It is raining again, which California desparately needs and, while I overslept this morning, necessitating my boss having to do my trip to the airport, I learned that I have moved past the space of beating myself up when I make mistakes. Also dicovered this week past that I don't react in a knee-jerk fashion when someone else is having a bad day. This is really nice.
   Busy on some days and not so on others. Yesterday was a busy one, with a large enough break in the middle to allow me to use an extra ticket from my bosses to see a live production at the Community Center: Avenue Q, which is a lot of fun and a bit raunchy in some parts. One of my favorite songs in the show is "We're All a Little Bit Prejudiced";  amen to that.
  Just started reading Caroline Myss' Entering The Castle and it, along with Kathleen Norris' Acedia, is a book which demands attention and slow reading. Slowing down is critical just now: I am struggling emotionally with the need to get my sister on a better financial footing along with the fact my brother is not having any luck getting/finding work and I may be helping support him soon. My mind wants to kick into over-drive, stressing and worrying and running in circles. I KNOW that is productive of nothing except loss of sleep and frayed nerves.
   Crazy, challenging times we are in, economically; there's a huge paradigm shift needed though what that would include, I am not clear. I just think that focusing on getting people 'spending again' won't help: it is what got us where we are. We need a new vision of how to BE on this planet, one where keeping up with the Jones' is viewed as an anomaly rather than the norm.
   I keep asking why I am here. Survival is an answer, though there is a need for more definition. Spending my time running to keep up doesn't cut it and watching others struggle to find meaning in new shopping centers and huge McMansions tells me that isn't the path I want to take either.
   Turning 52 this month is creating space to dig into the age-old questions, not to mention the need.
   Time to find the shovel.

   This will be short: it is 2:30 a.m. and I need to get to bed. Finally got logged in and I'm not sure if the mistake the last time was mine or MySpace's. Whatever.

    Had a first tonight: people smoking in the limo. Even after I asked them to please stop because it would be an added $500 to fumigate the car, the woman who rented the car still lit up. She also said, "Chuck didn't say anything about not smoking."  You need to be told???? I get really irritated with people such as her because by saying, "you didn't tell me," she doesn't have to be responsible for  being just a wee bit considerate of others, such as the driver who doesn't smoke.

   I used a ton of Lysol in the car when I got back to the office; we'll see if it helps. I can handle smoke when it is outside, because I can move away; when I am in an enclosed space, I don't get a choice and that isn't at all nice.

   I'm following the political news from time to time; I didn't get burnt out on the election because I don't have a T.V. On Election Day, I went over to a friend's house to watch the returns and part of the way through, I told her, "I hadn't realized just how depressing these last eight years have been." I voted for Obama, but even McCain might have been okay just because he isn't the idiot in the White House. Of course, then we would have had an idiot for a V.P. .... oy.

  I kept an article from the Sac Bee listing the possibilities for Obama's cabinet; most of them are in the ballpark, but they totally missed the mark with Secretary of State. I realize, the economy, among other areas in our lives, stinks but I am looking forward to the next four years and it's been a LONG time since I looked forward to anything on the political front.

   Bedtime.

  

 

That quote is actually a Chinese curse. And boy howdy are the times interesting!!! Between my own life and the chaos in the world markets I'm not sure I could take much more interesting.  My brother left me a message saying "Hang onto your hats!" turns out he heard someone speak tonight who said we have not yet hit bottom either with the financial crisis, nor with Iraq.... joy.

  Still reading Acedia and Me- I don't get very far, a page or two at a time because there is just so much to think about and write down. Kathleen Norris mentions that many people need some kind of structure in/to their daily lives in order to mantain some semblance of sanity, especially when it comes to working.  I was supposed to start this day with an 11 a.m. trip to Napa, but my boss called last night to say it had been changed to 11 p.m. A number of my friends have said they couldn't handle not knowing when their days off were, or what their schedules were going to be. Me, I swerve with the tide and take what comes. When I first started driving the hardest part was getting out of bed at 2 or 3 a.m. because I don't usually go to sleep before  10 or 11p.m. and learning to function on four hours of sleep was rough. Now, sleeping five hours can fake my brain into thinking its in for some REAL rest, and when I get up I'm seriously groggy.

   I did the 11 p.m. trip last week, so I know I won't get into bed until about 2:45 a.m. This is a repeat passenger who likes my driving, thus I drive him most of the time. Having someone prefer your service is a huge compliment and at the same time can mess up days off....

   Time to get ready for the 10p.m. pick-up.

