a little red hen

Hillary, Her Portrait Survives

Just like Hillary Rodham Clinton in person, her portrait on a Manhattan street has weathered wind, rain, sleet, snow, and many footfalls since summer 2008.  Clearly my own walking  had been on the wrong side of Broadway--till yesterday.    I've  found both Hillary and Obama sill live there, side by side in  pastel and acrylic by Hani (a more informative link than in previous post).

Her sidewalk survival reminded me of her appearance on TV earlier this week.   She stood, unsmiling,  behind Obama at his somber press conference about Afghanistan and Pakistan.  "Bet she's glad it's not her up front," I said to Ron.

Other viewers also tried to guess what might be on her mind.  Looking for the photo online, I discovered Madam Secretary which describes itself as "an obsessive blog about everything Hillary Clinton."  Its mission sounds more stalker than what I'd expect from editors at the publication Foreign Policy.  Comments over there seem a bit devotional about  what she is thinking.  [photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images]

Your thoughts on Hillary's thoughts are welcome here.  

People, You Elected Him for Change & It's Happening

Yes, yes, it's very dark out there on the economy landscape.  But so much has already happened since Obama took office.  Remember, we said (back in the "good" days of August) that he was inheriting a landfill's worth of problems.

How about some rage toward the fool in office before him? 

You think I do not have some complaints?  Certainly--more troops to Afghanistan, too much nodding toward the religious.   Of my gosh, he's not perfect.  Much less perfect is the shallow  media?  They could back off on the bankers for a moment.  And the annoying (to me) too-much-information, known in my family as TMI, about every dress/school/meal detail in the Obama family.  Actually I would like to hear from Marian Johnson, Michelle's mother about her friends on Social Security, what it's like to go from her former life to "retirement" in the White House.  Not going to happen because that might bore men and women under 50.

A worthwhile newspaper might focus on how close we've come to something like  single-payer health insurance.  Or that the administration has made moves that upset the Catholic Church and religious right who believed they had a won the struggle to make  abstinence, that bogus sex education notion, the law of the land.    Things undreamed of as within our reach  only a year ago.

The top image here was drawn on the a sidewalk at 111th and Broadway last summer.   Hani Shihada is the artist; I once watched him work  on a dark street in Greenwich Village.  By October it was still there, maybe touched up.  In January, I saw the black and white sketch  on a sidewalk at 13th and Spokane S.E. in Portland, Oregon.  Coast to coast we were very enthusiastic about Obama.  Now we live with him day by day as he tries to clean up multiple messes, some decades old.  I make mistakes so I assume he will too.

Bernie Sanders Introduces Single-Payer Bill in Senate...Let's Dance!

Email just arrived from PNHP (Physicians for National Health Program) with the good news:

"Single-payer health reform bill introduced in Senate

Would save $400 billion on bureaucracy, enough to cover all 46 million uninsured Americans."

Vermont's Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent, introduced it Wednesday, March 25.  As I write, it is the next night--Thursday, March 26, 2009. 

Have you heard anything about it so far?  Will the news appear in tomorrow's New York Times (busy laying off more employees who definitely are going to need help to pay for health insurance.  Not yet on Bernie's own website; staff must be very, very busy today.

Googling revealed far less than I expected.  Who is in control of the news in America?  Or did it happen so quickly that even  PNHP could send out the email but not yet add the exciting news to its blog.

Big, bad insurance companies now must figure out how to go against the Senate bill, adding a big voice from the other chamber  to HR 676 in the House. (Link is an opportunity to sign Michael Moore's petition for it.)

Roxie may be holding onto "10 Excellent Reasons for National Health Care," but at two years, she would rather dance than read.  Right now--me too!  Great reason to go out in the streets and celebrate--and push to move to passage--this we-need-it-now legislation. 

Have you sent a buck or two to support "Medicare for all"? Several under-funded and hardworking organizations besides PNHP have been working for the single-payer cause.  CNHP-NOW is the one I know best; their efforts were recently recognized by the Obama administration through their site,  Change.org.

Funeral as in a Snow Globe from my Harlem Window

 "Get your camera...look out the window!"  Saturday morning, 9:30 a.m.  First, a pair of white horses with funeral carriage behind.  Waiting?  Then a long truck.  Another horse, this one tan was attached to them.  Another truck with second white carriage, one to carry passengers.

Next a car with a coffin...carried to public housing building, followed by a woman dressed in white, many mourners.   Space is made around a woman with turban and objects in her hand--perhaps a  griot-- followed by another.

