did you see the wonderful crescent moon and what i assume was venus?

incredible night gazing tonight. clear skies.

so last time "it was a day."
so there have now been two more. incredibly busy and overscheduled, with meetings, a funeral, a reception, parking issues, room set-ups, getting the bulletin in the mail, last minute everythings, etc etc etc. amazing that i don't get headaches. it feels like i should have one but i don't. just tired. slightly stiff neck. maybe it's time to break out the lavender neckwarming pillow i got. lovely purple fleece cover. it will smell like the lavender oil i put on the burn on my arm which is healing nicely even tho it still looks a bit yucky.

things are coming nicely for the endowed scholarship in Linda's name at Univ of Akron Law School. there is a class reunion this year (class of 1989, 20 years ago they graduated) and hopefully there will be some interest on the part of her classmates. the monies from the fund will be given each year to a single parent. those were quite some years, if you ask adam and david.

lots to do this weekend. more laundry. floors. packing up boxes (many) for shipping. seeing "I Am My Own Wife" here in San Jose with a great group of people. papers, always dealing with papers. hopefully some sleep. also need to pack things for monday group as we reconvene with everyone, not just those of us who went out to dinners. i have some papers to share. and the gluestick and scissors to return. (side note: my first word was "scissors" ... don't ask me why, but it's a story my mother told.)

every day i see or touch or use something that was linda's. the ancestral Q-tip holder in the bathroom. a scarf. the bed heater! (aka heated mattress pad). not to mention the bed and other furniture. a pen. a mirror, a brush. toothpaste. razor. scissors. every plate and piece of silverware. many of the coffee/tea mugs. this morning i ate my oatmeal with the large spoon stamped U.S. that purportedly came from linda's father. a favorite for cereal and soup. flashlights. umbrella. it's all here.

i need also this weekend to make better friends with the g-phone. make a list. do things on the list. git 'er done.

really, sometimes it's nice not to empty pockets

ok, so not the time recently when i left the watch in a pants pocket. i really thought that i was pretty good about checking. don't ever put a watch in a pants pocket, is the advice. ok. but i have been known to find a $20 bill in a coat pocket. and i know this means that it's a while between coat cleanings, (this has been mentioned before, i think) but still in my black coat are wonderful tickets: "Pippin" from March 2007 at Foothill College. Stephen Schwartz' first major show. wow. And "Jersey Boys" from December 27, 2006 when Linda got tickets for the whole family. so, it's nice to reach into a pocket and find these things. maybe after i get the coat cleaned, i will replace the tickets because it is comforting.

today was a major trip down memory lane. well, two trips.
i went to visit someone i worked with 30 years ago. someone who has never met my boys. she is a roman catholic nun. i got a bit lost wandering in the hills above los gatos looking for the facility where the older nuns live. but finally i found her, ate lunch (yummy tapioca pudding for dessert), visited in the library where she spends a day a week, driving down from san francisco, and looked at my pictures on the laptop. felt like we hadn't seen each other in a couple of years, but not 30. amazing.

after the meeting at the JCC i drove to Northwood School where both boys spent K-5 and the grade 2-3 teacher is retiring tomorrow (yeah, mid-year, has to do with fully vesting a year and benefits) and the kids were in her class in 1989-90 and 1994-95. she got to see pix from europe and J&D all grown up. i snagged a few of the old photo albums to share. a bunch of the old gang showed up today before i got there. that was nice.

taking advantage of nice weather, ketzl is outside in the front. i'm taking advantage to start doing the first of three loads of laundry. oh boy. the new jeans etc from the presidents day sale, some of which will need hemming. the pair from my sister (in exchange she got 3 pairs woo hoo). and i need dinner.

it's been a day.

so i guess i need to get something to eat.

it's all about the food

well, if it's not about the shoes or the wool socks.
so the food at Seven is delicious. beet and butter lettuce salad. arnold palmer (half iced tea and pink lemonade); other person had a dry grey goose vodka martini. yum! used my g-phone to research the difference between scotch and bourbon (our host is from Kentucky, home of bourbon, but drinks scotch) entree was another appetizer: wild mushroom and goat cheese strudel. wow. and the finish: chocolate lava cake with small scoop of vanilla gelato. (they called it a chocolate souffle but oh well). omg. i'm so full still 2 hrs later. it was yummy. but the place was empty. the waitress said Tu.Wed.Th are pretty slow unless there is something happening at the HP Pavilion, like Sharks or a concert. maybe tonight because of obama's speech.

all the pieces are in now. i can mail a bunch of packages, probably on Thursday.

