a little red hen

Life before Hurricane Sandy

We were at grandson's cross country meet a couple of weeks ago.  My daughter turned to me, because elections local and national are  on our minds, and announced, "There's a movement to write-in Eileen Brady for Mayor." Wonderful to dream of possibilities for the candidate-who-should-have-been rather than the two losers we're left with.   Became slightly more engaged on Facebook so could add my "like" to the page someone started there.  Made a simple card to hand out.

Zach did very well in his race.  I was impressed by the number of  girls and boys, Portland public and private schools, 4th and 5th graders, who were eager participants. Let's hear it for Title IX!  They had to climb a hill twice and jump over a hay bale to make their way.  

Rachel, Zach, and little Eliana (no slouch herself in climbing monkey bars with ease), left to pick up Zoe for her soccer game.  Before we left another mother from Zach's school, described her life before Portland.  Pretty similar In Brooklyn as she shuttled three children from one activity to another and tried to keep focused as she worked from home. Not much time for politics for these working mothers.

Afterwards Ron and I went to eat always-delicious Vietnamese food at JADE Teahouse in Sellwood--eggplant and pork plus a very rich macaroonish dessert. Sort of a reward  for hours and hours--primarily his time-- on the phone with prescription plan, Medicare Part D. Very patient Medicare and insurance company people worked to sort out a mistake from last year.

Why are we putting up with all this shuffling of our lives by providers? And we are the fortunate ones who have good healthcare coverage.  

************Election Day, November 6, 2012 at 4:30 p.m. (PST)*****************

All of the above was written in October before Sandy, before Halloween.  Not posted because I'd thought to write how the U.S. needs something like the Citizens Advice Bureau in the United Kingdom. Begun in 1924, this non-profit "charity" (their word) helps people "resolve their legal, money and other problems by providing free, independent and confidential advice, and by influencing policymakers."  First heard about it when I was in social work school in the 1970s as a way the British had developed for people to  sort out which government agency could handle their issues.

Now I'm avoiding looking at today's election returns.  So much more to think about since the Hurricane but election anxiety gets in the way.  More creative avoidance by going tonight to "Seven Guitars" by the late, lamented August Wilson.  This is the sixth of his ten plays that explore African-American life in the 20th century. We will travel back to 1948 in Pittsburgh.  Beats angsting about whether Obama will be re-elected and New York City's massive recovery problems.

My son and his family are okay in Tarrytown, New York, above the flooded areas.  After last summer's Irene storm their co-op decided to install a back-up generator so they have had lights, heat.  Roxie even went back to kindergarten on the school bus at the end of last week.

How will the City re-locate thousands of public housing residents in Brooklyn's Red Hook?  Thinking my causes need to become entirely environmental--climate change especially.  

Putting all negative eggs in one pre-election basket

Dropping a class

Such promise in the title, "Radical Home Economics."  Last spring I met the enthusiastic young man who'd teach it.  Bummer.  "What did you expect with a man teaching?"  Reply, "More feminism, less ego and political rant."  My mistake. I'd expected thoughtfulness on updating for the 21st century an idea once revolutionary in the late 19th. 

Gun Control gets more personal

Up to now, I'd looked forward to the Portland State student paper.  Comes out on Tuesday and Thursdays.  Then last week read about a place I walk by often--though not at night--on their Crime Blotter:

Firearm theft: Oct. 7

Parking Structure 1
Officer JS was flagged down around 11:49 p.m. by a student who said his car had been broken into. His car was parked in Parking Structure 1 when two pistols, an assault rifle and 1800 rounds of ammunition were removed from the vehicle. Officer S referred the situation to the Portland Police Bureau.  

...and Gun Stores open here/there, everywhere... 

Hattie's Web links to news report from Hawaii:  record number increase in gun permits --15 percent over two years. 

New York Times refers to undecided women voters as "crucial subset" when they are simply clueless

 Thanks to Time Goes By for her own rant plus this terrific video for me and you.  Don't you wonder how women who think about what is important have become chopped liver, marginalized alongside this "crucial subset."  Who are they, I often wonder, and why have they given up ownership of themselves?

 

"Mitt Romney Rap" by WWII vet, now 87

Have four minutes and two seconds to spare?  Even if rap is not your favorite popular music mode, try this one...

 

Every visit to Tenured Radical  (see blogroll at left), I need to get there  more often. Usually Claire Potter's writing and thinking educate me.  This time it was the unexpected headline above this video, "WWII Vet Stuart Hodes Headed to Top of Rap Charts at 87." 

Reminded of Hodes' rap (and how I'd thought about posting it) on reading Saturday's miscellany at TGB where Ronni Bennett asks for viewers' take on Randy Newman's new political song, "I'm Dreaming."  A longtime fan of Newman's earlier work, I was disappointed with his result though appreciated his message: there is rampant racism toward Obama by right wingers.

