Sweet Links from a Former Student

I think this sweet student was aware of my weaknesses as well as my strengths, but she chose to focus on my strengths--or at least on my best intentions.  Today after doing outreach for CCSF (which followed an intense lunch with a friend who'd spent a $4000.00 week at a Hoffman Institute


http://www.hoffmaninstitute.co.uk/articles/oliver-james-affluenza.htm,

which followed the news that a close friend had a serious disease), I was just too tired to do anything active, so I decided to just listen--to links this student sent several months ago!

In Your Hands

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40lVr6MQKtw

In This Movement

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2V4AGaxLf4

Teacher Appreciation-A Song for Teachers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxcXexzlROA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwsKWiXlA78

Wiki How on Thoughts to Bring Tears

I was just looking up an acting method that suggests that once performers start to cry, they feel sad.  What I found instead was an illustrated set of steps on how to cry beginning with "Close your eyes and imagine a sad event."  As a new retiree, I was particularly interested in the example following the death of someone close and being bullied to bring on those tears:  "The thought of summer ending and the next school year beginning."

Bel Kaufman dies at 103 & Other news

I keep a running log of "just the facts," but I need to keep it to just a couple of inches, so I'm going to give a slightly expanded version here of what I read this morning.    The big headline (not my main concern) was "U.S. case against Sen. Yee expands/new racketeering charges include bribery in 3 bills."

"Health researchers find we (adults) do clean our plants"  We eat 92% of what we put on them; children eat 60%  This is in a study on obesity conducted by Katherine Abowd Johnson at the John Hopkins School of Public Health

"Choke chain n Congress" was an editorial on the defeat of the Strategic Minerals Legislation proposed by Stalwell that would have provided government over-sight of rare earth elements--those 17 kinds that go into our iPhone and have electrons and other things I don't understand but believe are there.  (Poor people in other countries get over-exposed every day as they go through them.  Right now China has the most "control" of these REE.

More on Air Algiers crash.

"Ex-CIA officials not allowed to see 'torture" report, which was described as "far more brutal than previously understood...no unique, life saving intelligence was gleaned for the harsh techniques."  Don't we know that those torturing wanted to get false confessions, not truth?

"Airbnb squatters also on Kickstarter--Maksym Pashanin vs. Tschogl, a SF rented in Pal Sprints.  (The Pashanin brothers got thousands of dollars for a video game they never really created for the investors.)

"No swimming in Oakland's Lake Temescal" because of toxic algae bloom."

Social "Services paying people for posts."  Why?

Amazon vs. Hachette.  Amazon is making huge profits but also suffering losses.  I thought that the stocks had just soared.

John King, Urban Architect critic says "Proposed big tower should be slimmer/slice square footage to reduce the mass."    This is go be on First Street between Market and Mission--the 500th block of Mission.  He says the usual problem is a great structure that ignores what's happening at street level, but in the case of this building, it's the opposite.  The street level is fine, but the rest needs less bulk.

Cubs were born to mate or OR-7.  

Bel Kaufman obituary--I'd forgotten that she was the granddaughter of Sholem Aleichem.  

Taking Note and Taking Down the Many-Leveled World Cup Board

In two hours I'm going to a board meeting (with our $1,000/day single "special trustee"), and then two other retirees and I are going to The Plant at the Embarcadero to eat and then to the Eureka Theatre to see Hick:  A Love Story/The  Romance of Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok.

http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/hick-a-real-love-story-like-no-other/Content?oid=2851106

But I spent an hour this morning and will spend another hour now taking note of the many layers of clipping on the bulletin board I took from my office, where students had been predominant,  to use for the World Cup, day by day.  Since the World Cup lasted a month, I have scores of clippings.

I haven't written a Sara-Juan story for ages but did that today in the context of the contents of this corkboard and now continue!

Muttering on the Task of De-Cluttering

1:30 PM  a page on which I'd begun "A Day in the Life of a Would-be (But Will-Be?) Retiree" dated June 30 and about June 23.  Recycled.

1:31 PM  An invoice from CSAA telling me how much my Checking Account (capitalized because it's so important to them--a proper noun!) on July 19, 2014 because I enrolled in Automatic Payment.  Why, then, did they send me an envelope?

1:35  Amnesty International 

1:36 PM  AFT CFT mailing of June 21 saying that the California Legislature passed Assembly Bill 1469 (Bonta) to address the CalSTRS projected $74 billion unfunded liability--but with a warning.  Recycled, warning unread.