i'm really tired. for some reason i'm waking up in the middle of the night and having trouble getting back to sleep. so i'm going to try to get to bed a little earlier tonight. that's the plan. ketzl needs his front claws trimmed. hope i can make that happen soon.

long time, no blog

typical weekend in santa monica. jeremy came down too and that was fun, the weekend before he started work (today) at google. we had a good time. one piece of excitement was a visit from someone from SPACES, interviewing Jack on his experience as part of the team that successfully rescued the Watts Towers. i then googled Watts Towers and found no mention of my father. poo. i suggested to the SPACES director that it could be updated. anyway, it was nice to see Jack so animated and remembering some of the details of that experience. Simon Rodia's Towers in Watts is a folk-art tribute to America, built over about 30 years in Los Angeles. i was there in 1959 when they did the load test, simulating a 100 MPH wind, that did not damage the towers. the i-beam that was exerting the pressure actually buckled. for those of you in southern california, i hope you've visited.

Trish is home. woo hoo. busy at work. trying to figure out how a bunch of us can go see "I Am My Own Wife," which Linda and I saw in SF several years ago. thanks, goldstar.

4 of us from the monday group had dinner together. one out sick, one home with sick dogs, one working in scruz. but as usual, those who came had a good time.

i reached in front of the electric tea kettle in santa monica and burned my arm. i had forgotten about it until after my shower. i wore a short sleeve shirt today to let it air out. hope that works.

ketzl got a walk in the morning and again at night. it is so funny to hear him crunching down the asparagus. and he likes the new organic treats i got at the health food store in santa monica.

minor tweaks mean bare front yard

wow clean up well underway. lots of stuff gone. deck dismantled. it looks very empty. but things grow back.

tonight after several different snafus, Nath and i saw "A Picasso" at San Jose Rep. excellent play. 80 minutes with no intermission. the story of Pablo Picasso (formerly Pablito Ruiz) and an investigator for the Germans in Paris, looking to have him identify three pieces of art. great repartee. great lines. "he's an atheist." "but a Catholic athiest." "everyone is a law breaker. you just need to find out which law." "hitler also likes to paint." "yes, but he has a problem with borders." and the best part, House of Siam was still open so we could have sticky rice with mango. really the best. the rice was fresh and warm. fabulous.

i think the change in weather has something to do with it. things were weird all over today i think. frantic. strange energy. busy is good.

a tuesday masquerading as a monday

even though we love a monday off, it makes things a bit weird. fortunately it was a very productive day at work.

the weekend finished well. very successful forays to the thrift store for the half-price presidents day sale. woo hoo. and elinor and i did major damage on insurance papers to get reimbursed from the long-term health care policy. and the weather cooperated for my drives up and back to oakland.

then the monday night group (well most of us) ate at Elephant Bar. well one man and 4 women. it was nice to be relaxed and out of the same monday night room. and the food wasn't too bad. i remember that linda and i ate there, at the bar, on one of her early visits. i need to get a photo album called "restaurant photos." did i already say that?

i decided that unless there is a party here, i'm going to stop using the dishwasher. i already rinse dishes pretty well, so what's the point of letting them sit in the machine until there are enough to run a cycle, after a week. so i'm going to do what they do in LA...use the dishwasher as a drying rack. and wash the same plate, cup, fork, bowl, pan, over and over again.

this morning it was raining and then it cleared. the host on the KKUP show "Don't Panic it's just us folks" said look outside...there are rainbows. And there was a whole huge rainbow spanning from west to east. it was wonderful. linda loved loved rainbows. the real things in the sky, and rainbow stuff. the other morning the crystal prism hanging on the family room sliding door cast a rainbow on the front doorknob.

starting on minor tweaks to the landscaping. the old hot tub is leaving tomorrow and the deck (muchly rotted away). in front it will be mostly cleaning up and thinning as we concentrate on the backyard. i use "we" advisedly. i'm the commentator/watcher. i am excited and nervous. hope the weather cooperates tomorrow.

on another blog, i learned of the death of Louie Bellson, a famed drummer. the blogger has a pair of his drumsticks, a gift from Bellson's then wife, Pearl Bailey, to her father. his 2nd (?) wife was a classmate at Earlham College of my ex-husband. small world. 3 degrees of separation. or something.

i think i need to add a thermal blanket to the bed. it's pretty cold in the mornings, tho i know that there are families who have much less heat. but i can make a difference by adding a cotton thermal.

still lots to do. a few more things to eat, papers to file. the cat has been really nice about coming back to bed and letting me sleep in the morning. good cat.

well it's officially sunday now in California

stopping first to post on facebook got me out of Valentine's Day. it is wonderful having friends who take me out for yummy persian food tonight. thanks guys. it was wonderful. including lumps of sugar to drink tea through. my father had a russian word for it: prekuska. it was fun. now that i'm home, ketzl wants to go outside but it is very cold and windy out. tomorrow morning.