Back in 1977, we'd lived in Baltimore for a decade when Newman's song of the same name created some much controvery with its dark lyrics--

“ Beat-up little seagull
On a marble stair
Tryin' to find the ocean
Lookin' everywhere
Hard times in the city
In a hard town by the sea
Ain't nowhere to run to
There ain't nothin' here for free”

Speculating on why the song was written, Cenarth Fox and Shawna Hansen Ortega gather several theories from simply random to my own favorite, "Remember, this was ... 1977, when Baltimore, like much of the country, was suffering through a crippling economic recession."

Yes, those days seem similar to the present-- though more hopeful that things would improve.  And they did-- until unresolved issues of "rampant capitalism" (apt turn of phrase from yesterday's Up! with Chris Hayes) came charging back again.

I may relate more to Stuart Hodes' "Mitt Romney Rap," in this beleaugred moment, but I'm still waiting for another Randy Newman effort.  One with his own lyrics like "Baltimore" or the whimsical, "Short People" (1978).  He was on quite a creative roll in the 1970s (many of us now-old people were likewise).

And then there were his words and music for "Louisiana, 1927," composed in 1978, referencing his knowlege of  the state's abandonment in an early devastating flood. Few people knew this history until Katrina (personal link to New Orleans) happened.  Then we heard Newman's elegy over and over in the days after the flood.  As the New York Times' Geoffrey Himes, said, "...it has become the state’s unofficial anthem in the wake of the 2005 tragedy."     

Candidates in "that other party," via Stephen Colbert

Says everything, right?  Here's the entire CHAIR MEDIATION from Colbert.  Tempted to print out this "truthiness" and add to sticker array on our car's bumper.

• This is also a tribute to  Kay Dennison, an exceptional  Elderblogger in Toledo, Ohio, who keeps her sense of humor through many personal challenges, and has been knocking herself out for months in the Obama campaign.  Check out her "Groaner of the Week."    

Couple of other commenters noted their political activity yesterday at TimeGoesBy.  Wish Tarzana who has joined "Iowa Seniors for Obama" had a blog...that would be fascinating. Local media could do an important public service with focus in this direction.  

What will we say about the murder of Trayvon Martin?

Speech to the Young : Speech to the Progress-Toward

Say to them,
say to the down-keepers,
the sun-slappers,
the self-soilers,
the harmony-hushers,
"even if you are not ready for day
it cannot always be night."
You will be right.
For that is the hard home-run.

Live not for battles won.
Live not for the-end-of-the-song.
Live in the along. 

--Gwendolyn Brooks

(1917-2000)

“I want to write poems that will be non-compromising. I don’t want to stop a concern with words doing good jobs, which has always been a concern of mine, but I want to write poems that will be meaningful…”  Women's History Month Profile (link has Brooks' lively reading of her most noted poem, "We Real Cool."  You will wish others from that evening had been included.)

In 1950, Gwendolyn Brooks became the first African American awarded a Pulitzer Prize.

***

Spent the morning in a struggle with how to post about my sadness and bewilderment.   Watched this clip of Morning Joe on MSNBC.  Reverend. Al Sharpton speaks for all as he expresses determination to keep in the forefront of our consciousness this latest act of American racism. He leads a rally and march in Sanford, Florida, Thursday, March 22.

Knew what to do on seeing photo and poem of Langston Hughes at TGB.  Hat tip to Ronni Bennett. 

 

Food thoughts mid-20th century...and now

How I wish some of the retirement "authorities" would talk about the hidden danger of too much time on our hands.  Especially parents, now grandparents.

Guilt runs amook.  On the other hand, on a more upbeat note, I've explored the  possibilities for latelife shifts as we head toward the last frontier.  One that may last longer than we once thought.  Personally, ten years ago an expiration date of 80 felt like enough.  Approaching that marker, I now want to push it ahead.

 What does this have to do with "food" and "retirement" you might reasonably ask.

  Eating and preparation of meals has changed dramatically since we moved to Portland less than two years ago.   The local food culture, the emphasis on locavorism, has been a ethic easy  to pursue while not so much in New York City.

Cooking classes at Bob's Red Mill have been far more accessible moneywise/timewise/accessibilitywise than in our former home.Many, many farmers' markets and thoughtful vendors.  And some years back, strolling through the bountiful magazine section at Powell's Books, I discovered Gastronomica, the journal of food and culture--another link?

All roads appear to lead to Portland but is there more, some kind of epiphany-not-noticed encountered after 75?  Food is something that everyone  will talk about:  the latest restaurant someone's discovered, intense color of kale in the local market, less meat consumption, quinoa and how to pronounce correctly.  

With the help of Jeanne P, another  quite food enthusiast and native Oregonian, a new group was begun where we live in June 2010.  "Food for Thought" (FFT) we named it.

Georgia V, a resident, agreed to talk about how she came to write three cookbooks with two others working with her at the local Kitchen Kaboodle.  Here's Georgia, left in photo, at the first of a series of Potlucks, an additional food-focus event, that were an outcrop from FFT.

The monthly FFT  discussions have ranged from "Cooking for One or Two" to reflections by Joyce H, a 92 year old resident, a WWII Wave officer who became a Home Ec teacher in 1947 in the Portland Public Schools.  Titled "Home Ec:  What Martha Stewart Learned," the session included this 1955 YouTube, a 1955 film, "Why Study Home Economics?"   

