Wedding Hair!

Here's a new wedding wrinkle:  Wedding Hair Preparation.  Enter Tammie Garza, owner of Divine Weddings in Austin who Sarah and I met this past week.  The idea is to hire a professional to come to the bride (and bridesmaids) on the day of the wedding to 'do' their hair.  I was fascinated by a person who has made wedding day hair her life's work.  Tammie has an interesting story:

She was a regulation hairdresser for sixteen years when she realized that in order to send her son to college, she needed to make more money.  We can all identify with that.  A financial planner friend started asking her what did she REALLY like about the hair business.  Her answer:  big hair, pageant hair, wedding hair, and the idea for starting her own business bloomed.  Initially, to jump start the new business,  she did a lot of free work.  This meant going to hair shows and wedding shows and 'doing' twenty to twenty-five heads in three or four hours.  She built up her name recognition as well as her speed, and her ability to do snap hair evaluation.  The first thing she did when Sarah sat down was to run her fingers through Sarah's hair.  She immediately realized that Sarah's hair was going to be tricky.

There's probably no more important hair day than a woman's wedding day.  It's not a day to accept bad hair.  In fact, having a bad hair day on your wedding day could cause an extreme meltdown that would put the worst bridezilla into the shade.  Having a wedding hairdresser reduces the possibility hair unhappiness.  As further insurance, the hairdresser does a trial run in which she works on the bride-to-be and, with the bride in consultation, actually creates the hairstyle that will be used the day of the wedding.

On the consultation day Sarah settled into the beauty chair with her laptop fired up, and pictures of her desired hairstyle sprang to life on the computer.  The person wearing the style is so famous that her hairstyle was photographed from all angles.  It made it much easier for Tammie to understand what Sarah wanted.  Now, Sarah has fine, uber-straight hair that won't hold a curl and slides right out of almost every hair decoration, hairpin, or barrette.  Tammie was AMAZING.  She achieved what Sarah envisioned in about 40 minutes.  I won't give the style away, but her hair was special, beautifully done, and it's going to hold up for the wedding day without a lot of fussing to keep it nice looking.  One could say that we are going to have a Divine Wedding.

   

On All Our Minds and Weighing on All Our Hearts

Our elementary school teachers lost their virginity on Friday.  I, for one, would have preferred these mostly women who wear goofy clothes and don't seem to mind disgusting substances wiped onto their persons to have remained immaculate.  Every high school and middle school teacher has been sullied since Columbine.   Every single day I walked into my classroom after April 20, 1999, I was hyper-aware that this could be the day where I would have to make life and death decisions for myself and for my students.  This latest school shooting should make at least one undeniable point: There's no such thing as a 'secure school'.  Another depressing outcome of Friday's catastrophe is more talented people will shy away from choosing teaching as a career.  No school district pays hazard/combat pay.

We are currently 'on the road' driving from Arizona to Texas.  I've been talking, talking and talking to people about this latest shooting atrocity.  For the first time  I haven't heard 'guns aren't the problem'.  Instead, what I keep hearing is 'enough is enough'.  I've heard many people today preface their comments with, "I'm a hunter, but the second half of the sentence has surprised me:  To paraphrase, I've heard:  "This is 'fucked up', and 'something needs to be done'.  I'm trying to be cautiously optimistic that at least conversation among us can be opened.  If we are actually going to talk to one another, then our preconceived, knee-jerk reactions need to be jettisoned.  The real question is this:  What needs to be talked about?  

At this point, I can hear your thoughts:  Gun Control.  I say that's not the topic.  Those two words are loaded with so many connotations people stop listening  and, thus, no dialogue.  Am I personally in favor of assault weapons being banned in the USA?  Yes.  Would I like multi-ammo clips curtailed?  Yes.  Would those actions stop these senseless killings?  No.  You see, we need to also be talking about mental illness as well as assault weapons.  Profilers postulate people who perpetrate these horrific crimes show specific mentally ill behaviors, and those behaviors aren't the obvious Hollywood stereotypical crazy.  Factor in easy access by the mentally ill to weapons that fire so damn many bullets in a few seconds, and Newport happens.  Nobody can stomach this kind of atrocity.

This kind of violence against our children can't be shrugged off anymore.  I think that's why I'm hopeful the Newport shooting is the mythical tipping point where the American public finally unplugs from The Voice and their smart phones and their video games and TV sports to coalesce at a consensus about how we are going to deal with this unacceptable level of violence being evidenced by dead children.  I haven't come across a single person who has intimated that 20 dead first graders is a price we are willing to pay.  Freedom to own unlimited guns shouldn't have Friday's price tag.  

It's easy to be sad, baffled, or resigned.  We need to transfer our sense of outrage, sadness, and feelings of helplessness into positive action.  So, the question again is what needs to be talked about?  Here's my answer:  (1)  mental illness, particularly mental illness among young adults.  We need to find an avenue which allows parents or their siblings not only to force treatment upon the young adult in their family who is mentally ill, but also to direct it and control it.  Mentally ill adults should not have the responsibility for their own treatment decisions.  (2)  We need to get our hunters in this country to help the rest of us decide what guns are acceptable and necessary to this sport, and which ones are not.  (3)  We need to standardize our gun and ammunition laws across state lines.  (4)  If you are going to be a gun user, then you should be required to have training.  I mean, for crying out loud, you have to jump through more hoops to own a car.  

I'm sure there are other factors and difficult issues to be discussed, but if we could even start here, I think it would go a long way to make every public school teacher feel like they are not facing life and death jeopardy just by going to work every day.  It would help the rest of us to feel like we are doing something positive to head off a repeat of Newport.  I'm ready for conversation and solutions to be seriously proposed and adopted.  Twenty first graders can not have lost their lives for nothing.  I'm tired of fatalism and tacitly accepting that nothing can be changed.  Enough is enough.    

Ho, Ho, Ho. It's Christmas Card Time

     I have been updating my address book since it's time to send out Christmas Cards.  I know, I know; I still send out snail mail cards because I like getting a little Christmas spirit in the mail box.  I make the assumption everyone else does too.    I've been sending Christmas Cards since 1972 and  for the first 18 years, I wrote a personal letter in most of them.  I can still feel the hand cramps.  My card list kept growing, and I began to dread doing them.  

