breakable, handle with care...

I realized that I had reached sensory overload Monday night when a
group of carolers asked if they could sing in our store and I said,
"No!". They stood out front in the cold and of course they had
beautiful clear voices, probably professionals of some sort. On
the other hand, I have had it up to my ears with the holiday music ~
except maybe It Must Have Been the Mistletoe, written by The Great
Plotnik, which we never hear often enough. He maintains that the best
Christmas music was written by Jews, but that's for another post.

Today I picture wrapping myself in those cotton balls above. I am
not talking to anyone, if I can help it, and I already had my delightful
solo walk. No radio or TV, no phone calls and soon I'm going to take
my book (I'm LOVING The Bad Girl!) and the New Yorker to bed for
that long winter's snooze. Dinner tonight at Fringale, one of our faves.

have you met Josie?

Here is the Blogmaid's grey and white under her tree in Pumpkinville.
She is now a 3-legged furball, and gets around just fine, thank you.
The next photo (which someone, Snowglobe Sally maybe? used as a
screen saver) is Josie undergoing the routine (or so we like to think)
operation to keep her from giving the world more unwanted kittens.
I love both photos, but I think Josie-in-bondage is still my all-time
favorite feline photo. Keeping it real...

finally feeling the joy

We love our friends and as they gathered around our pozole table
last night, my heart was warm with gratitude. The tree was 1/4
decorated by RR who has a penchant for kittens and horses and
even though she snubbed the lemon mousse (and salad) she did
a fine job of sitting through what she must consider boring adult
conversation. One of our guests was quite impressed with our
leaning tree top which we have grown to accept/ignore...

Of course by now you want the before and after table pictures.
The ugly aluminum foil encased the warm tortillas, served on
mother's silver dishes, of course.

It was a wonderful evening ~ the holiday glow reappears just when
I need it most. And yes, it's until 1am again at the big box tonight.

green house with a blue kitchen

We watched this remodel being built and are fascinated by not only
the location (25th and Alabama, a few blocks away from us) but by
the 52 ft. tall turbine wind generator and other eco-friendly ideas.
It was a Sunset Magazine and Meridian Builders project and I think
you'll enjoy seeing some professional photographs at this website.
It's on the market (for a million plus) and is getting lots of
press because of the many innovative features.

a movie for your "must see" list

The fabulous Don Cheadle plays Ralph Waldo "Petey" Green, an
ex-con radio disc jockey back in the late 60's in Washington, DC.
You can rent Talk To Me from the Flix® or buy it at the big
box, if you are so inclined. We both thought this was a truly
wonderful film and recommend it highly. One Kleenex® and lots
of pensive after-thoughts...

i had better get to more museums!

Here is a clever (and short) little quiz that you might enjoy today.
Thanks to my friend Shauna at the big box for sending it to me.
If you tell me your score, I'll tell you mine...

ART OR CRAP?

This Salvador Dali has nothing to do with the quiz ~ he had a thing
for eggs, but you already know that.

here it is ~ thanks to Susan

L
ITTLE tree
little silent
Christmas tree
you are so little
you are more like a flower
who found you in the green forest
and were you very sorry to come away?
see i will comfort you because you smell so
sweetly i will kiss your cool bark and hug you
safe and tight just as your mother would, only don't
be afraid look the spangles that sleep all the year in
a dark box dreaming of being taken out and allowed to
shine, the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads,
put up your little arms and i'll give them all to you to hold
every finger shall have its ring and there won't be a single
place dark or unhappy then when you're quite dressed you'll
stand in the window for everyone to see and how they'll
stare! oh but you'll be very proud and my little sister and i will
take hands and looking up at our beautiful tree we'll dance
and sing
"Noel Noel"I

ee cummings

revenge is sweet

Remember when Eric Gagne was a Dodger and he put his fist through
a dugout wall (or like that) because Barry Bonds hit a home run
off this closing pitcher with a record of like 178 to 2? Well,
he must have been having some sort of steroid fit because here
is our Eric (I think he's a Brewer now) on the Mitchell Report
List. Turns out he used some sort of banned substance. Amazing
all the names on that list ~ so many players that didn't have
"it" with or without steroids. You gotta love the memory of all
those fans with asterisks on their shirts when Barry would get
up to bat. Tsk tsk ~ let he who throws the first fast ball curve
hear all of us Giants fans saying, "didn't we tell you all along?"
And Roger too ~ what a hoot. Now let's dig into the other sports,
or is that all "natural talent"? Asterisks galore...

can you see what i smell?

Husbando requested a smaller tree this year, so of course I said
"yes". I am nothing if not an acquiescent wife. Our favorite
Pumpkinville tree decorator (RR) will be here Sunday night, but
tomorrow I'll hang some lights and try to figure out a solution for
that leaning top thingie. Or not. ee seems out of character here,
but who couldn't enjoy this sweet poem? My memory is that this is
shaped like a tree, but of course I can't do that for you due to
basic computer ineptitude, but my tiny acquiescent and demure heart
is in the correct place...trust me on this.


little tree

by: e.e. cummings (1894-1962)

ITTLE tree
little silent Christmas tree
you are so little
you are more like a flower
who found you in the green forest
and were you very sorry to come away?
see i will comfort you
because you smell so sweetly
i will kiss your cool bark
and hug you safe and tight
just as your mother would,
only don't be afraid
look the spangles
that sleep all the year in a dark box
dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine,
the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads,
put up your little arms
and i'll give them all to you to hold
every finger shall have its ring
and there won't be a single place dark or unhappy
then when you're quite dressed
you'll stand in the window for everyone to see
and how they'll stare!
oh but you'll be very proud
and my little sister and i will take hands
and looking up at our beautiful tree
we'll dance and sing
"Noel Noel"

no photo

...you are lucky to get this graph. Last night was smooth,
if extremely tiring, and I was home drinking Sleepy Time
tea at 1am on the dot. And then I slept! Interesting to
note that when I marched out about 7pm on my dinner break,
the streets were packed with bags/shoppers/strollers and
there were twosomes of teenage police people all over the
place. They were rousting the beggars and (I hope) keeping
an eye out for the purse snatching scum suckers who seem
to multiply this time of year.

I'm 11am to 8pm today. Two weeks until 3 days off in a row.
I accept your encouraging words and thank you sincerely.

the laws of the universe (and more!)

This is crunch time, when we need every single body at work to
deal with the customers, so of course there is enough sickness
in that big bad box to fill every General Hospital in every
major city in America. It's tough, my friends. Tonight we stay
open until midnight and that is the way it will be until I
close the store Christmas Eve when (hooray) we close at 7pm.

Seeing Vince Vaughn and Sean Penn at lunch (in Lori's, of all
places) did ease the pain of my Sunday, however. One of the
reasons I love SF is that we all leave the stars alone. It
sure is great to look, however...

I am just starting to read The Bad Girl by Mario Vargas Llosa,
recommended by one of my favorite customers. So far, excellent!

