It's now two years since BP messed up the Gulf Coast.
Although the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama received the most of the publicity, the Texas Gulf Coast is huge and long, and the sea life there is bound to have been affected as well.
I well remember the wonderful seafood meals I've had from that Gulf: small, intensely flavorful oysters, huge pink shrimp, wonderful red snapper, pompano--crabs!! too many to recount.
Thank goodness, my mama was not timid. She took on each creature and turned out delicious meals. But, remember, the seafood itself was wonderful. Raised in warm, living brine--it was healthy and pure when we got it. Now, who knows what's in it and what's happening to it? It makes me sad.
I cried when I heard of the BP spill. We should all remember it every year. Don't believe all they tell you on those TV commercials. It's criminal, and we are all guilty because it's our society and our economy and we choose to be irresponsible all the same. YAZZYBEL
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Kitchen Tear Out Begins
Yes. They are here tearing out the old kitchen.
I am zonked from all the noise. I hope they will be done by three or four and go away for a while.
Knowing kitchen do-overs, they will go away for quite a while. No worry about a rest from the activities for us. We will doubtless be wondering again, in a few days, whatever happened to the project.
That seems to be the name of the game. YAZZYBEL, re-modeler.
I am zonked from all the noise. I hope they will be done by three or four and go away for a while.
Knowing kitchen do-overs, they will go away for quite a while. No worry about a rest from the activities for us. We will doubtless be wondering again, in a few days, whatever happened to the project.
That seems to be the name of the game. YAZZYBEL, re-modeler.
Monday, April 16, 2012
Thinking of Guadalupe
Good evenin'. Late for breakfast.
Today I have been thinking of Guadalupe. I started thinking of her because I have been thinking of doing another painting with the Virgin of Guadalupe in it, but haven't decided what to do.
The Guadalupe I have been thinking of is the Guadalupe who worked for me when I lived up in Mission Hills. Her brother worked for the old gentleman across the street, and one day the brother, who was kind of a dangerous seeming character and the kind of person you wonder if he was the right person to be caring for an older man--but he was accepted as a neighborhood person. Anyway, he came over and asked me if I'd like to have his sister come over and clean for me every other Saturday, and I thought it over and said I'd give her a try. Dangerous seeming young Mexican men can have, often do have, very decorous and good sisters, so I felt that I 'd be fine. What's her name? I asked. Maria, he said.
When she came, she seemed a very nice, very quiet and rather intimidated person, willing to take orders and also willing to work with simple and inadequate equipment like a pan and a broom, and a string mop, and such. I did not have any fancy stuff. So she swept away by the hour in that airy house with its bare floors. I was glad to have her. She was really tickled with my floor polishing machine, and pushed it around happily till all the floors gleamed.
She was never chatty, very quiet, in fact. But one say, she looked at me with her arresting cock-eyed gaze and said, "You know, I'm called Guadalupe."
I was embarrassed at having called her by the name her brother had told me, and said so. "He told me that your name was Maria, that's all he told me," I said. She fixed me with her funny look and, smiling, suddenly on very secure ground, said, "Oh, that's all right. After all, we are all Marias, aren't we?"
Her funny little off-kilter gaze was one she employed, I found, on other occasions, when she was telling me the truth. Such as why her brother could not take a chance on being drafted by the United States: (Gaze) Porque se inyecta.(Gaze. Shamefaced but honest.) He took drugs...And why she had been under the weather for a few weeks...it was because she had worms, intestinal parasites.
That made me a little nervous but it was soon cleared up, she informed me.
The extent of her poverty at home was slowly made clear to me as we grew closer and would chat together at intervals. Her husband made his living by buying and selling tires, used tires. It sounded to me as if he worked on a level barely above the criminal life. Her house was a shack. There was no running water. While she worked for me, they put a pipe into the kitchen so she could have a sink--a great step upward. And when I offered her some leftover vinyl tiles from a flooring project we had had, she took them and told me that she' d used them to cover a rough board counter that they had put the sink into--and she was so happy to have them.
I have often wondered about what she thought of me and my life. When I sold my house, she was so impressed. Looking at me cock-eyed, sharing what she imagined to be my gratification to make a big sale, "Such a big house: I bet you sold it for--ten thousand dollars!!" she said in awe. I told her a lie, I just said that the house really belonged to my family and I just sold it for them. This is a handy line for any and all Latinos and I wish I'd thought of it also when some other people were a bit too close to me for comfort.
