PNewL PNewS Volume 24 #3

PNewL PNewS

Volume 24 Issue 3                “All the pnews that phits               September 2016

Summer Stories

Good times in the Big City

Nora announced she was performing at Joe’s Pub in New York City and I thought: let’s go. I suggested it to a few people and gradually there was a swelling of interest. Every time I go to New York City, I wish I did it more often. Maybe now I will. It was easy. We had a great time. A group of old college friends wandering the streets, eating well and drinking plenty, seeing a show, riding a boat, and walking walking walking. (My fitbit recorded over 18,000 steps a day.) The last night we were there was Nora’s show. She was quite sick at the time and in a great deal of pain so we didn’t get to see her anywhere except on stage. It was the definition of bittersweet. I loved every minute and cried through most of it. The sweetest part was that several of her performance students performed with her, along with members of her family. She knew she didn’t have it in her to do the whole show alone. Watching her protégés look to her and sing her songs was heartwarming. It felt like they were showing us the future, in a nice way. Now, a couple of months later, I have learned that she died yesterday. No words. Thanks for a great show, my friend. I miss having you in the world.

Breakfast Meeting

I was invited to be an ambassador for Habitat for Humanity at a breakfast meeting of members of the community. I’ll do anything for Habitat but as soon as I said yes, I said to myself, what were you thinking??? Strangers? At breakfast? Conversation with people I don’t know?? Oh my. And as often happens at events I dread, it was great. Here were TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY people who were dressed and ready to face the day and have interesting conversations at 7:30 in the morning. Who knew this kind of thing was happening? Listening to community leaders talk about housing issues facing our county was enlightening. The fact that folks representing all kinds of different facets of the area were on a panel talking to each other gave me hope. Sat across from a representative of UNCA who can connect Women Build with college volunteers! People talking and listening…at whatever hour! Yay!

The Reluctant Gardener

Lately I have been planting and re-planting, and then there was the day that Robin came over and helped weed (bless her patience and kindness and darn her for noticing I needed help with the weeds…). Mostly it’s been kinda hot and humid to be out in it. Whilst planting and re-planting—that is moving plants—I was reminded of the rock problem we have. I planted a black eyed susan in the “meadow” (where I am not mowing) and started to unearth a giant rock that might come in handy somewhere when I realized I had probably used up my rock-moving favors from my fabulous neighbor Jeff so I planted right up next to the rock. In my yard, you have to learn to live with the hardships or move on—that’s what I tell the plants as they go in.

      That’s when I thought: I really need a servant. Perhaps I was born in the wrong era. I keep thinking a lackey would solve a lot of problems. Move that, climb up there, fetch this, chainsaw that. Instead, things get left as is and that is not necessarily a good thing.

TV and the Olympics

I love the Olympics. I usually spend some large percentage of it in tears. Joyful tears but often sloppy wet sobby kinds of tears. I love the pomp and youthful enthusiasm. The striving and success, and of course, the failures too. It’s inspiring and charming and so unlike much of what is going on in the news. It’s a suspension of reality, or a different reality or both.

     I have been kicking myself this year as I canceled my contract with a satellite company that shall remain nameless because I may say mean things and I don’t want them to come after me. They raised their prices without telling me. When I called to say I couldn’t get local channels any more which I was paying for, I was told I was only subscribed to 120 channels so what did I expect. Only 120 channels—ya know when I was a kid… Anyway, enough was enough. I quit. (Pardon—I think this is a repeat rant but it feels as good as it did the first time.)

     I thought I would miss it but I have become happily addicted to Netflix and Amazon Prime and Acorn. I don’t miss much…except for Survivor and a few others. And no commercials? Heaven. But I didn’t get it together in time to re-subscribe so I could watch all of the Olympics. Patsy thinks I should set my sights on reconnecting before the Fall TV season begins. We shall see. Meanwhile, I signed up for a free quasi-legal website which got me nothing. Then a 7-day trial with Sling TV which allowed me to watch Venus Williams lose in a thrilling tennis match. (I had to put down my knitting—I kept making mistakes…) But I will cancel that soon.  (I subscribed for an additional month but really only watched a lot of HGTV.) I don’t know what the answer to my TV dilemma is but hopefully I will have it figured out by the Winter Olympics in Korea in 2018. Oh but wait—I’LL BE IN ANTARCTICA THEN!!! Guess it’ll be the Summer games in 2020 (Tokyo).