   This is one of those times when  I have a lot going on internally, yet the words just aren't surfacing, other than this- I am not freaking the way some people are around the events happening in this country,  partly because I don't watch T.V. and thus am not continuously bombarded by the words of panicky people. I've known for a long time that security of any sort is an illusion and thus my life hasn't been built around striving for that particular insanity. I found myself being grateful that I am not one of the folks whose life is spent amassing money only to watch it dissipate like smoke in the wind over the last few weeks. I may not have a lot of cash just now, but what I have is solid, not nebulous ideas floating around in the stock market. We were due for a swing of the pendulum and the point of it is erasing what? money that wasn't actually backed by anything other than someone's say-so.

   And now the words show, just as I'm about to leave! Oh well. C'est la vie.

   

 

 

"Kay, I'm going to whine.

Whine.

   The old maxime about being careful what you ask for has raised its head again. For years I have wondered what the hell I am doing on this planet and what my purpose is, along with just digging out old emotional crap and composting it. For some time I have felt fairly clear on the old baggage- some intense 'work' and therapy  helped lighten the load.

   And yet.

   And yet, there was still SOMETHING. Then a couple of weeks ago, I read an interview in the USA Today: Kathleen Norris has a new book out titled Acedia and Me. What I read in the interview and review intrigued me so I bought the book.

   And now I know what the 'yet' involves. It isn't anything I can talk out of my life or system: acedia is the spiritual cousin to depression, though meds don't help acedia where they CAN help depression. Been there with the depression and stopped the meds when they no longer were helpful. The only thing that appears to work in battling acedia is vigilance and the willingness to spend time double-checking motives and desires and what the hell it is I am telling myself.

    As I sit here writing this, suddenly there is a little light of hope that just went on: yes, what I am reading about is nebulous and nearly indescribable BUT I have the choice as to whether or not I try to get a handle on this spiritually painful emptiness: it will take willingness on my part to address this on a daily basis. I learned about willingness when I went to 12 Step meetings and did the work I needed to do in the confines of those walls. Now I need to refresh my mind about what willingness takes and how to recharge those batteries.

   Onward.

  I seem to be updating this almost as much as the handwritten journal, which goes with me just about everywhere, just in case..

  Interesting choice of McCain's, I think we're in for a bruising election this year. I don't watch T.V. and so missed the Dem convention and will miss the Rep convention. I keep myself updated as much as possible with the local paper and the Internet.

   I'm fascinated with the curious conjunctions which show up while driving. In the last week or so, I have driven people either for a funeral or simply home from the airport to the same area- three or four folks within a half mile square area in town. Today- well, yesterday seeing as how it is 12:34 a.m. Saturday. Anyway, two women, 9 hours apart, coming back from the East Coast after spending at least three weeks training for pharmaceutical (did I spell that correctly?) sales positions. In two different states.

   Last year I drove a women home whose best friend's father had  been arrested for  one godawful accident involving  a DUI: I was one of four limo drivers for the funeral.

  And one gentleman I drive on a regular basis knows one of my former roommates from San Francisco- I haven't seen Jesus since I moved away in 1985.

   I have been avoiding on some level or other, really getting into a 'conversation' with my sister- there is something seriously out of kilter with her mental functions and I need to figure out a way to discuss her finances. She has a chunk of change coming because 1) she inheirited our grandmother's estate and 2) her husband finally divorced her. He got tweaked because she drives without a current license and didn't want her on his insurance: can't blame him. He's a really nice man and is holding onto the money until we figure out how best to protect it for her. Since she is not capable of working this is all the money she has for now. 

  I have also been avoiding finishing a couple of stories. Not sure what is going on underneath the surface, just that there is turmoil and it needs time to settle. I could always push the river and see what happens. There are times when I really enjoy pushing myself, emotionally and spiritually, because I clear crap out of the way. Then there are those times when I simply hide my head in the sand for a while and hibernate.

  I think there is a metaphor hidden in the task my siblings and I ended up doing Thursday night: we had a 'spring' show up a month ago and none of us really thought much about it until I went out to dig a bigger hole so the deer could drink better. The pisces in me really enjoys digging and playing in the mud and there is some serious mud in the wet area: clay like I haven't seen for a long time, plus river-bed rock. Not the rounded, well-worn rocks, but the jagged, squared-off edges of newer rocks: more 'recently' broken. When the house was built in the early 60s, a creek was diverted so the rocks no longer had a chance to be ground down and over the years the plant debris has built up to a depth of at least 6 inches. Anyway, I showed the clay to my siblings and my brother said something about a water pipe, which I didn't believe- it didn't make any sense to have water pipe in that spot. Then again, it doesn't make any sense to have a sudden spring show up during A) the dry season and B) after two dry winters.