Escaping at night we watched Waitress and Hairspray. Both films
contributed to sound sleep during these cold nights. No, I stayed
wide awake during, but slept like a non-retailer afterwards.
Thanks, Flix®.

back to bisbee

Mary sent me this photo of the Sandhill Cranes who reside down there
in the winter months. She says that there are thousands of them and
the sound of their flapping wings during takeoff is astounding. I am
going to concentrate on this glorious visual today during times of
high anxiety. Once again I wonder why and how anyone can get so
upset over one book or DVD or latte. I do get a kick out of the men
shoppers asking, "are we done yet?" so hopefully to their female
companions. I need a museum break next week and will put that on my
To Do List. Breathe. Visualize cranes...

two dogs, one platypus

My friend Boise went to Santa Barbara for Thanksgiving and sent us
this fine photo of THE PLATYPUS, which I had neglected to include
during last September's report. Auri and Bliss are here also ~ remember
the little dachshund is the one with the Platypus Addiction.

We are planning The Great Italian Reunion for July. Our hostess who
lives in Florence (Adriana) will be visiting Ginger in Santa Barbara
and we will all gather again to laugh, speak flawless Italian and
reminisce a bit. I'm already looking forward to the all-women gathering.

Not many trips in 2008. That will be "the Year of the House" and we are
planning to do some fix-ups as soon as we have gathered enough back-up
money to start. It's always something interesting (expensive) for homeowners...

a classic for the season

Thanks to LoriB for sending us this Hanukaah in Santa Monica
video by the never-to-be-equaled Tom Lehrer. Enjoy. Hmmmm,
I can't get it to up/download, let's try this:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=184341556002
or check You Tube under Hanukaah Santa Monica. Or not.

a work in progress

Husbando and I are both big, big fans of both Charlie Varon
and the Traveling Jewish Theatre, so we were looking forward
to attending this production last night. The small theater was
packed and we could feel the excitement for Rabbi Sam. Varon
expertly plays 12 characters, but oh my, it's sort of like a
lecture in Jewish History. Maybe if we belonged to a synagogue
we would find the material a little funnier. I joined the woman
next to me for a long winter's nap, but Husbando stayed wide
awake and at intermission said, "let's go".

Charlie Varon usually performs at The Marsh and we have loved him
there in Rush Limbaugh in Night School, Ten Day Soup, etc. Plus
he collaborated on Dan Hoyle's Tings Dey Happen, now playing off
Broadway, so you know he's a great theatre guy.

The Great Plotnik teaches us to appreciate the work and talent,
but to be honest when we review live theatre, so I hope Charlie
and the Rabbi add a little spice, cut a few words and make this
more interesting for wayward Jews and gentiles such as us (we?).

what i should have read in 2007

Let's share the guilt ~ here are the 100 "best" from the New
York Times. I've read some, but as usual, I disagree with a
few of these choices. BRIDGE OF SIGHS was dull, for instance.

Fiction & Poetry

THE ABSTINENCE TEACHER. By Tom Perrotta. (St. Martin’s, $24.95.) In this new novel by the author of “Little Children,” a sex-ed teacher faces off against a church bent on ridding her town of “moral decay.”

AFTER DARK. By Haruki Murakami. Translated by Jay Rubin. (Knopf, $22.95.) A tale of two sisters, one awake all night, one asleep for months.

THE BAD GIRL. By Mario Vargas Llosa. Translated by Edith Grossman. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25.) This suspenseful novel transforms “Madame Bovary” into a vibrant exploration of the urban mores of the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s.

BEARING THE BODY. By Ehud Havazelet. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $24.) In this daring first novel, a man travels to California after his brother is killed in what may have been a drug transaction.

THE BEAUTIFUL THINGS THAT HEAVEN BEARS. By Dinaw Mengestu. (Riverhead, $22.95.) A first novel about an Ethiopian exile in Washington, D.C., evokes loss, hope, memory and the solace of friendship.

BRIDGE OF SIGHS. By Richard Russo. (Knopf, $26.95.) In his first novel since “Empire Falls,” Russo writes of a small town in New York riven by class differences and racial hatred.

THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO. By Junot Díaz. (Riverhead, $24.95.) A nerdy Dominican-American yearns to write and fall in love.

CALL ME BY YOUR NAME. By André Aciman. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $23.) Aciman’s novel of love, desire, time and memory describes a passionate affair between two young men in Italy.

CHEATING AT CANASTA. By William Trevor. (Viking, $24.95.) Trevor’s dark, worldly short stories linger in the mind long after they’re finished.

THE COLLECTED POEMS, 1956-1998. By Zbigniew Herbert. Translated by Alissa Valles. (Ecco/HarperCollins, $34.95.) Herbert’s poetry echoes the quiet insubordination of his public life.

DANCING TO “ALMENDRA.” By Mayra Montero. Translated by Edith Grossman. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25.) Fact and fiction rub together in this rhythmic story of a reporter on the trail of the Mafia, set mainly in 1950s Cuba.

EXIT GHOST. By Philip Roth. (Houghton Mifflin, $26.) In his latest novel Roth brings back Nathan Zuckerman, a protagonist whom we have known since his potent youth and who now must face his inevitable decline.

FALLING MAN. By Don DeLillo. (Scribner, $26.) Through the story of a lawyer and his estranged wife, DeLillo resurrects the world as it was on 9/11, in all its mortal dread, high anxiety and mass confusion.

FELLOW TRAVELERS. By Thomas Mallon. (Pantheon, $25.) In Mallon’s seventh novel, a State Department official navigates the anti-gay purges of the McCarthy era.

A FREE LIFE. By Ha Jin. (Pantheon, $26.) The Chinese-born author spins a tale of bravery and nobility in an American system built on risk and mutual exploitation.

THE GATHERING. By Anne Enright. (Black Cat/Grove/Atlantic, paper, $14.) An Irishwoman searches for clues to what set her brother on the path to suicide.

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS. By J. K. Rowling. (Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic, $34.99.) Rowling ties up all the loose ends in this conclusion to her grand wizarding saga.

HOUSE LIGHTS. By Leah Hager Cohen. (Norton, $24.95.) The heroine of Cohen’s third novel abandons her tarnished parents for the seductions of her grand-mother’s life in theater.

HOUSE OF MEETINGS. By Martin Amis. (Knopf, $23.) A Russian World War II veteran posthumously acquaints his stepdaughter with his grim past of rape and violence.

IN THE COUNTRY OF MEN. By Hisham Matar. (Dial, $22.) The boy narrator of this novel, set in Libya in 1979, learns about the convoluted roots of betrayal in a totalitarian society.

THE INDIAN CLERK. By David Leavitt. (Bloomsbury, $24.95.) Leavitt explores the intricate relationship between the Cambridge mathematician G. H. Hardy and a poor, self-taught genius from Madras, stranded in England during World War I.

KNOTS. By Nuruddin Farah. (Riverhead, $25.95.) After 20 years, a Somali woman returns home to Mogadishu from Canada, intent on reclaiming a family house from a warlord.

LATER, AT THE BAR: A Novel in Stories. By Rebecca Barry. (Simon & Schuster, $22.) The small-town regulars at Lucy’s Tavern carry their loneliness in “rough and beautiful” ways.

