Our Cookie-Based Civitas

We're halfway through our early voting period before the primary election next Tuesday. The library's meeting room has been taken over by voting machines and the people who serve them, although the Christians who camp out by the door with their proselytizing propaganda have not moved as they have done in the past. They may have worked out some accommodation or, perhaps the authorities realize they're basically harmless.

I'm waiting for election day to cast my vote, mostly because the folks who run the actual precinct voting stations always have cookies and pastries and soft drinks available and never enough voters show up so there is always plenty to go around. The early-voting places are just boringly utilitarian.

I also get cookies and juice when I donate platelets.

There's no point in pretending my attention to civic duties is anything more than a Pavlovian response to a baked-goods stimulus.

Speaking of stimuli, there are no, zero, nada candidate signs on the approach road to the library. Normally there are dozens, frequently multiple signs per candidate. And I haven't seen any yard signs on lawns, either.

The TV spots are picking up, a little. I saw two more anti-Trump pieces, one of which was repeated, and another pro-Rubio. The most surprising one, however, was a hit on former Ohio governor, John Kasich.

John Kasich! Seriously?

Whose campaign manager, or superPac media "expert" has enough money to throw away attacking Kasich? Who in this race believes Kasich is any kind of threat? Is there some kind of deadline by which you have to spend a certain amount of money and you couldn't think of anything better to do with it?

Here's an idea: Buy cookies for everyone.

Taking the Plunge

Two women from the county clerk's office were at the library today when I stopped in. They had set up their voter registration table off to the side of the entryway. They get to be inside the foyer. The Christians are set up just outside in the shade of the arcade which is nice for them in the summer but our high temperature today was 68°F (20°C) and that was at sunrise. It's been dropping since and it's very windy out there.

I walked right past the county folks at first but turned around when I realized this is now 2016 and the primaries are coming up soon. I have been thinking of registering with a party to either vote for Bernie Sanders, who I really like, or, in an attempt to monkeywrench the Republicans, Donald Trump.

The incredibly helpful women (possibly employees, possibly volunteers, I didn't ask) had the necessary form (indeed, a full stack of them. Are there that many people choosing sides this time around?) right on the table. Although a different form, it asked the same information as a new voter registration form (which they also had in abundance) and took all of three minutes to fill out.

The only reason it took me that long is because I hesitated when I got to the choosing party section. There was a check box for "Democratic Party," and one for "Republican Party," one for "No Party Affiliation" which is totally redundant since not checking any of the boxes automatically results in the default "no party affiliation" status, and the last box, "Minor Party," with a space for the voter to fill in the name of the minor party of choice. (There were no suggested minor party names, i.e., Green, Libertarian, etc., which makes me wonder if I could just make up any party name I wanted and have that listed on my voter registration card.)

Anyway, I hesitated over which path to choose, support good or fight evil. I finally decided that, if I am going to start receiving political junk mail—and I know I will, now—I really don't want to see xenophobic fear-mongering, religious pandering and/or economic nonsense.

I am a proud new—officially registered—member of the Florida Democratic Party.

Go Bernie!

(Non-)Participatory Democracy

We finished up a week or so of early voting last week followed by the official primary vote day to select the candidates for each political party who will now run against each other for various local offices.

I say "we" although that "we" doesn't include "me" since I am unaffiliated and not allowed to involve myself in the parties' selection of their candidates, it being an internal party matter. (There is an interesting exception: If only one party will have a candidate for a particular office in the general election, a situation which can and does happen in this heavily conservative area where liberals have trouble finding people willing to be sacrificial lambs, then the primary for that office effectively becomes the general for that office and is open to all voters. That did not happen this time around.)

Someone wrote a letter to the paper complaining that the turnout was only 18%. It wasn't clear if that was of the total electorate (which wouldn't be quite fair since about 30% of the voters were, like myself, ineligible due to our independent status) or just of the party members. Either way is still pretty pathetic.

I am seriously thinking of registering with a political party in order to be able to vote in one or the other of the upcoming presidential primaries next spring. I just haven't decided whether to register Democrat in order to vote for Bernie Sanders because I think he's great, or Republican so I can vote for Donald Trump and try to monkeywrench their process. High road, low road. Which shall it be?