     However, in 2000 I smartened up and started sending out a printed Christmas Letter detailing our yearly news to friends.  My right hand was so grateful.    In 2008 I started writing this blog.  This year only the people who would (1) be disappointed not to get the letter, or (2) aren't wired up with email will be getting the snail mail Christmas letter in their cards.  You blog readers will get the same letter, just in pixels instead of ink.  If you are on my Christmas Card list (did you send me one?) will still get your snail mail card too.  If you want to send us a card use the address found below embedded in the following 2012 Smith Family Christmas Letter.

     Perhaps, sending Christmas Cards is going by the wayside as electronic communication erodes snail mail.  Even I use electronic cards for birthdays and other occasions.  This year I'm still a dinosaur hold out and am sending real paper Christmas cards.  I can't promise for next year since I've found an electronic greeting card site I think is dynamite.  I'd like an informal poll:  a)  How many of you will send more than five snail mail Christmas cards?  b)  Are electronic Christmas cards as good as paper?  c) What makes a really good electronic card?  If you're reading this blog - weigh in:  Snail Mail Christmas Cards:  Yes or No and Why.  Meanwhile, here's the pixelated form of the Smith Family 2012 Christmas Letter.   

December, 2012

     We've had another exciting year. We kicked off the year by deciding to buy a house. We never thought we'd own another property, but that just shows: “Never say never”. We bought a duplex in a condominium development in Sun City, Arizona. We were gratified to learn we made smart choices when we downsized, and the furniture we kept from our Hurst house fits perfectly into the new digs. Even better, the house is less than a mile from Drake's mother, and we have access to all the great Sun City recreation facilities. Our address in Arizona, which will generally be good from Christmas through April, is: 10309 West Corte Del Sol Este, Sun City, AZ 85351. (The five word street address made Drake gnash his teeth, but since the house was perfect for us, he decided to overlook the annoyance of the long address.)

     The second most exciting news of the year is that Sarah Lynn was accepted by Yale University for graduate work. She began a three year course of study in August which will result in dual Masters' Degrees (an MBA and a Master's in Environmental Studies). She and Jay packed up with cat in carrier and flew to Connecticut where they will be for the next three years. She loves the program and is taking advantage of the plethora of classes, activities, speakers and symposiums that Yale has to offer her. She will be going to Indonesia this spring for 'an international experience'.

     Our biggest news of 2012 is that Sarah Lynn is engaged to be married to Jay Alton Wilson. He's a UT grad, a software engineer, a pianist, and the love of her life. He's a really nice guy who loves her, and he comes from a lovely family with whom we are becoming fast friends. The entire extended family are busily planning the wedding which will be in Austin over Memorial Day Weekend, 2013. Sarah and Jay came to Phoenix at Thanksgiving, and we managed to eat too much, watch football, and buy a wedding dress. We'll all be together in Austin for two weeks at Christmas celebrating the season, enjoying our children, and planning the wedding.

     Our travels this year took us from Spring Training in Arizona, to Logan, Utah where we spent the summer, and I took Creative Writing: Non-Fiction at Utah State University. Hopefully, my blog writing has improved. Next, we spent some time touring. First, southern Idaho, then to the Grand Teton National Park, on to Yellowstone National Park, followed by Glacier National Park. Then we rode the Hiawatha Bike Trail, did a mini tour of Portland, Oregon and wound up spending two months at Seal Rock, Oregon watching the Pacific Ocean roll in while bird and seal watching and eating fresh seafood.

We hope you all have lovely holidays and a wonderful 2013.

Merry Christmas

Jan and Drake

The Wedding Dress Shopping Extravaganza!

Wedding dresses are confections made out of cloth.  Some are so light and airy they appear to be made of spun sugar, while others are more solidly elegant like an excellent chunk of white chocolate.  This past weekend I saw enough concoctions to satisfy the most ravenous sweet tooth.  Yes, we went wedding dress shopping over Thanksgiving.  This particular shopping experience was much harder than I anticipated, and I was exhausted at the end of each try-on day.  My responsibility was to document each dress photographically, link the price to the dress, and via email with attachments keep Amy, Matron of Honor, in the dress buying loop.  I also created a slide show for the MOG* and MOH* to weigh in on their favorites among the final selections.  

Sarah, in her dainty, delicate size, looked fantastic in practically EVERY dress she tried on.  And she tried on, oh, let's say 100 DRESSES spread over six shops.  She really did look like a bridal model because she garnered unsolicited admiring comments from other MOBs* and brides to be. It was also surprising that Drake wasn't the only Dad in attendance.  Sarah and I were so giddy and excited after the first day's experience, we could tell he wanted to be included in the process, so we invited him to accompany us on the second try-on day.

The process itself is the best type of clothes try-on there is.  First, the perspective  bride has a giant dressing room and her own individual dress handler to facilitate getting gowns on and off.  The handler even may have an assistant.   Some of the dresses were feather light while others seemed as heavy as a suit of armor.  Every dress Sarah liked included a flowing piece of material dragging the floor behind the dress:  the train.  The dress handler is supported by an owner who holds the hands of the MOB*, bridesmaids, MOH*, FOB*, GOB* between dress viewings plying them with flattery, refreshments, information about the bridal gown order process, and in one shop, a huge flat screen TV playing the wedding movie "Father of the Bride", the Steve Martin version.

In a two day try on marathon, we hit every type of bridal shop:  the Haute Couture shop; the Boutique shop; the Wedding Dress Consignment Shop; the Off the Rack shop, and the All Inclusive.  While trying to find places for dresses, I quickly learned that one key component of WD shopping is the appointment.  In every shop, except Off the Rack, you need an appointment to try on dresses.  This insures you will get the personal attention noted above which assuages the exorbitant prices charged for wedding dresses.  Every shop, even the most lowly, had the bridal dress raised dais, spot lights, and a minimum of a tri-fold full length set of mirrors to showcase each tried on dress.  Some shops had many additional mirrors, so the bride could catch her reflection from every angle.

