It appears I have been cleared to blog again. The "reviewers'' have determined that I am not a blog spammer and I hesitate to even write those words for fear that the Blog "robots'' will throw a block on my blog again. Thank you to all those on Facebook who assured me that they could indeed read my blog and thus, everything was fine w/ my blog. Fortunately, you all could read it but I could not post.
So, now I'm gathering my thoughts to post once again.
I have no idea what prompted the block in the first place but the Blogspot folks said that it was things like irrelevance and posing like a blogger and copying things from other blogs that can trigger the blog robots to throw you in the blog lock up, so to speak.
So I can't promise that this won't happen again given those criteria. I don't copy from other blogs. That had never occured to me until now. And as for the relevance, I think that my little revelry about the Bonneville could have put the Blog robots to sleep.
At any rate, in less than the 20 days it might have taken to shut me down altogether, I am back posting. All's right in blog world.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
I'm slow to this Facebook thing. I just learned about Walls. I stopped myself from posting on my son's Wall that he had his birthday wrong. I haven't censored myself like that since junior high when you navigated a world with unfamiliar, unwritten rules.
I don't agree with those who dismiss Facebook as too time consuming (it can be); addictive (it can be, but so is Big Love) and superficial. They say, if I want to talk to a friend I call them or we email; I don't want to hear from a barrage of people I don't care about and this is how computer viruses spread.
This morning I saw a videoclip a friend sent hiking some incredible canyon country. I learned another former colleague's mother had died and there was a flurry of sympathy sent immediately. I learned another friend had walked in the woods in Ohio and then had breakfast. And that another former colleague was anticipating the annual girls weekend I'd heard her talk about 10 years earlier when we worked together. And a bunch of other stuff.
Anyway, why are we hooked or not hooked on Facebook and why does it have this appeal among boomers? Is it like some have speculated that we're all through with high school hurts and ready now to reconnect? Is it our generational desire to be hip and stay up to date? Let me know. I have to do a story on this and I'm not sure what angle to take.
I don't agree with those who dismiss Facebook as too time consuming (it can be); addictive (it can be, but so is Big Love) and superficial. They say, if I want to talk to a friend I call them or we email; I don't want to hear from a barrage of people I don't care about and this is how computer viruses spread.
This morning I saw a videoclip a friend sent hiking some incredible canyon country. I learned another former colleague's mother had died and there was a flurry of sympathy sent immediately. I learned another friend had walked in the woods in Ohio and then had breakfast. And that another former colleague was anticipating the annual girls weekend I'd heard her talk about 10 years earlier when we worked together. And a bunch of other stuff.
Anyway, why are we hooked or not hooked on Facebook and why does it have this appeal among boomers? Is it like some have speculated that we're all through with high school hurts and ready now to reconnect? Is it our generational desire to be hip and stay up to date? Let me know. I have to do a story on this and I'm not sure what angle to take.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
State of Play
We saw State of Play last night with Russell Crowe and I was reminded of All the President's Men and how scary Washington DC seemed in those movies. Like all reporters hang out in parking lots at night scared of shadows and secrets.and in Russell Crowe's case, guns.
The most haunting line in the movie was Helen Mirren's. Paraphrasing: The story here isn't the takeover of homeland security by private industry but that this newspaper is dying.
Everyday now I have people ask me with a worried expression if I still have a job and if the paper's going to make it. Some expect its demise having read the stories and seen the paper shrink in size and page count.
I watched the end of the movie with the credits rolling as the headlines on Crowe's front-page story appears rolling off the presses. I saw the little robots put on the big rolls of newsprint and was reminded of our Deer Valley plant and how impressive those robots seemed and how modern given they replaced pressmen who had previously rolled those huge rolls on and off the massive Goss presses. Now those robots seemed quaint and antiquated and something that I would have to explain to my grandchildren since a newspaper could, unimaginably, be something that might need explanation like a teletype or a tickertape parade or a milkman has to be explained to youngsters today.
