Tuesday, September 10, 2013

A Mind Run Amok

Memory Touring

At the end of My Dinner With Andre Wally takes a cab back to his cold apartment and as he looks through the window at the storefronts passing by, he remembers certain moments in his life.  There he is getting an ice cream cone with friends at a drug store, there he is meeting his father outside a restaurant, there he is with his mother buying a suit, etc.  It remains one of my favorite movie moments.

But lately I've been having the same experience and I'm not sure what I think about it.  In the film, Wally's memory tour perfectly illustrates how our ephemeral lives progress from one patch of holy ground to the next.  However, my actual memory tour keeps sending mixed messages, all of them troubling.  Have I moved into my personal home stretch, as it were, and I'm trying to make some sort of final accounting?  Has my mind just totally run amok, grasping at random memories like so many straws?  And most disturbing, what am I to think when I can remember losing a hubcap twenty-five years ago at the intersection of Hampden and Wadsworth, but I can't remember the errand that has placed me at said intersection in the first place?

Franny, Ken, Willa, and Cheese moved some time ago from their old place close to Sloan's Lake to a nifty little Victorian in the general area of 38th and Lowell.  That is what started this whole thing.  In order to get there, I have to drive by a lot of old stomping grounds, all holding old memories, both good and bad.

There I am being an ass to some hapless clerk at a 7-11 on the way to a soccer game.  I don't even remember the cause.

There is Franny in her stroller on the sidelines of the boys' soccer games wearing her blue bonnet, Chris and Nate running by in their green Wheat Ridge recreational soccer uniforms.

There I am driving to Vinnola's on a Friday night getting all the fixings for pizza to take back to our house at 3510 Teller.

There I am in Dr. Arendt's first office on Wadsworth getting gassed before a filling.

There I am at what used to be Mon Petit, a pretty good french restaurant, turning red with embarrassment when Kathie's mom literally yells "STOP!" as the waiter tries to pour the sauce over her chateaubriand.

I'm at Elitches--old Elitches--with Virgil and Jeri on Hewlit-Packard day at the park.  Virgil made sure to get there early enough to score one of picnic tables looking over the walk into the park from Tennyson.

I'm at Elitches years later standing outside the playhouse and Chris makes fun of me for wearing a white leisure suit.  What am I thinking?  Hey!  It's the eighties.

There I am at Regis.  It's 1966 and we have to run all the way up Lowell to Loretto Heights as part of freshmen orientation.

And there I am again just a few blocks up 50th at The Blue Guitar, one of those college neighborhood folk music places.  I'm five feet from Rene Heredia and I hear live flamenco guitar for the first time.  If you know flamenco, you are envious right now.

I'm at Marycrest High School in 1971.  It's my first teaching gig.  There are girls in plaid skirts sitting under shady trees discussing Animal Farm.

It isn't just places that set me off.  It's my family.  Whenever Brooklyn directs Sammy in a little playlet--like her cruise director bit yesterday--I see Chris and Nate as little boys, two actors in search of an audience.

When I see Willa already creating little playworlds to inhabit, I see little Franny in her blue bride dress already choreographing events in the back yard.

I'm about to drive over to Franny's for lunch.  I think I'll take a detour down 32nd and then over to 35th at Pierce.  Just down the street is Paramount Park where the boys and I used to go to practice soccer.  Franny had a softball game there once a long time ago.








A Journey to the Jammie Drawer



Don't be confused.  Today it's Katherine and not Jim.  The content of this will make that important.

I just went up to the bedroom and took off my once favorite pair of leggings and put them in my jammie drawer.  It was a big moment.  Going through my jammie drawer reminds me of an old Sophomore Language Arts assignment where kids worked on introductions and somehow led the reader to masterful lists of the flotsam and jetsam that occupied their various junk drawers.  Exceptions could be made if you had a great medicine cabinet, or tool box, jewelry box, or even a jammie drawer.

My jammie drawer has a two purchased pair of flannels for the winter, a pair of long sweats, and a pair of short sweats.  All essential comfy wear for around the house.  It's the other stuff I want to talk about though.

