a little red hen

July 3, 21009, QUEENS: Farm Museum & Main Street, Flushing

  

Queens Farm Museum  

 

Flushing Queens

July 4, 2,009: Eighth Avenue, Sunset Park, Brooklyn

SUNSET PARK                            

Ron Bloom Celebrates Another Birthday!

All my love and thanks for all the places we've been, crises we've survived,  children and grandchildren we've loved...

...and your great patience in teaching me too many things to list...what I've learned from your pleasure in sharing with everyone who comes within your range.

  All of us look forward to many more June tenths with you--

most especially yours truly ...

Celebration: High-Rise Style...Last night--a building party where we live. Lee Morgan, Ron's co-chair and great party-giver, suggested this one as they wrapped up their term of office, turned it over to another pair. Singing the Birthday song was a high point of the pot-luck evening...who says New Yorkers don't care about one another?

Memorial Day for Pacifists

 We have missed another opportunity.  It is not the first time.  Year after year we shift uncomfortably in our  seats when the day arrives to celebrate wars past.  We do not have an answer other than our usual one.

The street below my window is quiet at 9 a.m.  It's easy to hear the crows on my roof.  I might celebrate the longed-for quiet.  I am grateful.

Gratitude is not sufficient.  Celebrating the lost lives of those who fought America's wars continues.  Even as we know that lives were ended for those simply supporting this country's repeated missteps, our busybodyness elsewhere. 

Pacifists could use Memorial Day in America to reflect on how we believe that warfare only brings loss and sadness to women and children and men and landscapes.  And punishes those who have correctly oppossed this thinly-disguised screen to build capital.

Pacifists, those of us tired of exceptions for "good wars," what about this  everyday strategy to end war--a program beyond the tee-shirt?

Coming Out: Myself as "Reluctant Elderly"

Flipping through images in my iPhoto file (favorite thing about my Mac), I come upon images from birthday lunch for my 75th last August.  I meant to blog on how it felt to be "feted" by a group of strangers.

Did I enjoy it?  Absolutely.  Were the people my age or older?  It was a mix at my table, mostly women but more men than I'd expected.  Must have been 100 there for lunch at the Lenox Hill Senior Center.  Got that?  The invitation to celebrate this landmark day (pictures here from the event) came about because I had joined the Center back in 1998.  And never returned.

Backstory.  Deep into kitchen composting as an art form, I'd applied for a small grant from the Puffin Foundation.   The idea was to form a group of seniors into a Kitchen Compost Troupe.   We'd  celebrate the 2001 closing of Fresh Kills, home of the world's largest garbage dump on Staten Island.  Each of us would have nurtured my patented invention, "WormWare,"  world's smallest kitchen composter.

Of the several ways I devised to gather such a group together, I visited Lenox Hill Senior Center.  I spoke with a social worker about making a future presentation on "Composting in Manhattan."   She suggested that I have lunch that day and get a measure of the participants.  Readers, I joined a senior center.

That was a jolt.  It was very personal--unlike teaching a class in Baltimore at an "Eating Together" program in my fifties--this was about me at 66.  Not ready, too soon, I thought. The grant came through but my plan changed after writing a second grant.   "This Dirt Museum:  the Ladies' Room," was an interactive installation at Queens Botanical Garden in 2001.

I never returned to the Lenox Hill Senior Center.  Well, they were all the way over on the east side of town where I rarely go except to museums.  Their knitting group was not as, how would you say it, "up-to-date" as the ones I attended.  The food was very institutional and I felt uncomfortable about it's small one dollar price.  This was not me.  At that moment, aside from reluctance to see myself as one of them, I hit the social class issue.  Senior centers in many cities have been established for people with limited resources.  In New York, their financial support comes from  non-profits working with the aging and the City Council.

Fast forward to 2008.  After all my years of neglect--I did carry the membership card in my wallet for years-- Lenox Hill was gracious enough--to send me an invite to their monthly Birthday Lunch.  Had I been asked in other years (I forget much these days)? I decided to take them up on their offer.