She was a wonderful help to me. I wish I knew where she was now, and what she looks like and if she is in good health after these twenty five years have gone by. But what I will always remember and love her for is that she gave me that wonderful idea,-- that, after all, we are all Marias, no? YAZZYBEL
Today I have been thinking of Guadalupe. I started thinking of her because I have been thinking of doing another painting with the Virgin of Guadalupe in it, but haven't decided what to do.
The Guadalupe I have been thinking of is the Guadalupe who worked for me when I lived up in Mission Hills. Her brother worked for the old gentleman across the street, and one day the brother, who was kind of a dangerous seeming character and the kind of person you wonder if he was the right person to be caring for an older man--but he was accepted as a neighborhood person. Anyway, he came over and asked me if I'd like to have his sister come over and clean for me every other Saturday, and I thought it over and said I'd give her a try. Dangerous seeming young Mexican men can have, often do have, very decorous and good sisters, so I felt that I 'd be fine. What's her name? I asked. Maria, he said.
When she came, she seemed a very nice, very quiet and rather intimidated person, willing to take orders and also willing to work with simple and inadequate equipment like a pan and a broom, and a string mop, and such. I did not have any fancy stuff. So she swept away by the hour in that airy house with its bare floors. I was glad to have her. She was really tickled with my floor polishing machine, and pushed it around happily till all the floors gleamed.
She was never chatty, very quiet, in fact. But one say, she looked at me with her arresting cock-eyed gaze and said, "You know, I'm called Guadalupe."
I was embarrassed at having called her by the name her brother had told me, and said so. "He told me that your name was Maria, that's all he told me," I said. She fixed me with her funny look and, smiling, suddenly on very secure ground, said, "Oh, that's all right. After all, we are all Marias, aren't we?"
Her funny little off-kilter gaze was one she employed, I found, on other occasions, when she was telling me the truth. Such as why her brother could not take a chance on being drafted by the United States: (Gaze) Porque se inyecta.(Gaze. Shamefaced but honest.) He took drugs...And why she had been under the weather for a few weeks...it was because she had worms, intestinal parasites.
That made me a little nervous but it was soon cleared up, she informed me.
The extent of her poverty at home was slowly made clear to me as we grew closer and would chat together at intervals. Her husband made his living by buying and selling tires, used tires. It sounded to me as if he worked on a level barely above the criminal life. Her house was a shack. There was no running water. While she worked for me, they put a pipe into the kitchen so she could have a sink--a great step upward. And when I offered her some leftover vinyl tiles from a flooring project we had had, she took them and told me that she' d used them to cover a rough board counter that they had put the sink into--and she was so happy to have them.
I have often wondered about what she thought of me and my life. When I sold my house, she was so impressed. Looking at me cock-eyed, sharing what she imagined to be my gratification to make a big sale, "Such a big house: I bet you sold it for--ten thousand dollars!!" she said in awe. I told her a lie, I just said that the house really belonged to my family and I just sold it for them. This is a handy line for any and all Latinos and I wish I'd thought of it also when some other people were a bit too close to me for comfort.
She was a wonderful help to me. I wish I knew where she was now, and what she looks like and if she is in good health after these twenty five years have gone by. But what I will always remember and love her for is that she gave me that wonderful idea,-- that, after all, we are all Marias, no? YAZZYBEL
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Le Dr. Knock, ou la Triomphe de la Medicine
Good morning.
If you did not take a French course at a certain level, at a certain school, at a certain date, you probably have not read the above play.
It is a play by Romain Rolland, written probably pre-World War Two. Its title is, "Dr. Knock, or, The Triumph of Medicine."
Dr. Knock is a young smart-ass who graduates from medical school and then sets about to buy a practice. That's what you did to set up on your own; you bought an already established practice from an old doctor who was about to retire. Then you walked in on your new life with a set of patients already set up for you.
Dr. Knock walks into his new post in time to have a farewell conference with the good old retiring doctor. "I'm afraid you have chosen a very quiet place to start your practice," says the old doctor."Up here in the mountains, we have such healthy air and water that nobody is ever ill. You'll never make much money or have much business if you stay here." And he departs.
