On the Occasion of His 94th Birthday...

Grandpa on his birthday, with his girlies.

***

"Other things may change us, but we start and end with the family."  ~Anthony Brandt

***

Today was one of those days that I wished I had a laptop, or even a scrap of paper, for a brain dump. All those hours in the car, coming back from LA, coming back from family, from the birthday and I had so many thoughts and ideas crawling around in my head and now they've disappeared like ghosts.

With my luck, they'll wake me at 3am and then I'll try to catch them, like fireflies.

We had a lovely time. Grandpa was happy. I think we tuckered him out but in a good way that I know he won't mind.

The girlies are beautiful and must be renamed as Little Curly Girl's hair is straighter now. Princess Chubness is getting long and lean and is not really so chubby anymore. She's walking and growing little teeth and is sporting about ten thousand long eyelashes.

It's raining and I'm home.

I'm going to lie in bed and listen to it rain. Nighty nite.

Desert Hearts

Princess Chubness and her pal, Wolfie

***

It's the day I leave Las Vegas, and now I wish I was just arriving. The perfect, identical suburbs, the wide open barren places and the crazy confabulation of "entertainment" in this town leave me feeling lonely.

But nestled in amongst all of this are pure and sweet hearts. You see two of them here.

It may be nice to be an Auntie (Mame or otherwise), because you avoid the crying, the diapers, the sleep deprivation. However, you miss the giggles, the hugs, the clutching, furtive steps to try to walk, the joy in seeing other people love you for just being you.

Today is my birthday and I'll be spending part of it in an airport by myself, headed home to the city I love. But I'll be leaving a part of my heart behind in this desert, because a tiny girl has stolen it with her chubby hands and won't give it back.

"Mr. Widdicome, there's no such place as San Francisco. Please!"

Rosalind Russell as the incomparable Auntie Mame.

***

From way back when I could even remember thinking about it, I never wanted to be a mom. It didn't feel like something I wanted to be when I grew up. It wasn't a judgement: good, bad or otherwise. I just never envisioned myself as being a mom, like I never saw myself being a nurse or a firefighter.

Not that Mom is an occupation, mind you. But somewhere way back then it was just a lifestyle I didn't think much about.

However, I have always wanted to be an Auntie. And luckily for me, I am.

***

I can't remember the first time I saw the movie Auntie Mame on television. I do distinctly remember thinking how fantastic Mame was, in her exotic and fun clothes, surrounded by cigarettes and men and witty banter. Somewhere way back when, I did decide that if I was ever going to be an Aunt, I would try to be an Auntie Mame type.

I'm still working on it.

***

I'm leaving tomorrow to go to Las Vegas, as my delightful confectionery dumpling of a baby niece (aka Princess Chubness) is going to be One Year Old at the end of the week. !!!

I am also going to have a birthday (next week, but close enough) where I am going to be One Plus Many More, so we're going to celebrate together. I am already missing San Francisco, though, even though I'm still here and not even packed yet. However, the smiling tiny faces that I'll be kissing soon will get me over that tout de suite.

I'm covering my tracks by scheduling advance posts on CALIBER and i live here:SF so no one will know I'm gone. Maybe I'll make an appearance here... who knows, but I will be working hard on my Aunting:

"Life's a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!"

photo from the New York Public Library.

The Toddler's Blog

My blog is two years old today! I am officially a toddler.

Holy cow!

Who'da thunk it? 871 posts later, thanks for being here.

xoxo

***

ps.: As you know, I don't have an actual toddler so I borrowed my sister's. Plus, we haven't had a good LCG pic up here in a while.

doppler effect

–Noun. Physics. Change in the apparent frequency of a wave as observer and source move toward or away from each other.

***

If there is an invisible part of you (your other heart, not the physical one composed of bits of matter: bosons and leptons and strange quarks), that unscientific yet very real heart still may be broken in a thousand little pieces but held together somehow (like a shattered windshield) as you rush towards what is now inevitable, can the compression of the movement before you hold those pieces together? Is that how you are able to put on your brave face?