Some shops sold more than just wedding dresses.  The All Inclusive was located in the Azteca Wedding Plaza.  The Plaza was a series of connected multi-storied buildings in which you could book your venue, your photographer, your florist, your caterer, rent the tuxedos, rent/buy the wedding ties, cummerbunds, buy the wedding dress, the bridesmaid dresses, hair ornaments, veils, tiaras, (they had 300 to choose from), the flower girl basket, the ring bearer pillow, the guest book with decorative pen, the special b/g toasting glasses, the wedding favors for both guests and the wedding party, the bridal flip flops, the rice/birdseed/bubble going away favors and a jillion other must have items apparently necessary to get married.  This shop had the least lux try-on with only one dais serving four dressing rooms which were just curtained off areas in a large room.  MOBs were the real dress handlers here.  One attendant services at least two clients concurrently at Azteca.  Their utilitarian approach did hold down the cost of the dresses, somewhat.  Azteca's all inclusive approach was just cheerfully happy, and it was fun to see the place and the hundreds of accouterments.        

By contrast, the Off the Rack shop was just sad.  It was filled with long racks of dresses jammed together in plastic bags.  There were no 'helpers' for try-on.  The wedding dresses were constructed from the cheapest possible man made materials such as acetate, low grade polyester, and rayon.  Silk has never crossed the Off the Rack doorway.  Each dress was variously accented with machine made silver and/or gold polyester thread designs, or artificial flowers dotting the bodice, hemline or waistline or the entire dress.  ALL of these dresses were priced in three or even four figures.  You could buy the somewhat grubby samples for around $300.  Still, Sarah found a few dresses to try on.

The Haute Couture shop was the other end of the wedding dress shopping spectrum.  Racked were only about 20 dresses by a single designer arranged as a trunk show.  You picked the shop's other possibilities from an iPad, and your attendant fetched them from a concealed portion of the shop.  This store had 'areas' for the bridal hanger-ons waiting to see the next try-on.  In the areas were cool curved leather sectionals, lots of fresh plants and flowers, the flat screen playing the wedding movie, and several full length mirrors.  For the most part, the dresses in this store were curiously unappealing.  (This place was the site of the $10,000 dress try-on - blush pink with bias cut dropped waist and gathered netting ruffles to the floor).  This was our first stop, and it taught me that price isn't necessarily an indication of how lovely a wedding dress will be.

The Consignment Wedding Dress shop was the most interesting.  There were about 300 previously used wedding dresses all carefully hung according to type (A-line, mermaid, trumpet, ball gown)  and then sized in each category.  The furnishings, try-on areas as well as the handler were the same quality of experience as the boutiques.  Sarah even found a dress possibility here, and we were amused to realize there were several dresses in this second hand store priced outside our budget.  We also got a feel for wedding dress depreciation.  Insanely, a dress that is worn for perhaps six hours loses at least 20% of its value by the day after the wedding, and 50% of its value within six months after the wedding.  If you are really tiny or really big, there's an even bigger amount of depreciation.    

By far the best experience were the Boutique shops with individual owners displaying their vision of 'wedding'.  One of these had an amazing array of beautiful accessories to accent your waistline, bust line or head.  To one dress Sarah added a $700 sash which consisted of a two inch wide cream colored ribbon decorated with beads, rhinestones and pearls.  There were dazzling rhinestone hair decorations, or silk flower fascinators accented with beads. There were special high heeled shoes covered with rhinestones.  The dresses in these shops reflected the personal taste of the owners.  Of the four finalist dresses, three were from one boutique shop.

Hopefully, I've whetted your appetite to see the final pick.  THE DRESS will be revealed at the wedding.  Jay accompanied Sarah to Arizona and graciously cooled his heels while we three enjoyed a once in a lifetime experience with our princess.  Wedding bells will ring Memorial Day Weekend, 2013 for Sarah and Jay.  They are having a garden wedding with a brunch reception at a mansion venue in Austin, Texas.  If the wedding is as much fun as the wedding dress shopping extravaganza, then it will be a blast. 

*MOH = Matron of Honor      *MOB = Mother of the Bride    *MOG = Mother of the Groom   
*FOG = Father of the Bride   *GOB = Grandmother of the Bride         

         

The Ghost Holiday

Where did Thanksgiving go?  It's being drowned in a sea of red and green.  There is nary a turkey or pilgrim hat to be found.   I was actually wished a "Happy Thanksgiving" today, and I almost fell over.  Inside my head I was thinking, "Don't you mean 'Have a Safe and Lucky Black Friday'?"

Thanksgiving was linked with 'super shopping for Christmas' less than 40 years ago.  The term 'Black Friday' originated in Philadelphia and denoted the extreme traffic snarls caused by an influx of shoppers to the city on the day after Thanksgiving.  Gradually, it evolved to refer to merchants making enough money on the weekend after Thanksgiving to put their businesses into the 'black' for the year.  Beginning in the early 2000's, stores began opening up around 6:00 or 7:00 am.  Since then, opening times have been inching earlier and earlier.  The K-Mart flyer I just read is opening for 'Black Friday' at 8 pm Thanksgiving night.  Isn't it ironic that Thanksgiving is being eaten?

Thanksgiving in America exists inside the bubbles of our homes.  Most people still eat too much, gather with family, and watch football.  The Dallas Cowboys linked themselves with Thanksgiving in the mid 1960's.  NFL popularity soared beginning in the 1960's, and the league wanted a Thanksgiving day game.  Every team with the exception of the Cowboys turned the league down flat.  Tex Schram, long time original owner of the Cowboys, realized this game could showcase his team nationally.  In this era there were perhaps five channels of TV, and you only had that many in the cities.  Getting the Cowboys beamed into every living room in America on Thanksgiving Day  is a pivotal base of the claim that the Cowboys are America's Team.  

Generally, the Cowboys have been charmed on Thanksgiving Day.  Other teams were stunned by the popularity of the Thanksgiving Day games.  Jerry Jones understands how important this game is.  He hosts a major Thanksgiving meal for all the Cowboy employees who are expected to work on the fourth Thursday in November, no excuses accepted.  Other NFL teams have lobbied to join the party.  This Thanksgiving there will be three pro games.  I hope all their employees get a free turkey dinner paid for by the owners.  