The most haunting line in the movie was Helen Mirren's. Paraphrasing: The story here isn't the takeover of homeland security by private industry but that this newspaper is dying.
Everyday now I have people ask me with a worried expression if I still have a job and if the paper's going to make it. Some expect its demise having read the stories and seen the paper shrink in size and page count.
I watched the end of the movie with the credits rolling as the headlines on Crowe's front-page story appears rolling off the presses. I saw the little robots put on the big rolls of newsprint and was reminded of our Deer Valley plant and how impressive those robots seemed and how modern given they replaced pressmen who had previously rolled those huge rolls on and off the massive Goss presses. Now those robots seemed quaint and antiquated and something that I would have to explain to my grandchildren since a newspaper could, unimaginably, be something that might need explanation like a teletype or a tickertape parade or a milkman has to be explained to youngsters today.
Bonneville
My mom and dad drove me to Hanover College in September 1967 in a blue Bonneville Pontiac. I learned to drive in that car. I thought of that Pontiac and the burnt orange and cream colored Fire Chief we had with the orange and cream colored leather seats before we traded it in for the Bonneville when I heard Friday that GM was stopping production of its Pontiac line.
After the Bonneville we never had another Pontiac, but they were the car of choice for our family during my childhood. I remember the purchase of each of the three (was it three?) Pontiacs we had and the Saturdays spent with my dad wiping on car wax, waiting for it to dry and then rubbing a shine into the finish until you could see your reflection in the fender. I haven't done that since. But it was a ritual in the summers growing up in Kokomo, IN.
Charlie Conkle had the Pontiac dealership in Kokomo when I was growing up. He passed it to his son, Charles Jr. and he to his son. We did our car buying business with the first Charlie of that line. His wife, Juanita, was my grandmother Georgia's best friend. They were an elegant couple. Charlie was tall and lean and a smoker. He'd unroll himself from behind his desk in the dealership and walk onto the showroom when he saw my mom and dad and I enter on our infrequent car-shopping treks. It was an event. We'd ponder the cars, considering the cost, ask about the previous owner because we never bought new, always used. And always from Charlie Conkle. The blue Bonneville was our most luxurious car. I sat in its backseat for endless drives to Indianpolis to shop for clothes before school began in the fall; on Sunday drives after church; for Christmas shopping at Blocks or Ayres in Indianapolis and to Lake Michigan in the summer. I'd lie in that backseat on my way home from trips to Indianapolis , my mom and dad in the front seat talking. My feeling that I couldn't possibly be safer or happier than on those night excursions with my dad driving and me watching the Indiana dark sky roll by like I was in some kind of spaceship or cocoon.
Like the newspaper industry, the car industry is changing, fading. And some brands, deeply rooted in memories of my childhood, are dying. When we were in Kokomo in March I saw that Conkle's used car lot on Indiana 24 was closed. It's lot empty.
After the Bonneville we never had another Pontiac, but they were the car of choice for our family during my childhood. I remember the purchase of each of the three (was it three?) Pontiacs we had and the Saturdays spent with my dad wiping on car wax, waiting for it to dry and then rubbing a shine into the finish until you could see your reflection in the fender. I haven't done that since. But it was a ritual in the summers growing up in Kokomo, IN.
Charlie Conkle had the Pontiac dealership in Kokomo when I was growing up. He passed it to his son, Charles Jr. and he to his son. We did our car buying business with the first Charlie of that line. His wife, Juanita, was my grandmother Georgia's best friend. They were an elegant couple. Charlie was tall and lean and a smoker. He'd unroll himself from behind his desk in the dealership and walk onto the showroom when he saw my mom and dad and I enter on our infrequent car-shopping treks. It was an event. We'd ponder the cars, considering the cost, ask about the previous owner because we never bought new, always used. And always from Charlie Conkle. The blue Bonneville was our most luxurious car. I sat in its backseat for endless drives to Indianpolis to shop for clothes before school began in the fall; on Sunday drives after church; for Christmas shopping at Blocks or Ayres in Indianapolis and to Lake Michigan in the summer. I'd lie in that backseat on my way home from trips to Indianapolis , my mom and dad in the front seat talking. My feeling that I couldn't possibly be safer or happier than on those night excursions with my dad driving and me watching the Indiana dark sky roll by like I was in some kind of spaceship or cocoon.