I really enjoyed myself, Ron too but he's less critical than I.  Several of my lunch companions were working seniors.  One woman in public relations wanted to connect with my westside Democratic club because she said  it seemed more active in the Obama campaign than her eastside group.  She also thought  knitting Condom Amulets was amusing and a smart way to promote safe; the actress sitting next to her agreed. 

Having heard that there was a national a move to "update" senior centers.  In New York City the Mayor had big plans to make them more "health-oriented" and reduce their funding.  On the way out I spoke with the two social workers running the program.  Things were not good they reported.  In December, Mayor Bloomberg was resisted in his efforts, with strong opposition by our Council President, Christine Quinn.  Elsewhere from Wellesley, Massachusetts to Los Angeles, California, it's evident that denial about aging takes many forms in addition to my own reluctance.  

Ron and I will soon move into a continuing care retirement community in Portland, Oregon.  Besides accepting it to myself,  I have come out to anyone who will listen that it feels right to describe myself as "elderly."   Yes, more attitude adjustments lie in ahead.

[This post in appreciation of  two this week at TGB on aspects ageism and especially the comment by Tamar at Only Connect that followed the first post.]

Baucus Arrests Five More Doctors, Nurses, Activists...

And out on the street outside the Senate, the California Nurses Association  held a loud rally today in Washington, D.C.  "Nurses Say: Patients First!"  Another important single-payer group to follow.

Hardly a moment goes by without those rich insurance companies and their greedy compatriots in the "health" industry...firing up their troops with more anti-democratic moves.  Senator Baucus must be a frustrated sheriff (with a penchant for limiting free speech).  Find all the latest here at Progressive Democrats for America.

May 30=National Healthcare Day of Action, is your city on this list?

Katie and Three Doctors* Arrested in Senate Hearing

My friend Katie Robbins was arrested in the U.S. Senate this week.  The occasion was the Senate's second "public roundtable discussion" on healthcare.  Is this the best we can do for idealistic, young people? 

Late last year I met her, the one and only person running a tiny office-- just a desk in a room with other organizations-- for CNHP-NOW (Campaign for a National Health Plan).  You can read about this courageous group of single-payer healthcare supporters and their non-violent protest here and  here. 

They are mad as hell.  You should be too.  Have you written an email, signed a petition?  Max Baucus, that condescending Democrat Senator from Montana where there are NO people, yet they have two Senators just like the eight million here in New York City. 

Why is Max Baucus so tied to the insurance industry?  It cannot be about what they do for Montana;  it must be what the insurance business does for Senator Baucus himself.  Yes, it is discouraging to have such a lame Congress representing our needs--both parties are in need of serious change.

As if all of us single-payer advocates were not angry enough, the great placator,  New York Senator Schumer (who represents me) has come out for some sort of compromise, a Band aid, to keep regressive Democrats in the fold.  Folly to try this approach.  I'd rather put money and energy into support of better candidates for their seats--and let them know NOW that we will.

Can Elderbloggers like you and me and Hattie's Web and Happening Here and blogs I have not identified as yet (add others, please)  convince you to become Little Red Hens  around single payer health insurance or Medicare for All--even though the powerful interestes in this country hope to disempower all who know this is the best route to universal healthcare in America?  [Links in the first paragraph of this post have dates organizations are mobilizing a heightened effort in the month of May.]

Can we do more for those younger than us, or are we so tired of the struggle that we  think--and sometimes I have this thought-- it's not our problem anymore?

*Dr. Margaret Flowers, one of those arrested and now known as the "Baucus Eight," tells why they did it in a two-part interview at News from Underground, Mark Crispin Miller's political blog.

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.

Columbia Greenmarket: neither rain, nor snow...

Sunday we connected with our local greenmarket for the first time since returning from Portland.  I do hope that the Columbia and Barnard and Manhattan School of Music students understand how lucky we are to have this small representative of New York City's Greenmarket program . 

This first stand had just what we needed for a damp, sometimes snowy afternoon:  hot cider at this stand where this woman is dressed less intensively than the last time we saw her in December.   Wholewheat sugar donuts--too good--consumed before I could take their picture.  This is also the stand with my favorite pear cider.