Thanksgiving is really linked with college football.  Some of the most intense state rivalries are played out over Thanksgiving.  For Drake and I that means the Oklahoma/Oklahoma State game.  For Texans, Thanksgiving has meant Texas vs. Texas A&M since the 1990s.  This 100 year rivalry crumbled when A&M deserted their long time football conference.  Texas will make do with Kansas State this year.  It just doesn't have the same excitement.  I'm hoping Texas Tech will pick up the rivalry banner.  Flipping through the channels, you can find a panoply of college rivalries still being played out on Thanksgiving Day and throughout the weekend.

Thanksgiving drifting into ghost holiday status is hateful.  First, Thanksgiving is an American holiday.  It goes all the way back to 1621 and the Colonial era of American history - the kernel of the Pilgrim/Indian legend.  It became a formal holiday in 1863 - proclaimed by Abraham Lincoln as a day of Thanksgiving.  It was a morale booster during the height of the Civil War.  Americans seized the holiday with both hands.  While its formal origins may have been overtly political, it has evolved into the least political, least polarizing holiday in the United States.  It is not a Christian, Jewish, or Muslim holiday.  Each nationality prepares its favored foods for the Thanksgiving meal.  In the Southwest, Mexican-Americans use the gathering time to make tamales, a many hands needed, time consuming holiday ritual among the women.  I've been the lucky recipient of some of these home made tamales.    

Today I made cranberry jelly from my grandmother's recipe.  As I stirred down the bubbling sauce, I could visualize her doing the same thing at her stove 50 years ago.  I also usually make her pecan pie.  I make my own special version of pumpkin pie.  These are the Thanksgiving treats in our household and may make a short encore appearance at Christmas, but I rarely make them at any other time of the year.  They belong to Thanksgiving first and foremost.  The jelly which lasts until the springtime remains a lingering taste of Thanksgiving until it's gone.

Outside of our homes, Thanksgiving is fading.  Every major store has begun hanging Christmas Decorations the day after Halloween.  Soon, they will take down the red, white and blue 4th of July bunting and replace it with Christmas trees and tinsel.  I wonder if kids still trace their hands on brown construction paper, cut out the outline and glue construction paper feathers to the fingertips?  Where is Squanto?  Pilgrim hats are in short supply.  The only thing that will deter Walmart, Kmart, and all the other 'marts' from eating up Thanksgiving Day is to refuse to shop that day.  I'm planning on another piece of pie, with whipped cream of course, on Thanksgiving evening rather than rushing down to the stores to shop.  Hope you plan to join me in the "Have Another Piece of Pie" shopping boycott movement this coming Thursday.  I want to keep my Thanksgiving Day.                 

Observations of the Oregon Coast

Today we packed up and left Seal Rock, Oregon.  A mild weather front came through, and it got significantly 'cooler' by about 10 degrees.  At this point, I can confidently say winter has arrived on the Central Coast of Oregon.  Coincidentally, the temps in Sun City dropped below 90 this week - thank heaven!  I've actually liked the overcast skies and the intermittent rain of the Oregon Coast.  When the sun does peek out, the rains have cleaned the air and the blue sky looks pristine and delicate.  My favorite quote about the rainy weather is this:  "If you don't like the rain, move somewhere else!"  The only stone in my shoe about lots of rain is having to always have/wear/deal with rain gear. I'm pretty sure I'd go bananas in a climate with real winter where you always have to wear coats/sweaters/hats/gloves/boots.  Note to self:  Avoid winter.

Breakfast is just not going to be the same.  For the past 9 weeks, I've eaten my oatmeal while watching the waves break over the Seal Rocks.  The ocean view changed each day.  The color of the water was different each morning depending on the amount of sunlight.    The waves sometime barely lapped against the rocks.  Other days four foot waves crash ashore washing over the gaping string of lava rocks visible out the dining room window.  Every morning I got to see gliding formations of brown pelicans skimming over the tops of the waves and diving into the ocean for their breakfast.  The gulls as well as a murder of crows also swirled around each morning.

To get to the beach, all we had to do was to walk across the street.  The rocks are even more exposed during low tide, and you can find some mighty interesting creatures clinging to the rocks patiently waiting for the ocean to come back and cover them over.  Every time I went to the Seal Rock beach, there was always a new revelation.  The last trip to 'our' beach revealed a pair of black oyster catchers and other birds I'd never seen before.     

Gradually, we became so picky about our beach walks, we only went during low tide when the nooks and crannies holding animals, shells, and rocks revealed themselves.  Each beach we walked had its own unique characteristics.  We walked one beach barefoot.  (For the record, this was Drake's idea.)  This entire beach was one smooth stretch of sand with almost no rocks, or shells for miles.  

My favorite beach was Quail Creek because their rocks were filled with small tidal pools.  When I first saw these, they captured me completely.  I had never seen a wild starfish or an amenome in the ocean.    These animals seem to be plants since they don't have arms, legs, paws, eyes, ears or other accouterments we expect when we think 'animal'.  

The obvious mammals at the beach are the seals.  They became Drake's passion.  We had a small group of gray seals that hung around the Seal Rocks.  Some place names do have their origin in fact.  The seals like the rocks at low tide.  They can clamber aboard a certain set of rocks as the ocean recedes, and Drake delighted in watching them through MY binoculars, his Christmas gift to me.   

  All along the coast there are largish creeks that flow down the small hills and straight into the sea.  Most beaches are bisected by a stream of fresh water bubbling into the sea.  Often the only way to cross over the fresh water stream to the other side of the beach is at low tide.  When we went to the Oregon State University research facility, Hatfield Marine Center, they had a chart showing how the salt water penetrates an amazingly long way up the creek.  They also had a Pacific octopus.  There is significant ocean research going on in this area of the Pacific Coast.  This is a place where Oregon State does marine research, and is an NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration) station.  The Coast Guard is also stationed at Newport with both boats (no surprise) and a spiffy orange helicopter. 

Beaches are only one of the smooth spots of the Oregon Coast.  I really loved the food.  You only really get fresh seafood at the  ocean.  We ate in many places where they had the name of the boat that caught our lunch.  In towns like Newport, Lincoln City, and Florence you have to enjoy the tourist scene.  Vacationers come to the beaches in droves.  We missed the real season arriving after Labor Day.  I tried to cut a bit of slack for the locals since we met them at the end of a tourist season and they were tired, but overall their public behavior toward outsiders was pretty atrocious.  It was small stuff:  rudeness, mild road rage, exasperation and tiny snubs.  Gradually, I became acquainted with individual people, and each of them validated my not so favorable impression of the people inside the community.  They explained it as an insider/outsider thing; a way to preserve their identity in a sea of strangers.