Like the newspaper industry, the car industry is changing, fading. And some brands, deeply rooted in memories of my childhood, are dying. When we were in Kokomo in March I saw that Conkle's used car lot on Indiana 24 was closed. It's lot empty.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Alyce's coach
I'm not sure how it happened but there on a great green grassy expanse of lawn at Innis Park in Columbus, Ohio, on one of April's finest spring days I became Alyce's gym coach. It's an unlikely role for a 60-year-old who never managed a cartwheel in her youth let alone in her "later years. My only affinity with the term is that I do like to direct things. And this strawberry-blonde 6-year-old seemed miraculously amenable to my direction.
It was our first meeting, Alyce and I. Although I'd been reading about her daily from her mother's blog, I had not yet met her. And to be honest, I was a bit nervous. She and her mother had just arrived at the park fresh from a soccer game. Alyce had played goalie. The team had lost. She seemed unperturbed and decidedly disinterested in meeting her Ogram's best friend. I was prepared for that. She was barefoot and just as her mother had described: wirey, willful, skittish, wary and oh, so sweet.
We wound up on the grassy lawn by way of meandering through the children's garden of this vast outdoor garden and park. Alyce was doing summersaults, cartwheels and other active, kid-like things. I had kept my distance, giving her space. I had also opted for lying on the grass rather than sitting by the other adults, my first real gambit at wooing her. I had been carefully watching her but not so she would notice.
A shameless poser, I simply acted like I knew something about gymnastics. It was risky. I knew nothing and if she found me out it I would have squandered that opening. But she never suspected. And eventually it really wouldn't matter. She willingly let me lead her through a series of summersaults, cartwheels and handstands. I had her finish each routine by standing on one leg with her toe pointed and telling her that was called "the gull.'' I told her she was gifted. And I kept worrying that my thin knowledge of gymnastic routines would bore her. It didn't. I "mixed it up'' simply by having her do more cartwheels. That seemed enough. And when I had her stand on her other leg, she rolled her eyes not out of boredom but by seeing this as a challenge she might not be up to. I told her she was ready for this advanced movement. We both believed it. But careful not to over-praise for fear she'd know it was a ruse to just be in her company, I also told her to point her toe. A coach, after all, is all about form and detail. The gull pose was the best opportunity for refining the form.
It was Alyce who referred to me as a coach. And for me she was / is a gift. For I had come to that park more wary and weary than open and engaged. That night she asked her mother if she could text coach to tell her she'd done the gull for 18 seconds.
It was our first meeting, Alyce and I. Although I'd been reading about her daily from her mother's blog, I had not yet met her. And to be honest, I was a bit nervous. She and her mother had just arrived at the park fresh from a soccer game. Alyce had played goalie. The team had lost. She seemed unperturbed and decidedly disinterested in meeting her Ogram's best friend. I was prepared for that. She was barefoot and just as her mother had described: wirey, willful, skittish, wary and oh, so sweet.
We wound up on the grassy lawn by way of meandering through the children's garden of this vast outdoor garden and park. Alyce was doing summersaults, cartwheels and other active, kid-like things. I had kept my distance, giving her space. I had also opted for lying on the grass rather than sitting by the other adults, my first real gambit at wooing her. I had been carefully watching her but not so she would notice.
