Rainy Saturday

So I've started PT for my ankle, and the cold is pretty much gone, but now it's raining out and I'm afraid of a relapse if I go outside and get wet and cold. And I've gotten really, really lazy.

Listened to NPR for a couple of hours this morning, catching "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" live for the first time in a very long time. I usually catch it as a podcast, via my ipod or Kindle Fire. This news quiz is my favorite radio show, and I was pleased to have gotten many of the answers correct.

I caught my cat Einstein in a particularly cute pose today. He enjoys lying on the window sill in the living room, above the baseboard heater, so he gets the benefit of both the rising heat and the view of the street. I keep the blinds closed for privacy, and they hang in front of the sill. Today, his left rear paw hung off the edge of the sill, below the bottom of the blinds. It was the only visible part of his body. His foot is mostly white (he's a gray tabby), and looked rather like a rabbit's foot. It's certainly every bit as soft as a rabbit's foot. And I feel lucky to have him.

The other day I thought I saw him in the back yard, but when I turned around, there he was in the living room - at the same time. The cat in the yard had the same colors in his coat, the same white front and points, and the same black stripes on its tail. It didn't seem to be wearing a collar, and seemed a bit bigger than Einstein, but otherwise looked just like him. And s/he seemed very at home in my yard, so I suspect this is not the first time s/he has visited. Perhaps he has a close relative nearby ...

Anyway, that's all I can think of right now. Stay dry.

No News Might be Bad News

So, after  I'd been singing with Occupella for a month or so, I got around to seeing a new podiatrist for an injury to my ankle that I believe occurred when I misstepped on a pothole back in October. The highly rated new doctor took an ultrasound image and slapped me in a walking cast, finding that I'd torn a tendon. Thankfully, it was only frayed, not torn clear through, so no surgery was needed, but I stayed in that cast, and mostly off my feet, for six weeks.

I've graduated to wearing a brace and am supposed to begin physical therapy, but now I've got a lovely cold/laryngitis thing that has turned me from a soprano to a bass-baritone. They don't want my germs at the PT office, and I don't blame them any. So now I'm resting my voice as well as my ankle, except for a single balancing-on-one-foot exercise that the doctor told me to do.

Which all explains why I haven't posted recently. My life's been pretty quiet.

Occupella and Me

Leslie Hassberg, who invited me to participate in the human banner on Ocean Beach (Tax the 1%), more recently sent me an e-mail about a group of singers called Occupella that she co-founded. Occupella sings at protests and BART stations in the  spirit of Occupy Wall Street. That sounded like major fun to me, so I started attending three weeks ago. My main concern was that I might not know the tunes they'd be using, but it turned out that I already knew most of them, and the others weren't too hard to pick up. And now that I have ink for my printer, I have my own songbook of the words.

It's great fun, singing out my anger at the banks and profit-driven inhumanity in general, and finding harmonies that will blend with whatever chord the guitarist has chosen. Members of the public and members of the group often take video of us, including a BART policewoman the other week. Lots of folks give us a thumbs up in passing or simply join in. It's a very uplifting occupation.

We were asked to act out the words to one song by Leslie, about self-serving falsehoods the elite use to keep the rest of us quiescent, and how they make excellent manure for our gardens. That was a lot of fun, and drew me a compliment from another woman in the group. And I always enjoy singing Nancy Schimmel's version of her mother's Little Boxes that's about tax shelters in the Caymans.

I was planning to sing with them last Friday, in a daylong protest of Citizens United, but it was raining and unpleasant, and I went back to sleep  until long after the protest had concluded. Oh well.

I recently acquired some colorful signs about taxing the rich (thanks, Terry), and need to figure out a way to put them on some kind of easel or pole. I'm thinking about the collapsing cane that I bought in Hawaii when my knee was acting up.

Make Banks Pay

Jan and I marched with the Occupy SF folks on national Bank Transfer Day, to chide the big banks for: (1) gambling with our money, (2) making overpriced loans to people who couldn't afford them, (3) not lending to small businesses that need it, (4) not renegotiating underwater mortgages (or renegotiating VERY SLOWLY while also foreclosing), and (5) leaving foreclosed homes vacant to become blights on the neighborhood. The marchers also encouraged each other to move our own money away from the big banks and into local community banks or credit unions.

I had been looking into credit unions off and on for some time, and the handout listing good local CUs was the final motivation I needed. I headed out the the SF Fire Credit Union within the week to open a new checking account, and closed my Wells Fargo account as soon as I got the new checks and ATM card. And then I got an SF Fire credit card and have just closed the most annoying of my big bank cards.

This divestment activity is all around me. I attended a hearing of the SF Board of Supervisors on whether to create a local bank of our own or how otherwise to make sure our money is being used wisely and locally. And the board of SFOP and my synagogue have both decided to move their funds to credit unions.

Credit unions are non-profit organizations that are owned by their depositor/members. I hear that local community banks are also good guys, and the state bank of North Dakota seems like a really good idea.