TIAA CREF quarterly retirement statement (Tea kettle wails in kitchen)  

1:40 PM  Vanguard statement --noted and put in Finances binder 

1:42 PM  Letters from Annie in French--to my Français binder to read again when I need to activate that part of my brain before View and Chew  

1:44 PM  Several sheets of my students grades (which I turned in, mind you, but wanted to have on record

1:46 PM  Still more in French including a picture of the French author ?David Foenkinos with a couple of members of our View and Chew group in Nice!

1:47 PM  A "Welcome to Dell pamphlet--ad Recycling

1:48 PM  An article Javier brought me, "Cuales son los beneficios de comer una manzana al día?"  Into the T-M binder!

1:49 PM  The "I HEART Brazil" sign we posed with in sympathy for the nation hosting the World Club and losing to Germany.

1:50 PM  Eric Swalwell's op-ed piece on Immigration and Border Myths, July 14.

1:51 PM  "Top U.S. spy ousted over espionage rift" in Germany, July 11, 2014

1:52 PM  Don Asmussen's Bad Reporter letting us know that the AWOL Sea Lions are away without leave because they've rented their pier spot to a startup tech company  

1:53 PM  "Garbage game" the SF Bay Guardian's cover story that I dumped before reading.  To my reading table in the living room!  

1:55 PM  "Right time for nighttime hikes" article by Tom Stienstra.  Recycling. 

1:56 PM The galleys of Skiddo in the English translation that Alex Capus sent me--Back in its own binder, not found (left in bookcase area where binder should be)

1:58 PM  Claremont Service oil change for $50.00 on July 9.  Auto file.  

2:00 PM  CalSTRS notice that I mis-typed the number of the account to which I'd like them to deposit  my pension.  Top of printer for other side.

2:01 Important Information Regarding My Water Service Line (which I looked into at the time)  Clip board for further investigation

2:02 PM  Print-out of my water question and answer from e-mail exchange--Clipboard

2:04 PM  Calendars to record e-mail from Club T-M

2:05 PM  "U.S. students rank in middle of 18 countries" on financial literacy--at the age of 15!  

2:06 PM  "Goodwill site to house city offices, residential units" with J.K. Dineen byline from July 10, 2014--for Annie, who gets her Paris fashions from Good Will.

2:07 PM  Cole Porter's "Brush Up Your Shakespeare" lyrics & and "I've come to wive it wealthily in Padua."  Back into my Complete Shakespeare volume from college--Hardin Craig, 1951/1961!

2:10 PM  Noam Chomsky's "The Sledgehammer Worldview" from July 7, 2014  I make a note of Anand Gopal's No Good Men among the Living:  America, the Taliban, and the War through Afghan Eyes."  

2:14 PM  It's hard to put it in the recycling...But I do.  

2:16 PM  My To-do list for Efren--Clipboard

2:18 PM  "Article on Bay Area Playwrights Festival on Friday, July 27.  I'll put it in an envelope for the friends I'm going with to the Eureka Theatre to see Hick:  A Love Story tomorrow.

2:19 PM  "Writers without Borders" Zehra Noorbakhsh"  Same.

2:23 PM  Photos to bedroom 

2:23 PM  Stanford Hospital's Dept. of Neurology and Neurological Sciences assessment of your brother: You responded to this in detail to your sister and son and never got a response.  Did that message go out?  You check.  

2:26 PM  Put it into David binder.

2:28 PM  Pages of A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder--to the Theatre Binder

2:29 PM  The envelope of a letter from the Frenchman you loved in Algeria--to the letter trunk.

2:31 PM  Some kind of green sheet from the SF Assessor-Recorder's Office clipboard

And so I've finished distributing about an inch of clutter.  Only about eight more feet to go.

Clutter temporarily dumped into ottoman comes out

I guess it was on Sunday that I dumped the latest batch of clutter into the Ottoman--before the 5 to 7 gather from 5 to 10.  So when my sleeping/dreaming log went missing, I had an idea of where it was.  Sure enough!

So...here we go, one paper at a time:

10:10 AM.I put the letter I began with the AFT 2121 guidelines on Restorative Status on July 16 in the courthouse.  I know I could use the back, but I fear its coming back, so I put it into the recycling bin.  (I've already finished the letter and sent it online.)

10:12 AM  I don't really need the recipe for Harissa and couscous, but I'll keep it.  I put it in a sheet protector and put it on the threshold.