There are three Howard Dean T-shirts.  I love Howard Dean.  He started his political career trying to get bike paths in Vermont because it was a healthy thing to do.  He ended up learning how to use the internet in politics and teaching the Democratic party to fight for the whole country and not just the blue states.  Franny worked for him and I scored three oversized shirts.  The best thing Howard Dean ever did was order the perfect T-shirt for bedtime.  No other politician has met his T-shirt standard since.  My three T's are not long for this world.  I try not to wear them because of this.

There is one T-shirt from Belize.  Jim hadn't packed enough.  I must say he's always a light packer, but he always misses on one item.  He forgot underwear when we went to Aspen once.  Try to buy basic men's underwear in Aspen.  Every store suggested we drive to Glenwood where underwear could be purchased.  Anyway, we went to Belize and he didn't bring enough T-shirts (go figure) and he bought this one and then he didn't like it.  I do.  It's in trouble too.

There is a pair of Walt DisneyWorld plaid boxers with Mickey waving (tiredly, I admit) at the rim of my left leg.  These were originally a strange gift to Franny from Chris when she was at Dunstan and disdaining Disney.  She never wore them.  I found them a while back (I was still teaching) and was so excited to have comfy boxers for my jammie drawer.  Another favorite item destined soon to go away.

There is a Snooze baseball shirt--the kind like a T-shirt with 3/4 length sleeves.  Mine is grey with green sleeves.  I bought it to wear because it would look cool and I don't mind advertising Snooze.  It just didn't fit.  My girl body and the boy shirt just didn't work in terms of public consumption.  It's fine in the den though.

There are two Patagonia hiking tops that fit before the mastectomy and don't fit now.  The gaps under the arms are too icky and I have nasty scars.  Again, on a really hot night I'm fine in the den.

I just put in the most expensive thing ever in my jammie drawer.  Several years ago (I think four--I just don't know), we went to California.  First we met Franny's in-laws in Santa Rosa, then we went to Justin Garland's beautiful wedding in Berkeley, and finally we headed up to the Napa valley.  I had a clothes disaster at the wedding.  The dress I brought had broken and I hadn't noticed somehow.  I lost the pair of shoes I had planned to wear.  I wore a cowgirl shirt and shoes that killed me at a setting that needed lovely-butt-sensible shoes (the ones that have never appeared again).  I was sad.

When we got to Napa we got there too early to check in and we went shopping and I bought a pair of leggings and tunics.  They were the first garments since the mastectomy that I felt good in.  We spent too much money, but I felt good every time I put the leggings or any of the tunics on.

The leggings are done.  Girls will understand this.  I can't throw them out.  They are a part of how I look in the mirror and do my own little version of Funny Girl's, "Well, hello gorgeous."

I put on newer leggings.  Basically the same as the Napa ones, just no story.  I put the first ones, the Napa leggings, in the jammie drawer.  They will feel really good when the weather gets chillier.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

River Rock Necklaces and Other Weird Stuff I Think About


Katherine here.

I drive a lot.  It balances out the 35 years where I hardly drove at all.

Most of my married life we had only one car and Jim drove it.  He often wonders why I'm such a backseat driver.  35 years of riding can do it.

These days I drive from school to school and observe second year teachers working to help kids and earn licenses.  I drive from school to school.  I know this city.   I'm not sure Jim likes this about me, but I know the best route to almost anyplace around Denver, Aurora, Littleton, and most of Douglas County.  I'm worthless up north.  I'm okay with that.

I need to occupy myself while I drive from school to school to school to school.  Sometimes I listen to music.  I have a billion stations on the Sirius thing.  After a while, they all play the same songs over and over.  Sometimes I listen to 104.3 The Fan.  I'm loyal.  Chris advertises there.  Sports radio is okay if the radio people aren't intent on whipping us up into irrational hatred.  The Joe Flacco banner on the stadium was a real boon to them, but I couldn't take it.  I couldn't listen all last week because of this.

I do want the Broncos to win tomorrow night when the season opens.   I can't imagine what 104.3 The Fan will be like if we lose.  These are angry people and they want listeners to be angry.

Mostly I drive in silence and I think.  Even though the world is falling apart, I think about stupid stuff.  It keeps me occupied.