got stuff done around the house. never enough. nice to be home this weekend. going up to see Elinor on Monday and then the group will get together at Elephant Bar. don't want a monday evening to go to waste.

carolyn and i had a great time. talked nonstop for 6 hrs, i got to hear a brief piece on the viola de gamba and she left at 8:15 am for stanford. yummy thai food too. got to introduce her to several new dishes which she can now try at the new thai restaurant up by her.

i might even look for some old valentines cards. there was the year when linda bought a pack of kids ones and put them all around at work and at home. it was all good except the one i didn't find that had a lollipop on it. gross.... maybe i'll get some valentines for monday night. good idea.

linda loved to celebrate all events. valentine's day, birthdays, anniversaries. marking dates. the cycle of the year. the change of seasons. the passage of time. celebrating being together.
`
ketzl really wants to go out but it is too late. 12:12 AM. does that count as a padiddle? that's when you show up for a kiss. :~)

friday the 13th, times two

or more, depending on what you are counting.
so mathematicians, how often do we get a friday the 13th in a february which gets us another friday the 13th in march (except in a leap year). and how does that compare to the rate of fridays the 13th not starting in february? inquiring minds want to know.

february 13th is a birthday day. for at least two of my friends, and my late mother, Ann Levine. and it is a date of death. for the brother of one of those friends it is three months, and it is ten months since Linda died. there is a whole lot of stuff bound up in this one day tomorrow. "it doesn't get any better but it does get different."

and as i was driving home tonight, pondering all those elements, the tears come again. briefly. but they come. sometimes everything is just hard.

Wednesday already, more rain on the way

fortunately ketzl and i were able to go out for a walk, and then later he went out on his tether. cool. a bit damp. but better than nothing. most of the worms are now gone, thank goodness. the 20 or 30 a few doors down was pretty daunting. ketzl played with a few tonight but i think has given up eating them. hey, it's protein.

good news. my friend from healdsburg up north by santa rosa is coming to a gamba workshop at stanford on saturday. she will come down the night before and we will do dinner and she will stay overnight. i had to explain that ketzl does not recognize shabbat to let me sleep in on Saturday mornings. ah well.

having trouble resolving the ebay hacking that daniel noticed a few days ago. live chats have timed out or something. they say they have notified sellers that they were not genuine offers. but i can't seem to reset the password.

dr. vint cerf spoke last night at the synagogue. he had a delicate balance between speaking to the average consumer and the highly sophisticated techies in the audience. he is considered one of the fathers of the internet (not Al Gore) and he talked about the past, present and future of this amazing thing. like getting a cell phone call from your refrigerator reminding you to bring home marinara sauce but all the other ingredients for a pasta dinner are available. very sweet man, great sense of humor. his official job title: chief internet evangelist at google. pretty nifty.

the monday night group is happy to get together for dinner on monday, when technically we are on week 1 of 2 weeks off. elephant bar on hamilton. one of the first restaurants linda and i went to on her early trips to california. i wrote a small poem and shared it last week. written on Jan 13, 10 months after Linda died.

not a tissue alert (i don't think):

same and different
to my monday night group, with love and appreciation

we are so very different
one from another
different backgrounds
different jobs
different ages
different experiences
individuals who would not under normal circumstances
necessarily be drawn to one another.
and yet the one thing makes us all the same
is so much more important
than our differences

it is our very humanity
our sameness in the face of loss
having to claw our ways back to life
rejoicing at the baby steps
not knowing when the tears will come joins us
laughing together joins us
cheering each other on with each new step on our journeys
as we reassemble the pieces of our shattered existences
and move to a new wholeness.

and so while we are so very different
we are all so much more the same.

sunday evening by the ocean....

in my "25 things about me" on facebook, i said i cannot imagine living far from water, especially the ocean. that's one of the real treats about coming down for visits. tonight the wind is blowing too hard to leave the window open even a crack, but the traffic has pretty much died down already and i can hear the wind-whipped waves crashing. did not make it all the way down to the water today. next time, i promise myself. we did go on two walks today, not long, but that was all i could do. my father would not leave the house. my sister is far more creative and persistent than i am, i guess. last time she got them out for lunch. i went and did a small bit of shopping for dry cereal and hand lotion and gum for me for the airplane. i had an awful time last night even though i was chewing the whole way so i was not about to be trapped sans gum.

for some unknown reason i cannot reply to emails from here. so i have to start a new thread and remember the email address. grrrr. not sure what's up with that.

new phone seems to work ok. we called my aunt in florida and the daughter of an old friend of my father's here in Santa Monica. invited someone in the bldg over for tea bu she was busy. got a random email from one of the "flower ladies." she was trying to send email to her son on a new laptop and somehow got my email address in there by mistake and clicked "send" too quickly. anyway it was nice to hear from her and send regards back and forth. 3 sisters and a brother came to the Saturday farmers market for many many years and made friends with a lot of people, including my parents. one of them in particular still sends cards and letters, which is so sweet. i write her back every so often expressing my gratitude for her steady connection.