An interesting side note to last week's primaries: One of the early voting places was the town library and for the first day or two the Christians who have their little display out in front by the meeting room door moved over to the far side of the main entrance. Then they moved back for the rest of the week. I guess somebody figured out they weren't stumping for any listed candidate and weren't violating the ban on campaigning within a hundred yards of a polling place. Besides, they only talk amongst themselves unless someone approaches them and initiates the conversation.

The Community Library

The lady collecting signatures on the petition to include medical marijuana on the ballot (again) for next year's election was out in front of the library all this week, sharing space with the Christians who are something of a permanent, although, as far as I can tell, ineffectual, presence.

She has a nice homemade-looking display on her card table and says "Hi," to everyone walking in. When I stopped to talk to her she said she just greets everyone entering and only engages them on the way out. I told her I probably wouldn't be leaving until closing time so, unless she was planning on hanging around until then she should really talk to me (and a lot of others, too) every chance she got. She admitted she hadn't considered that possibility and wasn't planning on staying that late so I signed the petition right then and there. For the record, the initiative won a majority last time but, since it's trying to amend the state constitution, needs two thirds of the vote to go into effect and "only" received about 60%. The main sponsor, a very successful ambulance-chasing law firm, vowed to try again and so . . . here we are.

Meanwhile, inside, the notice for the ayurveda yoga classes has been replaced with one announcing the upcoming tai-chi sessions.

The Christians, despite a professional looking literature display just seem to sit out in the heat and talk amongst themselves.

Questions On Being Street Viewed

On my way to the library yesterday, I turned right in front of the Googlemobile waiting at the intersection. Boom! There they were, just past the police radar trap. Since that was the street I was turning onto, I looked them straight in the camera lens. It was a beautiful, warm day and I had my windows down and everything.

The current Street View for that intersection is four years old. I will now check that spot on Google Maps every day for the answers to two questions. How long does it take Google to put up new views once the pictures have been taken? Assuming the camera is running constantly and their car was stopped for a minute or two due to cross traffic, will they select me (and others) out of the scene in favor of shots without traffic if possible? And, if they do use a shot with me in it, how will I look making my turn all pixelated?

O.K. Three. Three questions.

And did they catch the radar trap on camera?

Four.

New Year, Same Us

Looks like the New Year just turned on a dime.

It started the way it ended: warm, slightly humid, cloudy. Yesterday a cold front moved through. Perhaps it's a "cold front" since it can't compare to the deep freeze people are going through in the rest of the country, but our temperatures did drop 20 degrees over the course of two hours and rain came in wiping out the humidity. The crescent moon was out but I've become a wimp since moving down here and it was too damn cold to use the telescope.

The house got down to 65F last night but a warming trend is forecast for the weekend and it's going to have to stay "cold" for a lot longer before we break down and turn on the heat. Undershirts, long sleeves (my brother broke out a flannel shirt I didn't even know he owned) and sweaters for outdoors are more than sufficient for us although the cats, despite their fuzziness, are not happy. This is the kittens' first winter and they don't know what to make of it. That, and the Christmas tree coming down, is confusing them no end. At least the cooler weather has convinced the library to finally turn off their air conditioning.

The cold did do in my car battery and I had to have my brother come down to the deli where it died and jump start it. New battery, new posts, new left headlight (coincidence) and we're good to go.

Meanwhile, I find out my brother ran a stop sign on a deserted* road where only one directional turn is permitted . . . and managed to get caught. So he now has his first moving violation in over 20 years, a $167 fine (Who makes up these numbers? What's the logic?) and has to take an on-line remedial driver's course. I presume that's to keep points off his license.

And I forgot my platelet donation was scheduled for the second and went ahead and took my aspirin on the first. I was scheduled for two donations this month but now we'll only do the one on the 30th. I feel bad about that.

Happy New Year!

*except for the lurking cop who caught him.

Hair Apparent

I cheated on my barber today. I felt bad about it before going into the new place but now I'm mostly perfectly O.K. with it.