LET THE NORTHERN LIGHTS ERASE YOUR NAME. By Vendela Vida. (Ecco/HarperCollins, $23.95.) A young woman searches for the truth about her parentage amid the snow and ice of Lapland in this bleakly comic yet sad tale of a child’s futile struggle to be loved.

LIKE YOU’D UNDERSTAND, ANYWAY: Stories. By Jim Shepard. (Knopf, $23.) Shepard’s surprising tales feature such diverse characters as a Parisian executioner, a woman in space and two Nazi scientists searching for the yeti.

MAN GONE DOWN. By Michael Thomas. (Black Cat/Grove/Atlantic, paper, $14.) This first novel explores the fragmented personal histories behind four desperate days in a black writer’s life.

MATRIMONY. By Joshua Henkin. (Pantheon, $23.95.) Henkin follows a couple from college to their mid-30s, through crises of love and mortality.

THE MAYTREES. By Annie Dillard. (HarperCollins, $24.95.) A married couple find their way back to each other under unusual circumstances.

THE MINISTRY OF SPECIAL CASES. By Nathan Englander. (Knopf, $25.) A Jewish family is caught up in Argentina’s “Dirty War.”

MOTHERS AND SONS: Stories. By Colm Toibin. (Scribner, $24.) In this collection by the author of “The Master,” families are not so much reassuring and warm as they are settings for secrets, suspicion and missed connections.

NEXT LIFE. By Rae Armantrout. (Wesleyan University, $22.95.) Poetry that conveys the invention, the wit and the force of mind that contests all assumptions.

ON CHESIL BEACH. By Ian McEwan. (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, $22.) Consisting largely of a single sex scene played out on a couple’s wedding night, this seeming novel of manners is as much a horror story as any McEwan has written.

OUT STEALING HORSES. By Per Petterson. Translated by Anne Born. (Graywolf Press, $22.) In this short yet spacious Norwegian novel, an Oslo professional hopes to cure his loneliness with a plunge into solitude.

THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST. By Mohsin Hamid. (Harcourt, $22.) Hamid’s chilling second novel is narrated by a Pakistani who tells his life story to an unnamed American after the attacks of 9/11.

REMAINDER. By Tom McCarthy. (Vintage, paper, $13.95.) In this debut, a Londoner emerges from a coma and seeks to reassure himself of the genuineness of his existence.

THE SAVAGE DETECTIVES. By Roberto Bolaño. Translated by Natasha Wimmer. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27.) A craftily autobiographical novel about a band of literary guerrillas.

SELECTED POEMS. By Derek Walcott. Edited by Edward Baugh. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25.) The Nobel Prize winner Walcott, who was born on St. Lucia, is a long-serving poet of exile, caught between two races and two worlds.

THE SEPTEMBERS OF SHIRAZ. By Dalia Sofer. (Ecco/HarperCollins, $24.95.) In this powerful first novel, the father of a prosperous Jewish family in Tehran is arrested shortly after the Iranian revolution.

SHORTCOMINGS. By Adrian Tomine. (Drawn & Quarterly, $19.95.) The Asian-American characters in this meticulously observed comic-book novella explicitly address the way in which they handle being in a minority.

SUNSTROKE: And Other Stories. By Tessa Hadley. (Picador, paper, $13.) These resonant tales encapsulate moments of hope and humiliation in a kind of shorthand of different lives lived.

THEN WE CAME TO THE END. By Joshua Ferris. (Little, Brown, $23.99.) Layoff notices fly in Ferris’s acidly funny first novel, set in a white-collar office in the wake of the dot-com debacle.

THROW LIKE A GIRL: Stories. By Jean Thompson. (Simon & Schuster, paper, $13.) The women here are smart and strong but drawn to losers.

TIME AND MATERIALS: Poems, 1997-2005. By Robert Hass. (Ecco/Harper-Collins, $22.95.) What Hass, a former poet laureate, has lost in Californian ease he has gained in stern self-restraint.

TREE OF SMOKE. By Denis Johnson. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27.) The author of “Jesus’ Son” offers a soulful novel about the travails of a large cast of characters during the Vietnam War.

TWENTY GRAND: And Other Tales of Love and Money. By Rebecca Curtis. (Harper Perennial, paper, $13.95.) In this debut collection, a crisp, blunt tone propels stories both surreal and realistic.

VARIETIES OF DISTURBANCE: Stories. By Lydia Davis. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, paper, $13.) Dispensing with straight narrative, Davis microscopically examines language and thought.

THE VIEW FROM CASTLE ROCK: Stories. By Alice Munro. (Knopf, $25.95.) This collection offers unusually explicit reflections of Munro’s life.

WHAT IS THE WHAT. The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng: A Novel. By Dave Eggers. (McSweeney’s, $26.) The horrors, injustices and follies in this novel are based on the experiences of one of the Lost Boys of Sudan.

WINTERTON BLUE. By Trezza Azzopardi. (Grove, $24.) An unhappy young woman meets an even unhappier drifter.

THE YIDDISH POLICEMEN’S UNION. By Michael Chabon. (HarperCollins, $26.95.) Cops, thugs, schemers, rabbis, chess fanatics and obsessives of every stripe populate this screwball, hard-boiled murder mystery set in an imagined Jewish settlement in Alaska.


Nonfiction

AGENT ZIGZAG: A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal. By Ben Macintyre. (Harmony, $25.95.) The exploits of Eddie Chapman, a British criminal who became a double agent in World War II.

ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE: A Life. By Hugh Brogan. (Yale University, $35.) Brogan’s combative biography takes issue with Tocqueville’s misgivings about democracy.

ALICE: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, From White House Princess to Washington Power Broker. By Stacy A. Cordery. (Viking, $32.95.) A biography of Theodore Roosevelt’s shrewd, tart-tongued older daughter.

AMERICAN CREATION: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic. By Joseph J. Ellis. (Knopf, $26.95.) This history explores an underappreciated point: that this country was constructed to foster arguments, not to settle them.

THE ARGUMENT: Billionaires, Bloggers, and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics. By Matt Bai. (Penguin Press, $25.95.) An exhaustive account of the Democrats’ transformative efforts, by a political reporter for The New York Times Magazine.

ARSENALS OF FOLLY: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race. By Richard Rhodes. (Knopf, $28.95.) This artful history focuses on the events leading up to the pivotal 1986 Reykjavik summit meeting between Reagan and Gorbachev.

THE ART OF POLITICAL MURDER: Who Killed the Bishop? By Francisco Goldman. (Grove, $25.) The novelist returns to Guatemala, a major inspiration for his fiction, to try to solve the real-life killing of a Roman Catholic bishop.

BROTHER, I’M DYING. By Edwidge Danticat. (Knopf, $23.95.) Danticat’s cleareyed prose and unflinching adherence to the facts conceal an undercurrent of melancholy in this memoir of her Haitian family.

CIRCLING MY MOTHER. By Mary Gordon. (Pantheon, $24.) Gordon’s deeply personal memoir focuses on the engaged and lively Catholicism of her mother, a glamorous career woman who was also an alcoholic with a body afflicted by polio.