Mourners return to the street, family members climb into open carriage.  Mourners receive white umbrellas from man (seen at bottom of griot photo) probably part of the funeral home arrangement.  We believe we're watching a Jamaican funeral... began in the brief morning snow, left Amsterdam Avenue to turn onto 125th, accompanied by drummers.

We were reminded of the more elaborate one we watched from our windown for Dr. Barbara Ann Teer.  For today's person there is no notice in the New York Times.  I offer this visual record to my neighbors at Grant Houses.  

                                                                                     ***

DEPARTMENT OF CLARIFICATION:  Surprised that this real event was mistaken by a commenter for a movie set rather than the actual event, I contacted  my source for all things Harlem, Uptown Flavor.

"There have been a couple of high profile people who have died recently - Harlem politicians and the owner of the Amsterdam News.  I couldn't pinpoint who it was but I was venture to say someone like that would have a procession in the neighborhood."

Grannies Speak for Us & Arrested Once Again

MARCH 18, NEW YORK CITY, Eve, 6th anniversary Iraq War, Times Square Recruiting Station

 

 THREE YEARS AGO, a Tax Day Protest, Harlem Recruiting Office, April 15, 2006

(top two photos by Eva Baird of Granny Peace Brigade)

WHAT YOU CAN DO...Read about them HERE.  Find out ways to help Counter Recruitment in YOUR community.

Your St. Patrick's Day & Mine

March 17 has an odd resonance for me.  Back in 1945, it was on that day I got my period for the first time.  [Would the new "My Little Red Book" been helpful... Is this what my granddaughters will need?]

Here's my brief  litany of other life changes that have occurred on notable holidays.  Thanksgiving: lost my virginity...An abortion on Labor Day.  Married Ron on October 29, famous anniversary of the 1929 stock market crash.

Riding an elevator, I overhear a woman in her forties  describe in detail how she recalls the day from working at Saks Fifth Avenue in the 1980s.  Drunken women would be throwing up  beyond the revolving doors--some would come in searching for a bathroom.  People tell me that liquor is now prohibited for  marchers but there are the observers.  When I was a young working woman in the 1950s, I'd dread going home from work on St. Pat's.  Unleashed inhibitions abounded in Manhattan; men--not women in those days-- reeled everywhere. 

Today I was unaware of the holiday, my bus and subway ride from Harlem to the east sixties had been absent any green.  At Crate & Barrel, though, a middle-aged couple entered in goofy, oversized green hats.  I asked the gentleman if people commented on his outfit,   "We own the city!" he declared.   I could not resist, "Well, you did own it."  He insisted, "Today we own New York!"

Walking west along 57th Street,  a policewoman at Madison tells me The Parade  began 15 minutes earlier   further downtown.  Picked up my pace.  At Central Park South, a man was giving out small cards enclosed in plastic bags.  Handed me one.  When I lifted my camera he asked if I'd like him to cross the street so the horse drawn carriages would be included.  Not really, "I'm glad to take a picture of a mature couple." She seemed to be an out-of-towner with a heavy Irish accent.

Tucked here and there on the less Irish upper west side were other markers of the day.    Silver Moon, the French bakery at Broadway and 105th, offers a timely selection plus  shamrock-shaped cookies.

When I got home the free card turned out to contain "The Gospel Bracelet" with a warning of my need to repent.  Perhaps.

I think Roxie will like the wrist decoration and it's adjustable.  I also realized the three things I'd bought at Crate & Barrel were green.

And  the message?  That the Irish always entertain-- even us cynical, overly-grounded, non-believing descendants of other European peasants.

Check out the Irish Potato King in the Chicago River pictured at Hattie's Web.  Something equally exotic could be in the future for New York City's Hudson River on another March 17 when the Irish own our town.  

 

NYC Subway Life...Eating, Reading, Making Up

Yes, "making out"  also happens but timidity restrains me.  Here I offer some second-home activities from  this great public space aggregator, where more women seem to be reading than men...but not with Kindles.

Just noticed as posting that big pink purses dominate.  Not pictured is the retired librarian sitting next to me today.  We had a great exchange between 125th and 66th Streets...a roving exchange with that began as I looked over her shoulder at the article she was reading a recent issue of The Economist.  Its thesis was thatother cultures benefit  by using group music and dance as a path to coming together more amicably.  Could the U.S. adapt the idea?

 

This is my kitchen in Manhattan & it's for sale!