Dr. Knock knows better. His first day in town he puts up big signs: FREE CLINIC. FREE HEALTH TESTING. And the people, tempted by the prospect of getting something for nothing, all show up.
Surprise! Turns out that they only thought that there was nothing wrong with them. Le Dr. Knock soon has everyone diagnosed with something. They are all sick, and didn't know it!!
The play progresses until, at the end, Dr. Knock is up in the middle of the night looking out at his hillside cottages all with a light on. "Look," he says to his servant,"See those cottages with a light on? That means that in each one, there is an ill person with someone up to care for him. I did that! I made all this happen!"
Dr Knock goes mad, of course. But medicine has triumphed! Is there anything familiar about this scenario? Doesn't it seem kind of like the last time you went to the doctor?
When I think of all the new diseases I just cringe. It means some pharmaceutical company has made a new drug. "Gosh, why is there so much autism now?" someone wondered the other day. Follow the pharmaceuticals, I answer. What about Type 2 Diabetes? There used to be none. You either had diabetes or you didn't. Follow the pharmaceuticals, stupid.
We have to eat as well as we can, be careful not to fall down, get some exercise and then get some rest, and say our prayers. And think about Dr Knock the next time we get handed a new prescription. YAZZYBEL
If you did not take a French course at a certain level, at a certain school, at a certain date, you probably have not read the above play.
It is a play by Romain Rolland, written probably pre-World War Two. Its title is, "Dr. Knock, or, The Triumph of Medicine."
Dr. Knock is a young smart-ass who graduates from medical school and then sets about to buy a practice. That's what you did to set up on your own; you bought an already established practice from an old doctor who was about to retire. Then you walked in on your new life with a set of patients already set up for you.
Dr. Knock walks into his new post in time to have a farewell conference with the good old retiring doctor. "I'm afraid you have chosen a very quiet place to start your practice," says the old doctor."Up here in the mountains, we have such healthy air and water that nobody is ever ill. You'll never make much money or have much business if you stay here." And he departs.
Dr. Knock knows better. His first day in town he puts up big signs: FREE CLINIC. FREE HEALTH TESTING. And the people, tempted by the prospect of getting something for nothing, all show up.
Surprise! Turns out that they only thought that there was nothing wrong with them. Le Dr. Knock soon has everyone diagnosed with something. They are all sick, and didn't know it!!
The play progresses until, at the end, Dr. Knock is up in the middle of the night looking out at his hillside cottages all with a light on. "Look," he says to his servant,"See those cottages with a light on? That means that in each one, there is an ill person with someone up to care for him. I did that! I made all this happen!"
Dr Knock goes mad, of course. But medicine has triumphed! Is there anything familiar about this scenario? Doesn't it seem kind of like the last time you went to the doctor?
When I think of all the new diseases I just cringe. It means some pharmaceutical company has made a new drug. "Gosh, why is there so much autism now?" someone wondered the other day. Follow the pharmaceuticals, I answer. What about Type 2 Diabetes? There used to be none. You either had diabetes or you didn't. Follow the pharmaceuticals, stupid.
We have to eat as well as we can, be careful not to fall down, get some exercise and then get some rest, and say our prayers. And think about Dr Knock the next time we get handed a new prescription. YAZZYBEL
Friday, April 13, 2012
Trivial Pursuits
Good noon.
This has been a busy week. Nothing much has been done, as far as my personal check-off list is concerned.
Outside, things are happening. The fencing man, Richard, is there with his faithful crew, trying to finish up the back yard fences before the rains hit.
They have finished the long front to back part that's between our lot and the clinica. That's in cedar. We decided against replacing it with redwood, and the fence guy has hauled off tons of valuable redwood boards, weathered but OK, to his advantage.
Then at the back lot line, the cedar fence turns the corner and continues about twenty feet. At that point, it becomes chain link which will serve to delineate a dropping off place up here , down to the lower forty. We are keeping Theo's staircase, but the gate up top will be chain link. And only three or four feet tall. Our view will be augmented, and the neighbors' view of our yard will be greatly augmented since it will be opened up for the first time ever, ever since the redwood fence was put up twenty five years ago at least.