CLEOPATRA’S NOSE: 39 Varieties of Desire. By Judith Thurman. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27.95.) These surgically analytic essays of cultural criticism showcase themes of loss, hunger and motherhood.

CULTURAL AMNESIA: Necessary Memories From History and the Arts. By Clive James. (Norton, $35.) Essays on 20th-century luminaries by one of Britain’s leading public intellectuals.

THE DAY OF BATTLE: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944. Volume Two of the Liberation Trilogy. By Rick Atkinson. (Holt, $35.) A celebration of the American experience in these campaigns.

THE DIANA CHRONICLES. By Tina Brown. (Doubleday, $27.50.) The former New Yorker editor details the sordid domestic drama that pitted the Princess of Wales against Britain’s royal family.

THE DISCOVERY OF FRANCE: A Historical Geography From the Revolution to the First World War. By Graham Robb. (Norton, $27.95.) Robb presents France as a group of diverse regions, each with its own long history, intricate belief systems and singular customs.

DOWN THE NILE: Alone in a Fisherman’s Skiff. By Rosemary Mahoney. (Little, Brown, $23.99.) Mahoney juxtaposes her solo rowing journey with encounters with the Egyptians she met.

DRIVEN OUT: The Forgotten War Against Chinese Americans. By Jean Pfaelzer. (Random House, $27.95.) How the Chinese were brutalized and demonized in the 19th-century American West — and how they fought back.

DUE CONSIDERATIONS: Essays and Criticism. By John Updike. (Knopf, $40.) Updike’s first nonfiction collection in eight years displays breathtaking scope as well as the author’s seeming inability to write badly.

EASTER EVERYWHERE: A Memoir. By Darcey Steinke. (Bloomsbury, $24.95.) A minister’s daughter confronts her own spiritual rootlessness.

EDITH WHARTON. By Hermione Lee. (Knopf, $35.) This meticulous biography shows Wharton’s significance as a designer, decorator, gardener and traveler, as well as a writer.

THE FATHER OF ALL THINGS: A Marine, His Son, and the Legacy of Vietnam. By Tom Bissell. (Pantheon, $25.) Bissell mixes rigorous narrative accounts of the war and emotionally powerful scenes of the distress it brought his own family.

THE FLORIST’S DAUGHTER. By Patricia Hampl. (Harcourt, $24.) In her fifth and most powerful memoir, Hampl looks hard at her relationship to her Midwestern roots as her mother lies dying in the hospital.

FORESKIN’S LAMENT: A Memoir. By Shalom Auslander. (Riverhead, $24.95.) With scathing humor and bitter irony, Auslander wrestles with his Jewish Orthodox roots.

GOMORRAH: A Personal Journey Into the Violent International Empire of Naples’ Organized Crime System. By Roberto Saviano. Translated by Virginia Jewiss. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25.) This powerful work of reportage started a national conversation in Italy when it was published there last year.

THE HOUSE THAT GEORGE BUILT: With a Little Help From Irving, Cole, and a Crew of About Fifty. By Wilfrid Sheed. (Random House, $29.95.) A rich homage to Gershwin, Berlin and other masters of the swinging jazz song.

HOW DOCTORS THINK. By Jerome Groopman. (Houghton Mifflin, $26.) Groopman takes a tough-minded look at the ways in which doctors and patients interact, and at the profound problems facing modern medicine.

HOW TO READ THE BIBLE: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now. By James L. Kugel. (Free Press, $35.) In this tour through the Jewish scriptures (i.e., the Old Testament, more or less), a former professor of Hebrew seeks to reclaim the Bible from the literalists and the skeptics.

HOW TO TALK ABOUT BOOKS YOU HAVEN’T READ. By Pierre Bayard. Translated by Jeffrey Mehlman. (Bloomsbury, $19.95.) A French literature professor wants to assuage our guilt over the ways we actually read and discuss books.

IMPERIAL LIFE IN THE EMERALD CITY: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone. By Rajiv Chandrasekaran. (Knopf, $25.95.) The author, a Washington Post journalist, catalogs the arrogance and ineptitude that marked America’s governance of Iraq.

THE INVISIBLE CURE: Africa, the West, and the Fight Against AIDS. By Helen Epstein. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26.) Rigorous reporting unearths new findings among the old issues.

LEGACY OF ASHES: The History of the CIA. By Tim Weiner. (Doubleday, $27.95.) A comprehensive chronicle of the American intelligence agency, from the days of the Iron Curtain to Iraq, by a reporter for The New York Times.

LENI: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl. By Steven Bach. (Knopf, $30.) How Hitler’s favorite director made “Triumph of the Will” and convinced posterity that she didn’t know what the Nazis were up to.

LEONARD WOOLF: A Biography. By Victoria Glendinning. (Free Press, $30.) Glendinning shows Virginia Woolf’s accomplished husband as passionate, reserved and, above all, stoical.

A LIFE OF PICASSO: The Triumphant Years, 1917-1932. By John Richardson. (Knopf, $40.) The third, penultimate installment in Richardson’s biography spans a dauntingly complicated time in Picasso’s life and in European history.

LITTLE HEATHENS: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression. By Mildred Armstrong Kalish. (Bantam, $22.) Kalish’s soaring love for her childhood memories saturates this memoir, which coaxes the reader into joy, wonder and even envy.

LONG WAY GONE: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. By Ishmael Beah. (Sarah Crichton/-Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $22.) A former child warrior gives literary voice to the violence and killings he both witnessed and perpetrated during the Sierra Leone civil war.

THE NINE: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court. By Jeffrey Toobin. (Doubleday, $27.95.) An erudite outsider’s account of the cloistered court’s inner workings.

THE ORDEAL OF ELIZABETH MARSH: A Woman in World History. By Linda Colley. (Pantheon, $27.50.) Colley tracks the “compulsively itinerant” Marsh across the 18th century and several continents.

PORTRAIT OF A PRIESTESS: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece. By Joan Breton Connelly. (Princeton University, $39.50.) A scholar finds that religion meant power for Greek women.

RALPH ELLISON: A Biography. By Arnold Rampersad. (Knopf, $35.) Ellison was seemingly cursed by his failure to follow up “Invisible Man.”

THE REST IS NOISE: Listening to the Twentieth Century. By Alex Ross. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $30.) In his own feat of orchestration, The New Yorker’s music critic presents a history of the last century as refracted through its classical music.

SCHULZ AND PEANUTS: A Biography. By David Michaelis. (Harper/ Harper-Collins, $34.95.) Actual “Peanuts” cartoons movingly illustrate this portrait of the strip’s creator, presented here as a profoundly lonely and unhappy man.

SERVICE INCLUDED: Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter. By Phoebe Damrosch. (Morrow, $24.95.) A memoir about waiting tables at the acclaimed Manhattan restaurant Per Se.

SOLDIER’S HEART: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point. By Elizabeth D. Samet. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $23.) A civilian teacher at the Military Academy offers a significant perspective on a crucial social and political force: honor.

