counting down...one more work day...

and it's still really too hot inside. fans working hard, windows open appropriately (remember i trained with the Queen of Airflow).

things are pretty much packed except for toiletries in the suitcsse. carryon is mostly ready. i'm a bit daunted by the 'one last day' thing that is tomorrow. paperwork in order. cell phone won't be happening ... but i will have some access to email. i have two small books in which to write. a list of things to bring home. i have batteries for the camera all charged up. i need to find the small soft case with a drawstring that holds the camera and stuff. plus the battery charger and adapter plug. and phone cord because i will take it as backup camera and alarm. is that silly?

and then there was the special request from Elyse...kraft macaroni and cheese. not annie's shells with white cheddar. the regular stuff. the cheesiest. perhaps we chalk it up to pregnancy cravings but she says it's just the normal one for her. so there are 5 boxes packed now. happy to help.

house/cat-sitter came by tonite to check on things. things are ok. key still works. it's all good. except for the one last day at work thing. things will be fine, i know. important to get accustomed to me not there, i think. in some ways it's good to be part of the woodwork, and in others a bit of a burden. balance. balance is good.

how am i progressing in this second year? well, i think. ready to start thinking about (is that oblique enough?) maybe looking for someone to be with. it is lonely being alone. i don't mind being alone, just not all the time. by nature i am a very social being (a social butterfly, even). and not having someone to share day to day as well as special times is not my preference...at least not in the long run. i still feel very supported by all my friends "out there" but it is not the same, y'all know that.

well, ketzl has been most patient but i think he's ready for a walk. he must have slept all day because the cantaloupe was not finished when i got home. it was 83 degrees inside when i got home. not an acceptable indoor temperature. but i'm working on fixing that with airflow (see above).

busy week means no blogging

it is really hitting me that (as of today) i have 7 work days before i leave for israel. that means a lot of head down/hunkering to get stuff done. at work and at home. progress is being made. also working on the physical body (chiropractor and acupuncture) to deal with some misalignments etc. more next week. in the meantime, ice and ibuprofen.

back in santa monica where things are ok. tomorrow is father's day. how lovely that i get to spend it here.

the group that planned the dedication of the mikvah (ritual bath) at the JCC in Los Gatos had a dinner to celebrate and debrief. it was lovely. this week dinner plans include jeremy and daniel on thursday (working around jeremy's soccer commitments). last night was the hysterical show of silicon valley gay men's chorus and kinsey sicks, "america's favorite dragapella beautyshop quartet," of which there is nothing like it/them. ever. fortunately the people i had brought with me did not feel i had oversold KS. omg. wonderful, as always. and we were in the second row, on the right. www.kinseysicks.com or www.svgmc.org if you are interested in more. it was wonderful to see jeff and razmik. we have been out of touch of late and there is too much drama to relate. everyone is ok now, mostly.

hopefully, my 2nd cousin is coming over tomorrow morning with her two adorable girls. even a brief visit will be nice. then maybe the deli for lunch. that seems to be one place where we can reliably go. then perhaps to the co-op health food store where i can get stuff to take with (they have the new blueberry blast luna bar, and hopefully some tofu jerky and energy nuggets).

in the second year now
i have still not gone back to as much jewelry as i used to wear... taking it all off for the mikvah was interesting. i've found some nice new rings (different colors, nice stones) which i have started wearing. it is a much more conscious thing now.

our fearless leader from the monday night group reminded me of her bus analogy. i've related this before but i think it bears re-telling. people we lose who are dear to us are passengers on our bus. at first, soon after the death, they sit beside us. we are aware of their presence at all times. but later, they move around. sometimes in front, across the aisle, or maybe a few rows back. sometimes we see them, other times they are out of sight. but they never get off our bus. they are always there. so maybe it just takes tuning in to find out where they are located at any given point in time.

tuesday is a bocce ball celebration of the one year anniversary of the death of the husband of someone from group. we will be there to support CC, of course accompanied by food, along with bocce. i'm looking forward to it.

the apricot tree is in full harvest mode. i brought maybe 4 pounds down with me, along with the 4 boxes of Aussie bites which apparently are not available at Costco down here. i'm doing my best to keep people happy.

a productive day...

started out with the SJ Pride Parade... a much much smaller and less significant event than the northern cousin in SF. ah well. we had fun. only took about a half hour (after the walking actually started...). got a cup of coffee while waiting for it to start. on the way back to my car, i found a 10" tall gauze butterfly ornament that someone had lost. i need to figure out a way to attach it somehow inside the car. Linda stopped by to say hello.

