Category Archives: Posts

An explanation for TP hoarding: the howling skitters

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I can’t drive through Salinas California without thinking of John Steinbeck and how hated he was in his own home town.  It’s something all writers deal with if they are truthful. For those of you unfamiliar with Steinbeck, Salinas is a medium sized town at the northern end of the one of the most agriculturally rich valleys in the world. We drive through it often on our way from the SF Bay Area to Southern California where my daughter lives.  For most of the year it’s an incomparable drive. Mile after mile of farmland growing up the fog-ridged hills that separate the inland from the coast.  Just off the highway are small towns where you can stop and get authentic Mexican tacos or a bag of fruit and vegetables fresh from the farm.

 But Steinbeck did not write a pastoral.  No, he wrote about how, in cramped and desperate conditions, using more than your fair share of toilet paper could bring your family shame.  Let me explain.

Just before Christmas I found a well-used copy of Grapes of Wrath while collecting books to donate to the library.  I’d just read Travels with Charlie and hungered for more Steinbeck, an author whom I hadn’t read since high school.  Travels is an easy and relaxing read; apropos for a long plane ride.  Grapes has now taken me three months and I’m not yet finished.  Each chapter deserves a second, sometimes third reading.  It’s that good.

If you’ve never read the book or seen the movie, it’s set at the end of the Great Depression.  The Joad family are hardworking, proud though simple farmers forced from their land in Oklahoma by crop failures and the greed of large agricultural interests. They set out for California just hoping for a fair chance to earn a decent living.

Once in the Salinas Valley, they’re treated as sub-humans which is probably why Steinbeck couldn’t set foot in that town again.  They are forced to live in labor camps where the rules are made by the occupants.  Many of the rules involve sanitation huts which must service a number of families.    

Jessie (“big committee lady”) to Ma Joad:

“We got our trouble with toilet paper.  Rule says you can’t take none away from here.” She clicked her tongue sharply “Whole camp chips in for toilet paper.”  For a moment she was silent, and then she confessed. “Number Four is usin’ more than any other.  Somebody’s a-stealin’ it.” 

Later the “confessor” explains why her family’s been using more than their fair share:

“Skitters.  All five of ‘em [her daughters]. We been low on money. They et the green grapes.They all five got the howling skitters.”

I’m not saying that the TP hoarders all read The Grapes of Wrath and are now afraid of facing the apocalypse having to share a toilet with strangers, particularly if food runs out and they’re forced to eat green grapes and get the “howling skitters.”  I think it comes from a deeper fear of being shamed for your toilet habits. If you’ve got a mountain of TP you can use as much as you want without “big committee lady” casting shame on you.

But then, I’m always full of it!

I Will Be Home

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I think the phrase from this post that most haunts me is “I lie in the dark.”

tin hats

I once went out a few times with the great-granddaughter of General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez, the ex-President of El Salvador.  She told me stories about how crazy he was, unless you were crazy, and then he was perfectly sane, and then she asked, “So, are you crazy?”

One day General Martínez looked out the palace window and saw a campesino drop in the street.  He didn’t think too much about it and turned back towards a group of ministers huddled over a table.  They were looking at the location of Indian villages and discussing how they might launch another massacre of the Pipil people.  The man lying in the street was eventually carried away to the hospital, where he died that night of smallpox.

The smallpox spread through San Salvador rapidly.  General Martínez declared a national emergency and ordered colored lights to be hung from houses and placed in parks. …

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Welcome To The Apocalypse

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An interesting perspective of our current predicament.

The Apocalypse Tribune

The Ides of March seem as good a time as any to start this. Known by most as the date of Caesar’s assassination in 44 BC, the Ides Of March was also regarded by the Romans as the date of settling debts. In a society where collective and individual debt is rampant, it seems appropriate the way of life most Americans have grown accustomed to in the past 70+ years appears to be, if not coming to an end, at least entering a period of extreme disruption and inconvenience.

The coronavirus (COVID-19) is here, it’s deadly, and with no human immunity developed against it, it has the potential to spread and wreak havoc on a scale incomprehensible to far too many people. There is no shortage of data, models, graphs, charts, or information on what this virus is and what type of potential it has. Not to mention recent evidence…

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Stay Home #ThursdayDoors

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Following the advice of WHO and in solidarity with the lovely people of Italy, I am in self-quarantine until, of course, we run out of gin.  So today, I’m inviting you to my house ….