And then, only upon receding from the situation, as the distance grows between you and what you bear witness to, that the little shards start to fall and the broken structure fails? And then you can cry behind your large dark sunglasses?

Can any wave be subject to the doppler effect? Even a wave of emotion?

As much as I love the physics of the universe (with my base, miniscule grasp of the science), there is no theorem to cope with grief, regret, loss.

***

Approaching and receding from a personal event horizon.

I took photos from my seat on the train, coming and going from the visit to Little Helen. I brought a book but could not concentrate on it, although it's a book I'm enjoying very much: Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities. And after obsessively checking my email on my iPhone, I had run the battery down to almost nothing, putting an end to that activity.

So all I could do was take photos out the windows.

Trains take us around the underbellies and backsides of things, to places that we normally cannot see and have no access to.


Having the camera on continuous shooting mode, hearing the click click click click in rapid procession, ticking off the world going by in bite-sized pieces, that made things feel more manageable. Just hearing the sound of the shutter was good.

You probably cannot tell from this photo, but the plane is Air France. I felt a pang of solidarity and goodwill seeing that takeoff from my train's seat, thinking Good for you, you got back on the horse, Air France. Safe travels and go go go!

Go Greyhound and leave the driving to us!

Where the wrecks go

{The Boy: Do you want to talk about it?}
{Me: No. (cries)}

Can you read the sign? I didn't realize what it said until just now.
There is Help.
1.800.Suicide
So people don't jump in front of moving trains.

So those are things you see while riding the train.

***

Yesterday Little Helen turned 91.
June 24, 1918 is her birthday.

The hospice nurse came. And these lovely people from the assisted living center brought a piece of birthday cake she cannot eat but we put it in the freezer anyway in the hope that she can have a taste sometime in future. They sang. I am convinced that people from the Philippines are the nicest people in the world. My mom and I looked around the room, the defensive thing you do with your eyes so that you don't cry in front of others when you're supposed to be looking happy.

Little Helen is home now, for a little while.
I guess, in truth, all of us are home, for a little while.

I write these things down because I don't know how to say them out loud. And then when I do, I feel like I understand an infinitesimally tiny amount more than I did a moment ago. Only it's never enough. And then the understanding is gone again, so fleeting, just like the tracery of a quark's trails.

The Unbirthday and the Ungoodbye

"I could tell you my adventures — beginning from this morning," said Alice a little timidly: "but it's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then." ~ from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Through the Looking Glass

***

Little Curly Girl is Three.
Very grown up.

***

We had a Very Special Unbirthday Party this weekend.

Little Curly Girl was our Alice and we visited Wonderland with her. We talked to the Cheshire Cat. (I was the Voice.) We wore all sorts of hats and had a Mad Hatter's Tea Party. We opened presents and threw colored tissue paper all over the floor.

"Well, if I eat it, and if it makes me grow larger, I can reach the key; and if makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door: so either way I'll get into the garden, and I don't care which happens!" ~ from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

We talked to the snapdragons and looked at the pansy faces in the garden. The snapdragons asked to please please have some Unbirthday Cake but Alice had to tell them politely that they wouldn't be able to eat any cake because flowers have no teeth.

The flowers were very understanding but you could tell they were disappointed.

***

"At last the Dodo said, 'everybody has won, and all must have prizes.' " ~ from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

***

The best prize of all was to be in the Divine Presence of Princess Chubness, who is now six months old.

She embodies joy, wonder and happiness. She truly does.
No one can take their eyes off of her. She is the happiest person we've ever met.

***

"If you drink much from a bottle marked 'poison' it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later." ~ from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

The other part of the story is the visit to see Little Helen: a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother to us. We wished that part of the story was happy but it was not. And there are no pictures of it, because it is not something we would want a picture of.

It's a difficult thing to watch someone fade away. I've never done that before.