I try to support local businesses whenever possible and the barber I've been going to is a local guy (or person, at least. He's still undergoing some sort of transition as far as I can tell.) He has six chairs and when I first started with him a couple of years ago he had a few old-time actual barbers renting space from him but, recently, it's just been the owner and a woman who is only marginally competent. I don't know whether the others left because business is slow, or because of the owner's vocal Tea Partyish political views (I was present for a couple of "debates" among the staff) but the result has been the same.

The last time I was in there the owner was out and she was just standing around so I made the mistake of letting her work on me. By the time it was over, we were both frustrated, she had taken too much off the top and not enough off the sides (I ended up trimming that myself at home a couple days later when I couldn't stand it any longer) and I wondered if I should even bother to go back again.

I'd been debating that on and off for a while as my hair grew too long. My phlebotomist nurse at the blood center told me about another local shop in town but, when I went by, the outside was enough to scare me off.

Then I received a coupon for one of the chain salons.

I really didn't want to use it. I held onto it almost until it expired. Today, I gave in and went to the mall with the big box stores and found the place. They were busy and someone was out sick so my ten minute wait turned into twenty but, when I finally sat in the chair, my stylist was friendly, attentive and competent. When I told her it had been six months since my last "trim" she dug her hands in and pulled my hair out to the sides saying, "Wow! She must've really cut it short." Indeed. And then proceeded to do a great job on my head.

I know it's a great job because the pretty African-American lady at the gas station where I stopped immediately afterward and who was very perfunctory with the two gentlemen in front of me suddenly got all smiley and talkative when I got to the counter and the young woman checking out the soon-to-be-discarded sale books at the library turned and smiled at me as I walked past, things which do not normally happen to me.

So here's the dilemma: Do I give my weird, quirky, filled-with-strange-characters locally-owned shop one more try next time? Or do I just give up and go with the decent haircut?

I Am Legion

I have lived most of my life under the assumption, based on anecdotal evidence, that I am, in fact, only one of an indeterminate number of identical clones, although I like to flatter myself by thinking I am the original template and all the others merely copies.

My awareness of this situation began shortly after I went off to college. On my first trip home, Mom reported that she'd seen me in the local supermarket three weeks earlier and, wondering why I was AWOL from school, had approached to within six feet before realizing whoever it was was not me. Six feet! My own Mother! It happened again a couple of years later when she almost stopped to pick "me" up hitchhiking along the highway before remembering I was over 500 miles away. (I do hope that clone eventually got to wherever he was supposed to be.)

There were a number of times, when I had my game company, when I was mistaken for the owner of another game company and I do have to admit, at the time, the resemblance was uncanny.

I have been accosted on the street more than once by friends of my clones, calling out to me in their names, and inquiring as to the latest news. I have invariably both disappointed and fascinated them.

It happened again today. A woman with a gaggle of young children coming down the hallway in the library tried to shepherd them aside to make room for me and as we passed she called out, "Hello!" and then to the kids said, "That's Mister So-and-so." I was so startled I turned the corner before realizing her greeting had been addressed to me and when I turned around again she and the flock had moved on.

I hope, when she finally sees the "real" Mister So-and-so, he has the chance to explain why he was so rude as to ignore her today.

I wonder how many of me there really are?

An Offer Not Likely To Be Refused

So I'm in the local library at the moment, on the library computer, researchin', and the librarian lady announces, "Just so you all know, we're under a tornado warning right now and it's hailing outside (lightning has already knocked us onto emergency power twice) so if we come back and tell you all to move into a hallway real quick, please move into a hallway real quick."

You got a deal there, librarian lady.

Wonder if I can even get to my car for the trip home right now.

The Devil Made Him Do It

I was reading the dead-tree news in the library the other day (one of the benefits of living in a town/county full of geezers is that enough of them are technophobic traditionalists to support a viable old-fashioned news paper) when someone stopped just beside my chair and held something out to me.

I looked up to see an older gentleman, thinning gray hair slightly longish and in need of a comb, tallish, bundled in an old black quilted polyester ski jacket (it's currently 90F (32C) outside). He was offering me a small, oblong pamphlet with a dull red and black cover. He said nothing. I shook my head, no. He moved on.

It was a Chick tract!