   Duh.

   Not to mention a bigger water bill. The penny still didn't drop.

   My brother came out and we started rooting around in the water and sure enough, there's a freakin' pipe there! Turns out to be a classic case of laziness on the part of our parents when the switch was made from well to the local water supply. Rather than put in another pressure valve etc, they hooked the new line to the valve on the well which involved putting the pipe in a weird area. After my brother turned the water off (and showed our sister it wasn't from the well), we all dug in and cleared out a space around the pipe. Found a tree root at least three inches in diamter which had pushed the pipe up a bit and caused the teeny hole. I fired up the chainsaw and took out about 6 inches of root, then we patched the hole. We need to do some research and do a more professional patch job: the one we did is holding for the time being.

  I found I was more unnerved at not being able to turn on the water, than I get when the power goes off.

  I keep going to the movies to see the same film: Mamma Mia!  I've seen it so many times I received a free movie pass. When I called a friend to see if she had seen the movie, she said she had: three times. We went on our fifth time. It is simply a lot of fun. You have to like ABBA's music and I know some folks don't.  I went last week with another friend who hadn't seen it and we both enjoyed it- I find I can watch the film more closely now that I have heard the music s few times and this is one of the few musicals where the music really moves the story along, or explains some of the history of the characters.

  Too, there are actors in the film whom I will go watch anytime: Julie Walters being the number one, followed by Colin Firth. I have always admired Meryl Streep yet had a hard time watching her on screen. I finally realized why: I am uneasy watching because she has behaviors that remind me of me and so I KNOW what the character is feeling inside and I feel exposed.  With this in mind I am going to start re-watching her films; if I can get me out of the way, I think I will be able to appreciate what she has done even more. And this includes at least one more time for Mamma Mia!

  Besides discovering Celtic Storm I found Belind a Carlisle's album Voila: a collection of French standards. Wonderful voice.

     I'm reading 1421 which is about the idea that the Chinese sailed around the world before Columbus even thought about making a trip to the Indies.

  Also reading:

       The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows

        Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde

        Dead Cat Bounce by Sarah Graves

   I think this is a drawback: when I have a couple of hours between trips, I frequently find myself at a Barnes and Noble bookstore. It gets pricey sometimes...

    Time to go home and bed: I'll be getting up around 7 to go to the farmer's market and this is only about 5 hours from now. It will be a quiet weekend and I have the next four days off AND I am finally getting the right headlight repaired on my 1985 Toyota Celica convertible.

  I shall go drop the top and enjoy the ride home.

 

 

 

 

 

One of those days:  First run was to San Francisco airport - after I got back I took a walk around Capitol Park. I spent a while smelling roses in one of the biggest rose gardens I've seen. There was a wedding party there taking photos: I remember  them mainly because most of the group were in black and white. The bridesmaid dresses were black with white trim. One older woman was in a brilliant red dress: pretty memorable group. The next run I did  was for a man from Cedar Rapids, Iowa- our conversation centered around flooding and fires.

    The last trip was picking up a bride and groom and transporting them to a hotel downtown. As usual, I arrived early and a few minutes after a lady in a red dress came out to check that the car had arrived. I recognized the dress and asked, "Were you in Capitol today?"                      

   "Yes".

   When the newlyweds came out I recognized the black and white and, to double-check, asked them.  They had been in the rose garden....

    I'm reading Epitaph for a Peach which is by a second generation Japanese American farmer trying to save the peach orchard his father had planted, after being interred during WWII. After the war, the author's parents worked hard enough to be able to buy an 80 acre parcel of land to farm- I'm learning more about farming from this book...

   Then this afternoon, after the walk, I heard a program on NPR which was about the Japanese Americans in the interrment camps during WWII and how there were two ways to get out of the camps: play baseball or volunteer for the Army.

    I asked the newly wedded couple how they had picked July 4 for their wedding day and among other factors is that her family contains a lot of farmers and this the easiest time for them.

   There was a physical synchronicity with the address for the man from Iowa: the house is a couple of blocks from the cemetary where my parents' ashes are and I decided to go find the headstones. My dad's father is buried there and while Dad's mom isn't there- she donated her body to science- there is a headstone. And I discovered my Great Aunt Nora's grave, which surprised tears from me. I hadn't realized she was buried there. She died when I was 4, so I have no memories of her: I do have some of her effects: she tatted lace edging for pillowcases. There is also a pair she knitted using really TEENY needles.

