time!!

for some reason there are so many male cats in the yards.
a black and white one and a yellow striped one have been around for several days, giving ketzl fits. this morning while i was watching tv there was a different fluffy cat out there and ketzl had pieces of that cat's fur in his claws. yikes. it took a while for him to calm down enough to come inside.

tomorrow is another day. a new day. a new era.
i agree with Gwen Ifill, that the change is possibly more one of generational shift than overcoming a racial barrier. it was a wonderful day today. glad i was here to enjoy and savor it.

back, dinner, theatre and poetry

so my regular tix at theatreworks in mt view are sunday at 7 pm. not sure if i've ever gone then. tonite after i got in, i met my coworker for dinner (mongolian bbq on castro st in mt view and it was yummy!!) and we saw "Twentieth Century," which was ok, not great. fun but not sterling. comedy set on a 1930's passenger train. set was fabulous. costume design magnificent.

afterwards, book buyers one of my favorite used bookstores was still open (yay) and i scored 11 cd's at 99cents each (!) including a britney spears. truly.

i know i am moving along when i head to the section on death/dying/grief and i really don't see anything i need to read. i know that we are getting a bunch of stuff from the group facilitator, but there was no book that really spoke to me. it feels good.

then, an amazing thing. i'm walking back to my car and i hear percussion that i know is resonant because it is in an alleyway. it is a guy (joey chang, cellojoe.com) who is making music on an assortment of things: plastic 5 gal drum, a small cymbal, cowbell, electric burner metal wells, etc. and there was a small portable typewriter. turns out he is a grad of Berklee College of Music in Boston, a cello player (duh) and he writes poems on request. here is what he wrote... i gave him the word "hope"

we have been at the end
of our rope for eight tough years but now we
have hope that can assuage our fears
and it's not just a new
president it's a new
mind set that change
is possible and probably
that we can make this
world better for our
sons and daughters
we can organize to expose
the lies of corporate
ties that we can do it
ourselves it's our job
and duty and world citizens
to have hope for
the future of our culture.

on a piece of paper 2x4".
wow. needless to say, i made a donation and he played percussion for me.
he is playing locally in mt view and santa cruz. need to share that info with jeremy. the official googler. wow. i still can't believe that wait is over.

just heard that the sharks beat the redwings last night in a fabulous game.
the best of the regular season say the commentators.
sorry we missed that one.

so the visit was a pretty normal one.
i'll be back in 3 weeks i think.
ketzl is happy to have me home tho he would prefer more time outside.
but it's a trifle too cold.
i hope i get up early enough to take him out in the morning. i have to empty the car to get ready to go to scruz to get the new cat tree.
meow he says.
sorry i say.

i'm back in Santa Monica and it's after Hanukkah

had to do some kind of rhyme there.

so in talking with friends and relations (that's from Winnie the Pooh, i think) in the Midwest and East Coast, i hear directly that it is ridiculously cold. going outside and feeling your nose hairs freeze, that's cold. wearing a hat and scarf (matching) inside and several layers and still being cold, that's ridiculous. and here in California we are in the midst of a real heat wave. and the building super here forgot to leave the air on in the hallways, so the entire building got overheated until they figured out how to turn it back on, but we had windows open and even had the a/c on today for a bit because without anything, the temp was 80 degrees in the house. ok enough weather. and i'm really sorry for everyone in the cold. it's not fair. but it is part of the reason why i live in california.

so the latest CNN etc is on the preparations for Tuesday. wow. i think they are the ones asking people to take a picture of exactly when the swearing in takes place and send it to them. it will no doubt be the most photographed event of all time. technology is incredible, now that almost everyone has a cell phone with a camera (now including ME!). so if the main event is 11AM - noon Tuesday, that means 8-9 AM in California. i need to watch this on my HDTV. or i have to get to the office by 8 AM, the likelihood of which happening is pretty low.

today was a pretty quiet day. eating, naps, one walk around the block, yoga at 4, a bit of TV, some of the LA Times (sheesh i miss a semi-decent paper). there was one brief paragraph that all local papers are giving up on theater review columns/columnists. not only is that people out of work, but this area depends so heavily on small and large productions. i heard on the radio a few weeks back that there are two reporters left nationally who focus on labor issues. i know that newpapers are having to reinvent themselves, but some of the specialized stuff just can't go away.

this is already a difficult year. more people are dying. Rabbi Michael Signer, who thrived on Jewish-Catholic dialogue and was at Notre Dame (pancreatic cancer, age 63). No matter what you thought of his ideas, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus was another major intellect. Andrew Wyeth. and probably many more of which i am not aware. and we are less than a month in to the new year, which was supposed to be better than last year, remember?

apparently David Letterman had a compendium of "Great Moments in Presidential Speeches" on last night. i'll try to find it on youtube. the only tv here is in my father's bedroom. it seems as though the traffic is very light tonight. that's nice, cuz it will make it earlier that i can hear the ocean.

wacky days, cooler nights

cooler, but not cold like Cleveland OH (7 degrees) or Wash DC (20 degrees) according to my informants.