Yes, that long winter visit in Portland, Oregon,  even with its unseasonable snow, confirmed our decision.  We'd gone with the idea of  re-locating.  Call it Second Stage Retirement.  In the first one we were in our early sixties, had two unmarried children. 

Fifteen years and one quadruple by-pass later, we're ready for  a place slower than New York.  The subway steps are more of a challenge these days.  Both children are married, have their own kids. The idea of being with the three in Portland as they grow is very appealing.   It is, we believe, our last move until the very final exit or Third Stage.

With the unstable real estate market we wondered, as we left in mid-December, whether we'd look to buy or rent an apartment as a temporary measure?  Few days before we left, I Googled "retirement communities" in Portland.  I'm still not sure how it escaped my eye before.  It's been around for 50 years!  Unlike most retirement places, this one is  right in town--we could walk to the center city, take a bus to our family's neighborhood.  Maybe a possibility?

 January 10, was our first visit to Terwilliger Plaza.  A non-profit  CCRC   (continuing care retirement community), it is designed for "healthy people looking for security.   When I stepped toward the reception desk to sign in, the pleasant resident volunteer (I'd say she was a bit older than I, maybe early eighties), looked at my Obama button, smiled, said "Isn't it wonderful?"

 That first  surprise was followed by the second:  it was much more affordable than Kendal on Hudson, another non-profit CCRC, that interested us earlier.  Plus the apartments were attractively designed, most with a  view of Mt. Hood.  Most important was that  Ron was very enthusiastic too.  The postings on the bulletin boards on each floor indicated that we would be comfortable with the social environment.  Of course we'll be a bit "different."  Always a bit outside the line,  I was amused when Ronni Bennett once described me as one of New York's  "typical upper west siders."  Yes and no.

Speaking of Ronni and selling our apartment, I called her last week to talk about the upcoming sale of our apartment. She left the City three years ago  after an extended effort to sell her much-beloved place in Greenwich Village.  Just like our visit with her in  Maine two years ago, our free-flowing conversation surveyed everything from blogging to bagels.  Great to hear her laughter again and get her input about financial stuff we'd face.

Leaving Roxie, our local granddaughter, is the sad part of this move (seen here with a pickle, one of her favorite foods).  We rationalize by saying that our daughter and her spouse are permanently (or as much as anyone can be these days).  Our son, Roxie's dad  has the potential for more mobility as a young academic. 

Many readers  had much to add on my December post, "Housing Ourselves in Late Life."  The dialogue continues today and in the months and weeks to come.  In my effort to include a PDF file for the first time on A Little Red Hen, this is how the link offers itself-- Download Co-op flyer NEW color.  If you know anyone who would be interested in our  two-bedroom co-op in Morningside Gardens, that will give you the photo above plus two others and details.   Our very special community with its six buildings around a beautifully landscaped central garden has a history of being unknown in New York.  Thanks to Wikipedia we get our due in their description of  the many sides of  the upper westside neighborhood, Morningside Heights.

[Visit Marlys Styne's Never Too Late! for another Elderblogger experience on a recent move to a highrise CCRC in Chicago.]

 

"Weekend at War" featured in New York Times

 Each Friday, the New York Times includes a special section in the paper, "Escapes." It features places you might like to vacation. I rarely read it but this large photo  last week-- with its evocative feel stopped me.  And caused me more amazement about journalistic thinking than most.  It's one of the pictures for the lead article, "Weekend at War" and shows some of the 1,500 vacationing re-enactors attending a gathering in January.

"The Battle of the Bulge Living History Commenoration" was a chance for WWII veterans of that 1944 event, 21 of them, plus others who enjoy military dress-up to do their thing in at the Fort Indiantown Gap military base in Annvile, Pennsylvania. 

What did you miss?  Dancing to an 18-piece band ala Glenn Miller...chance to buy "authentic Axis headgear," and, of course the high point:  a simulated forest battle of a devastating encounter, the Battle of the Bulge.  That's the one that left 19,000 Americans dead, 47,000 wounded.  Perhaps some were in your family.  I remember my pre-teen struggle to have a conversation with a neighbor's son--once animated, now gaunt and distracted--a year after his return from the battle.

Who are we in America?  "Almost every weekend, there is a re-enactment somewhere around the country," the Times reports, the number of them growing by the year.  Mostly men except for the wives. There are a few female re-eneactors-- Nicki Jaine of Philadelphia  as a German cabaret singe,  a woman from Ohio as a war correspondent. It's a long article with many more awesome details the boggled my pacifist/feminist mind.  Escape, indeed.