Raise Your Glasses in a Toast, and Then Put Them Right Back On

Young people know how cool eyeglasses are.  They buy them with clear lenses just so they can sport the awesome frames.

People who've worn glasses since an early age because they need them to see also keep them on in a way that shows a sane acceptance of the eyeglasses as part of the image they project. and an  appreciation of the images the eyeglasses let them see!

And then there are people like me who associate glasses with getting older because our eyesight was perfect until we turned forty-five and suddenly Walgreen's was no longer developing film clearly and the mimeograph machine at school was making blurred copies.  (You can tell  how long ago I turned forty-five.)

We are the idiots who whip off our glasses every time a camera comes near.

We are the fools who memorized Dorothy Parker's verse, "Men don't make passes/At girls who wear glasses" and still remember those lines even when we're forgetting so many other things.

I am the fool who wrote this poem:

He took off his glasses, I thought, to appear
More handsome to me, but now I fear
He took off his glasses to see me less clear.

The foolish part of this is the concept that people look better without their glasses.  I adore My Best Friend in Fifth Grade who, when she sees a camera coming, puts ON her glasses.  She knows she looks better with them on.

Now I'm just keeping mine on--all the time, even for photos.

And I'm writing verses like this (to the tune of "Sixteen Going On Seventeen")

I am sixty-nine going on seventy, my eyesight's getting weak.

Let's raise eyeglasses

To no more classes  

We'd rather sing than speak.    

And I've been taking pictures of raised glasses every chance I get.

So...let's raise our glasses to eyeglasses...and then let's see!

Why Everyone Should Marry a Plumber and a Tile Guy (as well as an auto-mechanic)

All my beautiful bathroom needs is a new old valve for the bathtub (where I take the SF equivalent of the sponge bath I took in Tonga, where there was no running water and we realized the preciousness of what we drew from the well).  But they don't make them anymore.

So since January of this year, I've been trying to get a tile guy and a plumber scheduled for the same day or two so once the beautiful tile is removed I won't have a big gape in the wall.

In the meantime, I had a big problem with my kitchen faucet,  and when my local plumber couldn't come right away, I called in a plumber from Ben Franklin, and they came right over.  But guess how much they charged for switching my old faucet with a new one--a task that took them ten minutes?

(I just had a tile guy guess, and you know how people try to go way over so you won't feel bad the way they try to go way under when guessing your age?  He said "Three hundred dollars.")

  They charged me $538.00!

They said they'd be back soon to take care of the bathtub valve.  That was in June.  They came back today, the last day of September.

In the meantime, my regular plumber gave me a lower estimate, as did the tile guy, and a friend who owns 7 houses and knows about this kind of repair arrived yesterday and said they shouldn't be removing the tiles at all but should be going in through the wall behind.

So I called in advance to alert them to my reconsidering.

The plumber and the tile guy from Ben Franklin just left.  The told me that the spout comes out directy in the middle--between the hot and the cold--so they can't just open it up from the back side.  The plumber has to move the spout up.  The tile guy has to chip the tile.  But they still need to mess with the east wall in the dining room, which they say is either sheet rock or plaster.  My friend-who-owns-7-houses says it's plaster.

But she slept through all this.

I told the tile man that I had a second "bid" for $200 to $400 less, depending upon whether he can save the tile, and the tile guy said the tile can't be saved and I should be careful about hiring someone who doesn't do good work.  I said I have confidence in both tile men, but I have a preference for the lower price.  (That's when I asked them to guess how much I paid for the kitchen faucet.)

And that's why we should all marry a plumber and a tile guy as well as an auto-mechanic...although I have to say, knock on steel, that I haven't had any car trouble for a long, long time!

Why

All

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?