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Thursday, February 28, 2013

New Mugs!

Yippee, yea and hooray, my new mugs arrived! While I was poking around on line, looking for something entirely different of course (socks, I imagine. Always hunting socks), I discovered A Fine Mess Pottery. Lori Keenan Watts is the potter and she is just 99 and a half shades of fabulous.

Check these out. I’m just wild about the flashing*, the sweet curl at the foot and the lovely, loose, baroque-ish flourish at the base of the handle. And then, THEN, there’s the buxom, almost zaftig, proportions (if these mugs were live, they’d never go wanting for a Saturday night date), the embossed Persian-ish designs and the size (not too small and not too large -- they’re just right).

A Fine Mess Pottery is located in Augusta, Maine -- a list of galleries where you can find her work at this link. Ms. Watts ships too.

'scuse me, I gotta go pour some coffee.





*FLASHING:  Color change in fired clay or slip due to direct flame contact and residual ash deposition in wood firing, or due to variable currents of vapor deposition in salt and soda firing.  Flashing can occur on almost any light-colored clay body, but is most dramatic on porcelain bodies and slips.
Definition from The Appalachian Center for Craft, Tennessee Technical University.

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Chuck and Lu -- A Love Story


My parents were madly in love. Chuck and Lu were bring-the-house-down mad for each other. Sadly, this didn’t guarantee immunity from the rages of life, the realities they were both not so ready for.

They fought like George and Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf, like Tina and Jonathan in Diary of a Mad Housewife.

Sans booze. They didn’t need inebriants to fuel their scenes.

Mind you, the time of heavy ruckusing was while we four kids were going through puberty. They should have sent us all away to prep schools for the perpetually badly behaved. Seriously.

OK, except for the youngest. Celeste was a tremendous and talented student, helpful to both parents in so many ways, calm and funny too. I believe they got her from a better class of stork.

In any case, I’d forgotten the big, giant even, amore that my folks shared until my mother was up for one of her periodic operations at Mass General. She had Neurofibromatosis Type 2 -- like me and my little sister. Daddy was staying with me at the apartment I shared with my pal Cynthia in Allston.

These surgeries go anywhere from eight to 18 hours. Daddy and I spent the day reading, napping, eating too much and being nervous. Eventually surgery ended. It went about as well as could be expected. No major miracles but mia madre was gonna be OK.

The docs let us in to see her in the post surgery intensive care unit. We were only permitted to stay a few minutes of course. The whole of that time was spent with Daddy leaned over the hospital bed rail, clucking and chanting endearments to her in Italian. IN ITALIAN! I had no idea that my father knew the language OR that my mother and he had this private love code. None of us kids had ever heard them speak like this.

I believe it was then, this precise moment, that I knew beyond doubt that my folks were still wild about each other AND that they had a sort of romance that was hard for me to understand.

Love with rockets.

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

“The problem is just that you are cheap”

 Today's post, written by Kay, originally appeared on the blog Balloon Juice last week (February 22nd). She's graciously allowed me to post it here.

 Kay hits the nail on the head and the ball outta the park on the whole we-can't-find-job-candidates-with-the-right-skills issue.

Read on:

“The problem is just that you are cheap”

By Kay February 22nd, 2013

 I’ve been hearing from my clients for a long time that many local employers don’t train people anymore, so I’ve been listening to the discussion among elite opinion sellers and politicians about the “skills gap” with a healthy dose of skepticism.

While I certainly understand why a business would want their employees or the broader public to pick up the cost and risk of training and new hire selection, I’m not sure that’s properly described as an “employee skills gap.” I think maybe that’s partially described as “employers shifting cost and risk from the employer to their prospective employees or the public”. It’s expensive to train people, and then there’s always risk you’ll train them and they’ll fail at the job or take those skills elsewhere.

In addition to listening to my clients, I’ve also been listening to my son, Joe. He’s 18 and a private person, a genuinely nice guy who probably wouldn’t choose to reveal a whole lot on this blog so I won’t go into details on his life. He’s a high school graduate who has not yet decided what he wants to do. He started working full-time this past summer after he graduated, and he first temped at a local auto parts supplier, a Mexican company. People here tell me this is a “bad” employer, and Joe found that to be true. They had no interest in training anyone, constant turnover and really disgruntled employees. Joe kept looking while working there, and eventually got an interview with another local manufacturer. This employer has a good reputation among the local workforce.

When he went to apply for the new job the woman who did the initial interview was the former director of the YMCA daycare he attended as a child -- he was as easygoing then as he is now -- and she passed him to the next step. At that point he was given a test booklet. This company tests new hires to see if the employee could be slotted into training programs in areas like machining -- paper and pencil test, no calculator allowed, show your work, they score it right in front of you. He did well on the test, and they started him as a “machinist assistant.” He works alongside a machinist who is originally from Scotland but moved here when he met and then married a local woman. Their division makes specialty furniture and equipment for hospitals and nursing homes. I don’t know if Joe will pursue this work. He’s 18. He’s not even past the permanent hire point yet. But he’s making appreciably better than minimum wage and he’s learning something and he accepts what is very hard work and long hours (mostly) happily.

This company still offers training and accepts some risk that this may not work out for one or both parties. Joe’s not taking all the risk. He’s not racking up debt training or acting as an unpaid intern. They’re not insisting someone else train their hourly employees, or demanding an employee volunteer for months in exchange for an eventual paid position. This is an investment they make, a risk they take, and they accept that investments don’t guarantee a return. They’re capitalists, in other words. They’re successful at this capitalism thing, too. They started with 5 employees 70 years ago and now they have more than 3000.