I haven't seen one of those in years and I've never seen a human being actually distributing any although they must since I can't imagine how they get onto washroom counters and bus terminal seats otherwise.

I believe Jack Chick is still alive. If so, considering his anti-Catholicism and special feelings toward the Society of Jesus the thought of a Jesuit Pope must be driving him (even further) over the edge. At least the old guy wandering around our library was harmless enough. I don't know if he managed to give away any of  his paranoid, hate-filled comic books, though.

Stereotypes, Florida Automotive Division

Today, on a major boulevard in town: a delivery truck for a local electronics retailer cruising down the middle lane with his left turn blinker on. Yesterday, on a slightly smaller street (only two lanes in each direction) a motorcycle in the far right hand lane, ridden by an elderly gentleman, cars fearful of passing him because he, also, had his left turn signal blinking merrily away for over a mile.

Coming out of the library, a little old emphysematic lady (she doesn't use oxygen but you can hear her wheezing a good ten feet away) wisely stopped at the edge of the curb and waited while an SUV pulling out from the book drop-off ran the stop sign. She then tottered through the parking lot to her own car where she literally disappeared (her hands on the steering wheel were more visible through the windshield than her head). The car eased off down the road a good fifteen miles and hour under the speed limit.

The decade-old, mufflerless pick up truck with the rebel flag decals on the rear window that took off from the intersection as if the green flag had dropped at Daytona all screeching tires and clouds of exhaust fumes only to stall out half a block down the road blocking the lane.

And not least, by far: the Mercedes SUV with the "Tell Barack I'm Baroke" bumper sticker.

I don't think so.

Democalypse Now!

I'm feeling much better about waiting in line for almost 3.5 hours to vote early Friday. At least it was warm and sunny.

It was with some trepidation that I went to the library today knowing it is a polling place and the parking lot would be crowded. I waited to go until after a very heavy downpour had subsided to a drizzle and found the back third of the overflow lot (which had been retopped and striped just before the weekend) was open. There were over 100 drenched and soggy people outside huddled in line under the dripping eaves waiting to get inside the side door to the community room where the polls had been set up. The storm also caused the temperature to drop a good ten degrees.

During early voting, all ballots were cast at the half dozen county offices and long lines were kind of expected but now, on election day, when a third of the electorate has already voted early and there are 125 separate voting precincts in this county alone, still: the lines.

I blame, in part, the enormous ballot, including eleven proposed state constitutional amendments (the twelfth was dropped for some legal technicality) presented in their entirety in English and Spanish. Also, the fact we are a swing state (although not, this year, the swing state) makes people believe their vote might make a difference and helps to raise turnout.

By mid-afternoon, the line outdoors was gone although the community room was still full.

I don't normally make political predictions but, based on what I'm hearing and reading about people's frustrating experiences this time around, I think next time folks will remember how the governor limited voting hours and the legislature fobbed off their responsibilities to create a monster ballot. Being an incumbent might not be pleasant.

Transitions

A number of seasons are ending and beginning just now.

Rainy Season officially ended at the beginning of the month and I optimistically began leaving my car windows open to avoid the runaway greenhouse effect resulting from parking a sealed up vehicle in the sun. Unfortunately, the actual end-of-season is a bit more raggedy and I've had to bale twice now after leaving the car open at the library. And that doesn't even count my brother very kindly not waking me when he came home late one night as it started to shower and hanging towels all over my open windows. I have no idea why he has so many towels in his truck.

Fall is approaching. It is noticeably cooler (although today it's cloudy mostly because of Hurricane Sandy way off the east coast). I watched a tribe of very tiny ants stocking up for the coming "cold" spell. Scores of them were climbing up and down a vine including four triumphantly hoisting a cockroach leg aloft as they negotiated the tendrils. To be more precise, three of them were carrying the leg. The fourth had grabbed it in such a way that it's own legs couldn't reach any surface while they were moving and it just sort of dangled along for the ride not only not helping but actively adding to the burden.

With the weather cooling down, Bartleby has decided to become an outdoor cat again. She spends her time sleeping beneath one or the other of our vehicles or, occasionally, in a lawn chair and comes in only to dine. When we open the door for her she complains loudly at our inattention for not opening it sooner and, as soon as she finishes her meal, she starts yelling at us to let her out again. I am become majordomo to the cat.