10:15,  I will throw away the methods for Malian cooking and the recipes for Fried Bean Balls (Akara) and Stew with dates and couscous de Timbuktu, Lemongrass Tea and Sweet Millet Fritters (Maasa).

10:16  I'll throw away the article "Malian government eyes compromise in peace talks (being held in Algeria)  But I do notice that my table cloth on Sunday had the colors of the Malian flag--plus.

I'll throw away the recipe for Tigua Dege Na (Vegetarian Stew in Peanut Sauce.) and Okra Bean Soup.   as well as black-eye peas from Mali (Mo Dunguri)

10:19  I'll keep the French words to Beethoven's Ode to Joy, "Hymn a l'universelle humanité" along with "L'étude santé du jour:  Les gens préfèrent souffrir que s'ennuyer."

Cute picture of Annie and me before the wedding of Francoise and Barry.  I've got to start putting my photos into decades and years, but a this time I'll just move it to my bedroom, where all the boxes are stacked.

10:24 AM  My Fireman's Insurance policy suggests I make the payment to avoid expiration.  I know I should arrange automatic payments, but not today.  Whoops!  The expiration date was July 11!  I put on a Black Heritage stamp of John J. Johnson and will mail it when I got out to get more milk.  (Clover--perhaps minimal torture of cows)

10:31 AM the bell alerting me to the dryer rings.  Down to the basement.  Fold clothes.

10:39 AM   I open my Delta Dental statement dated July 3 and see that the $216.00 is paid by Delta Dental--except that it isn't!  Well, at the time I went in, was it?  I look it up:  June 26.  I throw away the statement.  They know where to find me.

10:43  Merrill Edge pamphlet--recycling

10:45 Picture of me at Cafe Gratitude.  Glasses didn't become dark outside, providing a mask.  Into my bedroom,

10:46  Statement for Merrill Edge.  I go to my Financial file and type it in.  Stocks are up.

10:52 AM  The songs  Annie and I wrote for the wedding--her instigation, not mine because I am aware to some extent of how much I annoy people.  Put them on the printer to use the other side.

10:54 Am  I notice that it's very hot and muggy--not the kind of weather SF is known for.

10:55 Statement from the SFBAECU  I go back to the financial file. You make a note to ask your financial adviser instead of doing it on the spot and interfering with clutter relief work.

10:58 Am  Directions to the Larkspur Cinema where you and your French friend had planned to see Cyclist with Moliere.  You know you have to interrupt logging clutter to put that on your list.

11:00 AM  The directions go into the recycling bin.

11:01 AM  "Back rent sought from owners of evicted cafe (about Bean Scene at CCSF)  You tape and hole punch to get it ready for binder.

11:03 You have something from Dignity Health to a tenant who moved out three years ago.  You wonder just when.  You finally find that he moved out September 2012, but it seems a lot longer ago than that!  You've put his forwarding address on the envelope.

11;10  Something you printed out on El Gaucho Martin Fierro  for Argentina and the World Cup menu:  dulce de membrillo (quince paste) on manchego cheese.

11:12  California Academy of Sciences card--you have a collection of cards that goes back to Tower Records days!  You add it to the collection

11:13 AM  Recipe for German -Style Pasta which you'll make with very old red cabbage tonight!  You put it in your recipe drawer

Leah Garchik on Jul 4 and Ruth Bader Ginsburg's dissent to that week's Supreme Court ruling allowing employers to limit worker health benefits according to personal religious beliefs.  Who else dissented?  You look it up.  I see that Kagan and Sotomayer and one man--but who?--voted against Hobby Lobby.

Burwell v. Hobby Lobby

11:23Your cousin's Pro-Israeli--anti-divestment by Presbyterians Facebook screed

A picture of a group of friends invited to the Olympic club by your host of View and Chew--printed out when one of the colors had "expired."  To the bedroom

April article on "Jar of French fresh air selling for $860 at auction in China

11:29 Am  The obituary from June 9, 2014 on Karen DeCrow president of NOW in the 1970s, when Ms came into being--with 8 references to her as "Mrs. De Crow.  (You wrote Leah Garchik about that and got an interested response.

11:31 AM  A mailing for The Taming of the Shrew" Free Shakespeare in the park

You're too exhausted to go on!