i shopped a bit at the japantown farmers market on the way home and got more white nectarines, PLUMS, berries...oh YUM.

then, with a nice stretch of time at home (woo hoo!) i made significant dents in a variety of piles. more sorting, lots of stuff for the giveaway stack (which involved trying some things on first).

the major accomplishments (tissue alert)
a good start on Linda's side of the double sink in the master bathroom.
some things made me laugh as i tossed them: a can of mousse from Marc's (Linda's favorite discount store in Akron, so it was at least 10 years old), marked 3 for $1. ok. some lotions smelled a little off, and i have plenty of others. what do i do with the two lighters that have fluid but no longer work because the mechanism is broken? also what do i do with the bottles of oil in the kitchen that are past their prime ... i'm opting for just tossing the whole bottles in the trash rather than clogging up the sink with old oil. some things just can't re recycled as much as i'd like to.

in the bedroom was able to move the pillows that were on the side table. i remember clearly getting them at Bed Bath & Beyond when her level of discomfort rose and we were trying to fix that. they had been sitting there since a year ago April. also on that table was the water filter and tubing that had been connected to the oxygen concentrator. that was difficult. not tossed. not quite yet.

in the closet i found 3 generations of camp laundry bags, including (get this) a striped one that my mother (of blessed memory) had made, marked "Debbie Levine." wow. that's a keeper too.

in one of the laundry baskets i found Linda's traveling shorts... a pair of lightweight light blue denim...the ones she wore on that amazing 3 day trip from Ohio to California in May 2000. they had since been trimmed to remove some of the more unraveled edges. also a keeper. that was difficult too.

i think this was one of the longest concentrated periods of time i have spent at home in AGES. between going to los angeles and so many activities here when i am in town, i'm always on the run. it was nice for the time to be so productive.

much is yet to be done.
planning to go up to San Francisco for the parade on June 28. we'll see if that works out. depends on how comfortable i am with trip preparations.

a few more items i left out earlier

so today at the puny pride festival, i did purchase a narrow rainbow cling stripe for the inside of the back window of my car. i'd been looking for a cling rainbow star of david but couldn't find any online. the last time i had one was about 9+ years ago, right around the time when Linda moved in. daniel was still riding in my car and it was offensive to him and he removed it. ah well. times have changed since then. and now i have a rainbow there. i also got the Human Rights Commission yellow equal sign on the navy blue square bumpersticker. i think it is important to have these in view. i remember when i was first coming out how reassuring i found it to see these small tokens of commonality on someone's car. "you are not alone" they said to me. "i'm like you" they indicated. so it's the least i can do, for anyone out there who is looking at my car.

got a nice phone call from elly. she found online the blessing for affixing a mezzuzah and they put up the one i sent them. a lovely metal woven one, an oxidized copper blue=green color. i am honored to have been able to help create a part of their jewish home. hannah and elisheva. a lovely couple.

i'm a little out of order, reading "The Stuff of Thought" by Steven Pinker. it is actually the 3rd in his series on language. very well written. dense and yet playful. been through a discussion on verbs. now onto nouns. language is very important. our use of words was one of the things that brought me and linda together 10 years ago.

it's been quite a week...

running, dashing, darting, fixing, calling, typing, buying, meeting. and so on.

first of all facebook is a real timesuck. anyone who is on already knows that. so i sometimes forget that some are not connected in that way and i need to create more reflective pieces here on the blog.

today was Pride Shabbat at Temple Emanu-El. things went well. not as large a turnout as i had hoped but that's the way it goes. it's a busy weekend, lots of graduations, etc. lunch after was fun, then i went down to Discovery Meadow (i think that's what it's called) for the Family Festival. they charge admission tomorrow and i don't need to hear the louder music than today. in comparison to SF or Santa Cruz (never been but assume it's good), Boston, Long Beach...ANYWHERE... San Jose is really puny. the jewish contingent will be in the parade tomorrow. the parade is about half an hour. not sure if it is because we are so close to SF and so much more energy goes there... oh well.

what that will do, however, is make it possible for me to return home and continue the work around the house... laundry, floors, etc. i've begun packing for the israel trip, july 1-20. even have my plane ticket. woo hoo. because next weekend, after seeing the silicon valley gay men's chorus perform on friday night with Kinsey Sicks (they do rate first letter capitals!) i head down to santa monica again.