When I first watched it, seemed quaint.  Then I reconsidered and find it very sound.  Except for that tired notion of preparation for wifehood, there's more about careers and personal relationships.  We need to bring it back to middle schools with a re-configured curriculum that includes material  about  housing.  In the 1980s, I used an excellent text, Self, Space & Shelter by Patricia J. Thompson,  a feminist home economist, for an Urban Housing  class at Morgan State in Baltimore.  Sadly, my copy was lost in transition and is out of print--and the course is no longer offered.

 

"Now You've Pissed Off Grandma," message for our crowd

Saw this on TGB. She found this stand-up, red-coated woman and her sign in the coverage of protests in Madison, Wisconsin this past weekend.

If I knew how to do it, would love to place as a permanent reminder on my sidebar. 

"Grandma," in my perspective is   all us little red hens and our leader, Mother Nature.

Union of Human Beings

Looks as if someone posted this on a telephone pole.  It was on Kay's Thinking Cap. 

Wish I could read the copy at the bottom...writing her to find out where she saw it.

You could post it too--in solidarity with these brave people.

UPDATE:  Rally in Salem, Oregon. Saturday, February 26...locations elsewhere at US Uncut.

 

Did YOU put me on the wacky doctor's list?

It was an odd morning, changing hour to hour.  Mt. Hood glimpsed at its glorious best.   The news internationally seemed promising from Egypt--until it was not. Then a dark thought, I turned to  spouse,

"You don't think the crazed Tea Party people will think, 'Those foreign Egyptians can do it, so why not us true Americans, the best, most patriotic, the righteous Americans."

I checked my email. Okay, Credo Action wants me to sign a petition to have Clarence Thomas recuse himself... locally Montavilla Farmers' Market in Southeast PDX is having final winter stock-up market...but what about this other one?

Big as life, right in the inbox, not my Spam filter, I had an email from this strange congressman, Ron Paul.  About his Revolution. How?  Why?  To all Elderbloggers?  Or did he get hold of a Social Security file, a Medicare data base? [Enlarge image to get full impact.]

Please advise:  If I choose "UNSUBSCRIBE," at the bottom of Paul's page,  does my name go on an ENEMIES list (not to be confused with the right wing's fiction about a current enemies list kept by Obama)? 

This really scares me.

WACKINESS UPDATE :  Saturday afternoon, 2/12/11

Marked the doctor's email as SPAM this morning.  Checking my spam box (always do this because sometimes real messages get caught), discovered a new one from him, "I have not heard from you," in the subject line.   Are we speed-dating?  

Truly weirder:  I could not open it!  A call to join Wimmins Auxiliary for his revolution?  By the way, only commenter here who also received that first messaage, also lives in Portland. Maybe the mailer got hold of Michael Munk's mail list.  He wrote The Portland Red Guide (includes maps, walking tours), sends me count of latest fatalities in Iraq and Afghanistan.  It's a different sort of revolution my people envision.

Cartopia Dinner with Zach

Thinking over why food carts, the outdoor food art-form here that I admire but do not engage with often.  It may be   they require the  stand-up-to-eat pose.   I'm similarly disinclined toward buffet dinners, cocktail parties.  Not much of a casual eater, I want a chair/bench and table!

We had found a place with great middle eastern food around 6th and Broadway (across from a Kettleman's bakery) but it disappeared.  We'd buy the very ample dish in the afternoon and take it home for dinner.

Between our place (it may be known as the  "West Hills") and our daughter's house in Hawthorne, there's a collection of carts known as Cartopia with benches protected by tents.  I learned their proper name not from a sign (maybe there is one) but a massive fact-stuffed blog, Food Carts: Portland. Driving home  around 11 p.m. after baby-sitting, we'd see all this action as we turned the corner from Hawthorne onto  12th.  All lit up, many young people.  What were we missing...we found out when  we visited closer to our old-fashioned foodtime, 6 p.m. 

El Bracero, a Mexican place, is the early bird opener, in fact hardly closed.  We've stopped by for delicious  vegetarian burritos--just one big enough to share.  A little later the Belgian fries cart,  Potato Champion with its Poutines via Canada, comes alive...excellent not-so-good-for-you food but you gotta do something risky once in a while.  And choices of things  to decorate the greasy things.

 I favor the remoulade but you might prefer rosemary truffle ketsup.

Knowing our grandson Zach is a burrito fan who loves to eat out, we took him there one mild evening.  Other families with kids are always part of the mix in the early hours.  But the pizza cart got his attention first.

 The fries worked for him too. He was very interested in the crepe-making (huge productions) at Perriera.  Turned out he'd had one recently and mentioned that the milkshakes were very good too.  What could we say?  We took two very, very rich Girardelli chocolate ones home to his Mom and Dad (his sisters were in bed) and split them among the five of us.

You could call our particular adventure Portland Cart-lite.  We have yet to try some of the other places at Cartopia.  One very decorated one, Yarp with its long message of mission, comes to life  after 8 p.m.  Of course, this scene is not here for our crowd; we are the outsiders and they are very polite in an offhand way.

Welcome to Portland, Oregon, Ronni & Ollie!