First Day of School

My friend Henry, who lives next door, started kindergarten yesterday. All last week, he kept saying he wasn’t going but apparently he did. And he had a wonderful time, he said. A picture of him on Facebook showed a bigger than he seemed just days ago little boy with the biggest darn grin. I am so relieved. I am among a lot of people who are relieved (for so many reasons) by Back to School, I gather. He was so full of himself and so smart and sassy, I sometimes wonder how relieved the teachers are.

The Adventures with Foster Dogs, cont’d.

Considering how much I was in town this summer (and what a long hot summer it was though I think we got robbed of June. I have no memory of anything that happened in June.), I was a slacker in the foster parenting department. We had Sapphire, an adorable Chihuahua + something mix who wound up being adopted while I sat at the office waiting to take her home, for just 24 hours. Why they sent her home with me and over several emails determined she should come right back, mystifies all of us.

     This week, we have Mike, a large happy pitbull dog of indeterminate age, but probably on the large puppy end. He loves Roger who puts up with him part of the time and enjoys the rough housing the rest of the time

Summer of Balls

My new favorite foods are balls. They freeze well and return to the unfrozen world quickly. Perhaps I should do a cookbook. (I checked with Amazon and there are many cookbooks for Ball canning, meatballs and cheese balls but not covering the range of balls from my perspective.) Firstly, have you had chicken meatballs? Best. Meat. Balls. Ever. They have, to my mouth, a very different and wonderful consistency. I could eat them every day…and have on occasion. Meatballs of turkey and beef are good too, of course, but chickenballs are my current favorite.

     Then there are what Pinterest types call things like energy bites. They are balls, people. And yummy—and practically good for you while giving the hint of sweetness that is essential in life. Many are based on dates and nuts but the variety goes on from there. My current favorites are “Liar’s Balls” (a take off on the Lara Bars available… well, everywhere that I shop) and Lemon bites.

Things I am Learning

& Miscellaneous Observations

• My dad used to carry a copy of the constitution with him--he used to pull it out and say, to flight attendants and waiters and me, "When was the last time you read this? This is great stuff!" or something like that. I think it may be the same version Mr Khizr Khan, one of the speakers at Democratic Convention (it’s been long enough you might have forgotten him and his 15 minutes of fame) carries. Every time I hear stories of Mr Khan and his constitution, I wish Dad were here to hear them. Recently realized it’s the 10th anniversary of Dad's death. Wow. Seems like yesterday... and too long ago.

• We have a little gathering we call Cocktails @ the Mailboxes when people in the ‘hood bring their chairs and beverages and snacks down on an evening and enjoy each other’s company. We have met in sun, sunset and rain. It’s a pretty friendly experience. In September, we have a candidate for county commissioner coming. I couldn’t face having a meet n greet at my house so offered this as an option. She said she’d be there. One of my neighbors told me she thought I was a good community organizer. I know many serious community organizers. I had to laugh that I could be given that title simply because I had an idea and followed through with it. All it takes is sending the email, and you too can be a community organizer!

• Things that are annoying me today (8/20/2016): fruit flies, my knitting injured thumb, Ryan Lochte

(On the brighter side: the raspberries that just keep on coming, butterflies that are attracted to flowers I’ve planted, Roger the dog)

• Did I mention I am going to Antarctica? After much noodling on websites that offer such trips, we are signing on the dotted line this week. Sara, Betsy and Peggy do Antarctica (and the Falkland Islands and South Georgia, oh my!). I am calling us Team PBS. Jan-Feb 2018.

• It has been more fun than I expected having a young family next door. Watching Tatum go from the 5+ pounder she was 10 months ago to the substantial almost toddler today—and watching the aforementioned Henry (now 5) grow up has been fun and enlightening and a good reminder why people are parents when they are young. Henry joins Roger and me for walks sometimes. The other day he came up with a couple of those “Kids Say the Darndest Things” lines. When I asked him if he thought Roger was a good boy, he said, “Yes, he is SUCH a good boy.” And I looked at him, and he said, “Well, that’s what you always say!” Then when he came into the house unexpectedly, he looked around and said, “YOU have even more stuff than ME!”