STANLEY: The Impossible Life of Africa’s Greatest Explorer. By Tim Jeal. (Yale University, $38.) Of the many biographies of Henry Morton Stanley, Jeal’s, which profits from his access to an immense new trove of material, is the most complete and readable.

THE STILLBORN GOD: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West. By Mark Lilla. (Knopf, $26.) With nuance and complexity, Lilla examines how we managed to separate, in a fashion, church and state.

THOMAS HARDY. By Claire Tomalin. (Penguin Press, $35.) Tomalin presents Hardy as a fascinating case study in mid-Victorian literary sociology.

TOO CLOSE TO THE SUN: The Audacious Life and Times of Denys Finch Hatton. By Sara Wheeler. (Random House, $27.95.) The story of the man immortalized in “Out of Africa.”

TWO LIVES: Gertrude and Alice. By Janet Malcolm. (Yale University, $25.) Sharp criticism meets playful, absorbing biography in this study of Stein and Toklas.

THE WHISPERERS: Private Life in Stalin’s Russia. By Orlando Figes. (Metropolitan, $35.) An extraordinary look at the gulag’s impact on desperate individuals and families struggling to survive.

THE YEARS OF EXTERMINATION: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945. By Saul Friedländer. (HarperCollins, $39.95.) Individual testimony and broader events are skillfully interwoven.
Buy These Books From:

a recap of the merriness of it all

Here is a little sample of the fun of closing the big box last
night. Who opened ALL the doors of the jails and mental
institutions?

1) there is a very sweet woman from the Salvation Army who
gift wraps for us to raise money for that charity. One
"customer" asked her to help reach for a book across from
her table and someone grabbed her purse from under the chair.
It took two seconds. Her response, "it's OK, I work
with these people all the time, it's just my purse." She'll
be back to gift wrap today.

2) guy talking trash at busy Info. 2. I go to confront him
and he (ick) shakes my hand and claims to know me from Barnes
& Noble where I had fired him a few years ago.
"I did a good thing", I say as I usher him out.

3) Mr. Smell Bad #45 v. concerned with his rights because an
anonymous person complained about his personal hygiene.

4) Scams galore, I can't keep up with them all. It's a balance
between protecting the company assets and not getting into a
nasty screaming fight with the "customer". For some reason I
never feel that I handle these situations correctly, probably
because I don't. Alas, I have the sharp retort always at the
ready and I have to swallow that and remember that my goal is
not really to show how very, very clever I can be.

5) First temp remembers that she is going to the East Coast for
the holidays. Oooooops, didn't we cover this in the interview?
But that's OK, it's all part of the game and besides, she is a
sweetie to work with. In HR we learn to dread the question, "can
I talk to you for a moment?"

But wait, here's some great news! Three weeks from today I get
3 days off in a row. Thanks for listening...

adair reappears!

Here is one of the many great EX Chronny writers, Adair Lara.
I have a collection of columns of hers from the good olde days
and I was delighted to see this one yesterday ~ even if the
subject matter is a little sad. Of course I agree with her,
I always have. Some of my writer friends actually know Adair,
how fortunate are they?

Treat yourself - don't worry about what you leave the kids

Adair Lara

Sunday, December 2, 2007

My mother died last month. She left behind a checking account with $18,000 in it, and various other accounts. Not a lot of money, but every quarter, every dollar earned, came from waitressing and secretarial work. She never owned stocks, made no money from real estate, so every dime is money she worked for, down to the quarters that dragged down the shiny black pocket of her waitress skirt. She saved and saved.

Even when she'd been in hospice for a year and 10 months with end-stage congestive heart failure, she fretted over the Comcast bill, though movies were a pleasure to someone now too weak to leave the house. If she suspected I was running less than a full load in the washer, she'd accuse me of sending her to the poorhouse. When I grocery-shopped for her, I began leaving some items in the car, to sneak into the house later, so she wouldn't upset herself about the bottle of ketchup I bought when there was still a nearly full bottle in the fridge. "Mom, you have more money coming in every month," I'd say. "Buy the kind of garbage bags that don't break."

But the habit of a lifetime could not be broken. She had not used her spending muscle in so long that it had atrophied, and withered away.

The morning she died, at home with five of us six kids there, I found myself furiously stuffing the cheap set of Mervyns sheets from her bed into the trash - and then kicking the trashcan for good measure.

I was with her a few months ago when she bought that comforter set - $40 for the whole thing, such a bargain! - I kept trying to lead her into the aisle with nicer sets, with sheets that weren't Kleenex-thin, but no, it was too much money, these were fine. When I bought things for her - a nice rug for the living room, soft cashmere sweaters - she gave them to my sisters.

When it was time to empty her house, I tossed her motley collection of dishes into Hefty bags, not caring if they broke. I threw out dusty fake roses that I've been dying to throw out for years. I unhooked stained-glass doodads from the latticework of her porch and wasn't surprised to find they were plastic. Almost everything went straight to the dump.

Recently, my husband, Bill, and I drove from our house in San Francisco to Santa Rosa to visit his recently widowed 83-year-old mother. Her house is a nice carpeted two-bedroom in a retirement community, but she too likes to pay as little as possible for everything, driving all the way across town to Wal-Mart to get the Hanes briefs that are cheaper there. Bill's father died last December at the age of 90, and my mother-in-law has been urging her sons to go to the closet and take some of the shirts. But the shirts were from garage sales to begin with, and no one wants them.

"Don't do to your kids what my mother did," I begged her. "Don't die with a houseful of junk."

I want my mother-in-law, whom I adore, to spring for a better satellite package - she doesn't even get any movies on hers. She does hire a man to drive her the 50 miles to San Francisco to see us, and the 40 miles to Sacramento to see another son, and I'm grateful for that. Recently she announced she has a pedicurist coming to the house. This may seem the obvious move for someone who had macular degeneration and can see neither the road well enough to drive or her toenails well enough to cut them, but she's never done it before.

"Buy things for yourself. Leave your kids stubs of airlines tickets, theatre tickets, beautiful vases, gorgeous rugs, pictures of yourself waving from a cruise ship."

I couldn't get my mother to buy the turquoise wall-to-wall carpet she kept talking about.