A shameless poser, I simply acted like I knew something about gymnastics. It was risky. I knew nothing and if she found me out it I would have squandered that opening. But she never suspected. And eventually it really wouldn't matter. She willingly let me lead her through a series of summersaults, cartwheels and handstands. I had her finish each routine by standing on one leg with her toe pointed and telling her that was called "the gull.'' I told her she was gifted. And I kept worrying that my thin knowledge of gymnastic routines would bore her. It didn't. I "mixed it up'' simply by having her do more cartwheels. That seemed enough. And when I had her stand on her other leg, she rolled her eyes not out of boredom but by seeing this as a challenge she might not be up to. I told her she was ready for this advanced movement. We both believed it. But careful not to over-praise for fear she'd know it was a ruse to just be in her company, I also told her to point her toe. A coach, after all, is all about form and detail. The gull pose was the best opportunity for refining the form.
It was Alyce who referred to me as a coach. And for me she was / is a gift. For I had come to that park more wary and weary than open and engaged. That night she asked her mother if she could text coach to tell her she'd done the gull for 18 seconds.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Doris
Doris Whitworth died Wednesday, April 8, 2009, in a Sun City West hospice where she had had herself admitted last Friday seeing it as a means to a quick, painless death. Almost within hours of arriving there she found the place not to her liking and wanted to go home. They had no hangers. They couldn't ease her suffering or eliminate the grasping fear that at any moment she would be unable to breathe despite the oxygen tank to which she was tethered.
"This is no way to live,'' Doris said on Saturday afternoon, propped up on a pillow irked that her mouth was dry and that there was no close caption on the TV in her room. Her eye lids were half-closed b ut her keen, restless mind raced from one concern to the next immune to the sedative. Suspicious of any God in control, nearly deaf and displeased with the decision she'd made to put herself in hospice, Doris fought to direct her life. Finding hangers for her clothes, house keys and something to quench her thirst consumed her in those last lucid moments.
Doris was one of my husband's clients and the last one he would tend. Having outlived her three husbands, she kept careful control of her life from her two-bedroom home in Sun City where she had pretty much isolated herself for the last few years. A certified public accountant, Doris was a careful, meticulous, fearful woman who, like most of us, was full of contradictions. She was generous. (She gave us three of her time shares.) Secretive. Fearful. Easy to anger, especially toward the end, and equally as easy to forgive. She was suspicious of strangers, fearful of the energy they would extract in training them to her ways and her conviction that they would surely fall short. Nearly always she was surprised when circumstances would force her to accept a new person into her life. This was especially true for the three women who wound up caring for her in the end. Within minutes of meeting each of them, she shed all concern, although not her demand for having everything as she wanted it.
Tiffany was the first of the three to enter Doris' life. She had been with her since Doris' first hospital bout. Initially, Doris saw Tiffany as the daughter she never had. She was an angel whose presence allowed Doris to return to her home after she fell. But Tiffany's youth, Doris' age and nature and their combined emotional immaturity frequently poisoned the relationship. But still Tiffany remained. Two other women were added as Doris' inability to remain alone in her home over periods of time waned.
Throughout her time with Doris, Tiffany was confident that Doris would accept a God she dismissed as unable to meet her expectations or needs. Tiffany told Doris all she had to say was I believe. But surrender was against Doris' instincts. She banished the hospital chaplain from her room days before she opted for hospice care. Initially, the women resisted Doris' decision to have herself moved to hospice. Accustomed to carrying out her orders, they would have executed her desire to go home. But Doris' failing health and her own unreined fear kept her sedated and dying.
Tiffany was at Doris' bedside Wednesday morning when she breathed her last breath. Tiffany was praying. I think she prayed Doris' way into peace and in doing that found more of her own.
Doris' life and death are cautionary, instructive tales. Mostly of God's generous, porous grace able to breach even our most hardened will to control.