Here’s a different take on the skills gap, where the focus is on the employer rather than the employee or government:
it’s been underway for a while, and the thing that has changed, frankly, is that employers no longer expect to train anybody.
 Well, they say the best way to know that is if [that candidate] has done the same job already and you say, okay, well you’ve done the same job already, you’re qualified, but we want you to have had the same job recently. Also, we don’t want you to have been laid off because we are afraid then that you must be rusty or got laid off because you weren’t very good … and I don’t blame them [employers] for trying to reduce the uncertainty, but there are consequences to that
20 years ago you probably didn’t hear many employers saying that – certainly 30 years ago they all said ‘we’ll hire for attitude and train for skill.’ And now, almost nobody says that – they say they expect people to hit the ground running.
Same author. Here he gives employers a simple test. Why should employees take all the tests? We’re coddling these capitalists, don’t you think? Let’s test the employers. 

I like this question:
Before any employer jumps to the conclusion that hiring problems are caused by the labor market, take the following test:

1. Have you tried raising wages? If you could get what you want by paying more, the problem is just that you are cheap. The fact that I cannot find the car I want at the price I want to pay does not constitute a car shortage, yet a large number of employers claiming they face a skills shortage admit that the problem is getting candidates to accept their wage rates. 
This spot on essay originally appeared on Balloon Juice, February 22nd, 2013,
written by Kay



Monday, February 25, 2013

Monday in Cat Heaven

Our visitor cats, Rocco, Greta and Gaston, have put a song in my head this morning. It's Shawn Colvin's Shotgun Down the Avalanche.
I'm riding shotgun down the avalanche
Tumbling and falling down the avalanche

So be quiet tonight be sure to
Step lightly
On this mountain of new fallen snow
 A haunting tune.

Randomly, I believe Gaston has become spoiled. This morning I set out a dish of Tuna and Mackerel Fancy Feast (flaked) for brekkie. He looked up at me and said 'You're kidding me? You know I hate mackerel!,' and ponced off.

Rotten cat...wonder if he likes chicken...

Meanwhile, Coco sits on her throne of grocery bags, waiting for me to toss her Super Balls in just the right way.
'Nah, ya put too much English on that one. Try it again. S'OK kid, you'll get it.'
Our princess is very supportive and encouraging in her efforts to make us better pitchers.

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Titanium Clad Snot Twaddle

'I'm not a feminist but...'

I heard this titanium clad inanity, (you know -- back when I had hearing), all too often back in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. It was spouted by female friends who were  objecting to pay inequality and/or being turned away from jobs solely due to their lady bits.

They’d apparently fallen hard for the backlash bullshit spewed by Rush Limbaugh and the frat boys who couldn’t get it up without a full head of I’m-so-superior-and-you’re-JUST-a-girl going on. You know -- they were all: 'feminists are fat, angry, hairy man haters who can't get a date.

And so many sad damsels bought the brainwashing. There’s even a Facebook page entitled Ladies Against Feminism!
Feminist:
adjective
1.
advocating social, political, legal, and economic rights for women equal to those of men.
noun
2.
an advocate of such rights.
from dictionary.com -- not exactly a hotbed of radicalism. Smacks more of 'gee, duh, YEAH' than extremist man hating, eh?
Feminist -- Mary Ann Maderer

Feminists -- Caroline de Marinis and Lucia Fanelli
With Nora Ephron’s essays on the women’s movement during the ‘60s and ‘70s in mind, I’ve been having conversations about women-in-the-workplace fun with my good friend ‘Penelope.’ She’s a little bit older than me but younger than Nora would have been had she stuck around on this good green earth.

Penelope's response to all this 'I'm not a feminist but...' plaxicoing:
Crazy, isn't it? I don't see how any thinking woman OR man, for that matter, could NOT be feminist. I've never been a militant personality, and I think many people think if you're not militant, you're not a feminist.
Maybe it's just because I'm old and crotchety, but it seems to me that this generation of women has lost the sense of righteous indignation that we had in the 1960s and 70s about these issues. Now that I'm "back in the 60s" (ie., OLD) I find myself becoming angry about the lack of collaboration that women have regarding equality in the workplace. We used to be noisier about this stuff. Instead, it seems like an entire generation of women have reverted to wanting to look like sex kittens, snag the eyes of the men and just flounder through life trying to look like Barbie dolls.
Tell it Penelope!

This past Thursday while poking around in Brookline Booksmith I came upon Caitlin Moran’s book How To Be A Woman. At first look I thought ‘Oh joy. More disgusting, anti-woman propaganda by some pathetic Phyllis Schlafly-esque (equal rights for me but not for thee) type.’ Then I picked it up and started reading.
“Do you have a vagina?” she writes. “Do you want to be in charge of it?” If you said yes to both, “Congratulations! You’re a feminist.”

“What do you think feminism is, ladies? What part of ‘liberation for women’ is not for you? Is it freedom to vote? The right not to be owned by the man you marry? ‘Vogue,’ by Madonna? Jeans? Did all that good shit get on your nerves? OR were you just drunk at the time of survey?”
Yup, I’m in love. And I bought the book.

 A parting short from our Nora:
"Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim." 
Nora Ephron in a 1996 speech to the graduating class of Wellesley College, her alma mater.

Saturday, February 23, 2013

The Perils of Possible Buns in Potential Ovens

Back in the late ‘80s when I was in my mid 20s (OMG, have I really been in this business that long!) , I interviewed for an estimating position at a well established local commercial printer with a good reputation. I was excited at the opportunity. My interviewer was a good ole boy and about 25-30 minutes into the interview, he says that I'm well qualified for the job but he is hesitant to hire me because "every woman I put in that chair gets knocked up." I jumped up and asked if I might have a different chair, just in case it was contagious. I made a joke out of it, but I couldn't wait for that interview to be over. What a jerk he was!
C.R.’s above anecdote is from a discussion within the Linked In group Mary Beth Smith's, Girls Who Print.
 The topic was What's the weirdest work-related moment you've ever experienced as a woman in the printing industry? The baby maker bit came up frequently.