The Pacific Coast at Oregon is striking, and beautiful in the extreme.  We have loved this place.  It has enriched my life, and my pictures allow me to relive it.

    There are lots of them, but you're welcome to see this place through my eyes.

https://picasaweb.google.com/jalyss1/2012OregonCoastAndSealRock?authkey=Gv1sRgCKGYjJek9smMcg

Election Night in America

I'm watching election coverage along with everyone else in America, well, except for those folks watching Bridezilla re-runs, and those who are Netflixing. Currently we are flipping between CNN, Fox, and PBS.  CNN gets the coverage edge because I'm enthralled with the 'smart board'.  I wonder how many hours John King had to practice to be able to manipulate those giant touch and spread multi-screens.  I also wonder who wrote the computer program that runs it.  We do have a fascination with the Presidential race.   The irony is your County Commissioner race has more impact on your daily life.  The County Commissioner gets our potholes fixed, allocates the county's money, and solves those niggling local problems that make steam come out of our ears.  

I do know I'm very grateful I'm not living in a 'battleground', 'swing', 'decisive' state.  From what I've been able to glean, it's been non-stop TV and radio commercials in those states thanks to the influx of soft money OKed by a wrong headed Supreme Court decision.  I think if I'd been subjected to non-stop negative political ads, I would have checked NEITHER on the ballot, and sent each campaign a bill for my earplugs.  The dollar amount spent on political campaigns for Congress and the White House is going to top $4 BILLION dollars.  How obscene and shameful that number is in these hard economic times, and in light of the natural disaster in the Northeast.   It seems that the Senate is going to stay Democratic and the House of Representatives is going to stay Republican.  Whichever Presidential candidate wins doesn't really matter.  Hello, four more years of gridlocked do nothing government.  What did $4 billion dollars buy? 

I've also been thinking of past elections.  The first one I remember is 1960; I was 10 years old.  Some of you can remember the excitement when John Kennedy was elected. My 10 year old Oklahoma self thought he talked funny but had great hair.  Only after studying American history did I learn that the Chicago mayor cooked crucial Cook County ballot boxes which swung Illinois and thus the election to Kennedy.  Nixon decided not to contest those Chicago results because he thought it would be too divisive for the country.  Doesn't that seem like a quaint idea in these election litigation times?  Think about what happens in American history if Nixon wins the 1960 election.  I'd like to peek at the past 50 years' of American history in an alternate universe where the 1960 election went to Nixon.

I think one of the surprises this year was the lack of a serious or even semi-serious third party candidate.  Speaking of Richard Nixon, he adopted the George Wallace (third party candidate) southern strategy and turned the South which had been voting Democratic since the Civil War into Republican territory.  The left wing of the Democratic party still contends the 5% of the vote Ralph Nader got in Florida in 2000 defeated Al Gore.  What generally happens in American politics is that 'good ideas' of third party candidates are co-opted by either the Democrats or Republicans.  One famous example of co-opting an idea is Social Security.  This was a Eugene V Debs idea that Franklin Roosevelt picked up.  (Debs was a labor leader, the founder of the American Socialist Party and got 6%, a million votes, running for President while he was in prison for opposing World War I.)  The most recent third party candidate who influenced policy is Ross Perot with his magic markers and cardboard charts explaining the deficit to the American public.  The winner of that election?  Bill Clinton who became a deficit hawk and balanced the budget.

As I sit here watching returns, one thing is abundantly clear:  We are a divided people.  Half of us are positive the other half is wrong.  We've been stuck here for twelve years now.  In these past twelve years, the losers have been all of us in the middle.  A key in American politics for over 200 years has been compromise.  The government of this country was intentionally structured to foster compromise.  Today in Congress compromise is not just a dirty word or an unpopular idea; it's dead and buried.  If you shear off 15% of the right wing politicos and 15% of the left wing politicos, there isn't a dime's worth of political differences between the rest of us.  I just don't understand why 60% of us are being disenfranchised by the extremist kooks on BOTH ends of the spectrum.  They've got Congress completely stopped in its tracks.  Where are the politicians who understand and practice statesmanship?  They are being held hostage by threats and intimidation.  Get out of line and suggest or endorse a compromise to achieve solutions, and outside money will miraculously appear to defeat you in your next election.  Sigh.  I guess it's time to wait for 2014 and hope we can break the gridlock in THAT election.  I wonder how much money will be spent to make sure we stay gridlocked.  That certainly seems to be the result of the flood of political money washing over this entire country.           

  

Twenty-Five Reasons Why I Dislike Young Children***

1)  They are boring; the younger they are, the more boring they are.

2)  It's always me, me, me with them.

3)  They don't follow directions.

4)  Give them an opportunity, and it's whine, whine, whine.

5)  Picky eaters are the norm.

6)  They have to be cleaned and dressed.

7)  You have to tie shoes, zip zippers, and button buttons  for A LONG TIME.

8)  They can't cut up their own food.

9)  Voice modulation is a mystery to them.

10)  They calculate when your food is the most hot and delicious then demand both your hands to do something for THEM.

11)  They take naps at inconvenient times.

12)  They have short legs and no stamina when traveling.

13)  They insist on putting sticky, dirty fingers as well as drool mixed with food on your best clothes.

14)  They drag around disgusting objects which you have to keep track of. 

15)  They wake you up in the middle of the night to look under their beds.

16)  They throw tantrums in public to cause you maximum discomfort.

17)  They interrupt your sex life.

18)  They expect to always open the first present.

19)  You have to clean up disgusting substances they've created.

20)  They bring home diseases and spread them around.

21)  You have to take them trick or treating instead of going to your own party.

22)  You're expected to attend school pageants and photograph them.

23)  They don't understand the concept 'white lie'.

24)  Your embarrassment is their weapon.

25)   They stay up too late and then refuse to sleep through the night.



***Fortunately, my own child wasn't nearly as disgusting as other children.  I don't understand how these other parents put up with their nasty offspring.

