30 Questions to ponder

"30 Questions That Will Change the Way You Think About the World" (...and Yourself)
By Alex Wain, HuffPost

1. How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are? 
   Forty. Old enough to be taken seriously, young enough to have plenty of time left.
2. Which is worse, failing or never trying? Never trying, assuming it's worth trying, which is a judgement call one periodically should make.
3. When it’s all said and done, will you have said more than you’ve done? 
   In the past, yes. Now I talk a lot less and do more. A good friend made my day recently when he called me "proactive."
4. What is the one thing you’d most like to change about the world? 
   More active compassion, for starters.
5. Are you doing what you believe in, or are you settling for what you are doing? 
   Now more than ever, I'm doing what I believe in. There's more I'd like to do, but I'm being patient with myself.
6. To what degree have you actually controlled the course your life has taken? 
   Quite a bit, nowadays. The early years, I seemed to leave those decisions to someone else. I was waiting for permission.
7. Are you more worried about doing things right, or doing the right things? 
   About equal. I want to do what I deem to be the right things, rightly. Hate to do things over.
8. If you could offer a newborn child only one piece of advice, what would it be? 
   Stop that screaming!
9. Would you break the law to save a loved one? 
   Probably, as long as no one is harmed.
10. Have you ever seen insanity where you later saw creativity? 
    Sure, right here.
11. What’s something you know you do differently than most people? 
    I almost never drink alcohol, very seldom eat out, very seldom travel, don't like to shop, believe in a Higher Power without believing in the church, enjoy being alone. 
12. How come the things that make you happy don’t make everyone happy? 
    Because I'm getting what I want. What I value are skills gained from study and practice, not material things. If everybody was like me, the consumer culture would take a nosedive. 
13. What one thing have you not done that you really want to do? What’s holding you back? 
    One of the things I want to learn how to do this year is write songs. See #5.
14. Do you push the elevator button more than once? Do you really believe it makes the elevator faster? 
    I used to push it and go back and push it again. Now once is enough. No, I never believed it sped up the elevator.
15. Why are you, you? 
    I am me because I never wanted to be anybody else.
16. Have you been the kind of friend you want as a friend? 
    I think I've been a pretty good friend in my later years. I used to let friendships fade away, not believing anyone would miss me.
17. Would you rather lose all of your old memories, or never be able to make new ones? 
    As long as my brain functions I can make new memories. 
18. Is it possible to know the truth without challenging it first? 
    Some truths do require challenging. I have a habit (which annoys some people) of asking, "How do you know that?" 
19. Has your greatest fear ever come true? 
    Not yet.
20. At what time in your recent past have you felt most passionate and alive? 
    Learning to make music and playing music with friends. Quite a rush.
21. If not now, then when? 
    Maybe when I finish this list.
22. If you haven’t achieved it yet, what do you have to lose? 
    A lot of time fretting over not having achieved it.
23. Have you ever been with someone, said nothing, and walked away feeling like you just had the best conversation ever? 
    No, but it sounds very restful.
24. When was the last time you marched into the dark with only the soft glow of an idea you strongly believed in? 
    I'm doing that now. Well, I wouldn't call it marching. More like sauntering.
25. If you knew that everyone you know was going to die tomorrow, who would you visit today? 
    If everybody knew that, there's a good chance nobody would be home. I think I'd use the phone.
26. Would you be willing to reduce your life expectancy by 10 years to become extremely attractive or famous? 
    No
27. What is the difference between being alive and truly living? 
    I've experienced both. Truly living gets me out of bed in the morning, keeps the TV off, reduces in importance the make-work and mind-distractions I used to waste my time on. Keeps me focused. Reminds me to be grateful.
28. What would you do differently if you knew nobody would judge you? 
     I'd stop wearing a bra, the last uncomfortable item of clothing I own.
29. When was the last time you noticed the sound of your own breathing? 
    Often. I have a lung condition and when I can breathe well (which right now is most of the time) it really feels good.
30. Decisions are being made right now. The question is: Are you making them for yourself, or are you letting others make them for you? 
    I can't think of anyone who makes decisions for me anymore. Unless you count the government.

These are my answers. And I'd love to see yours...

Giving up Sugar

Sugar is a very small white cat I rescued last week and hoped to adopt. She's barely out of kittenhood, probably not full-grown, and had three kittens of her own this spring. Must have gotten pregnant with her first heat.

Now I'm hoping to find her a good home because the Capt is allergic to her. Not to our other cat, Fé. He didn't start having symptoms until Sugar moved in with us. It may just be critical mass of cat hair has brought it on.

I could take the option of returning her where I found her, now that she has been spayed, and she would have a better life than she would have had before (litter after litter). She has a sibling that looks just like her, that is being fed by a maid who works at the house next door to the empty duplex where they were abandoned. But I'd rather find her a home because she is litterbox-trained, very friendly and affectionate, definitely not a feral cat.