Come a little closer; I won’t bite …

This solid wood door was originally a dull shade of beige but then I discovered Beet Bonanza Delight. The Jade plant to the side has endured all sorts of torture, including lack of sun but is still holding on.  Amazing.  The figure greeting you at the door with the ears and the antlers is a reindeer, of course, left over from a Christmas long ago. He actually provides a good place to hang wet garden gloves, tools and umbrellas.

Swinging from the lamp is Guard Toad First Class, Edmond Von Petty.  He has ESP.

If he senses that you have a black heart or want money, his chimes begin to quiver in warning to Greta Gecko who wishes to keep her rank a mystery.

Since you all  have golden hearts and want no money from me (I hope), you may press Greta’s button without fear of being zapped.

Have you brought your card?  Well, there’s always room on the fridge.

Door to my fridge.

Yes, I’m one of those crazy people who tacks everything on her frig.

I also planted an Australian fern right next to the front door because I love ferns.

Unfortunately these ferns can reach 16 feet high and wide. He’s also very affectionate and so watch out as you leave!

Sorry you have to go so soon but I know you have other doors to check out over at Norm’s Place.   Come again.

I’m so sorry, Mr. Rogers

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In the morning, while waiting for my brain to de-thaw from the long winter of sleep I turn on the television and watch a movie or documentary. Generally not for very long.  Just long enough to dissipate the residue of unsettling dreams.  This morning I watched part of a documentary about Fred Rogers called Won’t you be my Neighbor?  I used to think watching Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood with my toddler was worse than eight hours at a miserable job but you know, he was a decent guy. I sure wish we had him around today to help children cope with the schism in this country.  I wonder what he would say. “Children, the world has seen evil men before and many millions of people have died but that doesn’t mean that you’re not special.”

A cat of entirely different stripes, Captain Kangaroo, was the reason my father finally allowed a boob tube in our house. My little sister’d fallen in love with the show and she always got what she wanted because she was “special,” aka, a champion pouter who could and would hide under the bed and refuse to eat until she got her way.

Would you let your child watch this man every morning?

By that time I was a teenager and so warned my parents that Lizzie’s fixation with Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Green Jeans would warp her forever but, did they listen to me?  No.  And so she’s been married nineteen times. I guess she thinks there’s a man out there somewhere who likes to talk to stuffed animals and is not some kind of pervert. 

Back to my apology, Fred Rogers had amazing will power.  He swam a mile every single day and maintained the exact same weight for most of his adult life.  He could also focus his attention one hundred percent on listening to young children.  Have you ever tried to listen to a toddler for longer than a few minutes?

Apparently he wasn’t fond of Eddie Murphy’s brilliant satire: Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood:

But there are pictures of the two men embracing in later years. Do you think Trump will ever embrace Alec Baldwin?

Image from Bing images

I’ve consolidated a series of posts I wrote back in 2014 into a page called  A Dummies Guide to Innocent Spouse Relief.   If you have any interest in how wacky tax code is here in the US, check it out.  

Enjoy already

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In Northern California where I live we are having the most incredible weather.  Sunny and springlike days, no wind, no fog, no smog so why am I so glum?  Because it’s supposed to be raining!  Plants are dying.  The whole bloody month of February has been bone dry and in the 70s.  If it stays this way, by summer we’ll all be dead.

Well, probably not but we won’t have enough water to shower daily or wash the car.  These grassy hills will turn brown. Trees, wither and droop sadly to the ground.

However, that could all change.  The high pressure driving storms north of us could weaken and then we would be back to misery of endless rain.   So why not just enjoy the good weather like this family?

Because in the United States we have the stupidest president imaginable. Any person with a head still on should be able to defeat him in the next election.  And yet, like the lack of rain in California, there seems to be a lack of common sense amongst the people running against him. They’re all infinitely smarter than him.  They’re all infinitely more trustworthy than him.  They’re all at least … human.