i hope the alignment in my spine is holding. i have an appt with julie the most amazing chiropractor on tuesday. i've had some tingling in the arm. not sure if that is a good thing or not. her suggestion: no heavy lifting, pushing, etc. til she can see what is going on. already most likely one couple is pulling out of the trip because we think he had a disc rupture. ow. major ow with lots of colorful words spraying out.

there is so much to do, here at home and at work, in the next two weeks. it will get done, somehow.

ahah almost forgot. last night i saw Tim Lincecum (also rates capital letters) win his 2nd no-hitter. thanks, Linda F. for inviting me. Lincecum is amazing to watch. only 23. and his hit played a crucial role in the 3-run giant 5th inning. very fast game. he threw only 110 pitches. amazing. lots of fun. except getting lost in hunters point on the way home was less than exciting. i promise never to do that again. i did make it home safely. that's what's important.

there is a new fence in the backyard. almost completely done. ketzl has had a great time climbing the old wood stacked on the driveway. he is part mountain goat, i think. tonight there is a cat outside in the back. ketzl is racing around to different windows trying to see who it is. and it's almost apricot season. i had 3 as appetizers before heading out to pho. yum. yum.

so tomorrow is another early morning. i hope i can avoid the 1 AM bedtimes which have been the norm this week, for some unknown reason. it doesn't really matter whether or not i set the alarm. ketzl wakes me up by 6:30 at the latest. tho of course he usually chooses as the day he will sleep in the one day when i have to be up early. murphy's law holds.

i had no idea it was going to be so difficult this afternoon

having read aloud my words for the mikvah dedication, with no real trouble, it was surprising to me that it was a tissue moment, all three times when i spoke them for the assembled groups. fortunately i had tissues, enough to share with a few weepy people in each group. (anyone who has not yet seen the poems i wrote, or if anyone would want to see roughly the "speech" send an email, please.) overall the event was very successful and i'm sorry i don't have the email list of the committee, so it will have to wait for tomorrow to write to them all, congratulating us on a wonderful afternoon program. almost in every room, i sort of stunned people into silence. the other presenters were about using mikvah for monthly purity (which some people think of as "the" reason), for leadership, recovery from illness, a milestone birthday, and conversion. there were not really a lot of questions, but there was some discussion in each group. and then everyone took the small ribbons i had cut into 18" lengths, and in each room tied them together and then when we got downstairs, the sections were connected until all of our individual pieces were part of a whole that represented all of our personal experiences into the larger whole. it was lovely. and then we heard the blessing for affixing a mezzuzah, heard the shofar and did a mini-tour of the facility. it was wonderful. and then i went to greek dinner with steve and lois. including chocolate lava cake (the special) for dessert.

so it's full of surprises.

and now the Tony Awards.

the view from the apartment in santa monica etc.

is always wonderful. the waves are really rolling in. the wind is blowing more now. the beach is almost cleared at 7:00 pm. dinner is almost ready. we went to the movies "The Brothers Bloom" which had some great moments and a few wonderful lines. ("i think what you have is constipation of the soul.") Adrien Brody is wonderful as is Rachel Weisz.

tomorrow i return to SJ early to be part of the dedication of the community mikvah. that will be a lot of fun (i hope). i will be one of the presenters, on using the mikvah to mark the end of a year of mourning.

moving right along is next week's Pride Shabbat (10 AM Saturday the 13th at Temple Emanu-El), followed by the Pride Parade on Sunday, for which i seem to be the organizer of the jewish contingent because no one else was doing it and we need to be there.

and airplane ticket for israel. yes urgently. cat/house-sitter arranged for most of the trip which is wonderful.

and to use one of my father's phrases, "and so it goes."

so it's june now

and all of the May stuff is behind me, behind us.
now that i have formally committed to going to Israel on the synagogue trip in July, i am starting to really panic about how much i need to get done before then. couple that with the changes in the office and we are a bit freaked. so i am taking good care of myself including chiropractor, acupuncture and chinese herbs, massage and all kinds of good stuff like that.

jeremy is in good spirits, starting his first internship at google in about two weeks. daunted by the size of the task but he has this great small smile that lets me know he is really excited and holding it in. i saw him last night on my way home from group...first time in a month since he had been gone to NCarolina for 3 weeks. daniel will head east in July when school is done.

pieces coming together.
moving on.

this weekend is the opening celebration of the mikvah (community ritual bath) at the JCC. i will be speaking on using the mikvah to mark the end of a period of mourning. it will be good to share.