Hoo's On First?

Besides the cupboard space, one of the things I miss the most about  my former home in the Oakland Hills is the sunsets, which up here, even on tiptoe, I can barely see at the end of my front walk. Another is the call of the Great Horned Owls who hung out there. I was fond of standing on the deck and calling, "Hoo Hoo, ...hoo, hoo, hoo. I am not a very good mime but they would always answer. Last Sunday I trekked along with the Oakmont Photography Club to the Raptor Rescue Center, which is really only about twenty minutes drive from here, but in a remote and rather creepy place. Volunteers there treat about 200 birds a month  in the summer months. There are only four large raptors in residence, ones too injured to live on their own or in some way habituated to humans. The guy on the left would not make up to me, no matter how hard I flirted with him.  The handler said they are fed frozen mice five days a week, and fast on two days, as that resembles a natural diet. Perhaps it was his fasting day and that is why he was so cranky. 


Great Horned Owls  have an enormous wing span and can lift
mighty weights. I always suspected
that my missing pet cat, Fat Cat, was the victim of one.
Anyway, as I turned to leave the critter above rotated his head
and glared at me as if he would like me for dinner.

Science Fiction No Less

Last Monday the weather here turned bizarre, the thermostat soaring up  almost fifty degrees to 102 in less than eight hours, and then back down to the mid fifties by the time the moon rose. When I viewed the Eastern sky from my deck about 6 am it looked like aliens from space were arriving.  Guess what! The alien was probably me.
Diagnosed with mild sleep apnea, I'd just been fitted with a full face mask for sleeping. If Kodi were still around I think he would have cowered in the bushes.  I almost did myself.

  Meanwhile, my writing group decided to try a little science fiction, not my forte for sure. I started the story Wednesday and then after yesterday's tragic news I changed the ending. I got a bit carried away, but I hope it gives you a chuckle. 

My Second Science Fiction Effort

She glided under the water effortlessly, stirring neither the grasses nor the lily pads, such was her skill. Sometimes she chose to make herself invisible so as not to disturb the mating salamanders. Her skin, softly dappled to camouflage  her presence,  glowed golden when the sun touched it. 

Like all Komodo dragons, she was born male, but elected in adolescence to become female, and needed no male sperm to fertilize her eggs. With a flick of her forked tongue she could smell prey up to a thousand feet away and her special venom could paralyze any living creature up to 300 pounds. 

On this day she set out to obliterate the terrorists in the Ukraine who shot down the Malasian flight on July 17 from Amsterdam to Kualalumper. 

Her ability to smell was so acute that she could sense evil hiding, wherever it might be. Silently she slithered up to the deserted looking warehouse. She could hear drunken voices coming from inside. Patience was her greatest asset.  She posed motionless by the closed door;. ten minutes, twenty minutes, a full hour. Finally the door opened. Making herself invisible once again, she crouched. As the occupant 

stepped to the bushes to relieve himself of his bursting bladder,  she flicked her powerful tongue aiming for the heart.. The poison acted immediately, leaving  him paralyzed.. Her giant jaws clamped on his flesh, ripping, tearing, ravaging, devouring muscle, tendon and bone, until naught was left. except a small  flaccid penis, which was not to her taste. She pushed it aside and waited for the next victim, until she had exterminated the fourteen celebrating inside. Too bad for them, but at least it was painless. She wished she knew another way to do it, so that they would likewise experience the terror their human airplane victims did. 

Happy Eighty-four!

 Last week was a blur of happy memories as I celebrated  not one but three happy birthday parties. At left, from friend Carol's deck. a shared birthday desert party. At right, lunch at Sea Thai Bistro with my sorority sister roommates, Shirley and Dolores, from the University of Washington sixty-six years ago. What stories we can still tell!
We took a vote and decided Shirley looked the youngest. I am the oldest by a few months. Perhaps that's because Shirley has been raising her grandson since he was knee high and he now is starting college. What energy!
Dolores just lost her younger sister of pancreatic cancer. One of the things old friends do is help one another in times of grief, so we worked together on writing her sister Dorothy's obituary. obituary.

Here in the Valley of the Moon they are beginning to harvest the lavender. Tuesday I went with my photo group to the Matanzas winery near here where they were just starting to harvest it .After it is cut it is hung in the old barn, shown above, to dry.
The owners have made the vineyard a magical place but I'm not sure those tools adding to the ambience are as old as we are.