Guess you had to be there.

“When you do everything yourself by hand and you put so many hours into something, it’s like it has your hair inside, it has your tears inside, it has your food inside. The work is really personal.” Sandra Backlund (at the Cooper Hewitt Museum)

PNewL PNewS 24.2, June 2016

PNewL PNewS 

  Volume 24 Issue 2      “All the pnews that phits.”               June 2016

Namibia!

       One of the reasons I often say that I went to Namibia was because I wanted to be able to say I had been there. I have found many people don’t know where it is and have a bit of a hard time pronouncing it. But really, the main reason I went was because some seasoned travelers I know or met on the road said it was their favorite trip... ever. And then Betsy, my smart strategic travel mentor said she was going and I asked if I could come. And I went—and I am glad.

       I have a very hard time saying “Favorite Trip Ever”—it’s like picking a favorite child or pet. They are all my favorite though some were better in different ways than others. It’s complicated. This trip was incredibly satisfying in so many ways; it’s hard not to list it at the top of or close to the top of a list, if I had one. Namibia is a crazy amazing gorgeous friendly country—and our guide Orlando, voted #2 in the world by Wanderlust World Guide Awards in 2015 (and former captain of the national soccer team), is a national treasure and really a great ambassador for his country.

       We started in Windhoek (pronounced kinda like vendhuck), which is the capitol, and located pretty much smack dab in the middle. We headed north to a game preserve that works with AfriCat, a big cat (and a few wild dogs) rescue organization. They have some stunning lodgings and almost 50,000 acres for wandering. We had cheetah outside our outdoor shower and warthogs in the front yard. We were upgraded and our room was a lovely maze of dressing room, kitchen, two large comfy beds with big fat squishy duvets and windows facing the animals, gorgeous art, and a bathtub surrounded by candles. This was going to be hard to beat. 

       Continuing north we spent a couple days driving around Etosha National Park where we saw lions and though no tigers or bears, we saw a lifetime supply of springbok, oryx, zebra and a good number of elephant, red hartebeest, jackals, two hyena and a rhinoceros, among others. Very satisfying time of it. This is a pretty unforgiving landscape with boreholes to create some of the life saving water holes that attract the animals. Orlando drove to one specific waterhole at 9:30am in search of elephants. They were running a little late—arrived around 9:40. They are apparently creatures of habit, like many of us, and they need their morning bath and water. Watching the parade of elephants of many different ages was really awe-inspiring—and like everything in Namibia, they were accompanied by a cloud of dust.

       From Etosha, we headed west to visit Himba folks at a settlement a wee bit off the beaten track. These types of visits, to tribal people living a very different life from ours, are always awkward to me but it was pretty, their lifestyle IS different and it was brief. From the Kalahari, we headed west and south into a land that reminded me a lot of southern Utah—red sand, large rock formations, great sunsets. Damaraland. Oh my. The sunsets. And the desert adapted elephants! And, oh just everything.

      Continuing south and west to the Shipwreck Coast and Swakopmund. Love that name. En route, we passed the area where “Mad Max: Fury Road” was filmed. After filming, the crew removed everything related to the shoot and even hired locals to rake the desert so that you would never know they were there. This is a delicate environment and their tire tracks would have lived on for generations.

       Swakopmund is a charming seaside town (which provided an opportunity for some “retail therapy”) surrounded by large expanses of sand dunes. To the south, it goes on for hundreds of miles. We flew over those sand dunes and it was fascinating. The dunes towards the ocean are…well, sand colored. As we went further inland, the sand was “cooked” a reddish-bronzy-orange. The views from above were breathtaking.      