Oregon Wine Tourist

When we drove from Portland to Seal Rock, we were amazed at the wineries along Oregon State Highway 99W.  There are hundreds of small vineyards along a one hundred mile route.  There's no way to see them all in a weekend or even perhaps even in a month.  Some of the smaller wineries only make a few hundred cases of wine in a good year.  Even in the biggest and best distributed wineries, there are several varieties made that can only be purchased at the winery.  

I discovered Oregon has a 'state soil'. It's called Jory, and I've been standing on it all day long.  Apparently, this type of soil is mineral rich, iron heavy and eight feet deep particularly around Dundee.  This special soil on the sloped hills in this part of Oregon makes superb Pinot Noir wine.  Even more incredible, identical varieties of grapes have different flavors based on what side of the hill they grow on.  An excellent winery can produce different tasting Pinot Noirs based on the exact location where the grapes have been grown.

My favorite story comes from Erath Winery.  They make several different Pinot Noir varieties.  One of them is called "Leland".  Several years ago, a couple retired to this area, and the guy decided he needed a retirement hobby. He planted his four acres in grapes, and over the years, taught himself how to grow grapes.  Now, Erath buys his entire crop every year and makes "Leland", which sells only at the winery for $50 a bottle.  That points out another wrinkle in Oregon wine country.  There are several vineyards that are NOT wineries.  Some grow grapes and sell them to local wineries.  Grapes with 'reputation', such as Mr. Leland's, are sought after.  Wineries try to lock in their selected growers and build reputations for wine made from grapes they don't even grow.     

We saw every variety of tasting room.  The most lavish was a super contemporary tasting room on top of what passes for a 'mountain' here.  Some were little rooms carved out of the winery floor.  Others were refurbished farm houses.  Wine labels are meant to be distinctive.  My favorite label was the Four Graces Winery.  Its name refers to the four daughters of the owner, and their names are written in beautiful script around the edge of the neck label on each bottle.  Another winery owner loves poetry and calligraphy, so one of their specialized wines is in a bottle that has an original poem written by the owner in calligraphy and then silk screened onto the bottle.  Drake's souvenir of this trip is a hat from a certain winery. Their logo has a pair of meadowlarks, the Oregon state bird, sitting on an Oregon grape branch, not a vine, but a stunted evergreen shrub that is the state plant.  Sadly, the logo was better than the wine. 

A small winery called "Twelve" is owned by an older couple who threw caution to the wind, took the plunge late in their lives and started a winery.  The wife runs the tasting room while her husband handles the vines.  It was revealing how much esoteric knowledge it takes to make great wine.    It doesn't seem to be an exact science.  Each year produces a different quality of wine depending on how wet, how dry, how cool, and a bunch of other factors that are so nuanced it takes years to figure them all out and compensate for them.  Apparently, 2008 was the perfect year for the grapes, and if your wine was bad in 2008...well, as the owner of Twelve said, "Time to find another career".  I also learned today that wine is stored in French oak casks.  Baffled, I asked, "Why not American oak?"  Turns out to have something to do with open/closed wood.  Who knew?  

To my untutored eye, it seemed that the Oregon wine business was mature, but compared to California, it's in elementary school. Since it's a statewide economic advantage for the Oregon wine industry to succeed, it's still collaborative to a certain extent.  The Twelve owner opined that they wouldn't have been able to make it in California because the other California owners wouldn't have been as willing to help them learn. The Twelve Winery make small amounts of wine not yet widely distributed, but it's lovely.      

We managed to see a double digit number of wineries helped by dry weather the first day.  We devised a system to help us decide what we liked.  The supermarkets here naturally carry a big selection of Oregon wine, and I'm hoping our system I recorded on my Iphone is going to help us with future purchases. The weather isn't going to be so cooperative on our second day - an incoming 'rain event' is being referred to as A SOAKER.  Haven't seen one of those here.  It should be interesting.  Even this big event won't deliver constant rain.  It will be intermittent, but when raining, it's going to be heavy showers.  I know we won't be driving all the dirt roads we did today.  Shouldn't be a problem; there are wineries and wine tasting rooms lining the main state highway and scattered throughout the towns of the region.

McMinnville, Oregon is the biggest town with 35,000 people smack dab in the middle of this part of Oregon wine country.  It looks like a fun place to spend a couple of months, drink a lot of really good boutique wine that's never distributed anywhere outside the winery, eat some inventive cuisine which compliments the wine, and access an area of Oregon that looks like it has a lot to offer.

I think we are now heading into the next season - the rainy one.  The weather forecasts are showing only rain for the next several days, then a flicker of sunshine followed by more days of rain.  I wish I could just store some of these and trot them out in Arizona.  On the second day of this little trip, I can see to be constantly wet, bedraggled, and struggling to get rain wear on and off everywhere you go would become very tiresome indeed.    

Why Am I Watching Baseball?

     The Rangers aren't in the post season.  Not an especially big surprise considering their major slump of the last two weeks of the season.  The Rangers East (AKA Baltimore Orioles) got eliminated quickly.  Switched my allegiance to the Yankees, and the Tigers took them out in four games.  I detest both St. Louis and San Francisco (see Texas Rangers 2010 and 2011 World Series appearances for reasons why), and those two teams are the ones left playing in the National League play-offs.  So, why am I'm sitting here casually watching the Giants and the Cardinals? 

      The Cardinals have the best uniforms in baseball.  Even their gray road uniforms are cool.  The Cardinals uniforms have a bright yellow baseball bat across the chest area of the uniform.  A bright red cardinal perches on each end of the bat, and "Cardinals" is spelled out in red script beneath the bat.  These beat Yankee pinstripes and the Old English script 'D" on the Tiger's uniforms. 

     I guess I'm also watching baseball out of habit.  When you start in March with Spring Training, and the regular season lasts until the end of September, baseball games just become part of the fabric of my life each year.  Two of the final four teams will be in the World Series, the iconic United States sports championship.  (It doesn't matter to me that some people think the iconic championship is the Superbowl.  I'm old enough to remember when the Superbowl started, and thus, it hasn't proven itself over time.  Forget the NBA thing; it doesn't even have a name.)  Also, the ALCS and NLCS are when you get to know the players who will be in the World Series.  I'm also casually scoping out possible new acquisitions  for the Texas Rangers.  When baseball teams win consistently, members of those winning teams are often the free agent choices in the upcoming off-season.  Ranger fans are sniffing around for pitchers, and maybe a top line catcher - can you say "Joe Mauer"?  