You - you of my mother's generation - still can. Buy a new car. Get what you need, and what you don't need. Treat yourself to fresh flowers, piano lessons, a manicure. I would much rather have had my mother buy that turquoise rug than inherit my one-sixth of what it would have cost. I want what I will never have, the memory of her last year in hospice with that glorious color under her feet in every room.

the red light district

Here is our kitchen nook ~ I just hung these little lights, meaning
the holiday is coming to our home gradually, but surely. The Blogmaid
introduced me to indoor lights when she lived in Pathetica, and now
I can't seem to live without some kind of hanging illumination. I
took down the orange Halloween/Thanksgiving lights two days ago and
the whole kitchen seemed so dull to me that I rushed to Walgreen's
for some reds. How's this for news?

i'm like all retail lately

My friend Michael from Santa Barbara met me after work and
we had some coffee at that French Jazz restaurant on Ellis.
Then I had a brilliant idea ~ I'll show him our Apple® store
down the street, he's a computer guy. I do love the glass stairs
there and it would be a fun place to people watch from a safe
distance. But it was even more jostle-jostle than the big box
(if possible) and I was getting a little irritable by the time
we left. I am impressed that they have so many clerks, today
all in red shirts and not one over 18, or so it appeared. And
8 computers all set up about 3 ft. off the floor for kids to
play those incomprehensible video games. My day was less than
perfect, but it's almost January and my cold is better. I can
do it, I can do it...

boosting my immune system

I have a slight cold, but am doing all the right things and it should
be completely gone in a few days. What could me more boring than me
writing about a cold? Maybe watching me use 245 Kleenex® in one day?
So I'll go to work, but I think it's too late to spread more germs.

musical nuttiness

A friend of a friend of a friend...was raising her little boy to be
anatomically correct and she taught him to say "seed sacks" instead
of the usual "nuts" or "balls". I'm sure this lasted until his first
day of school, but in the meantime, my friend and I got some warm
chuckles out of this unusual expression, as you might imagine.

But this year we took it to a new low and forever more the annual
symphonic production will be known as The Seed Sack Cracker. Isn't
that a kick in the...errrrrr?

it's come to this...

My all-time favorite Curb Your Enthusiasm episode is the one
where Larry's wife (Cheryl) is having a little party for three
of her women friends. They are going to watch the Oscar ceremony,
starting early, of course, with all the red carpet silliness.
Larry calls in the Remote Control Specialist (do they have these?)
to make sure all 6 of their remotes are functioning properly. I
thought of this yesterday because Husbando bought a Surround Sound
System and added yet another device to our media happy home. And
yes, we have our own guy (Gene's Sound Service) who came in to
set-up this thing and he left us easy-to-understand (hahahaha) hand-
written instructions. The only thing I remember Husbando saying
before I fell asleep was, "we need to use all 4 every time". Lordy.

that friday feeling

Closing the big box gets worse as we climb towards the actual
Happy Holiday, but I'm lucky with a good closing crew who do
not resent my occasional expletive of the F variety. I will
steal Mr. Z's blog thunder and tell you the highest compliment
that came from a woman "customer" last night:
She said to him, "I love the big box because other bookstores
won't let me in".

Seemingly, the jails and hospitals release all the scam artists and
shop lifters this time of year (not that we are free from them
the other 10 months) and they are out in droves. Elaborate
steal-and-return schemes and a myriad of complicated plots and
ploys that always seem to involve dying mothers. The goal is
always "cash back" to fly home for the funeral or whatever.

Oh, well, it's all part of the game. At least I smothered the
phone with a pillow when I got home last night and if the alarm
company called (as they did the night before, twice) I didn't
hear it. No perky until January, that only lasted a day or two
and it was phony anyway. Jingle.

back to the UK telly

After reading that this series The Street won the British version of
the Emmys on Nov. 20th, I lucked out with the Flix® and got the
first of two discs. Each episode involves one family on this typical
little street somewhere in northern England. Some of our favorite actors:
Jane Horrocks, Jim Broadbent and Timothy Spall. The stories intertwine
and yes, I did need a Kleenex® or two already. Nice escape for after
too much jingle belling...

the trenches ~ my report

OK, I know you are curious. It hasn't been too bad, mostly
because the 21 temps we hired have been working out nicely.
Well, today there were 4 call-outs, but we're still covered
and business is slowing down, finally.

Our big box is blowing both Plan and Comp (last year) out
of the water, or over the mountain, or whatever. We were
14.7% over Pl and a whopping 21% over LY. I sniff a bonus
on the horizon and that does smell good.

The customers have been pleasant, honestly. They don't start
getting testy until closer to xmas when we are running out
of that book or DVD they saw last July on the 3rd floor.
We have seen a few customers who swore they would never return
and the usual number of crazies and thieves.

I am pacing myself this year and that means office time and
not letting the paperwork get behind making January catch-up
impossible. The gigantic tree in Union Square looks more
festive than ever and this year PG&E is one of the sponsors
and they are using energy-saving lights. I swear it gets more
beautiful every year. Come visit!

the lookout is worth seeing

Joseph Gordon-Levitt was that cute kid on 3rd Rock from the Sun
and he's all grown up now and we thought he did a great job in
this thriller from Flix® that also stars Jeff Daniels. It's called
The Lookout and the only complaint I have is that there were a
few too many flashbacks (we get it, OK?). But the ending was very
satisfying and I thought Jeff Daniels did a great job playing a blind
man ~ not an easy role to play realistically, I'm guessing.

rosy thursday, black friday

Here's the aftermath. How long was that potholder on the table?
Also note that I forgot to put out dessert forks, so everyone
ate their pie with spoons. The tea box is also attractive. It was
another truly wonderful Thanksgiving and our dishes are done and
I will put them away now before I trudge off to the big box.

We used to have cocktail napkins that we would distribute with
coffee. They said, "Please Go Home, It's Past Our Bedtime". Now
our friends are so well-trained (and old) that they leave before
we start squirming.

Today won't be too crazy at work, our busiest time is the week
before xmas. The malls get all the traffic today, but we will be
busy enough, that's for sure.

the squish is "in"

I emailed Neti to see if she would mind sitting together with Frank
(as above) because we don't have quite enough room at the table
(Husbando and I will be very close at the other end) and she said
that she read in the NYTimes Style Section that this is di rigour
(sp?) so that's good news indeed.

Please note the little turkey place card holders that we found at the
Community Thrift Store on Valencia Street ~ 10 for $3.

The pecan pie is baked and soon we will make the stuffing and cook
the bird who has been sitting in a pot of brine all night. Everyone
brings "sides", so it really isn't much work at all. I love this day.
We will go around the room and everyone will give an "I'm thankful for.."
and I will say, "the no call list and Costco". The hostess gets two.

Happy Thanksgiving ~ aren't we all just so fortunate?

first day of school!

Here is our darling RR at pre-school yesterday ~ both she and the
Blogmaid handled this momentous occasion with grace and not one
Kleenex® was needed. Way to go! On Friday Ryan will be 4, no longer
a baby girl, officially, but few of us will forget the long-awaited
day she came into this world and changed all of our lives for the better.
Happy Birthday and please have some cake with shredded cauliflower
and eggplant, a la that deceptive Jessica Seinfeld.

almost ready for the brine

There was already a line outside Drewes this morning at 10am
when we went to pick up Mr. Willie Bird, the 17 lb. lad who
will spend part of Thanksgiving with us. But wow, some great
organization here with coffee, cookies and pies on a table outside
this favorite Noe Valley butcher shop on Church Street. Husbando
is not wonderful about standing in lines, but this one moved
quickly and there was some great people-watching, this being San
Francisco and all, if you get my drift.

Then I hopped back on the J train and met my old friend Ken for
lunch down on Castro Street. Ears from the past were burning...