The Final Leap Perhaps Not So Final Now

Today the Golden Gate Bridge Authorities vote of whether or not to fund the suicide barrier. In the larger scheme of things, I understand both the pros and cons. Yet I surely hope they vote to make the decision positive which will not only prevent some of the death attempts but will provide added safety for bridge maintenance employees.
I've actually never known anyone who made the jump, although I had one client in my years as a psychotherapist who planned it, and for her it was certainly the choice death venue, and the only choice; it called out to her like a magnet.  Ive had two other clients who made serious impulsive attempts however, one from drug overdose and one from climbing the north tower of the Bay bridge. Each of these women were precious lives as far as I was concerned.  Last I heard all three are still alive and in their own ways contributing positively to their families and community. I hope I played a positive part in their recovery from depression and hopelessness. Sometimes the urge to jump is situational, a broken heart from a love affair, for instance. Sometimes it is despair, as in a financial crash. Other times it is genetic. Whatever it is, the Golden Gate seems to hold out its finger beckoning, like the worm on a hook. We need to intervene in every way possible, including continued suicide prevention services. About 80 people per year are taken off the bridge who go there with the intent to end their lives.
Of the 1600 confirmed suicides from the Golden Gate since it opened in 1937, the number is probably misleading. Even if an abandoned car is found in the parking lot, a death is not confirmed until the body is recovered, and if you've navigated the "potato patch" on a fishing boat (I turn green and hang over the rails)  you know how treacherous those waves are. Often bodies are carried quickly out to sea never to be found, or to be washed up somewhere down the coast. The saddest to me are the teenagers, bodies and souls not yet fully formed. Lets prevent some of these needless deaths.

Postscript: It passed unanimously! I was shocked this afternoon when I spoke of it at Current Events here which is attended by fifty or so thoughtful, well-read residents. My guess is that ninety percent
of the members disagreed with my position and that of the Golden Gate Bridge Authority. So I'm curious. What is your position?

PASSED!

When I lived in Oakland I sometimes went to the Walnut Creek DMV to renew my driver's license though I felt guilty about it; the lines were shorter, the clerks more respectful, and the floors cleaner. So it was with some trepidation I signed in for my appointment at 2:40 pm in Santa Rosa yesterday. I noticed the lines extended way out to the hot parking lot and the population was probably 80 per cent latino. Most everyone looked tense. I felt immediate compassion. Approaching 84 in three weeks  I was tense as well. Did anyone notice? My lips were sealed softly but firmly, for since my big dental surgery Tuesday I am missing my four front teeth. (Hopefully by next Tuesday I will be able to wear my "flipper" which is a temporary partial that will do me until December when my implants will take over.) After signing in they called me within three minutes. I had just started reading the DMV handbook, although I had studied the test questions provided on line. At the first counter they took a thumb print, instructing me the machine was slow and to hold it down hard for a very long time, changed my address (hmm, I thought AAA had handled this two years ago) took my $33, and instructed me to follow the yellow line to the next counter. The clerk could not have been more articulate or courteous. When I couldn't read the letters on the third line on the eye chart which was posted high in the air, the clerk allowed me to look into a lighted box sitting on the counter. I could read that fine and pronounced the letters quickly and confidently, aware she could not see my knees shaking. I noticed a beautiful patriotic display in the distance and was informed the office manager did it. It might have gone in a fancy bank or winery. The display made the very worn and soiled carpets look even worse.
In the second line I only waited one or two minutes before I was standing in front of the camera and instructed to remove my glasses. "Oh, no," I winced to myself. "Now my slightly black and watery right eye from the dental extraction will glare at me for the next five years." Nevertheless I complied, trying to hold my sealed lips just right. Then she handed me the test and I proceeded to the counter to answer the questions. Only one perplexed me. I guess I have been driving so many years I know everything by heart. People around me looked in various states of anxiety, but all nervous."Anyway, "
I thought, "I am allowed to miss three questions." I advised myself not to analyze them or read things into the questions."
Nine minutes later I was rewarded with a perfect score. I told the clerk I had puzzled over question number seven and she agreed with me that it was worded strangely. The only other senior citizen I could see among the 300 or so people there was much younger that me. She was wringing her hands since she missed five on the exam.

 I was out of there in 22 minutes, and once back in my own car allowed myself a giant toothless grin.
Above, Thursday night's sunset from my front yard, which does not compare with Cathy Lane but is kinda nice none the less.

