a little red hen

Dux Femina Facti

Who here knows Latin?  Fortunately for you--and me with 2 years in junior high--translation of Vergil is on the reverse of this  2-inch square magnet, "The leader of the enterprise is a woman."

SIGH.

Last week at a TTN Monthly meeting. NYC Topic:  "Women & Politics, If Not Now, When?"  Speaker from Women's Campaign Forum.  Women over 50, most retired from professional careers.

X:  (approaches LRH, smiling) Go, Hillary!

LRH:  She's not my choice.

X: (surprised) Oh, I'm sorry.

LRH:  No reason to be.  Many expect that as a feminist I'd support her.  (aside to audience:  Or be for Obama because I live in Harlem!)

X: (looks expectantly at A, friend of both)

A: I'm for Edwards.

LRH:  Me too.  It would be wonderful to have a woman president but she has to be strong on issues important to me--Iraq, aging...

Happened to me again at my favorite yarn shop.  This is what gave the Hillary campaign its false sense of security:  many of us want to have a woman in charge.

"If you want Party, vote Hillary...Power, vote Edwards...Personality, vote Obama" - Rachel Maddow

All of the above was written last week, a post waiting to be completed.

Right now it is Thursday morning January 31, in New York City.  I am in solidarity with those who lost Kucinich, another candidate strongly opposed to the Iraq war. John Edwards must have had good reasons for ending his campaign at this time, reasons that include how punishing it is to campaign for national office. 

The Crone Speaks suggests that Edwards' supporters go ahead and vote for him on Super Tuesday.  I'm thinking about it.  Then there's Obama.  I just don't know.

Vote, one must do that:  there are no options to active participation in a struggling democracy.

[February 1974 photo Queens College women's basketball team celebrates close victory--and I began to use my entire name everywhere.  Women were very hopeful.]

ALERT:    After posting the above, I read Four's A Crowd by Gail Collins in today's N.Y. Times.  Excellent.  Also, our first phone call from the Hillary campaign rang in.

Grandson Packs His Bag & A Little Yarn

Before our recent trip to Portland, Zach, our 5 year-old grandson, had talked about staying overnight with us.  Would it happen?  Here he is, bag packed by himself, shopping bag filled with crayons.

The first visit was on a weekend; the second, a school day.  We delivered him to kindergarten--with the 30 other kids.  Sunnyside, such a 1930s name, is a block away from his home, newly reformulated as an environmental school. 

Afterschool we met up with his mother and sister Zoe (note the green rain boots)  at the "Sunnyside Indoor Play Space and Swap Shop" in a nearby Methodist church.

This comfortable setting-- rooms for all ages of children, arts and crafts, and a stage-- meets a need especially acute in rainy Portland.  It was developed over the past summer by 90 families and is open to families outside the neighborhood.  A co-op, it has a small monthly fee, and every family member takes on a job to keep the space running well.

Once I sat down to knit, this young woman came over to for advice on her purl stitch. A member-mom has been teaching beginning knitting; there's donated yarn and needles in one of the rooms.  My daughter surprised me by picking it up again!

Even without the wetness issue, I cannot imagine a community that would not enjoy something similar.  It would have been wonderful when our children were young.  These kinds of community-developed were going on in Baltimore in the 1970s though only among at-home moms.

There's a mix of working mothers plus mothers and fathers who work at home--many in the tech industry--even nannies.  All enjoy the generous hours-- Monday through Saturday 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.  Here's the darling website, with more details, to share with someone you know in Portland.

Chopped Liver? Not You and Me!

Of course you leave comments on blogs if you're a blogger.  Lately, I've been cranking to others about the absence of info on ISSUES from the Democratic candidates --especially the two leading the pack.  And the matching disinterest by media.

AGING, ever hear anything about us in the frenzy to scoop up attention from the under-30 demographic? Is it only John Edwards who speaks to us?  That's the word from The Crone Speaks who blogs from Tennessee, left a comment on LRH recent post with all the links to the specifics.

Thank you, Crone, for searching through the Edwards' site more thoroughly than I had.  "Security, Dignity, and Choice: A Declaration of Independence for Older Americans," is the heading for eleven points at the campaign site, http://www.johnedwards.com/issues/seniors/. 

Pay particular attention to Number 8 on the list:

The number of certified geriatricians fell by one-third between 1998 and 2004 and only 330 doctors nationally will complete geriatrics training this year [2007].  He will also call on experienced geriatric doctors to train the next generation of primary care doctors and nurses in geriatric care, including how to identify treatable conditions in older Americans – like depression, malnutrition, isolation and podiatric problems – that, if ignored, often lead to a downward health spiral (italics mine).

As I write, BarackObama has won the South Carolina primary.  Elderbloggers and their friends need to ask his campaign to add points from Edwards' list.  Like The Crone, I've been a supporter of Edwards' since he began the current campaign: he speaks specifically to ISSUES I care about.  I'm pleased he's staying in the race, hope his views influence the Democratic Party platform on aging and ending the Iraq occupation.