Another woman spoke of a male interviewer who rejected her application with this, ‘he felt like I wasn't serious about my career, and that my husband probably made a lot of money so I was just looking to fill some time.’

A woman who’s now Director of Development at a large university spoke of her first post college interview -- 'the interviewer asked if I wanted to have children because he didn't want to invest in someone who was only going to quit after a few years.' She replied that it none of his business and left the interview.'

A teen in trade school, learning and preparing for the print universe had this experience -- an instructor stopped his presentation to say. 'You girls are just here to find a husband you can use as a meal ticket!'

An inkjet chemist spoke of a vendor, visiting her site who remarked, 'I don't believe that women should work in a lab. There are harmful chemicals and they are the ones that bear our children.'

Right, gotcha. Men are immune from the harmful chemicals in our environment so their biological contribution to a child will always be pure. Do I have that about right?

Maybe this this sort of thing happens in all industries. Printing doesn’t have the corner on thoughtless, crass, behavior.

My experience with the I’m-not-hiring-you -- you’re-just-a-sprog-bomb-waiting-to-go-off attitude came before I entered the print mines.

It was 1981 and my interview was in the Molecular and Cellular Biology Lab at Harvard. The gig -- lab assistant. Now, I totally understood this would involve, primarily, low level grunt work tasks -- I was fine with that. Seemed to me that data entry, record keeping, washing and sterilizing test tubes were très reasonable duties to perform while learning, growing, getting to be in a cool science environment all while earning the rent cheddar. I’d spent a lot of my last three semesters of college in the biology labs. What was an art major doing there? Drawing the cadavers and making watercolors of all the wild things visible only through a microscope. Fabulous stuff!

The professor who oversaw the lab took me into his wonderfully book strewn office for our chat. So far so cool. Right from the start though he was trying to talk me out of wanting the job -- he stressed all the hard, distressing and totally un-girly labor. After ever so much flapdoodling, came this last I’m-only-interviewing-you-for-show statement:
‘You’ll have to lift and carry very heavy trays of test tubes every day.’
‘How heavy? Weight lifting’s my thing and I’m currently benching 135 pounds (I was too) -- will the trays be heavier than that?’
 I knew the job wasn’t mine and there was nothing left to lose so I went on:
‘I’m smart, strong, upbeat and a hard worker but you've been dismissive from the very beginning of the interview. Why is that?’
‘I want to hire a young man for the job -- someone who will stay, learn, grow and have a career.’
 Crotchety Dickwad to human translation? ‘You’re just gonna get hitched in another year or so and start cranking out brats. We don’t hire Uterus Americans here.’

Boyhowdy I was stunned down to my silver toenail polish. I stopped at the first pay phone (remember pay phones?) and called the Employment Office who’d set up this debacle of an interview. I told the nice woman on the other end of the line exactly what happened. She was supportive and said she’d file a report or something. I knew nothing would happen though. At most the prof would get a memo saying ‘try to be more subtle in your dickishness next time.’

And then, a few weeks later, I got my first job in the Wonderful World of Print Technology. I became a plate maker at Gnomon Press. Yea me!

Friday, February 22, 2013

Scribble and Grouse

I met Jen after work last night for a post grind adult bev. First thing she says to me is:
‘Want to know what my new pet peeve is?’

Of course I want to know!

“People who use the word ‘perfect’ as a response to absolutely everything. It’s a good word but it’s not appropriate or accurate to use for all your acknowledgement needs. The word’s just not that flexible.”

An example of misuse:
In response to:
Sales Drone A: 'I emailed that client with the layout questions you had.'
Design Drone B: 'Perfect!'

Why this over the top rejoinder? Howz about replying with ‘thank you’ or ‘K, let me know when they write back with the answers' or 'awesome!'

An example of correct use:

In reply to:
Me: ‘I know you had a rough day in the pixel mines so I just ordered you a Brazilian Monk.
Jen: ‘Perfect!’

Brazilian Monk
Recipe for 1 serving
1 oz hazelnut liqueur
1 oz coffee liqueur
1 oz dark creme de cacao
1/2 oz dry sherry
4 tbsp vanilla bean ice cream

Pour into a collins glass (OK, that's a martini glass in the doodle....please, they're more fun to draw!) and blend briefly. Garnish with a mint leaf and cherry, and sprinkle with grated chocolate.
Why ‘perfect?’ My theory is that it’s the biz buzzword du jour. Some eager shop beaver heard the boss use it and, like a nasty case of herpes, it spread.

I know I use certain words hyperbolically and far too much -- to death and back even. Words like awesome, cool, and fuck (a verbal comma for me or so it seems) have the distinct whiff of corpse flower about them now so I should really retire them from my vocabulary.

Like...really.


Thursday, February 21, 2013

Dante's Trike

I haven't triked in 2 weeks now and I'm feeling it on the cellular level. There's now enough snow melted that I should be able to take a wee spin, even if just around my neighborhood. Yup, gotta suit up and pedal!

Meanwhile, my mind seems to be in Tuscany this morning. At left is the view from my friends Cynthia and Giovanni's house, back when they lived in a 13th century converted convent in San Casciano dei Bagni. At right -- the light coming through a glorious window at the Florence church of Santa Margherita de' Cerchi. AKA Dante's Church. AKA Romance Central. It's just down the street from Casa di Dante -- the museum of Dante Alighieri.

Dante who said: 
The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain neutrality in times of moral crisis. 
Tell it, brother!




Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Shades of Winter

Anybody notice that we’re stumbling and struggling our way out of February. It may be a mere 28 days long but it assuredly the longest, hardest month of the year.

One of these years I will actually take that long, tropical, winter vaca that I'm always yammering on about. My destination will be someplace bright, warm and colorful. There won’t be snow and ice there. Dwellings will all be painted in gloriously brilliant hues -- gaudy even -- sunglasses will be needed, even at night.