A Letter for Jackie Speier

Jackie Speier is a very progressive representative.  I especially love her because when others were voting to allocate another $58 billion for deployment of more troops, she brought to our attention that that was the amount of money needed to take care of our soldiers returning from deployment.

http://speier.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=56:the-overlooked-cost-of-the-war-veterans-benefits&catid=13&Itemid=17

But this morning I'm writing a letter about the Restoration Status.

Dear Congresswoman Jackie Speier:

Thank you for advocating for City College of San Francisco as we have struggled to save it for all San Franciscans. I write urging you to ask the City College administration not to fall into the trap of applying for the ACCJC’s "Restoration Status." It is unnecessary. Worse, under “restoration status” the future of the 80,000 students who depend on CCSF will remain at risk. 

 Instead of removing the uncertainty about the future of CCSF, the new "restoration status" policy merely moves the impending deadline for doom down the road.  The ACCJC already has the authority to grant a "good cause" extension and give City College two more years to meet ACCJC demands. It has done this for many other colleges- but not for CCSF. The recent California State Auditor’s report on community college accreditation cited among the many problems that the  ACCJC's showed an inconsistent application of its standards.

Please continue defending our college by directing essential scrutiny towards the ACCJC. Thank you again for your stalwart support of City College of San Francisco, an institution vital to so many people’s dreams.

Sincerely,

A Post on a Postal Outing

The Stern Grove picnic/concert and the 5-7 gathering from 5-10 afterwards were so much fun that after cleaning up some of the mess afterwards and getting a little bit of sleep during the night, I fell behind in some other things like making a birthday card for a friend's July 21 celebration of her May 5th birthday.  So, even behind in my shooting of meals, I made a "better" card today as a quiz: " Which of the following dishes do you recognize as ones at gatherings you gave or attended?"  I also wrote to the beautiful young couple who are housing My Best Friend in Fifth Grade, coming up from S.C., and me, coming from Switzerland, where I'll have met Jutta and Alex Capus--to thank them for letting us to stay in the room otherwise reserved for their first baby, due in October, but mostly to express sympathy for the death of her father, who died unexpectely this month when he was only 62.  I had only Tito Puente postage stamps, but her father was a musician.  In the post office, I asked whether they had any beautiful stamps.  One postal worker frowned and said, "Are you kidding?" and I said, "I'll be you have only beautiful stamps."

"Why are you taking my lines?" he asked me.  "That's what I was going to say."

It was around 2:45 PM and as I was looking through their box of stamps, the disgrunted (just pretend) postal worker said, "We close at 5:00 PM, so you'll have to finish looking through it by then."

They warned me to take my purse before someone else took it, and the man who'd lost the opportunity said, "I didn't take it because it doesn't match my shoes."

On my way back home--a very warm and muggy (a two-week-old word for SF)--I saw neighbor James da Matteo, coming home from work, where he goes at 5:00 AM!  We talked about our summer plans but not about my post or my postal outing.

Electric Shocks Better than Solitude?

I first read about this phenomen in a column by Caille Millner, "It's harad to be alone with your thoughts."

I just now looked up the link to the report in Science, which says that people would rather zap themselves than sit silently and do nothing at all (having only their thoughts to keep them engaged).

I thought about the Leah Garchik eavesdropping of a man who said, "I forgot my iPod.  I'll have to use my brain" when he was about to work out at the gym.

I thought of Dana, who admitted that she has a TV in every room so that as she walks through the house she won't be alone with her own thoughts.

Here's the report:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/science/2014/07/03/idle/J2LpEcTdZzLykRCTnZ80fL/story.html

The Linguistic Angle on World Domination

In today's newspaper, there's an Associated Press release (this means second-hand, not primary source material--perhaps a White Paper released by the current government?) with the headline "Lawmakers can't agree on new leaders."

Reference to those fighting against the invasion and occupation of their country by US forces as the  "Sunni insurgency" that has "overrun much of the country" reminded me of how we worded our attacks on and in Vietnam.

(Are you listening, NSA?  I'm sure you're not because I'm no one of significance.  But you'll be collecting this just the same, the way you collect everything.)

In Vietnam, the Americans were killing the Communists.  The word chosen for us, the Good Guys, was "Americans," a nationality.  The word used for our enemies, the Bad Guys, was Communists, not a nationality but an economic system or an ideology.  So why didn't they say Americans kill (number) Vietnamese?  They didn't want to remind the us and the rest of the world that we were in a foreign country killing the people there.  Granted, they sometimes referred to the Vietnamese not collaborating with us as the "Viet Cong."  But they avoided the word Vietnamese even while destroying the environment in South Vietnam, the part of the country where our allies were,  with Agent Orange and causing the worst environmental damage every done to a country.  