It's even harder when that person seems to be giving up on living and we can't figure out why. We were angry and frustrated. Our Unbirthday Girl was frightened when she saw Little Helen and then hid in her mother's arms. Her mom had to take her outside.

I think we all believed in the power and beauty of Little Curly Girl and Princess Chubness, having watched them laugh and play and be so alive, that-- in the whole wide world, these girls could work a miracle and bring Little Helen to her senses, to make her want to eat (because she won't) and get well. If not for us, then for her great-grandchildren. That we would have another happy story besides The Unbirthday.

But there are times when things will be the way they are and no amount of hoping can make it any different. Some people will go down a rabbit hole where we cannot follow.

The Boy has a saying that I always remember:

"You can't make unhappy people happy. You can only make happy people happier."

I wished things would have been different for all of us. I don't know how much longer Little Helen will be around, and this is probably the last time I'll write about her. It feels like she's given up on herself, and in doing so, has left us all behind much earlier than we would have wished.

***

'You are old, Father William,' the young man said,
'And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head —
Do you think at your age it is right?'

~ from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Happy Birthday, Dr. Jane!

Well, it's a little early, but I thought I'd throw this out for those of you who'd also like to send an email birthday message to Dr. Jane Goodall. She came to San Francisco to speak at the Herbst Theatre last November, and having the chance to see her in person, and even give her a little hug, after admiring her from afar for many years was really memorable.

Here's the link if you'd like to add your birthday wishes to Dr. Jane by April 3.

Rolling on Shabbos

***

Happy Birthday, little Chipmonkey.

I hope your year is full of White Russians and lots of laughs.

And more fun with me.

And Jesus.

Rolling on Shabbos or not...

you make life fun!

xoxo

***

Chipmonkey had the best costume ever.
Compare her to the original and you'll see.

***

UPDATE 11:35am: Chipmonkey's friend Rick took some fantastic photos. I have camera envy.

White Russian, anyone?

I really don't think I can get on the bus like this.

"Jeffrey, this is Maude Lebowski. I need to see you. I'm the one who took your rug."

***

I'll catch up with you guys after the bowling but right now I need to call a cab.

I'm not that adventurous.

A Cupcake and a Very Happy Birthday to My Crush, Joe

"I was in the Oval Office the other day, and the President asked me what I would do about resignations. I said, 'Look, Mr. President, would I keep Rumsfeld? Absolutely not.' And I turned to Vice President Cheney, who was there, and I said, 'Mr. Vice President, I wouldn't keep you if it weren't constitutionally required.'

I turned back to the President and said, 'Mr. President, Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld are bright guys, really patriotic, but they've been dead wrong on every major piece of advice they've given you. That's why I'd get rid of them, Mr. President---not just Abu Ghraib.' They said nothing. Just sat there like big old bullfrogs on a log and looked at me." ~ Joe Biden, Rolling Stone interview, June 2004

***

Fucking A. That's my Veep. And he's a Scorpio!

d i a n a m u s e, we should be celebrating together. Red Velvet cupcake, anyone? Happy Happy Birthday, Joe.

ps.: Cupcake photo swiped from that leftist liberal rag, the New York Times. Hey, at least they give you the recipe. Aw hell, I got the Biden photo there, too. I'm so transparent. (I read the International Herald Tribune sometimes too. But not The Economist. No one reads that except for Sarah Palin.)

Birthday Treats Being Logged and Recognized Appropriately

The enormity of birthday wishes, gifts, cake, voicemails, emails and such were overwhelmingly lovely and appreciated to the highest degree, and now I am appointing a transition team to help me handle the incredible amounts of love, well wishes and birthday memories.

Right now we are cataloguing and putting all of these lovely sentiments in their proper places for easy recall and enjoyment. It is a daunting task. But I will be back with you soon.

