Friday, February 26, 2010

All those little gray boxes

Last night I was vegged out on the couch with the dog watching the last of the Olympic figure skaters. My husband finally went to bed and as he left he handed me a remote. When the last lovely skater was waiting for her scores, and my eyes were at half mast, I clicked the power button, and baloop, the screen went dark. You'd think that it was turned off, ready for the next day. But, no! I had done something wrong. When, the next evening, my husband wanted to watch PBS, the t.v. was all screwed up.

In our life we must have more than ten remotes for t.v.'s and radio and such. And each one of these has many many buttons and functions and applications and menus and ways to reach god.

Sorry to sound like Andy Rooney! It's kind of like learning a foreign language to manage these remotes. I know it is more difficult for us rural folk who must rely on iffy satellites to connect with the world. But still, why does it have to be so hard? Why is it that when I want to simply play a video for my grandson, I have to man two remotes and remember seventeen different actions to actually get "Curious George" on board? Aargh!

On my desk I have my three little bricks: my cell phone, my camera, and my ipod touch. I love them all and they have their uses. I especially love the ipod because it expects nothing from me, has a long battery life, and accompanies me with music when I garden and walk and tells me bird calls. This is an easy tech machine, no problem. I have come to know my complicated camera because I always use it. My cell phone is still an enigma. (If it's so smart, why is it so hard to use?) I should have gotten one of those basic old fart models!

My computer, my friend, system 7, works just fine for me. Nothing these days comes with instructions (as has always been the case with kids). You just have to figure it out on a case by case basis.

Even if the remotes are too remote for me to use comfortably, now I can get everything on my computer!

All this will be resolved soon. Remember when all washing machines had computers on board and touch pads and such? No more. We just want to wash the clothes and the manufacturers found this out. I am hoping the remote folks will pay attention.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Authentic

Jack is eight years old and he is in the midst of this year's production of the annual Shakespearean play at his school. All the students are fascinated with this. The 'project room' is full of incipient costumes and bits of scenery and the bulletin boards bristle with wonderful pictures of the various characters in the play. Today I brought a CD of images of Verona and Italy so the kids could see some pictures of Italian arches and architecture they might use as parts of their art for the play tee shirts they will make and wear proudly for this new production.

I go here every week to volunteer in the place I retired from as a teacher and director. My grandson now is in kindergarten with the most talented teacher of small kids I know. Quincy pays scant attention to me, and that is o.k. But he did save me a seat beside him so we could eat pizza together. He told me the entire plot of "Finding Nemo".

In the project room I am looking for scraps to use for designing the tee shirts, and there is a mom there who is helping with the costumes. Katherine and I chat a bit and start imagining the costumes the kids will wear. She has hit the estate sales and come up with some incredible medieval swags, perfect for the sleeves for Romeo's costume and I will connect these to the blue costume, designated for him. We wonder, who in the world would have anything like this in their house?

And, now I know. This evening, after a pelting rain commute home, we went to a so-called cottage meeting of folks hereabouts to learn about our local St. Leo University. We were dressed as usual (but clean!) Despite being under dressed for this catered event, many people sucked up to us because they knew we were major philanthropists in the community.

The house where we went was in a gated community with the usual conspicuous consumption names. A Jaguar and a Lexus in the courtyard. Looking around at the three living rooms, the huge gourmet kitchen, the media room, and the master bedroom with HUGE poofy bed things all in shades of beige, I had to go outside to draw breath. In the massive screened enclosure there was a koi pond ($300 a pop for the fish, as the proud owner told me.) There was a swimming pool with a couple of waterfalls, and I must say, it was quite beautiful.

I love being anonymous- in my jeans and kind of wrinkled and old. So I could poke around. And then, I saw it! There were the swags on some windows- the very ones, found at an estate sale that I will make tomorrow into the sleeves for the ten year old Romeo! Maybe next weekend these people will have another estate sale because of a foreclosure, and , who knows, we may have some more sleeves for Shakespeare!

Life comes around!

What can one say? ("My! You seem you have a large footprint on the earth?") This conspicuous consumption truly disgusts me and I truly wish we could be over that. Yet, I understand that some of these folks are really supportive to our local concerns.

Just so you know, blogger followers, I know how judgmental all this may seem. I try to be humble, but I have been opinionated since birth.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Staying current!

Glen Beck said the other day that he thinks that America is still in the morning, and that may be true. I am discouraged, however. One looks back in history and there have been times similar to these we are in.

Last evening we had a couple of young people here who walked with us out into the property- the swamp and the forest and the fields. They stayed for supper and all the time they talked and talked about what they were doing. They are Vista workers, now attached to Habitat for Humanity. Their main work is uncovering the history of African American cemeteries in our locale. Nia is black, Dave is white. For so long our community never acknowledged the presence of African Americans, and these two people are researching what happened to the families who are buried without tombstones.

Our local museum has since its beginning ignored the history of blacks and hispanics in our community. This is just a small issue to all the small historic preservations across the south but emblematic of where we are now in the 'morning of America'.

The young woman, such an idealistic American, wonders if the place we are in with such a lack of drive in Congress, such partisan bitterness, is really just a new reiteration of racial discrimination.

Her words discourage me, and yet, I cannot think of a better explanation for how so many members of congress just say NO to anything Obama.

Discouraged as I am in the so-called morning in America, I do love the clear skies and the warmth of the sun on my shoulders as I put in the spring garden and tenderly plant the cucumbers and peas and carrots and lettuce and hope for the best for the potatoes.

Sometimes I think that I should never pay attention to this partisan crap from Congress and just love the swamp and the potential of spring vegetables.

Friday, February 12, 2010

Something new to learn

Being out here in the boondocks, our satellite sometimes doesn't work, so no new image tonight.