How interesting that our putting in a puppet government (complete with purple stained finger staging in an election that former  President Carter said couldn't been overseen by his committee because it wasn't in a safe area) is described as "an informal arranagement that took hold afater the 2003 U.S.-led invasion."  Here it is:

The speaker of Parliament's chair goes to a a Sunni
The presidency goes to a Kurd
the prime minister's post goes to a Shiite.

That's another way language manipulates thought.  Those wanting to vilify the Iraquis who are making trouble are just doing it because the Sunnis and the Shiites are in a religious war.  They're just a bunch of religious fantatics who want to throw stones at women and kills girls who try to go to school.  In fact, even under the dictatorship of Hussein, Iraq was more progressive than any other nation in the Middle East.  Women did go to school freely.  Sunnis and Shiite got along.

I just looked to see what has been written on this subject.  I know I read something recently by an Iraqi who said most Iraqis didn't even know who was Shiite or Sunni because it was so unimportant to them.  Here's something older I found:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3008556

Here's something from this very month by Juan Cole:

http://www.juancole.com/2014/06/myths-radical-advance.html

My Former Home State, South Carolina, Protests Patchett and Backs a Lesbian Police Chief

 Today, cleaning up and doing what I call cooking (making a salad), I was listening to Ann Patchett on Audible, and I learned about her experience being protesting against at Clemson.   But that was several years ago--long ago enough for her to include the experience in her book of essays This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage.

In today's newspaper, there was an article that made S.C. look a lot better--the community support of their lesbian police chief, who was fired by the major, who in turn was fired by the community!

http://www.veooz.com/news/XHKOB2o.html

What I Like about My New Updated Computer

Just want to make a note of this:  The new Dell Computer with 8.1 makes it possible to do a Google search or put in a URL on the same line.  It's now pretty easy to get my photos into Dropbox, too, and find them afterwards.  I'm still kind of surprised that by captioning them before the date and number, they alphabetize themselves at the bottom.

The World Cup--Food and Faces for the Final

Well, we watched the World Cup.  See how well I've been following it?  I have several layers of articles on the bulletin board.

 and I served dishes and drinks from Argentina and Germany as well as Brazil.

 We felt for Brazil, so I made us signs to hold while toasting to Brazil to give  moral support. Nicole, whose parents were German immigrants,  said someone named Jose called to offer them congratulations when Germany won in the game against Brazil 7-1, but what Jose didn't understand was that they'd been rooting for Brazil!

 Javier was flanked by women--Annie, who's French and Debora, who's from Argentina, and me.  But he didn't complain--except about the outcome of the game.  We love our German friends in Bremen and Berlin but were rooting for Argentina.  Earlier in the day, wearing blue and white like the face paint (I started to write pain)  on the Argentinians,  I picked up something at Stein German Restaurant and Schubert's Bakery!  SF has really paid attention to the World Cup this time around.  As usual, I've paid attention to food and even made a couple of dishes myself!

July 4 pieces to read

Independence Day  "A republic, if you can keep it."  The SF Chronicle wasn't too optimistic that we could.  "Our elections and our legislative decisions are becoming more and more dominated by big-money interests, especially after the U.S. Supreme Court all but eviscerated post-Watergate compaign-finance laws...Too many students are graduating from high school with an insufficient appreciation of U.S. history and civics.  Our civil liberties have been under serious strain since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks...domestic surveillance, phone-record data-collection--and the continued presence of a legal netherworld at Guantanamo Bay...Keeping a republic is hard work, and patriotism is not measured by how much red, white and blue is exhibited on the Fourth..."

Why I'm not at Stern Grove on a SF Symphony Sunday

I was afraid there would be a conflict between the World Cup and the SF Symphony at Stern Grove, so I didn't reserve a table.  It turns out to be a day with no World Cup.  We'll go when Annie is here--the day before she leaves--to hear Roberto Roena (salsa) and Boogalo Assassins & Vieux Farka Toure (Mali?)
But here's what I'm doing instead as of 1:45

Making a note of worthy articles in Insight, the SF Chronicle political magazine--a whole section of op-ed pieces!  Why the Hobby Lobby case amounts to special dispensation  (Social Security taxes 1982--Amish had to pay them), Racial Discrimnation 1966 Piggie Park couldn't segregate on basis of bigoted  religious beliefs, and equal pay 1990--church couldn't say federal wage laws violated its free exercise of religion.