     I realized today why some people like to go "see" those who are buried: I don't remember where the quote comes from but "The grave's a fine and private place" and so is the cemetary. I drove in  around 7:45 p.m. even though the gates are supposed to be locked at 4 p.m. and wandered around until I found the headstones and then found myself talking to Mom and Dad. A couple of robins were keeping an eye on me, one of them hopping around with a beakful of nest material and the other being vocal about being disturbed in their housing business.

   I tried twice earlier to post something, and accidently lost both blogs. After I dropped the couple at their hotel, I realized I didn't have all of what was needed to make a complete posting: the final piece of synchronicity hadn't been uncovered.

   It is now 1 a.m. and I shall go see if I recall how to drive my car: I have had work cars in my driveway for the last three nights. It can get pretty funny when I try to turn on my headlights and the wiperblades swing into action...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  It is 4:30 a.m. and I just heard from my boss that a run to SF airport has been cancelled. Unfortunately, I was already at the office, because I set the freakin' alarm for 3 instead of 3:30. Oh well, it looks as though I may have the day off because the next run wasn't until the afternoon... And after a trip to the SF airport followed by a run to Tahoe yesterday, a day off won't be unwlecome.

  Took last week off and drove to Studio City to help celebrate a friend's 90th birthday. I hadn't been below Bakersfield on I-5 and I was fascinated looking at the changes in the landscape- Kern county on one side of the highway is agricultural and on the other side looks like high desert.

  I decided not to drive the Grapevine this time, being unfamiliar with the area BUT next time I drive down I will take that route: I really like roads such as that.

  Ohio is drowning and California is on fire....  I drove the birthday lady and her husband home to San Luis Obispo Thursday and west of  Simi Valley as 101 turns north, we saw a fire coming up the backside of a very steep hill, the front of which had a lot of homes on it. Sunday when I left, after stopping at Hearst Castle for the third tour, I drove up Highway 1, hoping there was a road over to 101 before the closure.  The closure is due to a fire that started Saturday afternoon and had burned 2000 acres (it is now over 26,000 acres). That didn't happen, so I had a nice 60 mile drive roundtrip cutting across on 41 below Hearst Castle. Put me home two hours later than I planned.

   On I-5, somewhere in the middle of the state, there were two grass fires in the median strip, then Monday morning I wake to the news that a dry thunder/lightening storm sparked a ton of fires in the northern part of my state. There are over 1000 fires going and the air looks as though it is overcast, though when the sun rises and sets, you KNOW it ain't clouds up there. The air seems a bit clearer, this morning, however there is another storm on the horizon this weekend.

  I am hoping and praying the storm simply passes us by, but the odds of that are slim.

  Finally got to spend time in the garden yesterday- pulled half the pea plants which were looking really pathetic, cut back the snapdragons and enjoyed a beer while I was doing so. The tomato plants have gone berzerk again and who knew tomatillos got so BIG?  The roses are getting ready to put out a second group of blossoms and the artichoke is working on its first  fruit. I'm aiming for a potager-  at least as year-round as I can get it. The snapdragons help: they stayed green all through the winter and frost, which surprised me. I had no clue they would do so well. The chard is getting ready to spew seeds all over the  place and I have radishes, cress and green onions coming up. My brother planted three or four different kinds of seeds before he left on a trip last month: the Chinese mustard was really boring to eat, though the seed pods are intriguing, the green onions are doing well as are the dill and parsnips. There is also a row of something which resembles parsnips, but we know he had four seed packets. He threw the packaging away and I can't find the plot map we had so there is a surprise waiting for us....

   Purchased another copy of  'Bread and Tulips' which is a wonderful Italian romantic-comedy. I haven't seen the movie in a few years and it is a lot of fun.  I bought a copy a long time ago, without having seen the movie first, because of one of the actors- Bruno Ganz. He is German and I first saw him in Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire which is a stunningly beautiful movie, not to mention thought-provoking. Wings also has another amazing actor- Peter Falk playing himself....  I am waiting for the movie Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day to come out on DVD: another marvelous romantic-comedy, this one with Frances McDormand and Ciaran Hinds.

   5:15.... I think I will go home and go back to sleep for a while. I'll know around noon whether I need to come back for the afternoon run. One really nice aspect about my bosses is they think about such things as having me drive 30 minutes one way for a one hour run.

   Next month, there's another road-trip in the works, this one with my older sister. We're heading north to Arcata and Eureka. I'm just hoping the roads will be open, otherewise we will be taking a detour: the fires have closed more roads up north.