Aside from my personal discomfort with Hillary Clinton's ignoring us, I wonder that she has not considered the implications of our invisibility for the culture-at-large.  Curious that the two younger candidates have focused more on aging.  But then, I could go on at length on how sad I am about the Clintons and our fascination with their soap opera.

Visit the Changing Aging blog if you missed the excellent PBS story on Green House Communities Re-Invent Nursing Home Care.  Dr. Bill Thomas is the theorist behind this.  A review of his book with the wonderfully provocative title "What Are Old People Good For?" at another blog, Embodied Aging led me to another place, for this very important directive:

"We do not do ourselves or society as a whole any favor by allowing ourselves to be treated with a benign condescension by others. It’s shortsighted for a younger generation not to pay attention to the life experience of its older people. It’s worse when we allow ourselves to be characterized as irrelevant and don’t have the moxie to speak up. We diminish both ourselves and our world by our silence." from the blog, YaGrowsOldorYaDies.

Kudos once again to M.E. at Xtreme English, a loyal commenter here, for the cartoon of MAW (Most Assertive Woman) and Hen Pink, her deputy, which I was gifted with last year and delight in using today.  Inclusion does not indicate her endorsement of my ideas or notions.  Please join us both in asking the hard questions.

Blogging for CHOICE Needs a Condom Amulet!

Not one of you told me about this... Blog for Choice Day is today, the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.  My source is the Canadian blog for Shamless magazine.  It was a link  at  Diary of a Sticker Sister, the California artist who designs girl-positive stuff--pencils, shoelaces, band-aids, tees--that I've sent my Oregon granddaughter.  She often comments on young women's issues.  Took me a moment to recover from two ads she posted from the city of Milwaukee. Photoshopped pictures of boys with distended stomachs, the campaign was meant to discourage sexually-active teens from getting pregnant, quite strange.   

Later I was further weirded out by men commenting on a thoughtful post at the feminist blog, Pandagon-- "Abortion is a First Amendment Issue."  They carried on about cell zygotes.  Or how important it was to talk about the issue so the "undecideds" might be drawn in.   Oh, please!  Made me long for the old days of  illegal abortion when the absence of CHOICE meant it was always a black and white issue, thank you.

Get these clueless male commenters and Milwaukee boys knitting, I say!  When I was recently in Portland's YARN GARDEN, I noticed a little paper banner stuck in a ball of yarn at the counter.  "OSU," it read--Oregon State University.  Were these their colors?  "Yes," a tall customer near me answered, "I go to school there."  Synchronicity.  Just before I'd left New York, the class schedule from the store (I've been going there since Rachel moved to Portland) had announced a one skein contest. 

An aha! moment for another Condom Amulet in my college series.  Bought the on-sale ball of yarn ("Arica" from Gedifra, mostly wool, #8 needles) worked on it over the next week or so, turned it in--with instructions and a return envelope--the day before I left.  Win or not, they can keep the NYC and female condoms.  Go Beavers!

A note to women readers like myself who are post-fertility on why we need to care about CHOICE.  If "they" can decide about pregnant bodies, what next?  Think of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and the old dystopian TV series, Logan's Run, where life's limit was quite short.    Have you noticed how invisible and unregarded aging issues are among the presidential candidates?  Correct me, please, if I'm wrong.

One Toe in Another City

My first visit to Portland, Oregon, I was alone, had gone to help out when my daughter and her spouse moved there.  That was ten years ago. Both the city and my view of it have changed.

Though widely touted for its mass transit system, my only connection with that has been trolley rides with our grandson.  For him, a ride on trains or buses are special; his everyday travel is by car.  It appears you have to live in the right spot for the system to work well.  I recall long, long waits at bus stops when traveling from Rachel's apartment.  As a New Yorker, I'm spoiled by our mass transit system. 

Did we know then about Powell's, The City of Books?  Odd we did not but it was a distance from their place.  Somehow I'm sure my son-in-law, the once-librarian, knew but his work was in the opposite direction.  Opened in 1971 by Walter Powell, a newbie to book-selling, in the warehouse building to the left (at night), it was situated in the neighborhood of a disappearing beer-brewing industry.

Now discoverd by us and the rest of America, Powell's has branches all around Portland and is known internationally.  More of its history is on this site of the union that organized its employees back in 1998.  It is a complex, not pretty story from a city without a union tradition. 

Before they bought a house in the southeast, they had another apartment downtown near the Portland Art Museum, which impressed me with its lack of pretension.  Over the decade, however, it became grander, brought in high-profile exhibitions with costly tickets.  Glitz happens--and with more speed all the time.  That's certainly the case in New York.