Also, the zombies have come and gone. It's an annual migration, pretty much confined to the other side of the river.

Besides, Oktoberfest is here. After a couple of days no one on this side of the river will even notice a few zombies wandering loose.

The Longest Season: Paranoia or Dirty Tricks?

I went to the library this morning and just outside the main door, as has been the case on most days recently, was a pleasant older lady with a clipboard and paperwork asking people if they were registered to vote and, if not, please take a moment to fill out the form and register. Very good-citizeny and the epitome of positive local activism.

Except.

As I walked on past (being already registered and thus immune to her civic blandishments) I heard her say to the gentleman she was just finishing up with as he turned away, "Oh, by the way, if the election were held today, who would you vote for?"

Now, perhaps I am too cynical. Perhaps I am paranoid. Perhaps she was just expressing friendly curiosity.

I narced her out to the head librarian anyway.

It seems some of the people doing sidewalk registrations are from the county clerk's office but some are volunteers from the two major political parties. And, if you are a partisan in the political process, it is extremely inappropriate to ask, when you are registering a new voter, ". . .(W)ho would you vote for?" It can certainly leave the impression that, if you answer "incorrectly," you're registration just might not get filed.

Usually, on these sorts of expeditions both parties are represented at the same time (no doubt to keep each other honest) but, when I went by, there was only the one woman active. I'm sure it was just a coincidence the librarian thought it was the Republican.

(The gentleman in question refused to answer the canvasser's question and the head librarian is filing an official complaint.)

Learning To Fit In

I was at the library today when the following announcement came over the public address system:

"May I have your attention, please. The zombie make-up workshop will be starting in the adult meeting room in five minutes."

I am beginning to suspect this mania for all things undead (which I share, by the way, being a huge fan of The Walking Dead and anything by George Romero) might be our society's way of coping psychologically with both the 9/11 trauma and the ensuing decade plus of war. Zombies are a way to both recognize and deny the permanence of death which will, eventually, take us as well. (I understand Romero's zombies were a statement against Cold War paranoia, or racism, or the banal conformism of a consumerist society but we always adjust our allegories to fit our current needs.)

Or maybe that's too heavy an interpretation and this is just American culture at its best. You're welcome.

I have to say I was tempted, but it turned out the workshop was for teens. Either way, they need to be prepared.

Miscellanea, (Mostly Meteorlogical)

Looks like Rainy Season is finally officially here. Haven't seen the sun since before the transit of Venus which we didn't see either. It rains at least once every day now, sometimes in the morning sometimes in the evening. At least I'm remembering to close up my car. . .and the birdbath is staying full.

Of course, now that it's raining, the grass is greening up and growing fast and the lawn mower is busted again. From the symptoms, I'm thinking the drive belt has irretrievably stretched out of shape.

You know it's humid when the weather report lists the current temperature as 87F "but feels like 100F." For the record, yes, it does.

The most active burrowing owl habitat around this season is on my way to the library. An adult is always perched on one of the little cruciform burrow-marking stakes and usually one or more of the family is on the ground nearby. I went by once and there were four of them on the ground surrounding the one on the perch. There are a number of open lots nearby so this place may have some really easy hunting.

I just heard "Car Talk" will be coming to an end this fall after 25 years. Almost everything I know automotively (which admittedly is not much) I learned from those guys.

Yesterday would've been Mom's 92nd birthday. My brother bought four pints of Ben & Jerry's, two for him and two for me. They were on sale. Happy Birthday! (I'm going to make mine last at least a month.)

Mom, A Life: Part Nine

Mom, A Life: Part Eight

The Final Years

Dad was in a serious car accident just as they were building the new house. That, and the fact their contractor absconded with several thousand dollars necessary for the finishing work, meant the move was delayed, drawn-out and a little traumatic. They stayed with first one son and then the other (both of whom were living in town at the time) and eventually the place was completed.