My house, here in Massachusetts, has pale grey siding. Blah. It was like that when we bought and it costs far too much to replace. We’re going to paint the front and back doors though (currently white) -- I’m thinking of a blazing violet and a steaming turquoise. Maybe with sunflower colored trim.

Some of our exterior window trim is now a flashing but not quite fluorescent purple. I need more of this. Sunny orange lined windows would be just the thing, don'cha think?

Almost all of the houses in my area are grey, brown or white. Some are brick. There’s the occasional stone house. Sometimes a homeowner gets all wild and crazy and paints their house pale blue. Gosh, how daring!

 ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

The pics at right and left are from a long ago visit in Ireland -- Limerick specifically (or Stab City as the locals refer to it). Yeah sure, Limerick is NOT a warm, sunny place to spend a February but at least they have the brightly colored houses and businesses thing going on.

Same with Stromness on the Orkney Mainland and the Isle of Skye, at top -- the doors anyway.

Below are some links which are helping me with the February When-Will-Winter-Finally-End Doldrums.

A hill town on the sea, somewhere in Italy. In Burano, Veneto, Italy


Cottages in the Bahamas.

San Francisco.

Buenos Aires.

Brooklyn, New York. I think this one may be my favorite.

A small pocket of color in London.

And a whole collection of them by Phyllis Board.


Cheers!



Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Being There -- Teil drei

Back when Pterodactyls graced the skies and I was 40 years of age, my baby sister Celeste went in for the first of her surgeries. Celeste has Neurofibromatosis 2 also. So yeah, this was the same operation, essentially, that I’d had 17 years before and would have again and thrice more during the rest of that crazy decade.

I’m talking about the kind of cutting where the good docs crack open the back of your skull, root around in the tightly packed nerve bundles (the ones that effect such fripperies as sight, hearing, sensation, smell and facial muscles to name a few) and pull out a tumor or three, not unlike Bullwinkle J. Moose and his fab hat trick only more precise like.

Here’s the dealio about this level of scary procedure -- it’s easier to go through it yourself than to watch your sweet angel, honey pie, beloved little sis do the dance. When it’s been my turn, I focus. I go all Henry V/Saint Crispin’s Day, Patton with ’Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war! We are ready.’ I channel Crazy Horse and shout ‘Hokahey! Nake nula wauŋ welo’ Then, The Amazing Bob, Jen, Celeste, Oni and I head into Mass General where I become every schlock Hollywood tough guy with a warped ass sense of humor.

Humor and machismo -- it’s how I cope.

So there we all were with Celeste -- her surgery morning, not mine. I was attempting humor but not my usual over the top sort. I tried to remember what helps me, besides channeling John McClane. I tried to remember that being there, being calm is more important than saying just the right thing.

As Celeste was wheeled off into the OR, I called out ‘remember -- little chocolate doughnuts!’ They were a fav and an inside joke between her and her beau, Calvin. Did I sound imbecilic? You betcha BUT if she could refocus maybe the fear would be less overwhelming.

Everything went as well as it could have and not as bad as it might’ve. Over the following days, while she mostly napped and healed, I sat by her bed like a big ol’ Mama Wolf. I watched every intake of breath and eyelid flicker. I monitored the stats on the computerized gizmo she was hooked up to. How was her blood pressure and pulse? When she woke, I’d bring her water and nag her to eat something. I went to snag nurses for more pain meds, food and juice -- to find out when we’d see Dr. Barker next (Dr. Ojemann’s surgical scion - AKA Son of God).

From 6:30 in the morning until early evening when her friends would arrive I was Her Royal Highness, Queen Pain in the Ass. Was this selflessness on my part? Fuck no! I was on auto pilot. I was running on instinct, need and worry.

One even-tempered, accommodating nurse sweetly asked me if I was Celeste's mother. Mega sigh. My little sister was 31 but looked 16. I was just 40 but heavy and haggard. With my behavior added to the mix...well, I'm thankful she didn't ask if I was the grandmother.

As the days passed Celeste regained her strength, energy and steel clad sense of snark. On the day she was released, Doctor Barker came around for one last check. In peak form, she gave him crap about his rumpled appearance (‘you’re not getting enough sleep and you need a haircut’) and quizzed him about what happens next.

I began to breathe easier. She was gonna be just fine.

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Skitter the Cat Contractor


For some reason -- probably linked to their sure fire, whiz bang plans for world domination (after they finish this next nap, of course) -- cats love boxes. I dunno how the boxes feature in their maniacal plans but then, I'm not a feline overlord. Nope, I'm just the servant, the malkin minion around these parts.

Skitter, the feral who adopted Jen and Oni, has a new carton that she's been working on, renovating even. Her latest scheme is to bring the box up to code -- she's putting in a second method of egress. Yup, we've got a budding kitten contractor here!

Drawing by Jen the Pirate Blogger

Saturday, February 16, 2013

The Girls in the Office -- la deuxième partie

Sadly, women don't always play nice together. Specifically, I’m talking about the working world. Even more precisely, I’m talking about the print industry. To get right to it, I’m talking about what I’ve witnessed and the experiences of some friends and acquaintances.

Here’s one instance.

Print World is a male dominated and, often enough, pretty damned sexist industry. I mentioned in a prior post that I worked the longest for a company that was very much not the industry norm. There were women holding management positions on all levels—in pre-press, the pressrooms, sales, in the retail outlets, copy rooms, human resources, delivery departments and more.

The company changed hands with new owner interviewing and signing on all female type additions to the sales force. One hire was a bit surprising—a young woman fresh out of college. She was the BFF of another woman who’d recently been hired to do web builds. We all figured her pal must be a capable cookie too.

Though Jane toted a featherweight, scrawny resume, she seemed eager. When introduced around she was warm, friendly, sported the conservative grey biz suit and shook hands with all. My thought was, with a lot of training and time in the field, she could be a fab sales rep, a siren, a rainmaker even. She knew nothing about printing or, presumably, professional sales but the new owner was taking her under his wing.