***

In the meantime, please bear with me while I get situated with being a year older but definitely more loved. I am going to share some virtual cake with you, sent from The Boy, who is braving the elements in Pittsburgh. (Yes, he is still not home yet! Yes, he has been such a good son and helping his parents, yadda yadda yadda. I don't know what to do at this point. I was thinking of hiring a band of gypsies or pirates to kidnap him and bring him back to San Francisco.)


He also sent me a photo of himself, being very strong and cute. He still does this to impress me (it works). Boys will be boys.

Does anyone know of a band of gypsies in the Pittsburgh area that I can hire to bring The Boy home? They have to be authentic gypsies with wagons and campfires. Or a circus train would work. He would be totally lured away by a circus train, especially if giraffes were involved.

ps.: Who's my film buff here? Who knows where that top photo came from besides me?

11/11: My Birthday, Your Gift

Well, tomorrow's the b-day.

This year's birthday seems so much about wanting to look forward, to look forward to. I can't help but be excited about what might happen in the coming year.

The day seems like a present waiting to have its bow untied.

I have decided to make a present. It's been fun giving stuff to you guys (Kath, you're next!).
So I think I'll give one of you a copy of my next photo book: The Mission, San Francisco Series, Vol. 2.


I'm almost done with the collection of photos, and if I know I have someone to send a book to then it will be more of an incentive to put the finishing touches on it and get it out the door to be printed.

***

I've been falling in love with the Mission. The colors, the life in the people, the unexpected surprises.
It's been hard to choose the photos for this book because there are so many that I love.

The one below in particular has a sweet story behind it. I was walking down Clarion Alley, which is filled with some of the most amazing murals in San Francisco. Taking photos left and right, I heard a giggle above me.

There was a young Hispanic boy, camera pointed at me, ready to take a picture of yet another picture taker wandering under his window. We laughed as we snapped photos of each other and gave each other a thumb's up at the end of our little impromptu session. Two photographers happy with their work.

This photo in particular felt like a gift to me when I took it, and even now as I remember the story of it. So it would be great to share even more of the story with you, so you can see what hours of walking and looking have come to lately.

***

So no special requirements. Just leave a comment if you'd like to be in the drawing and I'll pick a name. All of you guys, even my little lurkers. First time visitor or long-time buddy, wherever you live in the world. How about we have the drawing on Friday?

It will be nice to give you a present. You're always so encouraging and thoughtful! And so nice to have around.

xoxo

Happy Birthday, Sweetheart!

Please join me in wishing the beautiful, wise and loving Ms. Wellspring the happiest of birthdays today. For those of you who know her via the blogosphere, rest assured that she is as wonderful and kind in person as you imagine her to be.

.

Happy, happy, happy birthday, sweet friend!

.

xoxo

me

.

ps. Since I can't bake, I'll have to give our birthday girl a virtual treat. Visit the incredible Jocelyn at Kuidaore and pick out which gorgeous sweet treat you would give our Ms. Wellspring today.

le plus beau du quartier

This post will hopefully make up for the deviant one that precedes it.

For those of you who couldn't make it to the party, I thought you might like a little peek into our day with Little Curly Girl.

We had a grand time.

See for yourself.

Happy happy.

***

Miss Fabulous in the garden.


Our new friend "Puss"


Auntie Tangobaby kicks off her shoes...


And someone else puts them on!
Looks like Option 3 is a go!

And here's the MTV version, with a little diva action in the middle.

Someone's Got a Birthday

I just spent a whole bunch of money (that I don't have) on this little curly-haired person. My little niece just turned two. She's coming out to visit the California contingent this weekend for a birthday blowout, in order to claim her haul of gifts and take them back to her desert home in Nevada, where she stores her loot.

I've been trying to avoid retail therapy lately, but when you're buying toys and clothes and other stuff for tiny cute people, it's futile to resist. It's the tiny-ness of the clothes that kills me.

***

My niece is very interested in Elmo, chocolate cake and books. (She is also a fan of prunes, which she tasted for the first time in the photo here.)