In late 1997 Dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer and underwent cryogenic surgery. During follow-up another tumor was discovered and he began chemotherapy. As Mom described it from the x-rays, "It looked like a loaf of French bread wrapped around the back of his stomach." At first he responded well and they could see the tumor shrinking almost daily but suddenly something the doctors called a "wildfire" took over. In less than a month, on March 22, 1998, Dad died.

Mom continued to teach ceramics at the Senior Center and occasionally took on jobs either when she wanted extra money or just because she was bored. (She did a short stint as a dispatcher for a rental car company out at the airport one time.) She gave up driving and my brother, who had sold his house and moved in after his girlfriend died, chauffeured her around. In 2000, my brother managed to pull off a surprise 80th birthday party at the country club that included her children, grandchildren, most of her nephews and nieces, surviving sister and brother-in-law and a host of friends.

The remaining dozen years passed quietly. Mom's back had been giving her problems for decades. What with slipped and disintegrating discs and severe scoliosis she became hunched over at the waist and barely four feet tall. (She was 5' 6" most of her adult life.) As her mobility decreased she stopped going anywhere except ceramics class and doctors' appointments. We had always planned for Mom to live to at least 100, both because she thought that was a nice round number and also in hope she'd passed on longevity genes to the rest of us, but in 2008 I received a letter from her hinting at imminent problems. I moved in with Mom and my brother to help him look after her. The letter turned out to be a touch melodramatic.

Mom talked about moving to an assisted living facility but, although we got brochures and made some visits, her heart wasn't really in it and she stayed home. Her mobility became worse and she was plagued by occasional incontinence and so stopped going to ceramics out of what might best be called anticipatory embarrassment. She most definitely did not want her friends to see her deteriorating.

Mom was diagnosed with moderate Alzheimer's in 2010. She never discussed the diagnosis and I often wondered if one of the effects of the disease was that the implications never really sank in with her. She was put on a drug that noticeably slowed its progress, and for the six months immediately after the diagnosis she showed real improvement both physically and mentally. We even made one last visit to the ceramics class at the Senior Center.

Eventually, though she spent her days mostly on the couch reading and watching TV, although she no longer enjoyed watching sports as she found she didn't understand the rules or the point of the games any more and had no patience for anything lasting longer than a half hour or so. She read continuously, both magazines and large print books from the library.


She still dressed herself (with an increasingly eccentric creativity), made her own bed and did her own laundry (or tried to. We took that last chore away from her after she washed some disposables and filled the dryer with cubic feet of fluff). She had a great appetite and ate everything we made for her enjoying the occasional glass of wine with dinner. Although she had more and more trouble finding the right word, she never lost verbal capability and always recognized people. Her biggest problem was insomnia which could keep her bouncing up and down all night long and exhaustedly napping all the following day.

In February 2012, I noticed a decline in Mom's cognitive abilities. Despite the doctor's warnings about the inevitability of Alzheimer's, Mom had been so stable for so long that it came as something of a shock. During an appointment in early March, her GP noted a spike in her blood pressure and asked if she had a living will and DNR order on file. He recommended we post it on the refrigerator. Mom's insomnia was worse and she was a little more agitated than usual over the following weekend and then, sometime over night or, more likely, early Monday morning, her heart just gave out.

Mom died at home, in her room, Monday March 12, 2012, fourteen years after Dad. She was three months shy of 92.


Post Script

This sketch of Mom's life turned out to be a lot longer than I'd originally planned, yet it is still far, far too short to do her any kind of justice. I haven't mentioned her sense of adventure and willingness to try anything at least once. She'd go out in the woods with us kids to explore the "cave" we found. She had us all grilling Japanese food on hibachis and eating with chopsticks back in the '60s. She taught tolerance (no excuses) and encouraged intellectual curiosity. She's why I was listening to Stravinsky and Berlioz at age eleven and owned the complete Yale edition Shakespeare at thirteen (best junior high school graduation present ever!) and why I can cook for myself well enough to entertain in several different styles. ("You're either going to get married or stay single. If single, you're not rich enough to eat out every night so you'll starve if you don't know how to cook. And if you get married I'm not going to have some other woman complain I gave her a helpless son.")

Thanks, Mom. I love you, too.