"This is no way to live,'' Doris said on Saturday afternoon, propped up on a pillow irked that her mouth was dry and that there was no close caption on the TV in her room. Her eye lids were half-closed b ut her keen, restless mind raced from one concern to the next immune to the sedative. Suspicious of any God in control, nearly deaf and displeased with the decision she'd made to put herself in hospice, Doris fought to direct her life. Finding hangers for her clothes, house keys and something to quench her thirst consumed her in those last lucid moments.
Doris was one of my husband's clients and the last one he would tend. Having outlived her three husbands, she kept careful control of her life from her two-bedroom home in Sun City where she had pretty much isolated herself for the last few years. A certified public accountant, Doris was a careful, meticulous, fearful woman who, like most of us, was full of contradictions. She was generous. (She gave us three of her time shares.) Secretive. Fearful. Easy to anger, especially toward the end, and equally as easy to forgive. She was suspicious of strangers, fearful of the energy they would extract in training them to her ways and her conviction that they would surely fall short. Nearly always she was surprised when circumstances would force her to accept a new person into her life. This was especially true for the three women who wound up caring for her in the end. Within minutes of meeting each of them, she shed all concern, although not her demand for having everything as she wanted it.
Tiffany was the first of the three to enter Doris' life. She had been with her since Doris' first hospital bout. Initially, Doris saw Tiffany as the daughter she never had. She was an angel whose presence allowed Doris to return to her home after she fell. But Tiffany's youth, Doris' age and nature and their combined emotional immaturity frequently poisoned the relationship. But still Tiffany remained. Two other women were added as Doris' inability to remain alone in her home over periods of time waned.
Throughout her time with Doris, Tiffany was confident that Doris would accept a God she dismissed as unable to meet her expectations or needs. Tiffany told Doris all she had to say was I believe. But surrender was against Doris' instincts. She banished the hospital chaplain from her room days before she opted for hospice care. Initially, the women resisted Doris' decision to have herself moved to hospice. Accustomed to carrying out her orders, they would have executed her desire to go home. But Doris' failing health and her own unreined fear kept her sedated and dying.
Tiffany was at Doris' bedside Wednesday morning when she breathed her last breath. Tiffany was praying. I think she prayed Doris' way into peace and in doing that found more of her own.
Doris' life and death are cautionary, instructive tales. Mostly of God's generous, porous grace able to breach even our most hardened will to control.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Spaces
I went to an architect's home today to interview him for a Cool Home feature. He's from Spain. His home is in a lesser known historic district in Phoenix. Nice, small homes built in the early to mid 1930s in Phoenix. When they were built they were advertised as "in the country.'' Now the neighborhood is in the heart of the sixth largest city in the country.
He's converted a one-car garage into his studio. That's on the architectural tour at the end of the month. I was there to see his home and talk to him about the space he'd created. He took me into his backyard. I scanned it quickly. Noticed the ramada he'd built at the back of the home. The concrete patio w/ the chair and table. The two lounge chairs. The square of grass surrounded by a pebble border. The bougainvillea. His sculpture. His arty looking fountain. He took me step by step around the yard. He called it his virtual swimming pool. Little upkeep and it made him feel cool. He pointed out the pomegranate trees, the bank of citrus trees all lighted so that at night he could sip his martini from the "dining" pad and look at the citrus. It's my urban paradise he said. The Spanish accent helped. But the thing I appreciated was having been slowed down and made/ encouraged to look at the details. Notice the wire lattice he'd created above a garden wall to create a strip of green cover between the yard and the driveway. The metal plaque he'd made with his company name stenciled in. He wanted hisyard to feel resort like in its attention to color, and aromas and views he'd framed. It was a nice, neat yard that otherwise I might never have noticed. It reminded me of the care people can take with whatever space they have to create a little paradise. A little virtual pool. The ramada I'd only glanced at on closer look was set atop thick logs with lattice bands slanted just so. In the winter, the slants guided the sun to the patio. In the summer, they were angled to provide shade and in between, they simply let light filter through. The concrete was stained. He didn't like flat gray concrete. It was acid washed and then the border was brushed with a certain kind of brush that created little pockets for the acid to stain darker. The center was brushed with another kind of material, creating another kind of color from the acid wash. The treatment created a kind of concrete rug. The ramada was strung with lights, criss-crossed to provide a pattern at night when the whole backyard could turn into a party. A little piece of urban paradise no bigger than a city lot with no diving pool, fire pit, jacuzzi, outdoor kitchen, mister system or putting green.
