What I Won't Say

Looking for pictures of Aunt Katherine from 1996, I went down to the basement (shelves by Rod, 1997) and spotted my diary from 1966, which included something about one of the cousins I'll be seeing this week in Atlanta.  I won't be talking about this, but I'll always remember Aunt Katherine in connection with Timmy. This is what I wrote in 1967, looking back. 


               I remember when Tim and I would lie in bed in (the landlady) Miss Tiebaud's bedroom when she was  away visiting relatives.  It would be dark outside and in the room we would lie there and "make love"--kissing, feeling, generally exploring.  Even out of bed we'd play games.  He'd grab my hand of cards and drop them down his pajama bottoms, and I just had to have my cards.  Then afterwards there was the guilt.  Now I look back interested and amused because Tim was my cousin.  He was seven and I was eight. 

That was in 1954, the summer Aunt Katherine took us to the mountains, where Tim and I shared a bed, and she came to hear our prayers when under the covers I was holding his penis.  I didn't want to move my hand away for fear she'd see the movement and realize where my hand had been.  I just kept hold until the praying was over (hers and mine), and she closed the door for the night.  But I felt guilty.  Even as a teenager, I feared my thoughts about sex would offend God, so after fantasizing, I'd count to ten before saying my prayers.

When I was a sophomore in college and trying to rise above my sordid past, Tim had just joined the Navy, which brought him to California and he visited me in the Carlos Bee Residence Hall, where the girls' (not yet women's) curfew was two hours earlier than the guys' and the girls' dorms had an alarm that would go off if any female ever tried to sneak out.  I was startled when he said, "Tina, do you remember what we used to do in Miss Tiebaud's room?"

"No!"  I said. 

A change of Plans, a Change of Heart

My Aunt Katherine--someone I've loved and someone who brings me a lot of good memories--died today.  I got the message from my cousin Nancy, Aunt K's daughter, that Aunt K had "passed" peacefully today.  She said the funeral would probably be on Friday.  It's been so long since I've been to a funeral because everyone I know around here has memorial services instead, and that's what Daddy and Missy had too.  I like to share memories, and I always come away knowing the person a little bit better--or a lot!   But I talked to Nancy's cousin (on her dad's side), and she told me that there wouldn't be a memorial service but this gathering would be huge.  I could hear a lot of people in the background.  I left her my number, but after that I got another message from Nancy saying that she didn't have my number.

Before Nancy's notice of death came in, I was just about to contact David's social worker to tell her Javier and I would be picking David up at noon on Thursday, but now I think I'll be on a plane to Atlanta about that time.  If I can keep my Wed. plans with Javier, who wanted to cook gallo pinto for Evelyn, Walter and me (and then have me spend the night and see Hawaii).  That will also mean keeping my 9:00 AM appointment with Geary on Wed., when he was planning to bring me the anti-virus software and help me learn to use (download stuff) on my iPad and get photos on.  Friday's plans were to get together with Arezki and then, at 2:00 PM, to register for my Fall semester classes--second half of the semester split.  On Saturday, Kathy, Suzy and I were getting together.  So I started contacting people to let them know, and I've already gotten a response from Sandy Lipkovitch, who lives near Atlanta and met Aunt K two times--once in 1969 and again in 2001.  She's invited me over on Sunday morning.  They're leaving town Wed. and won't be back till then.

As for the change of heart, it's funny about hurt feelings.  At first I was hurt by the lack of interest two friends showed in something I almost begged them to read because it meant a lot to me.   But then I remembered how one of them had bothered to look at almost all my vacation photos and also read a short story Suzy wrote.  That reminded me that I'd sent the short story Suzy wrote to Suzy, who hadn't seen it for about 25 years, and Suzy didn't bother to read it right away.  That wasn't "unkind" of her.  That didn't show a lack of interest in herself.  So...I'm working on the change of heart.

But there's no change of heart as far as my feelings about Aunt Katherine.  I loved her, and she loved me, and we both had good memories of times spent together.  Amen (but how I wish it were a memorial service instead). 