tonight as i was checking my email, i flipped over to an oldies channel and saw some of an episode of "The Wild Wild West." What a wonderful show that was. Robert Conrad and Ross Martin. Ross was born Martin Rosenblatt in Poland, and designed many of his own disguises for the show. check out the wikipedia article. tonight also featured the great Michael Dunn as Prof. Miguelito Loveless, and also Richard Kiel (the man who is 7'2" and starred later in several James Bond movies as Jaws). wow. what a thrill.

a new cat scratcher with attachments came to the office today. ketzl was like a kid: he liked the box more than the actual item. but it has a lot of fun and interesting things. more to keep him busy. on monday MLK day, day off from work, i will head back to santa cruz to pick up a new cat tree. they are so sturdy and well-made. maybe get some sushi..and come back so ketzl has some time outside.

today i wore my african print shirt but it didn't do any good helping charlie and christine get launched. after getting to the airport here at 6 am, by 6 pm they were still in LA about to board a plane for london, instead of brussels as originally scheduled and they will be a day late but still in time to make the gorilla trek. this before charlie returns home and christine heads to mt. kilimanjaro with caspar. wow.

i'm tired.
looking forward to tuesday and obama's inauguration.
a day a long very long time coming.

long day, lovely moon, and more

apparently the moon is so large because it is really closer than it has been (in a long time or ever, I don't know) and tonight it begins to wane.

today started with termite inspection and yes after 26 years, the house has both kinds of termites. need to get the deck demolished before treating things. moving full steam ahead and giving references for the new landscape installer who also does design. apparently my post on facebook got noticed, and it's fine with her, Stephanie Curtis of Curtis Horticulture, www.curtishort.com.

took Ketzl for his nightly walk and saw the "object of interest," a cat sitting on a fence. lots of interesting body language and sounds from Ketzl, but he was willing to come home without too much difficulty this time.

sent to many folks the link to the Suze Orman download featured on Oprah.com. i think we can all use some financial consultation for the coming year. check it out. http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahshow/20081119_tows_bookdownload

and then there's the strange friendship of an elephant and dog at an elephant "retirement" range. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFz-FMj-9Ps sorry for the lack of sophistication. i do need to learn how to embed things.

today it was 84 degrees in santa rosa!! this morning after i put on a polarfleece shirt, creature of habit, it was warmer outside at 9 AM than it was in the house! 70's tomorrow. i know we need rain, but i think the wonderful warm sun has had an positive effect on many, not to mention the wonderful moon. tonight at group we were all laughing a lot and noticing good changes. one man is taking lots of photographs, especially beaches and sunsets and having a great time.

yesterday before dinner (but after i wrote the post) i went to pick up my new SIGG bottle at REI (to replace the one i left in Dulles airport on the way home from europe in september). the new one is PURPLE really strong metallic purple with a large butterfly...composed of lots of small details (peace sign, spider, yin yang, flower, lizard, guitar, so much more). i drink much more with a nice bottle at my desk. and more retail therapy: i bought myself an anniversary present for yesterday at the consignment store just down the parking lot from REI on Prospect Road. a very nice ring with 3 horizontal aquamarines. 14k gold. really very sweet. something to celebrate and remember the good times, and the gold jewelry!

happy anniversary

there were many significant dates over the 8+ years that Linda and I were together.

on January 11, 2001
Linda and I stood before the ark at Temple Emanu-El
and Rabbi Dana Magat blessed us.

tonight i will celebrate with Paula and Harold for Thai food, and hopefully sticky rice with mango for dessert.

walking in the moonlight

i think it's just past full moon.
what's the song by jim kweskin and the jugband
Ukulele Lady...
"I saw the splendor of the moonlight on Honolulu Bay" what a great sound.
the moonlight is so bright that it shines down the "sun tunnel"...moon tunnel?

tonight i undertook a complete bed re-do. washing the mattress pad, rotating the mattress, refitting the heated mattress pad, replacing the top mattress pad, sheets, and pillow cases and changing the comforter cover. no easy trick by myself, but it can be done.

saw the stairwell sisters tonight. 5 fabulous women musicians at mission city coffee roasting company, presented by fiddling cricket. they are really good. including Evie who does clogging/buck dancing. i think i saw them with my sister last year or the year before at the old time music festival in berkeley. elinor is back from car trip to arizona, jeremy is back from visit to LA today. it's nice to have a weekend at home. ketzl appreciates it. i think i'm the only person who takes a cat for a walk at 11PM when it is cold and all other cats and people are sensibly inside.