       Oh my, how I do go on but I can’t stop here—some of the best is yet to come: we drove into the sand dunes of Soussusvlei at dawn as the light was gorgeous and before the winds got so fierce we couldn’t see through the blowing sand. We got sand in our teeth but wow. Just wow. And then we walked into the desert for two nights of sleeping under the stars in our own little sand dune suites in one of the darkest places in the world—they are a “Gold-tier International Dark Sky Reserve.” I have never seen the stars like this—I would wake up in the middle of the night and just watch. The Milky Way was muddy with stars—in a good way! One shooting star looked like a piece of popcorn rather than the usual streak we see here. And we were introduced to some of the little critters who make the desert their home and how they manage under these incredibly challenging conditions. (Most of them are truly little, as in bugs, but there are mammals and birds as well. Gotta appreciate their chutzpah!)

     It is a country worthy of all of these superlatives. I could go on some more--just writing this brings it all back in such a warm and fuzzy way--but I am sensing your eyelids are getting tired and your minds are drifting back to the here and now so my final words to you, should you have an interest, opportunity and amazing good fortune:

     Go to Namibia! See the animals. Experience the environment. Breathe the sand.

Things I am Learning

& Miscellaneous Observations

• One of the charming things about elephants is the way they look like they are smiling. Now that I think of the animals that we are naturally drawn to—dolphin, manatee, elephants, otters—they are all smiling.

• I had a great birthday this year. I may have learned something about creating my perfect day or, in this case, weekend—doing what I want rather than allowing myself to commit to something ahead that I may not want to do by birthday morn. This year, I went to a blacksmithing festival with Pam and mid-way she said, let's see if we can get into this restaurant, which I have always wanted to go to…and we got a table! And the neighbors mowed my lawn, and my other neighbors say they are going to plumb my new shower and I had dinner with a high school friend and her husband. Birthday Eve, I went out with two guys from across the road and had a lot of fun and in the afternoon, went to Hot Springs for a hot tub. And the day after my birthday? NOTHING. A perfect weekend.

• A month after the remodelers left—I found a sandwich to go box under the table in my sewing room, which I apparently had put there while storing lots of other stuff. The sandwich was long gone (thankfully) but most of the potato chips were still there. Stale, thankfully.

• In case you were wondering, I don’t like to be called Peg. Seems to be coming up a lot lately so I thought I would mention it.

• Two minutes in the life of a puppy: Jump up on the chaise notice bone and settle in get up take the bone to the other chaise (hopping, always hopping) stop look what was that noise turn around in circles remember bone hop where’s Roger oh look a thread chew on it tug on it bite into the cushion was that a noise is it edible jump down and go to find oh look a toy that squeaks once twice three four five a bug I think that might be edible and it’s moving stops moving under paw bite the table leg no let’s gnaw on it oh look Roger wants to play bite his foot ear roll over when he growls play non-alpha dog bite him again let’s play let’s run what’s that let’s bite it green leaves of plant ick chew and drool bone take it to the chaise and repeat.

• This new strategy of orgs sending out duplicate emails saying the same thing and wondering if maybe I missed reading it the first time is annoying. Just stop. Grrrr.

• Foster dog #6: Josie came to stay for a little over two weeks. She was a puppy, I admit it, and she was a doll baby. Started a little rough with a lot of biting and scratching and chewing, but soon I was attuned to it and had toys at the ready. She was self-confident and funny and she loved Roger. She learned fast, including how to escape through the fence. She was smart and funny and settled in quite quickly. Roger took a little bit more time but not much. When I dropped her off at the spay clinic which was going to be the last time I saw her, I had a moment’s pause…should I be a foster failure and keep her? Two days later, she was off the adoption list. She had found her forever home. Here’s to a good life little buddy!

• Roger is still limping but he uses his leg more often than not so I am trying to be optimistic. Which is hard.

• Forgot to mention: I got to see flamingos in Namibia! Flamingos--twice in one year! How am I going to top that? Hmm. Better start working on it…

• Outdoor showers are the best—and mine is up there with the greats. You have an open invitation. Bring your own towel.

These two quotes are from an interview on On Being (NPR) with Kevin Kling. 

The first was said to him by a friend.

“You can survive anything with a sense of humor and a sense of self.”

“If you are able-bodied, it’s only a temporary condition.”

PNewL PNewS 24th year, 1st issue!