How many people for Thanksgiving you ask? Ten. When can you
see the table? Maybe tomorrow ~ the camera batteries need re-
charging and I need to fuss around, as is my wont. Candles,
flowers, place cards...you know the drill.

smashing avocados

Yesterday Dancing Jen and Jon G. treated me to a delightful lunch
at Colibri, a Mexican Bistro (ahem) at 438 Geary, about 2 doors
West of Quizno's®, where I usually go for Sunday lunch. It's my new
favorite downtown restaurant and even though my friends are ex-big
boxers, we managed to gossip quite a bit about all of our friends
and enemies. (Funny how relaxed non-retail folks can be this time of year.)

They make the guacamole right there at the table and it is yummy.
I had been to Colibri once before for a business lunch, but of course
I had to mind my tongue ~ not so yesterday. We had glorious chiliquiles,
chile relleño and desayuno something. I enjoyed it so much that I
already reserved it for my next social event with Amy on the 30th
of November. Lunch out of the big box is always a special treat!

it's been a long time, tim

Well, here's a strange movie ~ I don't know HOW it got on my Flix®
list, but it did and yes, it is worth seeing. The Secret Life of Words
stars Tim Robbins and Sarah Pollen (or like that). Most of it takes
place on an oil rig, if you can imagine. Tim is a burn victim and
Sarah is a nurse who appears to lack any sort of personality. Later
we will discover why, of course. It's one of those movies I thought
about a lot afterwards. Only 1/2 Kleenex®. Strange to see Tim with
grey hair, on an oil rig. Oh, Julie Christie again too. Yes, I do
recommend this unusual movie.

"good morning, fair lady"

Our phone rang this morning around 4:15am or so, while I was
reading emails and deciding whether to have 1/2 a banana with
my blueberries, or not. There is never any GOOD news when the
phone rings before 9 in the morning, is there?

It was ADT, our alarm company, and there was a problem at the big
box, "on the first floor". I wasn't worried or scared, but I did
have to hurry a bit and wasn't able to take the 75 or so vitamins
that keep me healthy. ADT always calls the police and they like us
to meet them there, so while I was standing outside, one of the
street people greeted me with the above salutation. Very nice.

The two cops were friendly and checked out every floor and the
offices too. We all agreed that the big window cleaning truck over
at Saks had probably tripped the alarm. It could be worse, in fact
one Thanksgiving day there was someone in our store ~ that was fun.

front row bench seats, please

We hopped on the J train yesterday for a quick visit to the Farmer's
Market on the Embarcadero. Check out our best seats in the house.
Lunch (pork sandwiches and Vietnamese iced coffee) from Out The Door,
part of the Slanted Door family. Yum. Even on a non-market day, the
joint was jumpin' and we vowed once again to get down there more
often. It's so easy if one doesn't have to fuss with a car, parking, etc.

This morning I'm up too early, starting to think about work. I did
a fabulous job NOT thinking about it over my 3 days ~ for some of us it
takes a long time to learn how to live sanely in an insane world.

it's all about me today

This, my favorite photo, was taken several years ago by my
friend Ginger who resides in Kansas...her home, her computer.
Since then I have a lot more grey and more delightful age spots,
none of which are "troublesome", just ugly. We can handle ugly.

So today I take this Ginger's advice and not worry about the
wrapping paper, only the inside gift. I'm sitting here on the
sofa which is no longer the same color as the DMV walls (we had
a small Marital Discussion about this piece of furniture) and
I'm looking up and out at Bernal Hill ~ people and dogs, enjoying
this glorious sunny morning. From our back room at sunrise, three
downtown buildings were glowing a genuine pink ~ too wonderful.
Music? An extremely clever CD from the Blogmaid with 22 (!) songs
about Mary Ann ~ Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Burl Ives and 19 others.
Very, very special, thank you, Blogmaid w/o a Blog.

The dinner, courtesy of Husbando, last night at Lupa's was
memorable and I think we all agreed that the food was delicious.
I felt all warm and surrounded by love and fine humor. No nasty
age jokes, thank goodness.

Today is mine, so I need some alone time and a quiet lunch and
dinner with Husbando, a long solo walk sometime to appreciate
my life in my city. Once again I wish I had some sort of religion
so I could thank Someone for all these blessings of health and
all sorts of indescribable happiness and perfect friends. Oh,
and screw the age spots and grey hairs....

this is not a food blog!

But I will say that I have been eating extremely well
these past two days.
.Lox and bagels from Zabar's in NYC (a gift from my
friend Ginger who resides in Kansas) for breakfast(s)
.Lunch yesterday at The Beach Chalet ~ thanks to the
Plotniks for that perfect time and great burger!
.Latte at XO today with my yoga friend, LoriB
.Lunch Lite (sandwiches, scones and tea) with Gini at
Lovejoy's on Church Street this afternoon
.Dinner Heavy tonight at Lupa's Trattoria on 24th Street ~
a small gathering of wonderful friends. Lucky me!

lord love a lemur

A lot of celebrities shop at the big box. It's always fun
for the staff and the other customers.
Here are a few:
.President Clinton (twice)
.Robin Williams
.Woody Allen
.Randy Johnson
.Joe Montana
.Debra Winger
.Tony Bennett
.Whoopi Goldberg
Yesterday I rang up John Cleese who is taller than I
imagined (usually they are shorter ~ camera stuff) and he
was as nice as could be. I was tongue-tied, but did stammer
about how much I enjoyed his lemur DVD (like that's his
only film ~ sheeeesh) and he admitted that he liked those
little guys, or something like that. He bought mostly
history books, lots of them. One of the guys at work
keeps an autograph book in his locker ~ that's sort of cool
and he's collected a bunch of signatures.

I'm enjoying 3 days off! Late night because of carpet cleaning
last night, so I'm a bit groggy today. An excellent walk with
my friend Jane and her dog, Livvy B., then a glorious lunch
with The Great Plotniks down at the Beach Chalet. I just
awoke from a late nap, but I still think it will be an
early-to-bed. Beautiful sunny day, life is good.

brand new play about an old topic

Director Amy Glazer and playwright Rebecca Gilman have collaborated
on several productions at the Magic and The Crowd You're In With is
especially profound and meaningful to me. Through the years it would
have been more acceptable if I had said, "so sad, I could never have
children", instead of the truth, "didn't want any". Well, actually
what I usually muttered was, "oh, my husband has four, that's more than
enough", and that worked.

Now we have this new one act play set at a backyard BBQ. The older
couple (in their 50s) never wanted children and the two younger marrieds
think they do, in fact one woman is pregnant. I really loved it all ~
the dialogue, the plot and the even the unexpected ending. One of our
favorite local actresses (Lorri Holt) plays the happily childless woman
and I neglected to mention this great almost-slacker single guy who
adds so much to this realistic little July 4th celebration.