Unless you have a batch of stock in one of the big banks, I'd advise you to move any money you have in one to some place where it won't line the pockets of corporate executives.

My Personal God Language

So we had another meeting of the machzor class, and we were asked to write a bit on our concept of God, and how it agrees or disagrees with the liturgical language. Here's what I wrote:

You are Great and unknowable, Builder of galaxies and Small Voice of conscience, and I don't know whether to kneel before You, sing a song of praise, or curl up in Your lap. Part of me is awed and unable to say anything to You, and part of me wants to cling to Your fur like a baby koala. The God I thank for each new day is both big and loving, majestic and maternal.

New Experiences

In part, retirement is for trying new things; and I've been doing so.

Two months ago, a call went out for entertainers for a monthly gathering of LGBT patients at Laguna Honda Hospital. I volunteered to sing for the group, since I have a fairly decent voice and can be very funny. After warning the entertainment wrangler that I wouldn't have any accompaniment and I would be using notes to remember the words, I eventually put together a song list that started and ended with the funniest songs and wandered through campfire songs, protest songs, and a few Broadway show tunes in the middle. The event was also a Halloween party, so I brought a rat mask that I had just bought at the Castro street fair, and I opened with the most macabre songs I could think of, Leaping Lesbians, and Rikkety Tikkety Tin. I closed with the M.T.A. song (Did he ever return? No, he never returned) and Aunt Clara (whose picture is turned to the wall). I was a little concerned about boring folks and/or losing my voice, but neither happened. Lots of applause, and a fervent appreciation from a former music teacher. And I also got a cupcake, a Coke, and a skeleton necklace for my efforts. Now I'm starting to think about weaving some stand-up comedy into the songs. . . .

Another new adventure came when Jan and I were driving back up 101 from having tracked down a part for her new (very old) car in Santa Clara. I spotted the Malibu Grand Prix raceway and miniature golf place and got us to stop. I'd always wanted to drive a go kart. So we did. We bought four laps each, and waited interminably in scorching sun for our turn to put on sweaty helmets, scoot into our vehicles, and locate the pedals _ I needed a pillow behind me to reach them. It was a major hoot. My only disappointments were not being able to reach full speed - the track had too many turns for that. And I wasn't able to get lap records for how fast I went. The attendant missed me, and they weren't available when I went back for them. But, it was a lot of fun, and I could be persuaded to do it again.

My third new experience was last Saturday. I'd been receiving e-mails about a human banner on Ocean Beach, saying "Tax the Rich". Not enough people signed up, so they changed it to "Tax the 1%." I made the final decision to go when I received an e-mail from the music director of my show. The personal touch is best, it seems. Couldn't get a friend of my own to join me, but ran into Terry Baum, Nancy Schimmel, and Suzy Hara, a former Bendroid. Supervisors Eric Mar and John Avalos were also there. The music director had written advising us to bring blankets, since we were to lie down for part of the festivities, and I brought a beach towel. Sure wish I'd worn a sun hat. Anyway, the group was festive and engaged, around 1,000 of us, and the helicopter came as scheduled and took many lovely pictures of us. We're to receive our own postcards of the best shot. The event was planned a year ago, but resonated nicely with the Occupy Wall Street actions currently underway.

High Holy Days Writings

Andrew Ramer hosted another gathering at CSZ to listen to words and look at images of the journey towards forgiveness, and then write our own words or draw our own images. We had three writing periods, and much of what I wrote was whining about my own mishegoss about being lazy.

Here are a few bits that seemed to be worth sharing.

I am often struck by the line in our machsor that says we have sinned against God "as long as we cannot be hopeful." It takes hope to imagine that I can change for the better. It takes hope to even recognize the glints of good that I currently have. It takes an act of hope to remember the unity of God and humanity and to remember that I am a part of humanity.
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So how do I kindly and gently, and with curiosity and humor, recognize all the recalcitrant parts of myself, and persuade us that we're all on the same team? That we'll accomplish more and be happier if we achieve consensus and act mindfully much of the time? Perfection is neither possible nor desirable, but some improvement and awareness are both possible and good.

I'd like to have compassion for myself when I get stuck in an unskillful place, and recognize that it is only where I happen to be right now, and that I can be in a totally different place a breath and a smile from now.

Hope can return when I use the tools that I know work - journaling, mneditating, taking a walk, stretching. Just even remembering to breathe with awareness. I can notice that each breath is a new one, but/and that I'm inhaling many molecules that originated in the stars and have been breathed before by many, many people over the millenia since they were created.

As I breathe, I can remember that I am a living organism, a sentient being who lives and grows and changes every moment. And that I am also part of the webs of life that are my shul, neighborhood, city, state, country, hemisphere, and planet.
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I want to write a poem with such beautiful images of heaven on earth that reading it would lift anyone's heart, would give hope to the most depressed and despairing person, would bring a smile or a tear to any face. I want to write a picture so beautiful that it creates in all who read it a yearning to be better, a yearning to live in hope, and the recognition that this beauty is here and now, right here, right now.