"and so it goes."
after breakfast i'll call the cab and head back.

it was a good day with friends at the SF Intl Gift Show. Found a great source for reusable shopping bags that i will try to "sell" to the Mitzvah Day committee that we should buy a bunch. fair trade, good stuff, made in Korea. the show is really overwhelming. one would need several full days to see it all. but i did find my favorite jewelers from LA, Baraket. and made several purchases. so i'm feeling overall much better. byzantine is a lovely chain. not hollow. yummy. see, i learned a lot of things from Linda, including how to evaluate gold.

so off to pack and get ready for bed. i'm not willing to try writing notes on facebook, but maybe i can do a status. decisions, decisions in the modern age of connectivity.

in the backyard...

nothing gets Ketzl going like two full size raccoons in the backyard. OMG they are huge. he gets really noisy and crashes into the sliding doors in the family room and the bedroom while hissing and growling. not sure how close they eventually came. i turned on the back porch lights to try to get them to leave. poor cat was very very very upset.

more than 200 posts, 100 facebook friends

it's all about the numbers.
next birthday i'll be part of the Beatles song: will you still love me when i'm 64?

today when i got home it was clear but damp out. the rain has brought out some of the longest worms i've ever seen. ketzl had a wonderful time tormenting worms up to 6 or even 8 inches long out on the sidewalk. i wasn't happy. there was a bit of dragging (well, it's one way to file down his claws, right?)

in my wanderings today picking things up for a variety of occasions (grape juice and wine, more dried fruit for the Tu B'Shevat seder, paper goods for the synagogue...i encountered sale asparagus at Zanotto's. ketzl was happy. he is now stretched out over the heating duct sleeping. i wonder if when the heat goes off, he will come down to the bedroom.

i'm almost packed to go to LA. trip to SF tomorrow (gift show!!) and early evening flight. this time i'm bringing down a phone with sound boost for my father and a paper towel stand.

new shoes. lovely new shoes. i think maybe i'm done with shoe shopping at Sierra Trading Post. but then i've said that before. i'm not quite Imelda, but i do take it as a sign if there is only my size. in red. or orange. or new balance. or.

jeremy is having a good time on his road trip. now in seattle. hope he gets to see the fish tossing at the Pike Street Market tomorrow. that's a great place! for those readers who don't see my facebook notes, i was a cox'n for a women's crew team (lake merritt rowing club) and we won a medal in seattle at the nationals. that was exciting!

blog vs facebook & metamorphosis

oh dear
who am i writing for? (well hopefully me) who is reading? who is reading both maybe? do i write different things here and on facebook? it is way too confusing. not to mention time consuming.

how progress is measured:
making plans more than just getting out of bed in the morning.
it is not critical to have a box of tissues nearby.
actually making something to eat for dinner.
not having to force myself to clear the sink, empty the dishwasher.
not leaving the tag reference to the blog and pancan on every email sent.
they seem like small steps.

but think of what metamorphosis is.
the complete disintegration and reintegration of all the parts of the caterpillar into the parts of the butterfly. how does it happen? is it at the atomic level? the molecular level? the cellular level? whatever...the caterpillar actually melts, dissolves and reassembles into the butterfly.
someone in group said last night that we are all finding "the new normal."
isn't that what the butterfly is to the caterpillar? the new normal?
and so we who are grieving actually do that: melt and reassemble ourselves into the new normal, which we don't quite know what it will look like until we get there. ever changing. but moving forward, one step at a time.

oh dear.
David Letterman just had an awaful joke but i have to share it.
the new prime minister of iceland is apparently a lesbian. (the audience and band cheered). apparently, he said, she's the only foreign leader who likes bush.
grooooaaaaannnnn.

weekend reflections

so the steelers won. if the bills (or patriots .. insert your favorite team here) weren't in it, did it matter? well it was a good game. that's more important.

carrie fisher was on the NPR show "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me." that was nice. go princess leia!

two strands from the bar mitzvah speeches on saturday:
the boy said what he learned from his torah portion was the importance of trust, determination and love. but the most important is love. and the father said that there is no inherent reality; we create it with our words, our actions and our connections.

wow. that's enough for today.