Art from Junk

Nearby Sebastopol is not only a tourist jumping off place to the Russian River and the ocean, it is a center for all kinds of art, including the quirkiest. There an imaginative artist has transformed old junk like batteries and dented fenders into art objects. One can read about it on Google, of  course. He lives on Florence Ave., a four block stretch along which almost every front yard displays his work. I took a break from appointments this week to play tourist. How fun! In half an hour one can walk both sides of the street. No matter how cranky you feel, you come away smiling.

I hope I remember this next week when on Tuesday I surrender to the new dentist in Santa Rosa who is extracting the broken off roots of my two front teeth and starting the implant process,
The damsel on the right is my favorite. Her tail seems to be made of old tin cans.

Stand on Your Tiptoes

Left, Celia, with friend Abbe, France, 1918

 Exactly seventy years ago today 160,000 Allied troops stormed German-held western Europe from the bloody beaches of Normandy. France. I was thirteen, living in a rooming house in Seattle with my father and big sister, so I vaguely remember the headlines in the Seattle Times and Post Intelligencer. My sister would soon marry a handsome Ensign in the Navy, who would serve in the Pacific theatre on the heavy cruiser St. Louis. My father, too old for active service, was serving in the Coast Guard Reserve, as well as helping the government in various secret ways regarding radar and underwater communications, his professional expertise with the telephone company. Most all of my male ancestors on both sides served in the military, and my father even served in the US Cavalry. Patriotism was in my blood, one might say, and yet it never enveloped me..

It was some thirty plus years later when I would first meet my father's older sister, the most patriotic person I ever met. Veteran's Day was the most important day of the year to her. Aunt Celia was already retired at this time from her later career as a public health nurse. She was living alone in an apartment in Los Angeles, and soon to move into a US Army domicillary.
I would probably never have met her except Lee guilt-tripped me into it. "Your Aunt Celia is all alone" she commented regularly. "You should make an effort to meet her." And so I did.

From the beginning it was an awkward association. She loved me because I was her little brother's child, and because she needed me, but she never understood me, nor I her. I found her high squeaky voice, judgmental attitudes and Republican mentality off-putting. She found my informality and life values beyond tolerance. Lee and I supported her financially and somewhat lovingly until her death at age 96. At times I suffer guilt that I never truly loved her or got past our differences. Perhaps I could have tried harder.

In the  downsizing  before I moved up here I eliminated almost all of what was left of her earthly possessions. Yesterday, the anniversary of D day seemed like an appropriate time to go through the one shoe box left: her war records, diaries, and photographs, not of Normandy but of the first Great War. I hold in awe the stories of her service in France, some of which she told me in the years we knew each other. And so for my creative writing group last night I wrote the following. I have written in first person, in the hopes it would bring me closer to understanding her. I've taken some liberties in creating dialogue.

=

 With beau, (I think) Richard Preston in Paris, 1918

My favorite photo, Public Health NurseTexas,1922, What model car is this?

Stand On Your Tiptoes

Even though I knew none of my family would be there to see me, my pious aunt and uncle who raised me the last few years being too poor to make the trip from Northern Maine, I stood on my tiptoes for the photograph of our graduating class of June, 1918, from the Boston School of Nursing.  I was nineteen, and it was certainly the proudest day of my whole life, or so I thought.

Shortly thereafter  the Great War was declared and I enlisted with the American Red Cross.. With 750 other nurses we were  loaded on a troop ship to France.

The crossing was rough, and so it was with surprise that on the 7^th day the ship’s captain ordered all of us on deck. “A U boat has been sighted,” he announced over the loud speaker. “The president has ordered all nurses to be inducted into the army.” He continued without a pause: ”Raise your right hand”. After the oath was administered we were once again ordered below deck, this time for our mandatory physical.  All four foot eight of me was quaking in my bare feet. When the doctor got to me he frowned. The army required inductees to be five feet minimum. “Stand on your tiptoes” he commanded. I did. “Passed” he said.

What followed was four years in rural France staffing field hospitals, often in the trenches. Without chloroform, which was scarce, I would hold the hand of soldier as his arm or leg was amputated. We were often standing in water, so my tiptoe practice came in handy.

I nursed and fell in love with a Brit. My beau, as I called him. He didn’t make it.

When the armistice was declared we were sent to Paris for mustering out. A giant parade was scheduled and all of us nurses were given an allotment to purchase a new uniform for the parade. Mine, like the rest, was filthy and in tatters.  I was not about to spend money for a new uniform  that would only be worn for a parade. So I took the money and bought a beautiful French chapeau with lavender and pink silk roses. And yes, I got in trouble on the day of the parade, but it was worth it.