A former student, Erika, used the phrase "separation of church and hate,"which I like!

Debra J. Saunders has a funny title "Deporting oneself well."

France has to pay $9 billion to the US because it's handled the finances for Sudan and Iran during sanctions.

1:52 PM  Have to look up France paie les etats unis $9 billion
1:57 PM  Found this:

Impérialisme : La BNP rappelée à l'ordre par les États-Unis

Javier's fingers aren't going to like the article "When healers spread germs/Should hospitals ban handshakes?"

On Teacher Tenure--I haven't read this yet but will.  I've been reading Diane Ravitc's Reign of Error:  The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools.

Hobby Lobby=Oklahoma-based arts-and-crafts chain that won the legal fight for religious-based exemption from Obamacare requirement of ontraceptive coverage for workers.  2:04 PM  I'd been wondering why it's called Hobby Lobby

2:06--Javier's big writing of directions from Fremont to SF!  Club T-M, 2014.

2:11 PM  From July 4 op-ed piece to be continued

Still More Clutter--clippings and whole pages from the sports section!

So here I am, clipping and tearing off whole pages of the newspaper instead of cleaning up--and Annie arrives tomorrow evening.  After reading three letters Daddy sent to us in 1970 (in an envelope I found while looking for pictures of my niece Becky, turning 40,  in the album I made for my sister Missy after her death), I took a deep breath and looked through the sports pages.  (Daddy's letters are more breath-taking than any soccer move.)

"Loss of Brazil's Neymar shifts the focus to Argentina's Messi" by Bruce Jenkins, who describes Messi as "performing magic with a soccer ball, dancing through the opposition as if guided by fairies and elves..."  He writes of Brazil's confusion, sorrow, bitterness and hope after Neymar has had to leave the game because of a fractured vertebra and says the Brazilian team is "hardly one to summon the memories of Pele, Garrincha, Zico, or Ronaldo.  He says that it's "more of a one-man show (with) Neymar rising to the world's elite amid the mediocrity of Fred, Hulk, and Jo...(The Brazilian team without Neymar is ) the Rolling Stones without Mick Jagger or the Chicago Bulls without Michael Jordan."  From this column I also learned the Pele goes all the way back to 1962.  He had a leg injury in the World Cup in Peru in the team's second match.
"Dutch dodge pesky Central Americans" from the LA Times.  Here's one quote:  "On Saturday, bidding to become the first CONCACAF team to reach the World Cup semifinals since 1930, the Central Americans certainly didn't play like underdogs with goal-keeper Keylor Navas turning in a remarkable first half in which he frustrated the high-scoring Dutch strikers with four outstanding saves to keep the game scoreless at the break.  And he got better in the second half."

Other headlines from a torn-out page (that will be tacked onto my World Cup bulletin board):  "No Messi needed in win; 1st semifinals since 1990."  (Messi of Argentina...and Barcelona, where steroids were more easily attainable)

"Neymar urges teammates to be champions."    He'll be back playing in 45 days, his doctor says.  Meanwhile, Colombia defender Juan Camilo Zuniga has sent a letter of apology, but Brazil great Ronaldo dismisses the inflicted injury as a "violent one.  We could see on television there was an intention by the Colombia player to actually cause some harm."  (Jenkins, in contrast, says "there was no clear sign of malice on his part.  This had been an extremeley rough game, poorly officiated through the escalation of violence, and some claimed the Colombians had a right to play aggressively in response to some of Brazil's ugly challenges.  Zuniga had both hands on Neymar's back as he fell to the ground, as if to save both men from peril (?), and he offered what appeared to be a heartfelt postgame apology..")  The LA article also mentioned Pablo Alvarez, "the alleged leader of Argentina's infamous football hooligans" who was supposedly deported.

What I Do instead of Cleaning Up Squalor, Part 2

Just to give you an idea of what surrounds me:

On the left of my computer monitor screen:  the card for Stern Grove Sundays because I was just writing to Beth about the program for Sunday, July 20, when I may reserve a seat for Annie and friends.  Before I put this back on the (cluttered) refrigerator door:  It's Pupu y los que Son Son and Vieux Farka Toure.

10:59:  I'm walking to the refrigerator now to put it back where it belongs.

