Collages: Where I Put Much More Heart than Brain

I know people would rather just get photos--free, right out of the camera photos--not one of my collages, so why do I persist in putting so much heart into what they really don't want?  I know that my collages aren't artistic, but they're democratic because they include everyone.  So what if  all the everyones are too small to be scene?  (I'll keep that accidental spelling.)

I made homemade more than handmade cards and collages because I love doing it.  It's a way of reflecting and revisiting.

So today, when I should have been getting ready for my trip to Spain and NYC, I was working on the 100th birthday party of Kathy and Tom's Aunt Mary.

Water Usage--We Can Measure Our Own

It's possible for us to check our daily use of water in San Francisco by going to myaccount.sfwater.org/

I was curious to see how it varied when my (very nice) tenant wasn't there because he takes showers, and I take baths (with very little water), and he uses the washer more than I do.

After his return we used 153 gallons daily--lower than what the SF Water Department gives as our goal.

But when he was gone, I used an average of 95 gallons a day.  In fact, the highest usage of water for thhat period was the day he left--254 gallons--so I guess he washed his clothes and showered before going.

My usage went from a low of 7 gallons on June 28 to a high of 172.

Do I Dare Be Exact, Just Because I Can Be?

Do I Dare Be Exact, Just Because I Can Be?

Sloane Crosley said she had to get rid of her miniature pony collection just because, were it found after her death, people would just her insane because of it.  There's be no way of explaining the really un-crazy way she happened to have it.

So when I write the exact moment I get up, go to bed, or start deleting unread e-mail, I worry, too.

I'm at the computer when I say at what time I turn to e-mail, and there it is in the bottom right-hand side of the monitor screen:  10:29 AM. 

But will I appear to be a compulsive-obsessive if I write 10:29 instead of the more general and possibly less accurate 10:30?  (Thank God it's just changed, and it really is 10:30!)

I keep a log of my segmented sleep, so I have things like this:

Tuesday, August 25. 

1:34 am down

3:15 am up

7:11 pm down again.

The 3:15 could be judged sane, but not the 1:34  or the 7:11 --unless it's a reference to the store.

Maybe I should just recite that saying, "I'm CDO.  That's the same as OCD but with the letters arranged alphabetically, as they should be."

Is There Mustard on My Beard? What to Do If No Thanks Is Forthcoming

I don't think thank you notes are all about good manners.  I think they are a sign of kindness and connectedness, something we all need.  It isn't a question of debit-credit when we feel wounded not hearing after we felt a connection and wanted to be generous with friends.  

A few weeks ago I wrote about the astonishingly thoughtful thank you note  from a family of three Javier and I had treated to lunch I'd taken around the city.  Father, mother, son each wrote something about what they'd really appreciated.  I feel like having it framed as an example of what we could all do.  (I sometimes send electronic thanks, and I know that's not the same.  I also sometimes sign my name and Javier instead of encouraging him to speak for himself!)

Anyway, after that warming experience, two other friends came to SF, and again we treated to lunch and then I took them around.  I haven't heard from them since, and that was three weeks ago.

These two brothers come from a family with a very diplomatic way of letting you know that you have mustard on your chin.  For years I didn't catch on.  This is how it would go:

Roger:  Tina, do I have mustard on my chin?

Me:  No. 

I'd wonder why he was so often asking questions like that.  Why was he so self-conscious?  Then I found out that this is how it's supposed to go:

Roger:  Tina, do I have mustard on my chin?

Me:  No.  Do I?

Roger:  Well, now that you mention it, I guess you do.

I then wipe the mustard off my chin.

I found out that this was the strategy and intended outcome when they were telling the story of their daughter, who practiced this and one day asked a visitor, "Keith, do I have mustard on my beard?"

Anyway, here's a very satisfying fantasy I have:  I write to Roger.

Dear Roger,

Did I forget to thank you for all you did for us when you were in San Francisco?

Cecil the Lion, Wild Fires, and Green Brilliance News

Going through a pile of newspapers I really found newsworthy, I see a letter to the editor suggesting that our indignation over the Evil Dentist who used money and deception to hunt down a protected lion means "Coveting, Plunder and greed, overspending and wastefulness, the death of innocence--all are beats of the capitalistic drum" but we are "desperate to show that we are not guilty of the same crimes."

These words on the "Insane" wildfire in Lake County..."The ravenous blaze racing through the area may not be a living organism, but fire behaior specialists say the vast oval of flame has been acting like a demon, bolting in all directions, shotting out superheated tentacles and even creating its own weather...the fickle inferno...tripled in size in recent days despite the all-out assault."  The fire has gone in all directions with intensity.  "It's like an amoeba."  It's "spreading on its own without the help of strong winds that would normally be needed...insane fire behavior."

Rome Adventure, 1962, and How to Dress for Dinner

I think I was really trying to get If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium, but I got Rome Adventure instead, and I'm not disappointed.

It reminds me that we wore dresses in those days and dressed for dinner.  In Rome Adventure, their dressing for dinner is formal wear--long formal gowns.  When Our Heroine Suzanne Pleshette goes to practice love with Rossano Brazzi, she wears a pink suit with matching pink shoes, and she believes him the way we were supposed to when he says that a woman's main purpose in life was to anchor men--tame the savage beast, and nothing was more precious than a one-man woman.

Queuing Up for MUNI in San Francisco

To my astonishment, when I was leaving Oakland on Wednesday evening around 7:45, people were queuing up for the streetcars!  I've never seen this before, and I was so favorably impressed by this courteous and fair way of approaching boarding.  I remembered Madrid back in the early 1970's when people did that.  Till then I thought only Londoners were so civilized.

This morning I wondered whether this was a new movement, so I Googled "queuing up sf" and found photos of San Franciscans waiting in line--but for Tartine and other such places, not for a MUNI ride.

http://www.7x7.com/eat-drink/get-line-sf-experience-queuing-tartine

Now what I'm wondering is this:  Has this been going on for some time while I, unaware, have been unwittingly breaking in line?  Breaking in lines that I never saw formed?