forgetting and remembering and tissue alerts

i forgot to mention that Patrick Swayze is on Barbara Walters tonight. he is also a pancreatic cancer survivor. his tumor was inoperable, mets in the liver. he calls it "living with the beast." but he wanted to continue the TV show. A&E The Beast. his wife is talking about how incredibly tough he is. he "raged his way through the pain" because he couldn't take massive pain meds and still be working on the show. "we're all dying. it's just a question of when." see below. and his wife of 33 years, Lisa is saying, it's just one foot in front of the other. you don't know how you can do it, but you do. barbara is asking him a ridiculous question: do you have any idea of how much more time you have? side effects of new chemo is less, but susceptible to cold. been there. it comes down to quality of life, going to moment to moment. "when do you decide that the fight isn't worth the decline in quality of life?" they have created a forest, 200 year plan in 15 years. he wants to leave a legacy in that way. he wants to last until they find a cure. now dr. fisher from Stanford is on. wow. Barbara and Patrick's first interview was 20 years ago. from Ghost, he remembers that the last line is "the only thing you take with you, is the love inside, you take it with you." oops tissue alert backsies. they made an appointment for a next interview in a couple of years. it's always good to have celebrities bring attention to a disease.

remembered that walking with Ketzl works best when i simply focus on the walk, without other agenda. so tonight i didn't take my cell phone, just walked. the sky was not really clear tonight, but i can still find orion's belt.

tonight i got bluetooth headsets for jeremy and me. moving ahead on the g-phone. it's not quite so scary.

today when i got home there were two packages on the front porch. the cat food was expected. but the other one, from Amazon, was a surprise. i didn't order it. there was no gift notification inside. the box contained a CD: music in the key of hanukkah, by Erran Baron Cohen, brother of Sasha Baron Cohen of Borat etc. i had heard him interviewed on NPR a few weeks ago. i know i spoke about it briefly with someone. not sure who. also in the box: a DVD: triplets of belleville. i love that movie. tim sent me a copy years ago cuz he liked it a lot. i don't know where this came from. any clues out there in blogland?

here is the "below" referenced above.

i've been thinking recently about how we all die. as patrick swayze said, we all die, we just don't know when. it's a weird thing to try to grapple with. i know we are all supposed to "live each day as if it were your last." but do any of us do that? it is so much easier just to push along each day, doing the things that are urgent at the moment. the dishes, the laundry, the bills, getting gas in the car, helping a friend...flying to visit family, painting a picture, organizing photographs....the list goes on and on. i don't have anything really profound to say at this time, just that i am thinking about it.

remembering. tissue alert ahead of time now. it continues. the year passing by. the first year. the year of firsts. holidays, anniversaries, birthdays pass. coming on sunday is the 11th, 1/11/01 was the day that rabbi blessed the two of us in front of the open ark at the synagogue. pushed for by linda (not surprisingly). we never had an "official" wedding. i said that we didn't need one, that i felt as committed and joined to her, just with our commitment to each other. now of course i see that it was something more than i could have done (and here i said i would try to stop beating up on myself). so this sunday i will remember. i have the pictures, thanks to "our assembled loved one."

movies to see: Doubt, Gran Torino, Frost/Nixon.

payback is heavy duty...

so the other side of the airport issue on friday was sunday
where the security line extended past US airways and to the overpass. never seen it so far. i made my flight. and there was Kaaren on her way back from TX visiting her mom who is dealing well with chemo for pancreatic cancer discovered several months ago.

tonight ketzl and i went for a walk (it was damp but not drizzling actually) and then he ran around the house like a wild beast. now he is in the old small tree. other tree relocated to christine and charlie's where it is being used. maybe i'll get another new sturdy one for this location from the guy in santa cruz.

tonight the support group for partner loss resumed. we got a new man. that makes 3. and 6 women.

thank you jeremy (i think) for the hanukkah/birthday etc present of a g-phone on the new family plan. this requires getting stuff off the old sim cards, and especially Linda's voice on the voicemail on the 7119 number, the only recording i have. yargh. last time i checked with ATT, they wanted me to purchase a propietary flash drive to get the data off the sim cards. i may resort to that. does not solve the problem with voicemail, so i'm not sure when i will switch carriers for sure. it will be a steep learning curve on this new-fangled item. i hope i am up to it.

from Santa Monica again

there were, count them, 24 people on the flight from San Jose to LAX yesterday. that is unheard of. on an early evening trip? i think many businesses were closed and many people had Friday off as well. astounding. anyway, the flight attendants had nothing to do.

the ocean is fine. i went this morning (thanks, Adam, for the nudge to be sure i went to the ocean...the trick is go early). the climb back up the incline is not so easy on the quadriceps. but i won't complain.

not sure where it was hiding, but apparently the DMV sticker for my father's car is now affixed. two legal cars. wonderful.

it is actually cool down here. we turned the heat on in the apartment and it makes a big difference. though my father is always cold. next on the shopping spree: long sleeve and long pants pj's or maybe thermals. so far i'm 4 for 4.

and we are traumatized not only by what is going on in Gaza, but also the public reaction. i think i cannot watch any more CNN on this topic, though i do credit one anchor Don Lemon for being pretty unrelenting in pursuit of an answer until it became clear he wasn't going to get anything like he was looking for.

i think we will all go to sleep early tonight.

it appears that i didn't do any NYEve write ups. parties were good. people were friendly. food was delicious (including the incredible neverending platter of triple brownies). so happy new year. 2009 has got to be better. the journey continues.