Sadly, Jane was all surface—underneath her good looks, the suit, the eager beaver mien, there was a definite lack of intellectual curiosity and almost zero work ethic (unless the boss was watching). It didn’t take long for her to show her true face. After the first week, her smiles and charm were present only when she was chatting with management types or when the owner was sitting with her, teaching her all about the world of printing and sales.

Us non-executive, worker bee peons only saw the happy faced ‘charisma’ when she needed something. God help us if we approached her to extend a helping hand or advise her when she’d made an error (one that could effect the customer’s product, thus, her commission). What we got in return was a sneer that def looked better when Joan Jett was rockin’ it.

Were we—me and my long time, knowledgeable, print industry cohorts—dickwads in our attempts to assist this young, print and sales newbie? Fuck no! The company culture was generous and accommodating. We could count on our co-workers to fill in our gaps in understanding and expertise—to have each other's backs.

Gotta say, it was stunning as all hell to have this rookie treat me like I was a Renfield who had the intemperate balls to attempt to speak to her.

After this, in my role as Preflighter, I put all my questions, my requests for more info and work order clarifications in email. I went into DEFCON 1 diplomacy mode.

Jane was definitely nicer and more able to take advise and knowledge from men versus women. At the same time she was fairly democratic in her derisive snobbery toward all us peasants who fell below management level. Why was she like this? Who knows.

Eventually her dearth of smarts became clear even to the owner who adored her. She became, essentially, a product demonstrator. A Carol Merrill, a Vanna White.

She could have been so much more. Maybe she will be one day.

Friday, February 15, 2013

Up From the Skies

The storm at high tide here in Valhalla by the Sea
I have lived here before
The days of ice
And of course this is why
I'm so concerned
And I come back to find
The stars misplaced
And the smell of a world
That is burned
A smell of a world
That is burned.

-- Jim Hendrix, Up From the Skies 

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Valentine's Waltz

There's no one as tasteful and not in decline.
I'll light the candles while you pour the wine.
Red wine and brown eyes and a red candy heart;
It's fun to pretend I'm not an old fart.
The clothes that you chose make your ass look real small
(better say that than get in a brawl)

Yes, you delight me and I love your design.
You pour the candles while I light the wine.
I hope we're together a long time from now,
Longer than chickens, contented as cows.
We won't have much money or goodies galore
But still lots of pleasure I'd like to explore.

Poem by my staggeringly marvelous and wonderfully goofy, romantic husband -- The Amazing Bob

Doodle by me

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

The Five Stages of Blizzard

The emotional paths experienced in a giant storm are very similar to our responses to fierce loss.

No, c'mon. Really. Just look!

Denial
Historic, Crippling Blizzard Ahead? Oh please. It’ll be nice to have a Snow Party though.
Time to hit Stop&Shop for more more ‘Crippling Blizzard’ Snacks!

Anger
No electricity? No heat? What the hell! We pay good money for these utilities -- how dare they piss off at the first sign of a little flurry! (see -- Denial is still in there)
And this is REALLY gonna mess up my triking schedule, dammit. I need to get out there every day. How will I get my exercise if the streets and sidewalks are under three feet of snow and ice?!

Bargaining
OK, I’ll never, ever make fun of weather.com’s use of exclamation points and bold face if they’ll just ix-nay the pummeling wind and stop those baby tsunamis from leaping over the seawall.

Delusion is mixed in here -- thinking that weather.com actually controls the elements We all know the forces of nature are directeded by a convocation of wizards in the Orkney Islands. They gather at the Ring of Brodgar a coupla times a season -- work up a sweat, cast a few spells and then head to the pub at The Stromness Hotel for a pint of Skull Splitter (yeah, that's seriously the name of the ale and it IS fabulous!), some cheddar from Erland and Marcus Woods’ cows with Stockan’s oatcakes.

Oh yeah, mama -- I’ll be over to join them as soon as this damned storm ends!

Depression
OMG, we’re having a planet destroying attack from the weather gods! My house will wash out to sea. My CATS will wash out to sea! And I can’t hear the wind howling -- how am I gonna know that it’s screaming of my impending doom if I can’t hear it?!

OK, there’s a big layer of panic over top that depression.

Acceptance-ish
This’ll be over soon. We’re going to be just fine. Just look at how pretty the snow is and it’s pretty cool to see such big, strong waves.

Oh look! The power’s back, the sun’s coming out and we don’t have to go to work today.

OK, a sixth stage -- Post Storm Annoyance
There’s icy, slushy, soot covered snow piles everywhere -- gross! My feet are wet and frozen, the drifts are still covering all the bike lanes -- I want to trike today. AND the three story high snow piles are taking all the decent parking spaces in Quincy Center. This blows.

God, it’s hideously messy out. Why won’t it all melt now, now, NOW!?

Yup, I’m just a real peach to be around right now.

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

The Girls In The Office*

I’ve been reading Crazy Salad: Some Things About Women, a collection of essays by the late, great Nora Ephron.

She was a generation before mine. I turned four the year she graduated from Wellesley College -- 1962.

How was it different, how was it the same -- being a girl coming of age in the late 50s versus the early 70s?

There’s the stylistic issues of course. In the 50s we were supposed to be built like Monroe or Mansfield. In the 70s, breasts were out of fashion. Farrah Fawcett and Diane Keaton were the ones to be. Androgynous-ish.

Ms. Ephron and I should’ve switched generations.

She was hitting the working world when I was hitting second grade.

Her first post college gig, after briefly interning in the Kennedy White House, was as a reporter for the New York Post. My first post college jobs, after a third and final season as a carnie, were as an artist’s model and then a copy jockey at a Harvard Square quick printer. Not the same level of prestige (duh) but, I imagine, we both had to deal with biz place bullshit -- from not being hired or promoted solely because we had lady bits versus man attachments to sexual harassment.