Mom, A Life: Part Eight

Mom, A Life: Part Seven

Sunshine, Real Estate and Art

Using the money from the sale of the Connecticut house and the property in Arizona, Mom and Dad built a new, small ranch house on the property they had bought on the north end of town. Unfortunately, the developers had opened up huge tracts all at once and so people moving into town bought and built all over resulting in isolated houses on barren streets across the peninsula.

The city was billed as a planned community but it was really just an artificial one. No plans were made for any commercial development commensurate with the expected residential population. Hundreds of miles of canals were dug across the city but, in an attempt to save money and with total disregard for future traffic growth, bridges across the canals were intentionally built narrower than the roads. To this day the city hall, police department and post office all sit in the middle of nowhere, miles from the naturally developing center of town as does the library (but in a different direction).

So, of course, Mom and Dad got their real estate licenses. At first they sold houses and condos as agents for a larger firm. Mom's heart wasn't really in the profession and she ended up mostly sitting open houses and model condos. After a couple of years they realized it would be decades before their "neighborhood" filled in and they bought a condo in an 8-unit building "downtown." At least it was within walking distance to stores.

Mom requalified as a nurse in Florida and did some work at the local hospital but didn't enjoy it saying the profession had changed too much over the years for her to really keep up. The technical aspects were difficult as were all the new drugs to memorize.

It was about this time that Mom and Dad came back up north and kidnapped my brother and his dog. My brother had moved in with me after mustering out of the Air Force and brought the dog with him from California but he was showing symptoms of depression, partly from his military experiences, including scraping two of his pilot friends off the runway when they'd crashed, and the death of his best friend, an innocent bystander in a high-speed police chase in Connecticut. They thought a change of scene would do him good, showed up one weekend, packed him up and took off. It worked.

Dad opened his own agency but it didn't really go anywhere until he met some commercial developers and started specializing in buying up and consolidating lots into workable commercial size properties. Mom left the business and concentrated on her artwork. She had enjoyed painting over the years, mostly still lifes in oil on canvasboard although she did a huge owl with glowing yellow eyes in acrylics on cloth and hung it at the top of the back stairs in Connecticut where it scared her grandson so much he would only ever use the front stairs. They moved again, this time to a larger higher-end condo where Mom figured out how to make beads from rose petals and began creating necklaces and earrings, some of which she sold, some of which she gave away and some of which are now in the local historical society collection. It was also around this time that she became interested in ceramics.

At first Mom was content to decorate premade greenware, experimenting with paint effects and glazes. Soon, however, she started creating completely original works, mostly flowers: roses, chrysanthemums and lily pads although she also did some dessert dishes and rice bowls. She took lessons at the senior center and eventually the staff asked if she would teach the class, which she did until her fine motor skills started to go and her work became clunky. Eventually she went back to using greenware and finally stopped when her painting started getting muddy, too.

Succumbing to the Gypsy urge one last time, Mom and Dad sold the condo and built a last house, the one my brother and I now share, in a neighborhood that was finally filling in.

One Hand and the Other

April, it seems, is Travel Month at the town library.

April is also RMS Titanic, 100th anniversary of the sinking of, month.

The many and various posters put up around the library seem to be working at cross-purposes.

For Those Unclear on the Concept

Today, parked out front of the city's branch of the county library is an enormous tractor trailer rig with expandable side panels (like an RV that expands outward to create a cantilevered "dining room"). One large panel toward the front of the street side was open to reveal a mass of electronic equipment. On the sidewalk side was a "front porch" type of step-up platform under an awning beside which sat a woman with a folding table and paper work under her own canopy.

The signage painted on the side of the trailer read: "DIGITALBookmobile" and "Download Books & More From Your Library!"

I asked a very tall young man wearing a Digital Bookmobile polo shirt what the purpose of the truck was.  He said it was for downloading e-books. I explained that with a reader or a laptop or a phone the whole point was I could download a book virtually anywhere and did not need to go to a "Downloading Place" and that that was, in fact, one of the selling points of e-books (and the dread of brick and mortar bookstores). He admitted the truck was really an educational and publicity campaign for people who didn't understand.

Apparently, that population is sufficiently large to justify a national tour.