 

 

  Am I being too picky? Just went looking into blog groups- besides driving I read a lot and I write short stories and poetry- found a couple of groups with intriguing titles . One has two members one of whom has their blog set to private. I don't mind that so much as why join a group if others can't see what you are writing? The next blog has some atrocious spelling errors and I have a horrible time reading when the spelling sucks.... c'est la vie. I don't have to read it. I'll just stick to this for now and later, see what else I can find.

  There was a headline in the news today about some teenagers who decided to have a party in the house Robert Frost lived in and they trashed the place. Part of the sentence is attending a class on poetry... the first poem used is The Road Less Traveled.

  Another funeral today, another vet: this one Navy. The service was today and the burial will be tomorrow as the cemetary was booked today: it is the same one I wrote about a few days ago and the backlog is building. 

   Crazy group Saturday: I picked them up at 1:30 in the afternoon and we stopped at so many bars I didn't drop them until 1:30 in the morning. With an hour travel time on both ends it was a 14 hour trip.  Nice folks; seriously ripped though. I was amazed at their coherence at the end of the night...

    One thing about driving- I get a lot of time to read and I finished Jeffrey Archer's prison Diaries early Sunday morning. I zoomed through them and will now re-read them much more slowly.

   Time to go do the last run of the night.

 

 

  I drive for a living: it can be a fascinating and exhausting job. Exhausting both physically and emotionally. Yesterday I drove for the funeral of a vet. 64 years old -he died of brain cancer. His sisters and brothers (there had been ten and they are down to six now) were in the car I drove. Really sweet people who handled the death of their oldest brother with grace. One of the sisters told me their parents are dead, the two oldest sisters and now the oldest brother. I mentioned that my parents are also dead and my last grandparent died a few months short of her 100th birthday. For the longest time, my grandmother was a physical and emotional horizon and it is a strange feeling knowing my siblings  are the horizon now. Yes, I have aunts and uncles, but directly ahead of us, so to speak, there is no one anymore and I get unnerved by the thought from time to time.

   Anyway, the funeral. There is a new veterans cemetary in Dixon not far from Sacramento: it opened about two years ago and I have heard they are now doing up to 16 ceremonies a day. The folks I drove had a time of 1 p.m. and when we arrived at 12:55, there was a service just finishing up, plus another hearse with about 10 cars behind them waiting. Just before we drove up to the covered area where the services are held, another hearse drove up followed by 15 cars or more.

  When I first drove out there,  about a year ago, there was a hand-made sign announcing the entrance to the cemetary which I missed and drove past... oooops. (The people were really nice then too.)  There weren't any headstones up yet, though there were a lot stacked up next to each other. The office was a portable building, standing out there in the middle of the valley surrounded by mostly flat land with a few gentle swells in it.

   There is now a permanent sign, a flag at continual half-mast and row upon row of headstones. The building is still temporary, though I think they added another to enlarge it, plus a couple more behind. The staging area for the services was the first area finished. The land, at least 500 acres, was donated by a man who has a couple of thousand acres including a fruit orchard across the road.

   It is a nice place for a cemetary: nearly flat land in the Sacramento Valley, with the beginning of the Coast Range in the west, headstones beginning to stretch in  many directions,  big Rainbird sprinklers softly knocking their stream of water in circles. A breeze picked up the mist and carried it in our direction, leaving a cool feeling .

  When we finally  drove up to the covered area, the people got out and I turned off the limo so there was silence. I stood near the car watching the ceremony and for the first time I did not feel as though I was intruding or that the service was dumb. Who knows why I thought they were dumb? probably it was more my own immaturity and uncomfortableness with the ritual of burial than anything else. I know that as I stood there, I finally had a glimpse of why people need this, especially the idea of being out under open skies.

   There is another cemetary in Elk Grove which isn't on the map, but is one of the oldest ones in the area. About 10 years ago it was cleaned up, refurbished and put back into use. It too is out in the open on the top of a small rise which makes  for a great view as the surrounding area is pretty flat-- a lot of Sacramento is flat. I know I like being out in the open like that and I imagine the people who visit the graves get a feeling of the expansiveness of the Universe there.  At the same time, there is a peacefulness there, which is also evident in the cemetaries under trees.  I think I prefer the ones with the view....

Brain is tired and it is time to go home and to bed. Finished two of Jeffrey Archer's books in the last two days  and I will start the third one tomorrow.

Damn. Did it again- lost what I had written and I don't have time to re-do it.

oh, well.