Both of us began our labor lives before there was a name for that and certainly before anyone knew you could stand up and loudly, proudly, wave the potential lawsuit flag and say ‘that’ll be quite enough of that shit!’

 It’s funny to think how far we’ve come, women and men both, in the past 32 years as well as how far we have NOT come.

I’ve toiled the longest in the printing industry -- a male dominated field. The joint I called my workplace home for the first 20 years was utterly egalitarian. That is, there were women holding management positions on all levels -- in pre-press, the pressrooms, sales, in the retail outlets, copy rooms, human resources, delivery departments and more.

One of the more spectacular mistakes they made during those years, was in who they promoted for the newly created GM (general manager) position. There were two people in contention -- a smart, professional, canny woman and an intelligent, hard working guy who had a thin relationship with good judgement. Dude scored the gig and proceeded to sleep his way through half the women in the company (no, not me **shudder** -- he was way oogie). The company might have tanked anyway but this bright move was the catalyst. This is where their death spiral began.

This was pre-Anita Hill and Clarence Long-Dong-Silver Thomas. Apart from everything else that was flat out wrong about the unfortunately promoted's behavior, just imagine the lawsuit extravaganza if our Copy House Casanova pulled this shit after all that hit the broadsheets and TV news.

In two other companies where I worked, after that long term and previously enlightened firm, you totally had to be a dude to get ahead. You’re a broad? Well, you could be a customer service rep, an accounting drone, a sales rep, MAYBE even a sales manager but don’t you get any ideas about prepress, general management or workflow, Missy!  You’ve taught and managed using Deming’s Process Improvement methods? Doesn’t matter, won’t fly here -- you’re packin’ the wrong plumbing!

Women were there to serve in lower level roles and/or act as pretty sirens to draw customers in. That’s it.
 One of those companies is flailing it’s way into oblivion now. The other’s getting by but they could be so much more if they’d just lose the gender hang ups and put the best people into key positions. To be fair, this second joint also promoted based on employee loyalty and seniority -- fabulous but the promotees need to actually have the skills and talents for the awarded gigs. Sadly, not so much.

Nora Ephron entered the working world the very same year that Gloria Steinem wrote about contraception for Esquire, where she argued that women were forced to choose between career and marriage. It was mere months before Betty Friedan’s groundbreaking, second wave feminism  launching book The Feminine Mystique came out.

We’ve come so far and have so far to go.

* The Girls In The Office is the name of the fourth essay in Ephron's book Crazy Salad. You just gotta read this collection!

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Saint Erin of the Neck

 Nemo the Killah Stawm (or Nemo the Killer Storm for those of you unfamiliar with the language up here in Eastern Massachusetts) raged through Friday until Saturday early afternoon. It started as cute, fluffy, Disney-esque flakes, turned to sharpened shards of ice and then morphed into sodden, beefy, snowballs -- dropping onto us amidst 60 mile per hour winds.

From a HuffPo write up:
"It's like lifting cement. They say it's 2 feet, but I think it's more like 3 feet," said Michael Levesque, who was shoveling snow in Quincy, Mass., for a landscaping company.
From WCVB.com: 
In Quincy, front-end loaders were used to rescue residents on Narragansett Road in the Hough's Neck section of the city Friday evening, and residents along Shore Road were evacuated. The storm left much of the city in the dark.
By two PM Saturday the snow had mostly quit but there was no sign as to when power (electricity and heat) would be restored  It became pretty damned clear that we, Jen, Oni, The Amazing Bob and I, would have to abandon ship -- head over to Jen’s sister Erin’s wood stove heated home. TAB, Coco and I were huddling in bed under a pile of quilts and blankets when Jen texted with the word -- time to pack up and go. We had to vamoose while the tide was low -- at the water’s height the road onto the Neck as well as the street in front of our houses were under six inches of icy, slushy ocean.

Not knowing how long we’d be away from home and wanting to be good guests, Jen and I threw enough food and wine to last a week or so into bags. We brought extra blankets, sweaters and pillows. Poor, gracious Erin probably figured we were moving in.

While TAB and I settled in, laying out the Scrabble board and surrounding it with tea lights, Jen and Oni drove to Scituate to rescue Jen and Erin’s mother Donna (yes, yezzzz, Madre McMurrer’s name is the same as mine. Don’t go all Freudian on me now -- K?).

Dinner prep began when Donna and The Rescuers (sounds like a ‘60s doo-wop band, doesn’t it?) arrived.

Despite the great horde of tinned soups Jen and I had brought, Erin began making a big pot of it from scratch. Of course she did! Cooking is what she does. She is, after all, the Test Kitchen Director for Cook’s Illustrated. Yes, I am incredibly, amazingly lucky to have so many fabulous chef friends. I truly am.

What did she make? The most awesome Broccoli Cheese Soup I’ve ever had. It was so incredible that Jen, a life long broccoli hater, is now a convert to the wonders of tiny green trees. Afterward, for dessert, we had TAB’s pumpkin/blueberry pie. Christ, what a feast!

By this time, it was full dark out. Across Quincy Bay we could see Boston’s city lights twinklingly taunting us. Bastids!

Our blithe, candlelit, warm gathering of six -- Jen, Oni, Mama Donna, Erin, TAB and I (Erin’s partner PJ was still at work) -- should have been a grand party, eh? It was lovely but I found myself all tense and sad. Warum?

Think about it. I’m deaf. I need light to lipread and, even with illumination, I’m no good in large groups -- too many people talking, often overlapping. It’s too much for me to follow. Two individuals, besides myself, is my lipreading group limit. ‘But Bob and Jen were there -- they could ‘terp for you,’ you say. Yes, yes. True, true BUT it was still dark and I just couldn’t follow their signing. Very isolating.

Yeah, woe was me and shit. Lit candle in hand, I went upstairs to read for a bit. I wonder how other deafies cope with this sort of thing. Must investigate.