Every year I try to learn or do something different and challenging and new to me. My project for this year is to learn Spanish. When I visited Colombia in October, I felt so deficient in my ability to get along in Spanish, I vowed to do better.

People told me that on line I could get some free language lessons. How to choose? I went for the Pimsleur method and they sent me ten lessons for free. This takes a half hour each day so I stick in the CD and sit back in my chair, totally focused, speaking back to those speakers who ask how many beers I want and is my husband sick. By now, I am way past those ten free lessons and am cheerfully paying into eternity. They ask you, almost make you sign in blood, that you will NOT look at anything written. You are learning how to speak in Spanish as a child would, all by ear.

As I progress, now almost half way through Spanish 2, I realize I can really operate on a pretty basic level. This week I attended a two hour meeting with Mexican women who were debating what should be done to make a float for a parade. With tremendous focus I could understand everything and I could even speak when asked. I can even speak in several tenses! And they understand (and don't laugh).

Getting over the hurdle of actually speaking out loud is hard, but I put myself out there having to do it. These women are with me on making a community garden so we have to talk about it and I often have to ask the names of vegetables. They are so happy to deal with my halting Spanish and I am amazed that they can understand me.

Learning a foreign language humbles me. I see all the kids I deal with each week who are bilingual. Here they are at a young age, functioning in two languages. I am determined to do it too.

Sunday, February 07, 2010

Football is really dog fights

Just a short one. Superbowl night. This is like a dog fight, a blood sport. I would not want my children or grandchildren having their heads and limbs battered as football does to those players, "our heroes". There is enough research done about the many small and large concussions these players endure that make them sorry members of our population.

So, I am not hosting a super bowl party to night. We have no nachos and beer in front of the t.v. I am doing something else.

Saturday, February 06, 2010

Being Old is a Hoot

No photo today. You'll just have to imagine.

Opera lovers we are, and so, finally we began attending the simulcasts of the Metropolitan Opera that are shown in local movie theaters all across the land. For years we listened to the Met on Saturday afternoons. We work in our studios and hear these productions, imagining the sets and the house and the musicians in the pit. Once a year or so we treat ourselves to a trip to New York to see the opera.

A few weeks ago we saw our first opera on simulcast HD. It was Carmen, and not knowing how popular this would be, we arrived in what we thought was good time and found the house almost full half an hour before the show. So we had to sit fairly close to the screen.

Despite some problems with the satellite, it was absolutely wonderful! Everyone in the audience of the sold out house talked to each other, checking on the plot and the singers.The woman sitting next to me actually clasped my hand as she worried that Carmen's dress might fall off!

Today, in a stiff chilly wind, we went back to this bleak movie complex theater in the midst of a dying shopping mall to see a Verdi opera neither of us had ever heard before. Again, it was a sold out house. We arrived with a bag of sandwiches and fruit we planned to eat before the opera. (The only food available in the whole mall is the overpriced nachos and hot dogs you can get at the theater.)

Outside this sterile theater we can immediately identify the other opera goers. Mostly they are the elderly and retired, all white or Asian. (I always notice these things) Because this is the Opera, we all talk to each other. ( Can you imagine it? Placido Domingo singing Baritone?)There is no play bill to tell us the plot or the names of the singers or the producers, or the names of the contributors. But people stop by our primo place in the front, just before the rail I can put my feet on, and they talk about the opera to come. This is better than any Playbill.

We are all there in this sold out house, in our jeans and sensible shoes, old. We have no fear of being thought odd. We are odd! There was a woman down the row who had brought a head lamp so she could read her book while waiting in the twilight for the opera to begin. And we had our picnic to be consumed while we watched the preliminaries of the opera.

And what a show! We sat there, mesmerized for three hours. The intermissions were fifteen minutes long, but we were shown what goes on back stage as they changed the sets, the musicians in the pit, and interviews with the principals.

The opera was wonderful with such amazing singing, we could forgive the ridiculous plot.

We all left, we q tips and the folks with walkers and a few youngsters. And we were all in agreement that we'd had a very nice Saturday afternoon.

Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Late Winter

Here is the view from our house these wintry mornings. No frost since the last devastating freezes of December, but it is still cold in the mornings and I don't want to get out in the garden and dig. I did put in a long row of peas and a bed of beets and the new collard and broccoli starts are doing well.

We have had two weeks of guests that I love. Still, it takes energy and lots of rearrangements so we are getting back to our usual routines.

More than ever I am embedded in our local school, Lacoochee. Each Tuesday I go to a certain class and we cook something and spend a lot of time reading out loud. This week, while the mac and cheese we made from scratch bubbled in the oven, we read several chapters of Little House on the Prairie.

Why won't classroom teachers read to kids every day? It's by far the most effective thing one can do to promote reading, as all the research shows.

The kids leaned on me and there was total silence as I read. (I am a very dramatic reader.) Then, we served the macaroni and had conversations. By now, some of the teachers know about these Tuesday afternoons, and they come, supposedly to work on their computers. But, really, they are listening intently, as are the kids, to the story. And they love the food, too.

After my classroom gig I went to inspect the small garden project for parents. Yes, all the plants are well cared for and I see many flats of plant starts also there. So amazing!

On Monday I will go to the meeting for parents and I will bring more seedlings and seeds. I will tell those parents in my halting Spanish that this week we'll have more containers for their gardens, a better hose, and a garden shed for their tools. All free! I have a Vista worker on board to help. I am imagining that eventually we'll have a proper tilled vegetable garden, but for now we are going for containers.

The folks in the Lacoochee administration are great and give me free reign. Parents are on board, kids help.

Meanwhile those teachers struggle with a mountain of paperwork about the FCATS and they never have enough time to do what they really want to do with their groups. Everyone hopes devoutly that the FCAT and NCLB will pull back and actually let teachers teach!