All that suppressed passivity can be liberated tomorrow

Although war has been declared on the passive voice by teachers and writing coaches for decades, the deliberate use of passive voice could be considered a challenging exercise, after all that rigorous training in its avoidance.

A tradition was begun April 27 by Shaun, on (as might be expected) Shaun's Blog, to wit:

"It has again been decided that April 27th will be passive voice day. Fun will be had by everybody as the passive voice is used for tweets, blogs, and casual conversation. The active voice will be frowned upon. The hashtag #passivevoiceday should be used when passive voice is used in social media, so the fun can be shared by all. 

Why is this being done? Simple. It’s considered fun. No point is being made. It’s just enjoyed when things are taken to an absurd extreme. 

It is hoped we will be joined by you, and that the word will be spread to everybody known."

It is regretted this blogger was unaware of this important event occurring April 27, but there is no law against a repetition of it for our amusement.

Therefore, tomorrow, Saturday, May 19, 2012, has been chosen by this blogger for this historic re-event. It is expected that many entertaining examples will be produced by those of us who can be bothered with the task. It is fervently hoped that the inner passivity of bloggers, tweeters and correspondents everywhere will be unleashed for tomorrow's scribbles only. Any examples deemed appropriate would be most welcome here.

Sunday, it is expected that the active voice will once again be adhered to in all writing. You have been warned.

Hissy Fits

Sugar and the Sugarbabies

There's a whole lot of hissing going on around here since I brought in a new foster cat last week. Sugar, the new girl, is hardly bigger than an adolescent kitten, but she has already had a litter. Thankfully, both her offspring went off together to a new home. Today she will be spayed, so her littering days are over and she can just be a cat from now on.

Fé, whose name is Spanish for Faith

Fé, a grande dame-size feline that I took in last fall, is not playing gracious hostess to this interloper. We divided the house in half, and made the kitchen/living room Sugar's domain and the bedroom/studio Fé's stomping grounds to help Fé get over her queen-size pique. That didn't last long. Now Sugar and Fé take turns sleeping with us.

Chica the dog is getting along fairly well with both, although she snaps if Sugar gets interested in the tennis balls. We had several foster dogs last year, so she's probably happier with this arrangement, maintaining her status as Queen Dog.

Rescuing cats involves a loosely-organized network of foster families that will take them. Fostering works better for cats anyway, we believe, since collecting felines in a building or room together until they reach critical mass usually leads to a lot of illnesses, and the cats don't get sufficiently socialized to help them become adoptable. I'm hoping to learn some tips for helping cats adapt to fostering, and integrating foster cats into households with other pets. Any ideas are always welcome.

Of course, there's always the risk that taking in a foster cat will lead to bonding with the cat and becoming emotionally unprepared to adopt her out. I'm determine that's not going to happen here. Although...she has the prettiest green eyes, and she's SO affectionate...

Shopping with a conscience

I'm having a dose of guilt with my morning coffee. I'm making up a shopping list and there are several items I want that can't be found at the little local stores.  Time to hit the supermercado.

My shopping preferences are changing the character of the town I live in.

In the last six months, two family-owned local stores closed here in our town, where a traffic light has yet to be installed. The direct cause of these failures is the sudden appearance of two chain stores: a Ley Express and a Santa Fe, not to mention a Walmart and a Sam's Club that opened a couple of years ago in nearby Guaymas.

Granted, one of the closed markets was the Fruteria, which was located several blocks from the main traffic center, had despite its name a rather motley selection of fruits and vegetables, and obscenely high prices for the meats at their old fashioned butcher counter. So when the Fruteria closed there was barely a ripple of concern. But then Izzie's (a five-minute walk from my house) shut its doors last week and although they hinted it might be only temporary, we are pretty sure it's history. Izzie's had a reputation for good meats, and it was possible to request hard-to-get items like brown rice and coconut ice cream, but their produce section was tiny, the store was dark and its aisles narrow. The big stores look much more inviting.

We are left with two endangered family-owned stores in town: Santa Rosa Market (Izzy's sister store, which trades heavily on the quality of its meats although the buzz is that they're not what they used to be) and a tiny market miles from the center of town that specializes in bringing in goods you never see in Mexico, such as Costco products, almond butter, sugarless peanut butter, and dark molasses, in response to local requests. Everyone is keeping their fingers crossed that these two markets will survive the summer, even though we're doing most of our shopping at Ley now. Meanwhile the Mexicans here are patronizing Santa Fe. Apparently everybody, gringo and Mexican, prefers the selection and atmosphere of a big box store, but we don't want to see the little guys go under, so a cloud of guilt over our own hypocrisy diminishes our pleasure in shopping.