On to a dozen brown eggs.  These farmers also produce their own pasta.

We got adventurous and tried the goat cheese made by Judith Mae and her spouse (seen here).  They farm in  northeastern Pennsylvania--21 goats in a natural environment where sustainable practices are valued.  Like composting the goat bedding, recycling grey water.  Judith also produces goat milk soap which we'll try another time.

We stopped to check out greenhouse-grown spinach and ended up with (after trying a peppery leaf) buying this delicious salad mix.  Next time I'll be more organized and write down the names of all the leaves.

Apples, apples, (sharp photo by another blogger) from  the far end.   Stannard Farm,  South Cambridge, N.Y. has so very many choices of apples butfortunately only one kind of Pure Honey--the elixir that's Ron's habit. 

Carole Foster of Foster Sheep Farm is usually here with  yarn spun from her flock of sheep.  But it's lambing time right now, so I wont be seeing her for at least a month maybe.  Back in November 2008  she spiced up the Greenmarket's first Knit/Spin event right there on Broadway at 115th Street.  (The impressive gates to Columbia University are up the street.)

You are viewing Carole's demo of how to spin with a drop spindle.  A very special and ancient art.  I'm working on Carole's own pattern for a Multidirectional Hat that she was wearing when I saw her in December just before we left for Portland.  I'm using worsted yarn she dyed and spun-- purple and two shades of gray.

It has always been important to our family to support small farmers where we've lived.  They were closer to us geographically in northern Ohio and Baltimore, so we take great pleasure from the Greenmarkets bringing them closer to us here in the City.

An email came today from the Farmland Trust, hanging out in the left column here all the time; last Fall I joined their Action Center.  Here's a letter you can sign to the new administration to thank them for their recent efforts.  Their latest campaign,  "No Farms, No Food," would benefit from your support whether you live in an urban, rural, or suburban place.    We all need to eat!

We Meet Again...Powell's, City of Books

The Grandmothers met again...this time in a less amiable climate than before.  Marianna coughed.  I sneezed.  Hers-- the result of visiting her young grandchildren in Seattle.  Mine, my entire  Portland family has  colds.  I have a vision people all ages along a trail  through the Northwest as a noisy and nosey cacaphoney, tissues in hand.

We talked about politics in this city where she once lived.  Currently there's  the sad story of Portland's new Mayor.  Will his recent disclosure end his career?  My knitting led to an explanation of the way  needle-wielding  women had emerged in a virtual explosion over the last 15 years.  Groups, yarn shops everywhere.  We want to make things with our own hands.  An accomplished cook, surrounded by great fruits and vegetables in her current home in Hilo, Hawaii, she understood.  

Elderblogging had brought us together.  What would Ronni Bennett reveal from her time off from the practice?  She thought I'd met Claude in her hometown, Paris.  No, we had an in-person visit when she came to the U.S.  Marianna knows a great deal about European cities unfamiliar to me like Barcelona.  It's quite noisy I learned.  Oh, Portland is wonderfully quiet after New York.  I've only heard one car alarm in all these weeks.

Our spouses began their own conversations.  That worked for us.  Ron was the major cougher in our group.  Terry, partner to Marianna, seemed to have escaped the popular illness.  We envied him.

I realized afterwards that it would have been fascinating to hear what each of them would say about one of my recent Powell's purchases--she from a literary perspective, he from a scientific one.   Our time together was too short!  It's the green one pictured here I refer to.  ( I've only just begun the one on dieting.)  Still trying to figure out what fuels my robot interest.

Photo at top features two abandoned books outside Powell's.  A friend suggested maybe the bookstore's secondhand desk would not buy them, so they were left for the taking.  Very Portland.

My plan for this posting  included a link to our first meeting last year shortly  before Obama's election, once again I've been undermined by TypePad.  Something else Marianna and I have in common is our shared struggle with TP and their unhingeing of our posts and comments.  Too much innovating, I've told them.

They've lost the photos from that post, also  rendered  it unlinkable.  So here reposted is my snapshot  of her and Ron from that balmy day, outside Pearl Bakery in Portland.