He's converted a one-car garage into his studio. That's on the architectural tour at the end of the month. I was there to see his home and talk to him about the space he'd created. He took me into his backyard. I scanned it quickly. Noticed the ramada he'd built at the back of the home. The concrete patio w/ the chair and table. The two lounge chairs. The square of grass surrounded by a pebble border. The bougainvillea. His sculpture. His arty looking fountain. He took me step by step around the yard. He called it his virtual swimming pool. Little upkeep and it made him feel cool. He pointed out the pomegranate trees, the bank of citrus trees all lighted so that at night he could sip his martini from the "dining" pad and look at the citrus. It's my urban paradise he said. The Spanish accent helped. But the thing I appreciated was having been slowed down and made/ encouraged to look at the details. Notice the wire lattice he'd created above a garden wall to create a strip of green cover between the yard and the driveway. The metal plaque he'd made with his company name stenciled in. He wanted hisyard to feel resort like in its attention to color, and aromas and views he'd framed. It was a nice, neat yard that otherwise I might never have noticed. It reminded me of the care people can take with whatever space they have to create a little paradise. A little virtual pool. The ramada I'd only glanced at on closer look was set atop thick logs with lattice bands slanted just so. In the winter, the slants guided the sun to the patio. In the summer, they were angled to provide shade and in between, they simply let light filter through. The concrete was stained. He didn't like flat gray concrete. It was acid washed and then the border was brushed with a certain kind of brush that created little pockets for the acid to stain darker. The center was brushed with another kind of material, creating another kind of color from the acid wash. The treatment created a kind of concrete rug. The ramada was strung with lights, criss-crossed to provide a pattern at night when the whole backyard could turn into a party. A little piece of urban paradise no bigger than a city lot with no diving pool, fire pit, jacuzzi, outdoor kitchen, mister system or putting green.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Friday Night Lights
If I were a TV critic Friday Night Lights would be my number 1 must-see TV recommendation.
I'm surprised that a show revolving around high school football has captured my attention, but it has. It's the one show that I wouldn't allow calls even from my children to interrupt.
I'm surprised that a show revolving around high school football has captured my attention, but it has. It's the one show that I wouldn't allow calls even from my children to interrupt.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Again
We met with Dr. Lieberman Tuesday. He's Ken's neurosurgeon. The man who just happened to be available five or six years ago when the wire dripping morphine into Ken's spinal column from an implanted morphine pump was severed as surgeons were trying to remove the pump and its line from his body. The removal was to have taken 30 minutes or less. He was in surgery for four hours because the line snapped and the anesthiologist removing the pump had to call on a neurosurgeon to fish it out of his spine. Lieberman was there. He's been a source of reassurance, skill and brains ever since. This time (there was another surgery in between our first encounter and Tuesday's appointment) he was talking to us about the pros and cons of having an electric stimulator inserted in Ken's spine to ease the pain and reduce the load of pain meds he's on, which are proving more and more inadequate and causing their own problems not to say the long term effect for his kidneys and liver processing these toxins. His assessment: the electric stimulator won't handle Ken's kind of pain. It would be useless. His alternative? Detox, reset his pain receptors and then have another morphine pump inserted. In cases like Ken's patients have required something like 1,000 times less drug potency than when they took pain meds orally. We're waiting word from his pain doc who would manage the withdrawal -- cold turkey. Two weeks. So, we'll see. Meanwhile, Ken is contemplating getting another dog presumably for Winstons amusement. But I think the real reason is to have something to hold on to during the detox.
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