  PNewL PNewS

Volume 24 No. 1                            “All the pnews that phits.”                       March 2016

First Quarter Update

It has been a bit of a roller coaster start to the year at my house. Roger tore his dog’s-equivalent-of-an-ACL while romping in the snow as neighbors were building a snowman. Fun afternoon resulted in a long-term pain in his leg. We are sleeping on the floor so Roger doesn’t get inspired to jump up on the bed. Next, the nice crew (and they were nice) of men came to install new flooring. (I am trying to do some things to the house to enjoy for years rather than home improving in time to move. I am not moving anywhere that I know of but it’s time to bang out a few jobs and now this one is done.) It was painless—they installed the floor around us. The guys were fast and pleasant and yes, flooring is crazy expensive, but I am very happy.

Next there was surgery and for a couple days, good drugs to keep Roger quiet. The shave job was dramatic. A few days later, I went to Mexico and Roger recuperated at Puppy Camp with Bonnie, our angel and the one who makes my travel possible. This was another trip with Grassroots International who I traveled with to Brazil a few years back. We went to Oaxaca and Chiapas, travelling around to meet their partners. It was inspiring and charming. The relationships are deep and meaningful. The respect on both sides is visible and heart felt. David, who had been on the Brazil trip, said “They knocked it out of the park again.” Indeed! I was so pleased to be a part of this delegation and to see these beautiful parts of Mexico too. Then, I went off on my own for a few days to the Yucatan where I drove! Saw some ruins! And even better: Flamingos! It was good fun.

When I came back, Roger had not made much progress towards healing and when I finally convinced the vet staff that things really weren’t going well, they let me come back in and the vet said, “I was afraid of this—it didn’t feel quite right at the two week check-up” and I wish they had let me come in a week or two ago and we would be a week or two ahead of where we are now which is recovering from surgery NUMBER 2. For an unexplained reason, the band (whatever that is) loosened and his drawer movement (whatever that is) was not right. Now we are on the road to recovery and he is walking a little on his leg (slowly, on a leash) and I have some hope, though walking slowly on a leash is not something either one of us is good at. 

Then the painters came and they were fine though said they’d be here early and never were. I am pleased with the paint and the clean crispness of the way things look. Everything is still in boxes though I am making progress there, we are still sleeping on the floor, the mess and inability to find anything is annoying to me who has a high tolerance for this sort of thing, and I have moments of self-pity that bore even me. But as the saying goes, this too shall pass and it has and the sun is out, leaves are leafing, flowers are blooming and all is well.

Bring it on, 2^nd Quarter!

Diet Update: 

Just thought I should report on the time since Day 12 when last I was telling you about the Whole 30 (The people who wrote it are Hartwig and Hartwig, not Hartwick and Hartwick as I wrote in the last issue.) 

After Roger trashed his knee, the diet became less of an issue. I wasn’t going anywhere so I wasn’t tempted by much. One of the ideas of the Whole 30 is rebooting habits, eliminating cravings and snacking. It can get confusing because they do allow some energy bars and nuts which to me fall into the snacking category. These are the things one worries about when sleeping on the floor and worrying about a hopping dog.

One of my favorite parts of this process, along with losing weight and getting my numbers in the right place was the new recipes. I can get into a rut and now I have two new cookbooks and a long list of new websites to rely on to eat “clean.”

A couple months out, I am trying to stick with the restrictions at home. It works pretty well. I find I do better with the restrictions because I am really not good at saying “when.” Saying No is easier than saying, I’ll just have a few of those cheese crackers, thanks Robin! I learned that big time. I also learned that paying attention to what I eat is the key to doing it right—it’s pretty much the same as what I just said. Being mindful is really a great idea…when I remember. And the most practical thing I learned is that if I put a bed of spinach or other greens at the bottom of a bowl of soup or stew or under protein or well, anywhere, I sneak in another dose of vegetables. Ta-da!

Things I am Learning & Miscellaneous Observations

• As I am waiting for the printer to print out tax-related documents, I opened up the online guide to the cell phone I’ve had for over a year and learned a few things I wanted to know. Yippee.

• Don’t you hate it when a recipe says you can get this in most grocery stores and you can’t get it at any of your usual haunts?