Okay, Grandpa Bernie has been claiming for decades that America could be just like Canada or Denmark or Sweden!  Or even Germany.  All we have to do is tax the insanely rich.  It’s not that far left.  He’s not Fidel Castro. He’s said how he’ll pay for Medicare for All but he can’t provide exact numbers because it’s never been attempted.  Just like the frigging rain in California.  It might return, it generally does but what if it doesn’t?  It has been done successfully in other countries.  I’ve been to those countries.  They are not like Cuba or even Russia.

Next, Boss Bloomberg’s big mouth. People make remarks in the workplace every day that someone finds offensive. I had a boss who could not construct a sentence without using some form of the word “fuck.”  He used it as a noun, adjective, adverb, in prayers to God, meetings with important clients, and even when blowing out the candles on his birthday cake.  But he was an uber generous man who believed everyone – janitor, secretary, CEO – deserved an equal voice and respect and so complaints to Human Resources about his “inappropriate” language generally got filed in the trash can. Do we really care if Richie Rich makes an inappropriate joke every now and then?  Compared to what we got now, no.

So my ballot’s been sitting on the counter untouched, like the electric bill for a freezing month that you just don’t want to open.  Spoiler alert. I’m leaning toward Uncle Joe.

 

The Neutering of Jane Austen

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I was going to wait until Masterpiece Theater’s version of Sanditon (Jane Austen’s final novel) finally ended before completing my review (begun here) but they’re stretching out the plot like one of those Netflix shows that go on season after season until you realize you’ve been sucked into a damned soap opera. One that will go forever and ever, long after the original stars have died and been reborn and now fight twins who swap brains, obsessive orangutan nurses, and dolls that come to life.

Vampire actors are perfect for Soaps as they never die! They can go on and on and on. But Jane Austen heroines?

Jane Austen only finished eleven chapters of Sanditon before she died and so all of the characters and plot twists had to fleshed out by other authors, based on what she “laid out for them.” After eleven chapters, you can often guess where an author is headed.  But, by the end of the eleventh chapter of Pride and Prejudice (Austen’s most revered work)  we hadn’t even met Mr. Collins. 

For those you who’ve never seen a production of Pride and Prejudice, of which there have been many, he’s the distant cousin who, by reason of an archaic system of patriarchy,  will eventually kick the heroine (Elizabeth Bennett), all of her sisters, and their widowed mother to the curb, leaving them homeless.  Unless, of course, they marry.  Marriage in Austen’s time was the only way for respectable women to leave their parents and take their place in society and what better way to illustrate that injustice than by creating Mr. Collins, a man in whom “the deficiency of nature had been little assisted by education or society …’’ 

Yup, in jolly ole England even a man who was a pompous nitwit was worth more than a sensible woman and you gotta bet Austen wasn’t too happy about that!  So how did the writers who took on the task of completing her last, unfinished novel deal with that anger?  Well, they neutered it. Charlotte Heyward isn’t looking for a husband nor does she seem too worried about a future without one.  Heh? 

I had not read Sanditon in decades so I couldn’t really claim that  the screen writers were taking obscene liberties with her work. Luckily the story is only 66 pages long and so I reread it last night.  I won’t bore those of you who could give a figgy pudding about Sanditon or Austen or even Masterpeeve Theatre any further but, I wasn’t wrong.

Anyway, today’s Valentine’s Day and here in Northern California we’re seeing the first glimpse of green which to me is a romantic sight.

The Galloping Gerties

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Last week a friend of mine shared this video from Saturday Night Live.

If you don’t have time to watch, it’s about elderly people who like to argue with voice automation. The final solution to the problem is an Uh-huh feature that allows Grandpa to have the last word every, single time.  It’s brilliant.

If only my GPS had been equipped with that feature when I tried to drive my ninety year-old mother to her new lawyer’s … I probably wouldn’t have gotten that three day migraine.

GPS: Turn right on McCarran.
Mother to the GPS: I don’t think so!  I’ve lived here for fifty years and …
GPS: Uh-huh.
Me: I can’t hear the directions Mother. Please…
Mother angrily:  Suit yourself.  But don’t ask me for help when we get lost.   I’ll just sit back and shut up. I’m just warning you and this will be the last time.  Yes sirree. Don’t expect me to say anything because I won’t and then we’ll be lost and we’ll be late and I’ll never go anywhere with you again!  You can depend on that. Yes, sirree.
GPS: Uh-huh

I wish I could say my days of technological bewilderment are far in the future, but alas, that would be a slight exaggeration.  Well, perhaps not slight. A few days ago I found myself at the Apple Store with a problem I hoped could be solved by a new battery. I was too early to be “checked in” for the appointment I’d made with one of their “genius squad” and so decided to take a look at some of the hundreds of new machines on display.