10:59 (Still!)  The front page article from the Business Report of teh San Francisco Chronicle "HP's work in Israel could lead to political pressure.  I've already read and highlighted salient parts to share with the cousin who is upset about Presbyterian dis-investment in companies Israel uses in occupying Palestinian lands.

11:03: Something I printed out from TruthOut:   Dahr Jamail:  "What's Happening in Iraq Is the Legacy of the US Invasion and Occupation,"  which includes an interview with Rania Khalek and Kevin Gosztola, and "William Rivers Pitt, "Iraq, Two Bullets and the Long Arc of History."  I'll read them as part of my two-hour reading with tea in the morning before I go to the Y.

11:08:  My to-do list

11:09  A Summer Concert Series 2014 handout I used to write on in Fremont when I couldn't find any paper.  On it I jotted down my dream about my sister and the thoughts, "Everyone is on somebody's else's wave length, never mine"  and "My body is no longer fertile field, and yet the hoeing does seem to go on" and "My queen mother ead instead of cleaning."  That last one was probably prompted by what I was reading in Fremont, Alan Bennet's An Uncommon Reader.  I also did some math--$435 + $38=$473, the amount I should take to my sister on July 5, when we celebrate July 4 with our brother.  (You should have heard our very intelligent friends looking for a calculator so they could figure out what 30% of  $540 was earlier today.  Javier did it in his head.  I did it on paper.)

11:15 PM  A check book I had out to pay the gardeners, who said they'd send me a bill instead.  Hay, I just put it back in the drawer!  Another giant step forward.

11:16  Recipes I printed out from the Internet for "Tangy, Delicisou Vegan Potato Salad" and "A Homemade vegan Mayo Recipe that Will Blow Your Mind."

The lavender soap a friend brought back from France.  I just put it in my top chest drawer.

11:19  My to-do list for this week and next with the World Cup games written in by hand.  Now I need to put them in my computer print out list.  I'll be back...

What I Do instead of Cleaning Up Clutter

I realize that it's clearing out clutter, not cleaning up clutter, that a person is supposed to do.  We're supposed to get rid of it instead of just straightening it up.  But right now my clutter hasn't even been straightened up.  (And notice how I use the passive voice instead of the active because I'm certainly not taking any action.  My clutter is on its own!)

So here I sit in squalor of my own making, doing things I'd rather do than rise from squalor.

I just sent this message to Jon Carroll:

Dear Jon Carroll,

I was telling my Columbia High School  Class of 1964 that one thing I like about growing old is that now when I behave in the strange ways I've always behaved, people attribute it to my age.  But I understand that you're not talking about being senile.  You're talking about being old.

So here's something good about that!  A few months ago I got on a crowded L-Car with the man I call my meque (mejor que un esposo), who's from Nicoya,  Costa Rica, where people live to be 100 although my meque is only in his late seventies.  We stood over two very young people who remained seated in the Disabled-Senior Citizens seats, and a friendly exchange followed:

Me: (very politely)  Excuse me.  Are you disabled?

Young man: (sounding a little bit puzzled)  No.

Me:  Are you over sixty-five?

Young man:  (still sounding puzzled) No.  (Then sounding less puzzled)  Would you like to sit down?

Me:  Thank you!              

Then as my meque and I took their seats  (really, by law, ours), I thanked them again and said, "I want you to look forward to growing old."

That day I was prompted mostly by feeling tired, but I've had similar exchanges with other young people since then, and so far no one has gotten out a gun and shot me for being uppity.  But  I did have a dream about that happening when I tried to get a seat for my father, who would be 101 if he were living outside my dreams, and someone did just that.

I don't think of this as my Rosa Parks act.  I'm a privileged white woman who doesn't even have to take the street car if I'd rather drive, and Rosa Parks kept her seat instead of demanding one.  But I still think it's nice to celebrate being old and giving young people something to look forward to.

Your old reader,

Tina Martin

Clutter as an Excavation Project

I wake up some mornings (or middle of the nights) in a cold sweat, fearing that I am taking on too many of the characteristics of those brothers who were killed by their own debris--one of them found weeks after he had started decomposing.  The Collyer Brothers, I see ''The Dazzle,'' Richard Greenberg's play and "The Clutter," which is supposed to be upbeat.  I guess it was "The Dazzle" that I saw in 2003 at the Geary Theatre.  It seems so long ago that I saw the play, but I've kept my own dazzling clutter current!