• I often pull out pages from the newspaper to save til later—the pages I am actually going to read, since there are plenty I won’t or more accurately don’t need to. Recently I found a page I had pulled out from October 2015 (hey, that’s nothing. I’m still toting around some NY Times magazines from 2013…). The main article is about the new Family Justice Center—a one-stop location for victims of domestic violence and sexual abuse. It “streamlines services,” bringing together representatives from a bunch of different organizations to one building so an already traumatized person doesn’t have to wander all over town, from one office to the next, to get help. Smart, eh? I am in a giving circle that is focusing on groups working on everything from sexting to elder abuse, including sexual assault, domestic violence and human trafficking so we are really excited about the FJC. That’s the do-gooder part of my story. On the same page in the newspaper, there is the newspaper poll, which is a daily question and then a pie chart illustrating the responses. October 2^nd’s question was “Would you buy moonshine locally?” Yes: 74%, No 26%. This was of interest to me: would this question show up in the paper of any other place I have lived? And the 26% Nos…is it that they want to go elsewhere to buy moonshine or they would never buy moonshine or they don’t have to buy it because Bubba is making it out back? The person at the liquor store told me that moonshine is going to be available in small bottles starting in May—that’s when they introduce new products at the ABC stores. Mark your calendars.

• Today, I called the nice man up the road who has heavy equipment (I don’t know what it’s called—a four year old probably would know). I left a message that the driveway got bunged up in this winter’s rains and I would love it if he could come down and straighten it out. He called right back and said he was on his way. He fixed it up. He kept going down the road and returning with loads of dirt and gravel—he said it was our tax money that paid for it when they graded the road and the rain washed it down where no one was using it. Then he got down for a chat. First he apologized for not calling me back (wonder which time it was he was referring to). He said he remembered two weeks later and by then he was kinda embarrassed. His memory isn’t quite what it used to be. He had all kinds of stories about places he used to grouse hunt that are now covered in houses and the roads that used to be dirt and are now busy paved thoroughfares. It was a gorgeous day and neither of us was in much of a hurry. Another example of why I like where I live.

• I am hunkered down in the sewing room while the painters rummage around the house. Roger is still recovering from his second knee surgery. The floors are in (old dog pee carpet is a distant memory)...I believe we are on the far side of this mostly self-inflicted pain but it couldn't end soon enough. Yesterday I put the laptop cord somewhere and can't find it. Laptop's dead. My passport disappeared into some box and I am going to need it soon. My calendar is MIA—and I really don’t have a brain for dates any more. (Editor’s note: All of these were found…eventually. The passport was the final one to reappear and it was just in time. I was getting really nervous.)

• The worst part of dog ownership is not being able to explain stuff to them. The other worst part is their life expectancy. Everything else is perfect, well, mostly.

• One of the funny parts of traveling alone is I wind up listening to a lot of other people's conversations (it's a mixed bag). I don’t often wish I were part of them.

• When the vet told me that Roger had to have a second surgery I realized he's afraid of me (the vet, not Roger)--I told him he could just shoot Roger and I rather than make us go through this all again. I have to remember I can't say those kinds of things to people who don't know me very well!

• There was a house fire on my road. I know the people whose house it is—or should I say was? It’s 40-50% damaged—tragic, though thankfully no one was hurt, not even the cat though the house sitter may be in a world of hurt along with the homeowners. I can't imagine how they are feeling. Meanwhile, several people heard about it on the news. I realize I may be missing something by only listening to NPR and not having TV. Didn't hear the fire trucks, smell smoke or see it on the news.

• I had to go to the County Travel Clinic to get a prescription for malaria meds and to see if I needed any shots. I did. Typhoid expired three months ago, tetanus too, and while we’re at it, let’s go for flu shot and Hep B. Ouch. But I have to say, it’s a pretty cheery spot. Everyone there was so friendly to each other and me. I had some time to listen to the conversations. There was a new guy who was being introduced to his fellow employees and everyone was so welcoming. And the woman who talked to me about shots and mosquitos was hilarious. They don’t move fast but they sure are pleasant to hang with.

Nothing is so common as the wish to be remarkable. Shakespeare