     I'm always hoping for the chance to see something on the baseball field I've never seen before, and I don't mean a streaker.  There are so many combinations of things that can happen in the field of play; you almost always see something new or at least something bizarre:  My fave from the Yankee/Tiger series:  Alex Rodriguez, New York Yankee, flirting with women in the stands during the game he was benched.  I don't know what all the stink was about; this is a time honored baseball tradition.  

     Now, I'm laughing at the most over the top Giant fan who is wearing black angel wings and a fuzzy orange halo.  If I ever get to that point, just cut me off cold turkey and check me into baseball rehab.  Post season baseball crowds are really fun.  There are 'waves', beach balls, chants, mass superstition charms, hand made posters, banners, counting devices ("K's"), and hecklers.  It's a complex simple game coated with layers of fascinating traditions.  Oh, like the 'rally cap' - team members and fans turn their baseball caps inside out as a symbol to promote a rally to win a game in which they're behind.    

     Look at the facial hair!  I wonder why baseball players like to fool around with facial hair.  A huge percentage of baseball players, both leagues, any team, grow goatees, full beards, mustaches (all varieties), fu-man-chus, mutton chops, and soul patches. Facial hair can spread like a fungus among a team.  The Giants particularly seem to like bushy coal-black beards. 

     I'm also checking out the socks.  There are three kinds of baseball socks.  Well it's actually whether you show your socks or not and if you do, how do you show them.  So far the Cardinals and the Giants have boring socks; meaning there are no socks showing.  Ranger fans know that Kinsler and Murphy always show their socks, Their uniform pants legs end at their knees, and their lower legs are all socks.  In the last quarter of the season ever since 'throw-back' uniform day, Derek Holland has been showing his socks in the throwback style.

     There are commercials between innings; I know, big surprise.  I just realized that modern baseball has different sponsors from the game of my childhood.  It's not beer and chew anymore; it's video games, smart phones and junk food.  Just channel surfed feeling foolish watching a game between two teams I don't like.  My opinion after a round-robin surf:  I can't do better than baseball.  It  
beats out all of the other offerings.  I'm just marking time until 60 Minutes comes on; maybe they'll have a baseball story.

Seasons, Seasons, Seasons.....

These days we tend to avoid the drastic season.  Hopefully, I'm finished with 110 degree days, 15 degree days or nights, tornadoes, hurricanes, Blue Norther's and blizzards.  I can remember the relief of moving to central Texas and re-experiencing the four distinct seasons. I think it's the poets who understand the seasons.  There are beautiful, thoughtful poems written through the centuries that evoke the seasons with word pictures triggering memories.   After twenty years on the Gulf Coast, the initial novelty of a hot, "green" Christmas in shorts and a t-shirt had long worn off.  I always wondered why the Houstonians and New Orleanians didn't demand lines of clothing which were Christmas festive but fabric appropriate for the climate.  Instead, the stores were stocked with heavy sweaters, Ho-Ho-Ho sweatshirts and wool plaids tricked out in green and red with a touch of holly.  You couldn't wear a single item without turning your a/c down to 60 degrees.  Houstonians were not above trying for holiday cheer with a roaring fire in their useless fireplaces while their air conditioners churned out massive amounts of frigid air to make the flickering flames bearable.  Even in the 1970's the December electric bill could be gargantuan. I had a poinsettia bush at my NOLA house that I grew from putting my $4.99 Walmart Christmas plant into the ground around March.  It wouldn't die in the house; I should have known it sure wouldn't die outside.  New Orleans gardening is a cliche:  Stick any plant in the ground and jump back fast before the growth knocks you down.  One woman in my neighborhood actually had a six foot Bird of Paradise bush.  I was tickled to have my own bush full of bright red poinsettias the following Christmas; it was like putting one over on the commercial Christmas industry.  My Sun City house also has a poinsettia bush which made me smile with memory the first time I saw it. In eight years in New Orleans, there was only one three day period of winter.  Normal was all the plants constantly and lushly green.  Deciduous trees tended to be Live Oaks.  The new leaves just pushed the old ones off the tree in the spring.  Other leaves turned from green to brown over the course of three days, fell to the ground, and two weeks later, there were new leave buds ready to pop out.  My next door neighbor didn't replant her annuals for three years running because they never stopped blooming.  It was unnerving to see blazing zinnias and petunias take a one month rest period in January and start up again. One of the joys of Fort Worth was the winter.  After the modest autumn color and the leaves drifting off the trees, I liked seeing the architecture of trees against the pale blue sky.  Winter time in central Texas is short, crisp, and invigorating.  I also liked having occasional snow that would be gone within a few days.  Central Texans never deal with ugly piled up snow, struggle to get places,  clean off cars, or spend 15 minutes dressing a child to 'go play outside'.  We get the greeting card version of winter.  Sometimes they even cancel school at the last minute for an amount of snow people who experience real winter find laughable.  Central Texans consider snow day school cancellation a lottery everyone gets to win.   Once every five years, there's either an ice storm or a significant snow fall.  Ice coats every surface and the severity of the storm determines the depth of the ice.  The morning after an ice storm is almost always sunny, and the ice glints off every surface, both man made and natural as if coated with liquid diamonds.  The only real winter mishap:  Ice is heavy and brings down trees and power lines. Booming shotgun reverberations echo throughout the 'ice day' as branches drop off ice coated trees.  I've seen trees with trunk diameters of 20 inches split in half as if attacked by a giant ax so heavy was the weight of ice on their branches.     Tulsa had 'real' autumn; it's a town of deciduous trees.  The short colorful autumn was so familiar I didn't realize how much I would come to miss it.  The desire for fall and all the sights and rituals surrounding it fueled our trip to New Hampshire.  Other spots around the country have nice color, but New England is the Hollywood of autumn.  Other places are amateurville compared to the fall beauty of the Northeast.  The tree colors were so rich in an undulating palette I couldn't stop taking pictures.      Spring is a different matter.  It's more beautiful on the Gulf Coast because of one plant:  Azaleas.  You can trick an azalea to sort of grow in Fort Worth, Texas, but it's never really happy.  Those pampered, forced azaleas are nothing like the lush shimmering perfection of the two perfect weeks of springtime on the Gulf Coast when the azaleas bloom.  Azaleas are cool green hedges bursting with colors of magenta, peppermint pink, white, and lavender.  New Orleans has the same lovely hybrid azaleas, but they also have wild azaleas.  Wild azaleas have smaller petal pink flowers, and are somewhat vine like.  They have a divine fragrance. My favorite Hove perfume (a New Orleans perfumier) has an azalea fragrance, and it smells like the wild flowers.  That azalea smell always speaks to me of Spring, and reminds me of my youth.   Spring in Texas also means bluebonnets.  If azaleas are the Gulf Coast's spring perfection, the Texas Bluebonnet is the spring flower equivalent of the state song.  Bluebonnets are an obsession with Texans.  They memorialize these flowers with pictures, eagerly await their return each year, and speculate on how good or bad the 'season' will be.  Bluebonnets are wildflowers, and it's illegal to pick them in Texas.  Every bluebonnet season is a crap shoot depending on how wet the previous winter.    Summers are never more perfect than in the Pacific Northwest.  For about three months of the year, each day is azure blue skies, bright yellow sunshine, and mild temperatures.  Throw in a blue turquoise ocean, backing up to mountains with icy rushing streams and it's completely comprehensible why Northwesterners endure the dismal weather of the fall and winter to experience the vibrancy of summertime.  I've never, ever seen more beautiful flowers than are produced up here in the summertime.  What will take me back to Northwestern Washington will be the dahlias.  What delightful flowers blooming prodigiously and waving in all sizes and colors.  Dahlias just perk me right up, and some people grow them and sell them to you.  The "Dahlia Lady" outside of Burlington, Washington had one-half acre of flowers she cut and sold for $.20 a stem. I have a friend who posts poems as part of her 'chat' avatar for perusal by the interested.  Once I access a poetry site, I tend to browse and nibble.  I was already internally noodling about the idea of seasons when I ran across this poem.  Such a fitting ending:

Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn by Wu Men (Hui-k'ai) (1183 - 1260) Timeline English version byStephen Mitchell Original LanguageChinese Buddhist : Zen / Chan 13th Century Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn, a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter. If your mind isn't clouded by unnecessary things, this is the best season of your life.

New Season in Oregon

Someone told me the other day that there are two seasons in coastal Oregon:  rain and sunshine.  If that's true, we just entered the 'other' season.  It started raining today and it's supposed to rain until maybe Wednesday.  (That's five days of constant rain.)  The rainy season is something I wanted to experience. 

Does it take a certain type of mental make up to enjoy persistent rain?  Is persistent rain comparable to Northeastern snow that never goes away for months at a time?  What does the human psyche think about 'rainy' vs 'sunny'.  I did a little research by going to a Portland specific website for a discussion of how to handle the persistent rain and gloom of the Pacific Northwest.  Apparently, there are people who feel BETTER in clouds and rain than in sunshine.  The consensus is these folks are in the minority.  Most of us prefer sunshine.  The majority of people in the discussion actually felt you need to take extra Vitamin D in the winter to compensate for the lack of sunshine.  Others felt it wasn't the rain so much as the constant gloom that affected people.  

As to the psyche handling the persistent rain and overcast skies, some said that escaping for a mid-winter sunny climate vacation is all it takes to handle the rainy season.  Others said if you've moved here from 'somewhere else', it's important to shed those ingrained attitudes of staying inside when it rains.  Their ideas involved buying good rain gear, ignoring the rain, and going out, out, outside.  A pretty vocal group touted regular physical exercise as the way to combat the rain blues.

But just as a small minority of people feel better when it rains, there's also a small minority of people who get SAD (seasonally affected depression), and a sunny vacation or all the exercise in the world isn't going to cut it.  These folks use 'light boxes' to simulate sunshine and use full light spectrum light bulbs in their houses.  The final suggestion was hilarious:   If you can't cut the rainy season, just MOVE out of the region.  My personal favorite, and the suggestion that made the most sense to me, was to embrace the rain and enjoy the smells, textures, and sensations that the rain triggers.  I have a feeling those are the minority that really enjoy rain more than sun.

I lived in a rainy climate for eight years, but it was different.  It was a mix of sun and rain almost every day during a significant portion of the year.  New Orleans has about six months of what I term 'tropical weather'.  It's hot, humid, and sunny in the morning and early afternoon. Then it rains almost every late afternoon.  The result is it's steamy for the evening and the night.  My observation was New Orleans natives get edgy and cranky if it doesn't rain.

Just as the Eskimo language has a gillion words for snow, 'rain' up here is graded and nuanced.  mist, misty, foggy, dewy, light, medium, heavy showers, intermittent showers, constant showers, drizzle, sprinkling, spitting, torrents, and 'sheets'.  However, no one talks of 'cloudbursts', 'frog stranglers', 'toad stranglers', or 'gulley washers'.  Pacific Northwest rain is NOT intermittent.  I've been listening, but no one has suggested a euphemism for the Pacific ocean storms that batter the coastline in the winter.  I'm very eager to see one of these from the comfort of my living room, of course.    

Assuming you follow all the suggestions to combat SAD (isn't that a great acronym ), the rain can still restrict your movements.  For example, we are skipping the Lincoln City Kite Festival today because we can't seem to make ourselves stand around in the rain and look up at kites in the sky.  Thus, we come to the other method of learning to live up here:  find an indoor hobby.  There's lots of needlework and woodworking up here.  This is the first place I've lived where the library is open 7 DAYS A WEEK from early until late every single day.  The recreation center is open 7 days a week; and at least 12 hours a day for 6 days of the week.  This house has 15 puzzles stashed away in various cupboards as well as a library of movies.  I came prepared:  I have my sewing machine, and my crazy quilt stuff.  I'm hoping to get a big jump on making it.  Of course, my quilt making will be squeezed between the exercise regimen, the rainy beach walks, and the indoor activities we've been saving for the rainy season.  

I'm hoping to store up the clouds and rain, so I can cope with the relentless sunshine and lack of clouds in Arizona, which I admit, gets on my last nerve.  I think I'm one of those people who prefer the rain to the sun, but I'm getting ready to test that theory.