Will I like it? Will it be what I'd want? No. I have learned to compromise. It is strange that we are in a recession but everything is 'way more costly than it used to be anyway. If a fence cost 500 dollars eight years ago, you can bet on its cost being 900 now. And there's the cost of the labor. It, too , has gone way up. If there are any bargain workers out there I have no idea how to find them. C'est la vie.
That reminds me of a naughty joke. A Mexican and a Frenchman are standing on a street corner when a pretty girl walks by. A breeze blows her skirts up around her waist, and the Frenchman turns to the Mexican and says, "Ah, c'est la vie." The Mexican turns to the Frenchman and says, "Yo se la vi, tambien." Every man in Brownsville Texas thinks he made that joke up himself. YAZZYBEL
This has been a busy week. Nothing much has been done, as far as my personal check-off list is concerned.
Outside, things are happening. The fencing man, Richard, is there with his faithful crew, trying to finish up the back yard fences before the rains hit.
They have finished the long front to back part that's between our lot and the clinica. That's in cedar. We decided against replacing it with redwood, and the fence guy has hauled off tons of valuable redwood boards, weathered but OK, to his advantage.
Then at the back lot line, the cedar fence turns the corner and continues about twenty feet. At that point, it becomes chain link which will serve to delineate a dropping off place up here , down to the lower forty. We are keeping Theo's staircase, but the gate up top will be chain link. And only three or four feet tall. Our view will be augmented, and the neighbors' view of our yard will be greatly augmented since it will be opened up for the first time ever, ever since the redwood fence was put up twenty five years ago at least.
Will I like it? Will it be what I'd want? No. I have learned to compromise. It is strange that we are in a recession but everything is 'way more costly than it used to be anyway. If a fence cost 500 dollars eight years ago, you can bet on its cost being 900 now. And there's the cost of the labor. It, too , has gone way up. If there are any bargain workers out there I have no idea how to find them. C'est la vie.
That reminds me of a naughty joke. A Mexican and a Frenchman are standing on a street corner when a pretty girl walks by. A breeze blows her skirts up around her waist, and the Frenchman turns to the Mexican and says, "Ah, c'est la vie." The Mexican turns to the Frenchman and says, "Yo se la vi, tambien." Every man in Brownsville Texas thinks he made that joke up himself. YAZZYBEL
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Poor Henry James
Good morning.
I think I've told you that, like Bertie Wooster's uncle, I get my best ideas when my navel is immersed in warm bath water. Often, the idea hits as the two elements come in contact. Bingo.
That is what I felt yesterday, as I began my bath. Henry James had Asperger's Syndrome.
Is that revelation important to the world? I don't know. It might be, to a scholar who's studying James'life. It might be, to an interested observer like myself, in the context of making relationships, to a person who has always found it not easy to make relationships.
Or to a person who does not care deeply about making relationships. Or does not, more specifically, need to make relationships in order to have a meaningful life. That is kind of where I am.
I've always wondered how I could have in my life moved so happily (relatively) from one place and set of friends to another place and set of friends. It's been difficult for me twice in my life, the rest not...and I have moved about a lot.
I do make relationships and I do make friends. Sometimes through circumstances these relationships are lost. Basically, I remember them well but I move on. I enjoy the new relationships very much. What is the matter with me? I have begun to think.
The problem began to surface lately with thinking about the relationship-capacity of a friend (always easier to see from the outside.) I was prowling the web and came upon a page, "Take the Asperger's Test." Actually I was looking for Autism. I took the test and came out at 28. If you score 34, you definitely have got it. Normal women's score is 14 or 15, whichever. Bingo again.
Asperger's is high-functioning autism. A good syndrome for musicians (soloists)...writers...and others who do not have to be part of a team. A bad syndrome for us ordinary folk who would like the warming support of lots of others around us doing what we're doing sometimes. But--we can deal with it. We have to.
It explains why as I child was called Greta Garbo by my mother. " I want to be alone," was my motto often during a day when the family played games and I wanted to read. But my favorite reading was often done in a big chair nearby as they wrangled over the card table. I wasn't completely hopeless.