Plans for the Summer

I have so many plans for the summer, now that I'm back from NYC and Kauai, that I hardly have time to list them, but here are some:

Find out about HealthConnect at Kaiser and start using it--starting with my fungus-laden big toes  (See what fun I am?  I get done NYC and Kauai so I can really have a good time!)
http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/A-patient-s-voice-HealthConnect-a-valuable-tool-3650321.php

Write a response to Joel Brinkley's incredible "Predator nations waiting to pounce on Afghan riches."  He doesn't include the U.S. as a predator nation!  "Chief among them are China, Iran and India--nations that contributed nothing toward the military effort over the past decade but hope to reap benefits from it anyway."  Anyway?  Could we reap benefits in spite of what we've "contributed"?  

Type up the rest of my letters from Algeria.  I think I have 6 of 10.

Type up the French translations of my letters from Algeria.

Move the chest of drawers from the dining room to the bedroom and get rid of the smaller desk or move it into the dining room.

Put the framed poster of Madrid back up.
Put the mirror back up.
Create some kind of art to cover the big screen TV.
Resume my visits to Mom (as written)

Get the carpets cleaned or replaced.

Go to Atlanta  to honor Aunt Katherine.
Get together with Dana and the surprise visitor from 1965.
Get RSVPs for Karen's reading.
Get an answer from Stern Grove about the table and about the meeting with MTT after the SF Symphony performs on July 8.

Tomrrow after the Y, I'll get ground coffee and take that and some things I've baked (and frozen), pick up Arezki, and go to Robert's to see more of Un Village Francais.  Then we'll go to the Civic Center for the celebration of the LGBT Pride, and I'll get back home in time to see "Exotic Marigold Hotel" with Javier, who's spending the night.  Then we'll have brunch with Mary and Arturo. 

Wed. Geary is coming with the software for anti-virus protection and to help me get things on my iPad.  Pictures, Long readings that have come in e-mails, etc.  Then Javier comes for me to take me to Fremont, where he's preparing gallo pinto for Evelyn, Walter, and me, and I'll provide the placemats--collages I made of Kauai.

I still want to finish Une Piece Montee, but I don't think I'll have time before the gathering tomorrow.

Mail

MAIL!  It’s nice to know there still is some.  Today I got a very nice note from the tenant I met at 9134 Hargis Street, where my mom grew up and my grandparents lived for more than 30 years and where I revisited during spring break.  I got a postcard of Tbilisi, Georgia from my office mate Bob I. but with a stamp from Louisiana, and from Amazon the DVD of the documentary Then There Were None by Dr. Elizabeth Kapu-uwailani Lindsey, who is purportedly the great-granddaughter of Hawaiian high chiefs and English seafarers.  But the best delivery of all was one the US post office didn’t make:  Jutta and my shared diary, delivered by a lovely woman named Monica, back from Germany and on her way between Mountain View, where her daughter lives, and Mendocino, where she has her home.

South Pacific

This trip was totally different from my stay in Hawaii in 1969, when I was in Peace Corps training and the focus was learning about Tonga.  I learned so much more about Hawaii from this trip.  I’d already read Lost Kingdom:  Hawaii’s Last Queen, the Sugar Kings, and America’s First Imperial Adventure (by Julia Flynn Siler, an author I’m not familiar with) and Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell, an author I love.  (I think I’ve read everything by her.)  While we were on Kauai, I found a third book Then There Were None, which is also a documentary.  It says that when Captain Cook arrived in 1778, there were about 400,000 Hawaiians.  By 1878 there were only 48,000 pure Hawaiians left alive.  Then it went down to 39,000.  Then 24,000.   How many are there now?  