This play is neither pro nor anti-parenthood, and yes, it is funny.
There are no villains here, just lots to think about.

not your traditional teacher

Time for some inspiration! We both enjoyed Freedom Writers Diary
last night with Hilary Swank as the teacher who reaches these
tough teenagers in Long Beach. I found just a few minor irritations
(her smile, her pearls) here, but in most ways I thought it was an
honest portrayal of a true story because it shows once again how
the written word can solve all sorts of internal and external problems
in some surprising ways. Kleenex®? Oh, yes indeed.

of birds and bibles

Last week's oil "spill" is disgusting. How many thousands of
gallons? More than a spill, folks. The only thing that keeps me
encouraged here is that hundreds of people have volunteered to
help clean up the beaches, birds and sea life. They need special
training because this muck is so filled with chemicals. Bless them.

Today I spent a good (bad) 20 minutes talking to a customer about
a bible. I won't go into details because he might be reading my
blog (hahahaha), but I will say that I'm always amazed at how
these strong Christians seem to forget the message and this guy
was just plain mean. What Would Jesus Say?

join me in a graph?

Here is a snippet from The Gathering by Anne Enright:

There is something wonderful about a death, how everything
shuts down, and all the ways you thought you were vital are
not even vaguely important. Your husband can feed the kids,
he can work the new oven, he can find the sausages in the
fridge after all. And his important meeting was not important,
not in the slightest. And the girls will be picked up from
school, and dropped off again in the morning. Your eldest
daughter can remember her inhaler, and your youngest will
take her gym kit with her, and it is just as you suspected ~
most of the stuff you do is stupid, really stupid...

the flix® starts my day...

I don't know about you, but I always feel that there's something
sinful about watching movies in the morning, but here I was on this
gloomy Thursday with Black Book, directed by Paul Verhoeven. It's
a film about the underground resistance in the Netherlands at the end
of WW II. Based on a true story, very difficult to watch, of course.
Rachel (Jewish) becomes the blond lover of a Gestapo big wig and
there is so much double-crossing and intrigue that it's almost
unbelievable. Greed, survival, heroism ~ bring Kleenex®.

blogging woman talks books

We've been waiting and waiting for The Gathering by
Anne Enright to arrive in the big box. It was this year's
winner of the Man Booker Prize and believe me, of all the
book awards, this one is THE ONLY ONE that really counts
for me. As you probably know, the Man Booker goes to authors
in the British Commonwealth and Ireland ~ for contemporary
fiction that, in my opinion (never humble) really resonates.

Here is a wonderful resource if you want to catch up on
your reading. Past Man Booker winners. All in handy trade
paperback, by the way.

Although today is an official day off, I am going to get
gussied up to attend a Retail Job Search Panel this morning and
will hope to steal the creme for our store.

so sorry about that

Here's the link to Regret The Error that Jon Carroll wrote about
in yesterday's column. As you've noticed, there are more and
more mistakes in the newspapers ~ due to cut-backs and lack of
fact checking, etc. So this clever person has them all on his
web site. I don't know why the type is so light, but it's fun
to read nonetheless.

Husbando was reading the local Potrero Hill paper yesterday and
said to me, "how to you spell noisy?" When I did so he said,
"why did they put an e in there?"

So there, that's my filler today. I'm tired from closing the
big box. The new temps are a huge help and so far only one walk-away.

off to Paris we go!

Yesterday afternoon Doctor J flew to Paris, so last night we
watched My Best Friend with Dany Boon and the unmistakable
Daniel Auteuil. The latter has to find a "best friend" in ten
days or else he loses a bet. I found it to be a rather touching
movie, mainly because the subject of male friendship is a topic
amongst many of my women friends when we sit around in the
beauty salon. Kidding about the locale. It's so easy for women
to make friends, so rewarding and such an important part of
our lives. Not so with many of the men folk. Some GREAT shots
of Paris here...enjoy your first (of many) trips to Paris, Doctor!

a snapshot from Bisbee

My friend Mary (you remember her from the desert cat story)
is one of my favorite writers. She moved from bustling SF
to Bisbee, Arizona when she retired. Here is a graph from
her email last week ~ enjoy...

Of course, down here in the mountains of SE Arizona, there are lots of crazy single old ladies, wearing torn straw hats and accompanied by an army of ragged, crippled dogs adorned in a startling and spectacular array of ornaments. They, I believe, don't count as far as mainstream America goes. At least, I think that the Bisbee elderly, male and female, are a bit more 'eccentric' than the average elderly in America. I've never seen anything like them even in SF! The sight of them fills me with joy!

the worst time of the year

Our holiday blackout begins in 12 days, meaning no more days
off (approved days off) until January. Seasoned employees
take their vacations now, leaving us very short staffed. Plus
there are the usual call-outs on top of all the vacationing,
so life is rough in the big box and I am stressed.

I was immensely cheered, however, by this gift of a 16 month
calendar from two of the guys in the store. It's called a
Demotivator® calendar from Despair, Inc. It features the
usual beautiful inspirational photos, but the written words
are THE BEST. My kind of humor.
Example ~ photo of an eagle soaring over snow clad mountains.
LEADERS ARE LIKE EAGLES. WE DON'T HAVE EITHER OF THEM HERE.

Let's hope you can read November...

our whitewashed glass beauty

We had a good time at the Conservatory of Flowers yesterday, isn't it
the most wonderful building? It has 16,800 window panes and is the
oldest wood and glass Victorian-style conservatory in North America.
When it was closed for reconstruction I missed it, and yet we have
not been back since it reopened in 2003. For shame.

I didn't see any geckoes which they use to control pests, but we
did see every SF school child and I will say they were well-behaved.
(As were we.) The Conservatory has more than 17,000 plants, but I
liked the water lily room the best. The children liked the "Chomp"
exhibit with carniverous plants.

carrot in cheek daily write

CARROTS (the prompt)

"You'd better hide that bowl of baby carrots chilling in water in the back
of the refrigerator", I tell my husband from time to time. I just can't
keep my hands out of there and even though carrots are not all that bad
for me, it's just seems mean to eat them all at one sitting. I don't want
my hands to turn orange and it isn't nice to deprive Husbando of this
delectable crunchy treat.

No chocolate or potato chips for me thanks, I'm saving those calories
for carrots. Yes, I'll try just one spoonful of the pumpkin ice cream from
Mitchell's, but then as a reward I'll have two baby carrots. And OK,
maybe a bite of that blueberry muffin, but mostly I want the berries,
not the pastry part. May I have a celery stick if I eat 1/2 of this tiny
slice of cheese cake?

Some people are able to go from mainlining carrots to forcing down
a half of a carrot cake. I'll try this one day soon.

There was an article in the Chronny recently giving us 6 not-so-easy
steps on how to control our carrot and celery addictions. I guess there are
many other people just like me, who can't stop eating fresh vegetables
and fruits, too. Bless our hearts, we're only human.
1) postpone that first carrot as long as you possibly can
2) instead of taking 10 carrots and 8 celery sticks, try 5 of each
3) substitute a few Peanut Butter Cups for 3 carrots ~ try it!
4) don't watch others when they are eating fresh veggies
5) stay away from vegetable gardens and Farmer's Markets
6) throw a baby carrot in the garbage disposal or composter ~ this is
way too radical for some addicts, but you can work up to it

I'm not going to wait until January 1st to start cutting back on carrots.
Today is the first day of the rest of my life. I can do this thing, I am
Woman, I am Strong....