When you call and get this little person on the phone, she yells how-ah-yah!?! (how are you?) with an interesting Brooklyn-ese twang (we don't know where the accent came from). But if you ask her what her favorite food is, she yells "chocolate cake!" quite clearly and with pretty good diction.

***

I realized that I am very competitive in the gift-buying department. I didn't know this until today, but it's very important for Auntie Tangobaby's delicate pysche to have brought the most kick-ass gifts of all the assorted family and friends at the party.

I am not quite sure how I got this odd competitive streak, but living in San Francisco gives you access to some really great boutiques and shopping. If you saw the little outfits I just bought, your head might explode from overexposure to cuteness. European cuteness. There's this shop, Murik Children's Store, near my office that sells children's clothes from The Netherlands, Belgium and other assorted European countries that make cuter clothes than we do.

Before Little Curly Girl was born, I opened a bank account for her. When I can, I put some money in her little account, so when she is old enough she can take dance classes or music lessons. But I also told her while she was still in utero that she can use that money for Option 3, which is to go to Paris with me, and Auntie Tangobaby will buy her some fancy shoes from the City of Lights.

I think that if I keep planting the seed, with the help of very cute European-style outfits, that when the time is ripe, my brilliant niece will choose Option 3: The Paris Shoe Shopping Trip. Then she and I will run away to Paris together to buy gorgeous footwear, eat magnificent chocolates and flirt. And go to museums.

I also got Little Curly Girl a Putmayo children's CD called French Playground so she can practice her songstyling en français in anticipation of her choosing Option 3.

(She's also getting some books, a fluffy floppy soft tiger, and some refrigerator magnets because everyone needs refrigerator magnets that are plush toadstools and squirrels that you can play with in the kitchen while your mom is making you a grilled cheese sandwich.)

The chocolate cake and Elmo accoutrements she'll have to score from someone else. Auntie Tangobaby needs to get a second job now.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Stewart

"If Bess and I had a son, we'd want him to be just like Jimmy Stewart." ~ Harry S. Truman

***

Today is Jimmy Stewart's birthday. What can I say about this great actor that you can't see for yourself in his movies? But what I know about him as a person, as a decorated war hero--he was not your typical Hollywood actor.

All I can say is I am going to watch a Jimmy Stewart movie tonight and be glad he made so many wonderful films for us to enjoy. And maybe have a little birthday cake in his honor. The hard part will be trying to choose which movie to watch.

From Mr. Smith Goes to Washington:



From It's a Wonderful Life:



A TCM Tribute to James Stewart:



One of my favorite actors, Stephen Fry, discussing Jimmy Stewart:

Happy Birthday, George

“I think people who can truly live a life in music are telling the world, 'You can have my love, you can have my smiles. Forget the bad parts, you don't need them. Just take the music, the goodness, because it's the very best, and it's the part I give.' ”-- George Harrison


I remember where I was when I heard that John Lennon was shot. It was in the evening and I was watching Hill Street Blues. The program was interrupted to broadcast the news, and I told my mom, who was in the den, talking on the phone.

I don't remember where I was when I heard that George Harrison had died, but I do remember how instantly my eyes filled with tears and how terribly sad I felt.

I was never old enough to be influenced by the Beatles when they were together, and when George released his first solo album, All Things Must Pass, I was only three. But for some reason, I always loved George, even before I knew anything about him.

As a person I was drawn to him, and as a musician, I appreciated him in all of his incarnations, from the "quiet" Beatle to his Dark Horse days, to the Traveling Wilburys.

I don't know what it is about some people that draws us in, makes us feel like we can instantly relate to them, (maybe we see something of ourselves in them?) or how we can feel attached to people we will never really know, but that's how it is sometimes.



What I love about this video (besides the song) is that it's pure and simple. It makes you remember the days when music came on actual records.

Official George Harrison website (lovely)
Wikipedia entry about George
Rolling Stone article about George's greatest moments in music
The Traveling Wilburys website
George's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
BBC pages devoted to George

His last words: Love one another.