The owner of the home share where we were staying lent us the DVD of South Pacific, which was the first Broadway cast recording I ever listened to. I just wrote to Jeri Gertz, who's married to an Hawaiian and lives on The Big Island.  I recalled that I'd first listened to my parents' 78 rpm records of the Mary Martin-Ezio Pinza Broadway cast when I was ten--the age I was when I first started baby-sitting for her.  (She was born in 1955.)  I'd hoped to visit her and her husband when we were in Hawaii, but the flights were too expensive, so we stayed put.   As a child, I’d written to movie stars and gotten back only the pre-signed photos the studios provided, so I was thrilled when Mitzi Gaynor (or whoever took care of her mail) wrote a personal response to my letter asking whether she’d been in a movie where she’d thrown coconuts.  I got a letter saying, “Yes, I was in Down among the Sheltering Palms and ‘threw coconuts.’”  Later she wrote saying, “Wish me luck!  I was just signed for the lead in South Pacific.”  So my friends and I enjoyed watching the movie, and of course we commented on the stereotypes in the movie and the strange info Diane Sawyers and James Michener gave in the interview included in the DVD.  Tonkinese?!   When I had first heard the word “Tonkinese,” I thought it meant Tongan.  But Diane Sawyers says it was an old name for Vietnamese—perhaps because the person playing the Polynesian Liat is played by France Nguyen, who is not Polynesian!  Because of South Pacific and the straight-haired women usually used to represent Hawaii (Filipina?), I always thought that Polynesians were Asians or Eurasian--straight hair, etc.  When I first met a Tongan, I was startled because they didn’t look Chinese or Eurasian.  Anyway, after we’d discussed the inauthenticity of the movie, by chance  I met a young woman finishing her dissertation on Asian-Pacific Islander stereotypes, and she told me about the museum on Kauai, where the proprietors John Lydgate and Tammi Andersland could answer my questions.  When we arrived at the museum the day before our departure, I was thrilled to find out that their 1 ½ hr. lecture was about to begin, but Javier, who was less thrilled, returned to Pono Kai to watch the preliminary games for the World Cup.  I was really interested in the lecture and found most of it believable, but I took exception when Lydgate said that the first missionaries had been sought out by the Hawaiians to restore order to the islands.  I wanted to write all about South Pacific, but I see that someone has already done that, so I'll provide the link to her article and just make some comments about her comments, almost all of which I agree with.  The one exception is what she says about the use of the word "colored" in the awful Glenn Close 2002 version of South Pacific.  I think it makes perfect sense that Glenn Close would see the children as "colored."  This was during World War II.  Here's the link:
http://www.frigatezine.com/review/film/rfi03cai.html
And while I'm here, I should explain the stereotypes on the postcard I created above:  The Luau at the Smith Family Garden (they tried to avoid the word plantation, I'll bet!) posed us incoming tourists with the "natives," who look Eurasian, not Polynesian.  I'm not sure that they really used coconut shells for bras either.  But you'll notice how Evelyn and I are leaning towards Walter while Javier is drawn to the not-Polynesian woman in the Wonder coconut-cup bra.  You can see the other touristy things we did.  We had the famous Hula pie/Kauai Pie--three times!  But the very first day, while Javier and Walter were watching the World Cup preliminary games, Evelyn and I took a tour of places on Kauai that have been used as movie locations for Zaire, Australia, New Hebrides, Vietnam, and even Hawaii!  It was fun to see on the bus' screen a scene from the Descendants, showing George Clooney walking into the Tahiti Nui and then get off the bus and walk into the Tahiti Nui ourselves.  You can see South Pacific and the wharf that looks out on Bali Hai.  That reminded me of one more South Pacific connection.   Just days before her 90th birthday, Mom and I were lying on her bed at Aegis and singing songs from musicals we'd planned to sing at her 90th birthday party.  After we sang "Bali Hai," Mom said, "That's such a beautiful song.  If you got that for me for my birthday, I think that would be my favorite gift.  But I wouldn't tell the others."

              

Karaoke Confession of Murder

I was so looking forward to visiting my son in NYC with Kathy, and I was so happy to see Jenny, who'd just gotten her MA at Cornell with a brilliant thesis of 151 pages, and meet Jonathan's friends Allison and Umesh at the MasalaWala.  But the whole evening was spoiled when he told me about killing a man.  See how my hair stands on end?