We woke this morning to POWER! The street lights were on, the porch lights on the houses across the road were glowing, lamp switches responded positively AND I know longer felt so cut off from our slumber party. Huzzah!

High tide, when Sea Street would possibly be under water again, was still a few hours off -- there was time for coffee. Jen and Erin made a fab breakfast of eggs with avocado and chives, English muffins and a glorious dark roast.

Time now to leave Saint Erin's compassionate and generous hospitality and head home to the inevitable guilt trips from all the cats. How dare we leave them alone in dark houses with nothing but dishes of Fancy Feast and treats!

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Waddayaknow

 Turns out those ALL CAPS, boldfaced, dire warnings with the, seemingly, promiscuous use of exclamation points from Weather.com were warranted after all.

We've 2 shit tons of the white and not so fluffy stuff out there and more's coming down. The electricity is out. So's the heat. No clue when they'll be back.

Jen, Oni, The Amazing Bob and I will head over to Jen's sister's house, if this lack continues. She doesn't have lights either BUT she has a wood stove. HEAT! We'll spend the evening playing Scrabble by candlelight, quaffing Chianti and noshing leftovers warmed on the wood stove. Camping. Gee, gosh. As romantic as this sounds, roughing it is NOT.my fav thing in the world.

Duh and sigh.

Rocco on the porch pre-Storm of the Century du jour


I went out to shovel earlier and found that, despite erecting a tarp tent over Rocco's cat cave and usual hang out area, our porch was buried under an enterprising snow drift or three. Our bright, feral boy had found another, safer and drier spot to hunker down last night though. He just showed up for brunch and gave me such a look -- 'what did you do with my veranda, good woman? There's cold, wet crap everywhere!'

Good thing I'd cleared a path (sorta, kinda, a little bit) before he got here or there'd have been hell to pay.

Meanwhile, our pampered indoor princess, Coco, is snuggled under the covers. Excuse me, I must now serve her a brunch of Fancy Feast Wild Salmon in bed. Probably a small side of catnip would be a good idea too. And a bud vase of cat grass would be in good taste as well, doncha think?

Friday, February 8, 2013

Friday in the Great, Soon to be, White North

The Front Yard
The storm's begun. Winds are high, it's snowing and none of us has gone to work.

We're prepared for the, now predicted, three feet of snow.

If we don't get that, well, we'll still have one hell of a party.

These pics are from yesterday morning's trike ride.
High Tide on the Marsh



Thursday, February 7, 2013

SNOW! Panic! Snow! Panic! SNOW!

This is the, possibly understated, weather forecast from Boston.com.
Tonight, Thursday February 7th. Cloudy. A chance of snow showers after midnight. Lows around 20. Chance of snow 40 percent.

Friday...Snow showers. Snow accumulation of 1 to 3 inches. Highs in the lower 30s.  Chance of snow near 100 percent.

Friday Night...Snow. Snow may be heavy at times. Windy with lows around 18.  Chance of snow near 100 percent.

 Saturday...Snow. Snow may be heavy at times. Windy and colder with highs in the lower 20s. Chance of snow near 100 percent.
This is apparently not what most people are hearing though. Maybe because they’re getting their info from Weather.com? The tone there is perhaps a smidge histrionic.
ALERT: Historic, Crippling Blizzard Ahead
Winter Storm Nemo: Potential Historic Blizzard Looms
You know that when a storm is named things are way serious.
Winter Storm Nemo is now poised to become the latest example of a powerful, potentially historic, February storm.
The heaviest snow totals by early Sunday morning are expected in New England from coastal Maine to Connecticut, as well as the Adirondacks of Upstate New York, where over one foot of snow is expected!  Some locations, particularly in coastal New England, may top two feet of storm total snow!  

This has the potential to be a top 10 snowstorm all-time in Boston!  
The bold facing and punctuation are weather.com's. Seriously, they're using bold face and exclamation points. This is New England for christ's sake. We do snow here. Well, not so much in the last couple of years but still -- blizzards are hardly unusual for us, unlike DC. A foot of the fluffy stuff, hell TWO feet of it in one storm is no reason to break out the melodramatic punctuation.

Yes, yes, yezzzz -- we should all be prepared. Definitely. The power may go out, travel about town will be difficult, shops will shut early. There may be some flooding here along the coast.

Is it possible to rouse the populace to sufficient prep levels without going all Ride of the Valkyries on our asses?

Maybe, maybe not. The bombastic tone just strikes me as manipulative ratings pandering. Annoying, insulting and possibly counter productive. There’s been so many STORM OF THE CENTURY warnings, where the 'weather event' ends up being a big nothing burger, that a lot of folks just stop paying attention. Well, apart from having Storm Parties that is.

The Amazing Bob and I were running errands this morning and stopped by our local Stop & Shop. Ten in the morning on a weekday, a time when the store is usually blissfully underpopulated, the joint was jumpin’. It was difficult to get down any of the aisles for all the carts and carriages. Everyone was moving slower than a manatee through refrigerated honey.

Mega panic shopping or maybe just stocking up for all the Winter Storm Nemo parties?

TAB and I are prepared but then we always keep extra batteries, candles and tinned soups around, just in case. OK, I may need to run out for extra wasabi peas and Chianti -- I may have plowed through our stock during the last STORM OF THE CENTURY.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

A Day In My Alternate Universe

In this parallel world, I’m subletting a friend’s apartment/studio at Donaustraße 83 in the Neukölln district of Berlin for a few months. It’s February and the sun won’t rise before 7:30. The light’s a bit watery and it’s a paltry 2 degrees Celsius outside. Time to fire up the space heater and put on a pot of espresso.
“If you want to really hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.” -- Kurt Vonnegut
After reading a few pages of my new favorite book Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut, I head over to the easels, set up near the front windows overlooking the ratty front garden.