Alas, my inability to adapt to rapidly evolving technology didn’t manifest until I reached the iPads. Thinking they were just like my iPhone I began randomly poking the screen and something called Galloping Gertie’s All Star Girlie Flicks opened.  Yikes!  I thought, where the devil is the home button or the X to close the damn thing?  I tried the back icon, the forward icon and anything in between and yet all I got were page after page of porno flicks for rent.  “Let me out, you damn Gerties!” I shouted, which got the attention of the intern geniuses tasked with protecting iPads from stubborn old farts who think they know what they’re doing.

“How do I close Galloping Gerties?”
“You swish.”
“I swish?  Sort of like a magic wand?”  I attempted swishing and a bright flash went off, temporarily blinding me. When vision returned, there on the screen was an ungodly close up of my shriveled visage. “Get that horrid thing off the screen!” I screamed.   

“You have swished too much.  You must practice your swishing.” 

Finally my swishing skills are adequate (although I can’t imagine using an iPad after  a couple of glasses of wine!) and the geniuses inform me it’s time for my appointment with my special genius. They then text my description to the genius and tell me to sit on a box.  A few minutes later I hear my name called.  (I don’t think they sent my physical description, do you?  Otherwise why would my special genius also call my name?  I bet they sent a warning.  Your next appointment is with a neurotic old bat named Jan. Good luck.) 

Unfortunately the news is not good.  Apple isn’t allowed by state law (??) to fix seven year old machines.  They don’t tell you this when you make the appointment and I think the answer is obvious. Buy, buy, buy. 

I hate to tell them but access to Galloping Gertie’s isn’t going to convince me to buy another Apple!  

 

Being a single mother is a brutal plot twist

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Over the weekend I watched the movie American Woman.  The heroine (Deb) is a single woman in her early thirties who lives with her teenage daughter across the street from what’s left of her family in a working class town in Pennsylvania.  Deb has a job in some kind of big box store, smokes, drinks and has affairs with married men. She is a mess and her daughter, who’s just had a baby boy out of wedlock, seems to be following in her footsteps.

Deb is not a bad mother.  She’s just a pretty girl who got pregnant at sixteen and now grabs whatever fun she can regardless of consequences. Are there opportunities available to her that she’s not taking advantage of?  We really don’t know.  We only see her family becoming increasingly aggravated with her behavior.  Until … enter the cruel plot twist. 

The movie skips over a period of years to show Deb’s painful crawl toward a more socially acceptable lifestyle.  Finally, another cruel plot twist (this one expected) and she has enough self-confidence to leave town with her then teenage grandson.

I grew up in a gambling town. Many of my friends had single, working class mothers. Those with good legs worked as cocktail waitresses (better tips), those who were good at math were dealers, and those with no particular skills worked as maids or waitresses.  The casinos were open twenty-four hours, seven days a week, and holidays which gave them more flexibility in their working hours.  Men were generally bad news and the smart women preferred to go it alone depending on neighbors, who also worked at the clubs, for childcare help.

Mapes Hotel/Casino where my mom worked.

I guess there is a plus side to living in a gambling town.  But don’t make me say it twice. 

Here’s what bothered me about American Woman.  Being a single mother at any age is a brutal plot twist but being a teenage single mother is especially brutal. You don’t need to throw in the loss of a child to make their transformation acceptable to your audiences. 

Here’s the point that should have been made and wasn’t: American women who find themselves in Deb’s situation (for whatever reason) get no help from the government and are often blamed for the situation they are in.  I didn’t become a single mother until I was in my late thirties and had a college education.  Unless you have strong family support, it’s a brutal plot twist.

 

Gads – sounds like a stumping speech for Elizabeth Warren, doesn’t it?  It isn’t.  I’m still undecided.  But she does have a point.