It explains why my favorite things have always been writing, painting, piano-ing, solo singing. It explains why I am so ill suited to be in choirs and choruses. It explains why I am not an orchestra member. It explains why I don't like art classes (they are the most sociable of group artistic studies, it seems to me; admirable). It explains why I hate committees and don't function very well at parties.
It explains why I am adverse to bridge although I am more amenable and happy at card-playing in general than I used to be. Even at cards, I used to win at games where I was on my own, no partner. Now, I am not disturbed by a partner though I'll take no nonsense.
What does all this have to do with Henry James? Do you remember my post of several weeks ago where I was writing about the novel, The Master, by Toim Cobin? That novel has stayed with me, in my mind and heart, so much in the weeks since I finished it. What a nice, good person he was. What a tragedy that he was really totally unable to have a relationship with almost anybody...he tried. He was the prisoner of his nutty family, and his nutty upbringing. But everyone has those. He was really the prisoner of his genetic makeup, and for that nobody can ever be to blame. He was not really sad about it. He saw the world with new eyes and kept writing. No doubt he thought about (and perhaps wrote about) his disability in a more lucid and cogent way than I could ever hope to approach. So, if he wasn't lugubrious about it, should we be? No. Henry James wasn't poor at all. Nor am I. YAZZYBEL
I think I've told you that, like Bertie Wooster's uncle, I get my best ideas when my navel is immersed in warm bath water. Often, the idea hits as the two elements come in contact. Bingo.
That is what I felt yesterday, as I began my bath. Henry James had Asperger's Syndrome.
Is that revelation important to the world? I don't know. It might be, to a scholar who's studying James'life. It might be, to an interested observer like myself, in the context of making relationships, to a person who has always found it not easy to make relationships.
Or to a person who does not care deeply about making relationships. Or does not, more specifically, need to make relationships in order to have a meaningful life. That is kind of where I am.
I've always wondered how I could have in my life moved so happily (relatively) from one place and set of friends to another place and set of friends. It's been difficult for me twice in my life, the rest not...and I have moved about a lot.
I do make relationships and I do make friends. Sometimes through circumstances these relationships are lost. Basically, I remember them well but I move on. I enjoy the new relationships very much. What is the matter with me? I have begun to think.
The problem began to surface lately with thinking about the relationship-capacity of a friend (always easier to see from the outside.) I was prowling the web and came upon a page, "Take the Asperger's Test." Actually I was looking for Autism. I took the test and came out at 28. If you score 34, you definitely have got it. Normal women's score is 14 or 15, whichever. Bingo again.
Asperger's is high-functioning autism. A good syndrome for musicians (soloists)...writers...and others who do not have to be part of a team. A bad syndrome for us ordinary folk who would like the warming support of lots of others around us doing what we're doing sometimes. But--we can deal with it. We have to.
It explains why as I child was called Greta Garbo by my mother. " I want to be alone," was my motto often during a day when the family played games and I wanted to read. But my favorite reading was often done in a big chair nearby as they wrangled over the card table. I wasn't completely hopeless.
It explains why my favorite things have always been writing, painting, piano-ing, solo singing. It explains why I am so ill suited to be in choirs and choruses. It explains why I am not an orchestra member. It explains why I don't like art classes (they are the most sociable of group artistic studies, it seems to me; admirable). It explains why I hate committees and don't function very well at parties.
It explains why I am adverse to bridge although I am more amenable and happy at card-playing in general than I used to be. Even at cards, I used to win at games where I was on my own, no partner. Now, I am not disturbed by a partner though I'll take no nonsense.
What does all this have to do with Henry James? Do you remember my post of several weeks ago where I was writing about the novel, The Master, by Toim Cobin? That novel has stayed with me, in my mind and heart, so much in the weeks since I finished it. What a nice, good person he was. What a tragedy that he was really totally unable to have a relationship with almost anybody...he tried. He was the prisoner of his nutty family, and his nutty upbringing. But everyone has those. He was really the prisoner of his genetic makeup, and for that nobody can ever be to blame. He was not really sad about it. He saw the world with new eyes and kept writing. No doubt he thought about (and perhaps wrote about) his disability in a more lucid and cogent way than I could ever hope to approach. So, if he wasn't lugubrious about it, should we be? No. Henry James wasn't poor at all. Nor am I. YAZZYBEL
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Easter 2012 Pictures
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