Here’s the thing, it’s always best for me to change into my studio leggings and T, my atelier slippers and an old sweatshirt before stepping up to the easel. Why? I’m self aware enough, just barely, to know that I’m not a careful, tidy person. I’m about as fastidious as a DeKooning. Hell, I make Jackson Pollack look like Josef Albers.

So yeah, somewhere along the line, after ruining a good silk robe or three and tracking alizarin crimson all over the good Bokhara, I learned that I need a studio outfit. When it becomes so encrusted with paint that it stands up on its own, it’s time to find a new set of rags to wear.

After an hour or two it’s time to get away from the work before I banjax the good bits with all my futzing about. I text my cousin Della over in Charlottenburg to see if she wants to voyage over to meet me for pumpkin seed bagels and a lovely Berliner Weisse at Kindl Steben.

After a lovely snack, we’re off to poke around in the neighborhood’s many galleries followed by a matinee of Flight (Denzel!) at the Cineplex Neukölln.

By now it’s late afternoon, the sun has set. Time to head back to the studio to see if any gracious, industrious elves have snuck in to stretch a new canvas for me.

Hey, it could happen. I can hope!

Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul -- Emily Dickinson

Monday, February 4, 2013

Bumper to Bumper

Now that I’m a recumbent trike fiend, I’m at just the right height to view an awful lot of execrable bumper sticker messages. Such as:
1) I’m Raising My Kids Right
The graphic is of a mama red, white and blue elephant, followed by two toddler red, white and blue elephants.

No. No my poor deluded, vapid neighbor, you are not raising them ‘right.’ The current Republican party’s mind set is ‘I’ve got mine. Screw you’ You’re indoctrinating them with an unthinking, cold, nasty disregard for their fellow man. Capisce?

Oh and what's with the single parent elephant? I thought single parents were the root of gun violence in America. No? That only applies to Democrats?
2) I AM PROUD OF MY BOY SCOUT!
My, my. That sentiment, screamed in caps on your bumper, comes off just a wee bit defensive now, doesn’t it. Did anyone imply that you aren’t or shouldn’t be? Did you just replace your ‘I’M ASHAMED OF MY CUB SCOUT’ tag?
3) TEA PARTY PATRIOT!
Again with the yelling at me all in caps. Why not just have a sticker that reads ‘I’LL VOTE FOR WHOEVER THE POWERFUL, WEALTHY, WHITE GUYS TELL ME.’
4) Baby on Board
That’s nice. One would expect the driver of this car to be très careful and observant of all traffic laws and customs then, right? Eh, not so much.

Maybe this is more of a warning? A la ‘I’ve got a screaming kid in the back seat. I get negative amounts of sleep each night. I just worked a full day with bitchy co-workers and a boss breathing down my neck. AND I just noticed a big blotch of baby puke on the shoulder of my best wool suit.’

Kind of hard to fit that on a bumper sticker I guess. Probably just best to steer clear as the driver’s having a hard life right now.

I don’t care for bumper stickers in general but here are a few that I've seen and liked:
1) Don’t like gay marriage? Then don’t have one.
2) It’s my party & I’ll cry if I want to. (next to a line drawing portrait of Lincoln)
3) We could have saved the Earth but we were too damned cheap. - Kurt Vonnegut 
4) After the rapture, can I have your car? (In response to the sticker saying that In case of rapture this car will be unmanned)
These are the Seven Most Annoying Bumper Stickers according to the Man in the Woods.
And 11 more from Richard Connelly at the Houston Press.

Then we have those little oval decals -- why do they exist?
back in 1969 the United Nations got together to create an easier way to identify the origins of different vehicles traveling in Europe and elsewhere, since so many license plates used overseas looked the same no matter what country you were from.  With that in mind they came up with the idea of adding a sticker to your vehicle with a country code so officials could identify your point of origin.
So, why do we see them all over the place here? Bragging rights mostly. That may just be me being all cynical though.

What I see the most are the ‘Oh look where WE went on vacation.’ You know ACK for Nantucket. Why ACK? It’s the International Air Transport Association (IATA) for Nantucket Airport.

From the Nantucket visitor page :
       It is not for Ackerly Field, which is really a mythological name to justify using A-C-K.  The US government uses “N” for military airport installations. Thus, Nantucket and Washington’s National Airport use ACK and DCA rather than NAN or NAT.

        ACK has become shorthand or slang when referring to Nantucket.
There’s MV for Martha’s Vineyard (at least that’s one that you don’t have to be part of the wealthy IN club to understand), IRL for Ireland (Boston’s basically a suburb of the entire country so I see this one a lot), CC for Cape Cod (or is your car close captioned?) and HN for Hough’s Neck (AKA Home!).

And then there’s the cutesy, smug stick figure families.
Mom, Dad, sister, brother, baby, dog, gerbil — every member of the family is represented by an adorable stick figure, and the whole lot is plastered across the back window.
“Look at us!” the decals scream. “We’re such a big family! We have all these kids and pets! Isn’t that something?” I have never seen stickers with just one child or just one parent. For the stick-figure-family crowd, bigger is better.
Read Anne Marie Valinoti’s full rant here  -- it’s fab!

I’ve never, ever seen stickers representing Zombie families. Discrimination? Marginalizing a significant percentage of the population? Judging by the number of Zombie themed books I see at my local Barnes and Noble -- yes.

What would their family decals look like? I’m thinking you’d have Mummy and Da Zombie with little Violet and brother George Zombie chewing the heads off a lovely family of stick figures from Dover, MA. You know, the ones with the annoying ACK sticker and the Proud Parent one as well. Spot and Fluffy, the Zombie pets, would be smilingly sitting to the side, politely awaiting their treats (oooo, I hope Violet throws me a finger or maybe even a little smackeral of brain!)

Oh look -- the good folk at Think Geek have a Zombie sticker! It’s on sale this week too -- mega awesome.

Baker Street -- Gerry Rafferty