On the local internet forum are those who hate the big stores, complaining about their enormous signs and their effect on traffic (especially Santa Fe, which is smack in the middle of Dysfunction Junction, a six-point intersection that begs for that still-in-the-future traffic light). Then there are customers who praise the new supermarkets to the skies. You can get everything on your list at Ley, they marvel. During the fall/winter/early spring season our population is more than 50% North American, so it's no surprise the new US-style stores were a hit. But already some are expressing concern that the local economy might not be able to support them through the summer, and they too might fail.

What pushed my guilt button this morning was an article in the New York Times about how Vermont is attempting to keep out the big box stores to preserve their "Vermontiness." Similar gripes were heard around here when our beloved beach town was altered forever by the appearance of the two big stores, but Vermont hasn't caved, except in the case of the dollar stores that have slipped in here and there. I have to concede that I like the small-town character we used to enjoy, just as the Vermonters treasure their village charm...the cupolas, wood siding, faux hayloft doors and peaked roofs. I remember a town in California near where I used to live, Mendocino, where the same kind of atmosphere was rigorously preserved, to the delight of tourists, who could pretend they had stepped back in time. The place oozed charm and historical character. There were only two grocery stores: a market established more than 50 years ago and a natural foods co-op. But if you wanted to fulfill a long grocery list, you went to Safeway in nearby Ft. Bragg. It wasn't just the variety available at the bigger store, but the difference in price: why would you pay a dollar for an apple when you could get it for fifty cents? Especially if you needed a dozen apples!

I'd like to be able to settle for what's available locally, especially if the smaller stores would cater to our preferences. I'd feel better about myself as a conscientious consumer. But I'm not holding my breath. More likely those stores will close too. And then we will be stuck with whatever the big chain stores want to sell us, at whatever price, which is probably what we deserve.

The woman she was

This is my first  Mother's Day without my mother.

Last year, I didn't call or send a gift or Mother's Day card, because I doubted she'd know who it was from. In her final decade she slipped gradually into the darkness of Alzheimer's and I could only keep in my memory the woman she was, with all her funny quirks and fears and admirable traits, her stylishness, her perpetual hunger for self-improvement, her admiration for TV evangelists and adoration for cats.


She was the youngest of eight, child of a hardworking farmer and a mother so tired of children she had little of herself left to give the last baby. Mom went to school in town and came home every day to tend sheep. She grew up painfully shy, and yet she had her moments. I still have a photo of her as a princess in a school play, surrounded by her prince and courtiers. At nineteen she had her own little cafe in the family tradition of self-employment. Then one day my dad came in for a cup of coffee...

She made doll clothes for our dolls and designed lookalike outfits for us. When I was ten she went back to school, learned shorthand and typing, and worked as a secretary. She sang along with the radio while she ironed and I played on the floor under the ironing board; decades later the lyrics to all those old songs are embedded in my brain. With my stepfather's band, she sang at my junior prom in an evening gown she made herself.

She made the best lemon meringue pie I ever had, even though she didn't like to cook.

She didn't want children, but when my sister and I came along she did her best to mother us, without much of a clue how to go about it, a fact she conceded after we were grown.  Still, I learned more from her, including what to do and what not to do, than any other woman in my life.

Whenever I accomplish something I'm proud of, in the back of my mind I hear her applause. I see her features when I look at my reflection, but I no longer resent the resemblance as I did for years. Now I'm grateful she gave me good genes.

Happy Mother's Day, Mama.

Proud to be (half) Dutch

Photo: Isra Garcia's blog

Depending on your viewpoint, you might consider Holland innovative, revolutionary or just plain nutty, with their cannabis cafes and Rossebuurts (red light districts), legal euthanasia, the government buying of art to support the artists even though they end up warehousing it.

But today I noticed something the Dutch government is helping support that really warmed my heart. I can picture my dear departed Dutch daddy looking on with pride, because he so enjoyed fixing things in his garage workshop. In Holland, when you have something that needs repair, you don't have to toss it. You can take it to a Repair Cafe.

A journalist named Martine Postma came up with the Repair Cafe Foundation in 2009, and it has caught fire, attracting support financial from other foundations, small donors and the government, which supplied a grant of $525,000. Skilled tinkerers who just enjoy fixing things come together with people who want to learn how and everybody wins (except maybe the manufacturers who encourage consumers to buy new goods whenever the old ones malfunction).

Photo: the Make Handmade Blog

So far, 20 volunteer groups throughout Holland have set up shop in rented spaces for the purpose of rehabilitating everything from busted zippers to dead cell phones and computer chargers. The goal is 50 Repair Cafes by 2014.

Now Ms. Postma works for the foundation full-time, touring the country and advising volunteers who want to set up their own Repair Cafes on how to obtain funding, get organized and set up shop. Together they're striking a blow against planned obsolescence. What a concept!

Will it catch on? We can only hope so. So far she has had inquiries from France, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Ukraine as well as from South Africa and Australia. And since an article appeared Tuesday in the New York Times, it might go viral.

Daddy would have loved it.