One growth area that would be wonderful to import to Manhattan is the middle-range  restaurant.  Portland has become a mecca for young chefs.  Last summer we had dinner at Nutshell, a new vegetarian place in the northeast, Alberta--a neighborhood in flux.  I have never had veggies and grains prepared with so much care.  Aside from an excess of salt, yes, salt choices, it was a fabulous and unpretentious meal.

This trip I longed to take home pastry from  Pearl Bakery, a short walk from Powell's.   We discovered this very small place maybe eight years ago.  Then it was a singular good-coffee spot in the early development of the "Pearl District."  Now the Pearl is filled with glamorous high-rises--and cranes putting up more.

Rachel surprised us by saying, though she bought their bread where she lives, that this was her first visit.  They have that has a few tables, serve excellent sandwiches, the three of us lunched there.  One of Portland's most appealing characteristics is how open people usually are.  Another time we shared a table here with a man who was glad to tell us about local challenges for businesses, "Taxes too high; companies are moving to Seatttle."

Oh! is the name of his new company producing "sexy healthy heels,"  made in Brazil.  He's a great salesman and I had high hopes.  But these high heels would not work for me; you can check them out for yourself here.

Only ones that tie or have Velcro closures will make my feet happy, so I am the owner of a blue shoes by Keen.  Rachel swears by them, they're locally produced and very popular in Portland. 

My new shoes look similar to my granddaughter Roxie's latest.  Maybe that's the answer for old lady comfort:  design shoes like the little kids wear!

Knitting Cats for Portland Kids: A Scarf & A Toy

CAT WRAP is the title of this very pink kid scarf from Morehouse Farm--a kit including the two yello pieces of felt for the eyes.  Knit for Zoe in Portland and finished there, I've only seen it on Rachel, her Mom, who humored me by modeling for this photo.

Because she likes cats--and there is a new one in her home--this seemed good idea.  However, what I should knit or craft for her is a large change purse.  Probably experienced grandmas like M.E., blogs at Xtreme English, could have told me that 2-year-olds get more from emptying change and returning coins than trying on knit things.

Knitting this involved an odd process for the striped body:  two weights of yarn, alternating #13 needles (for merino bulky) with #6 worsted) every 2 rows!  Leftover purple yarn worked well for suggested hat.  (Morehouse used world's briefest instructions...pet peeve with yarn outfits that abbreviate text to get everything on one page).

Ron knit the hat, for ribbing used yarn he'd brought along for his ongoing hat obsession...more later.   Synchronicity, that pretty stuff came from the 2005 Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival--small size, homey event.  We met the sheep's owner and the sheep whose fleece produced the roving Ron would spin.  That was a September visit for Zoe's birth.

"Hattie" is the name Zach gave his new knit kitty, a name evocative of the old South for me, completely outside my known sphere till I "met" the resident at Mother Pie.

Before we left New York, I saw this free pattern online at Knitting Daily.  Found gray Australian yarn in my stash, "Superfine 8-ply Crepe Supersoft," is on label.  Directions were good, #5 needles, unknown dark yarn for stripes.  Chose red for nose, mouth, whiskers to brighten it up, pink for inside ears. 

Zach was pleased, brought it along to his overnight with us.  It's in his suitcase, along with very special "Piglet."  The white paper shopping bag holds his crayon collection, a couple of books.

And here is the enormously patient "Sparky," who seems comfortable with much picking up and other close encounters from Zoe and Zach.

 

Claude in Paris Skewers Me

Returned yesterday to New York to find a provocative email from Claude of  Blogging in Paris.  Knows I do not favor the meme but just this once?  Another nudge from m.e. at Xtreme English to name five things in your life now that you never dreamed would be in your future when you were 25.

Okay, already!  Moving slowly back into known routines, I offer a remarkable image from my December survey of the mosaics in the 8th Avenue subway.

One -- that I'd own a camera and blog.

Two -- that there would be an open door to what appears to be a useable bathroom in a New York subway.

Three -- that I'd make a stupid marriage at 26 primarily because my father's wife said, "My friends ask when is she...."

Four Surviving that first mistake that I'd move on to an amazing 40-plus-years' relationship with Ron when I was in my thirities.  And have two remarkable children, then three grandchildren.

Five that I'd be financially secure.  Because at 41, I settled down to graduate school and was able to put my politics and my work together to enjoy 20 years as an affordable feminist therapist.  Actually, that word my 5 year old grandson likes to use, I was a "cheap therapist" to women much like my younger self.

Now please read the posts by the women who pushed me to this--much juicier and self-revelatory than mine.  I've dutifully tapped into the compliant 1958 girl but draw the line at anointing others.   

Rain in Spain No Match for Portland

Every day a new storm off the Pacific.  Visitors like us can be heard throughout the city, "Look, a blue sky.  Oh, it's gone!"  No matter.  Great times with our 5 year old grandson--two sleepovers with us--many stories. 

Knitting FOs include two kinds of cats...Condom Amulet entered in local one-skein competition.  Images and more after January 13.