For instance, I've noticed that going north is significantly faster than going south.  I make the lights.  The traffic moves.  My life is Federal, Sheridan, Wadsworth, Kipling--I go north and south often.  Going north is always pleasant and going south makes me feel like a spawning salmon.  I've never noticed this when going east and west where I have even fewer rivers to navigate.  I notice these things.

A recent odd meditation has been about what I have dubbed "river rock" necklaces.  For reasons I haven't yet puzzled out, a morning weather person must be an attractive female who makes guys at gyms take notice.  They must have big boobs accentuated by tight clothing (usually bright) and an open neckline accented by a "river rock" necklace.  We see Lauren Whitney on the CBS station more often than not and she's the Platonic ideal of weather ladies.  She has a virtual plethora of "river rock" necklaces.  The whole, now very young, female crew has a variety of "river rock" necklaces.  It's a movement that's been building for several years.

These necklaces are large.  Numbers of large, really large, stones are strung together on large chains.  The stones and chains are large.  Given the size of the boobs, I just don't know how they hold everything up.

My friend David, a significant jeweler in Alabama, calls these necklaces "Pebbles and Bam Bam" necklaces.  I like this too.

I'm just not wild about them.  They scream artificial unless somebody with some real live money is wearing them.  I'm okay with "river rock" necklaces if the green stones are really emeralds.  Maybe.

You can tell I've spent some time on the "river rock" necklace thing.

Yesterday I spent emotional energy feeling badly because Roger Federer lost in the US Open.  I suspect his life in Dubai or Monoco or wherever is just peachy keen.  He hasn't worried much about me.  Why do I do this?  Why do I spend even an instant wondering what stupid things Von Miller has done.  I do though.

We watched the new version of The Great Gatsby this past weekend and I thought about it between downtown schools.  It wasn't really worth a long drive.  My advice--never watch movie versions of your meaning-of-life books.  It looks like it was done on Instagram.  The worst thing is that the movie is pretty good until Gatsby shows up.  That's a problem for me.

I have also been thinking about where I could have meals on the road on the way to Scottsdale next March.  It's never too early to think about road trip meals.  I love driving to the Tetons because of the destination, but I also really like the drive and I love our little food stops along the way.  We stop and have breakfast at Johnson's Corner (the truck stop a bit south of the Loveland exit) and it serves the most amazing German sausage.  Really.  Lander and Dubois have great little places to eat.  It's a joy.  It's only 10 months before we go again.

Driving towards Santa Fe or Arizona is the opposite.  We try to avoid the chain places.  We have tried for years without success.  There are a billion places to eat in Santa Fe.  It's the in-between places that are hard.  The McDonalds in Trinidad left the list (we had been desperate) when a man came in packing a huge pistol and looking like he wanted to shoot something.  It was the most un-nerving meal I've ever had.  We don't stop in Trinidad anymore.  We both got food poisoning at a Mom and Pop place a local recommended in Raton.  We aren't stopping there again.  It's hard to find a spot and I think about this a lot.

It's odd, but the best meal we've had headed south was in Gallup, New Mexico a couple of years ago when we were returning from what I thought would be my last trip to Arizona.  We saw The Grand Canyon and several spring training games for the Rockies during that trip.  The weather was not great for our 10th visit to Arizona.  I was done.  It always snows in March when we visit.  Arizona is out to get me.

We are going back though and we will watch baseball and find a spa or something this time.  March again.  We can't help it.  That's when spring break is.

It's just the eating on the way down there I think about while driving around and I'm stuck with the thought that the motel/restaurant where John Wayne stayed while filming with John Ford in Gallup is our best bet.  The John Wayne burger and the crusty delivery was better than Trinidad.  We didn't get sick either.

I also have been worrying about the snake in the garden.  I have never seen it, but the burrowed holes that move from place to place indicate its presence.  The bunny population has been reduced as well.  I'm sure bunnies don't hibernate and there just aren't as many as there were earlier this summer.  My harebells aren't all bent over because the bunnies have been hiding in them.  For the longest time, there was a fox who kept the bunny population down.  The fox is gone though.  I don't know what happened there, but I worry about it.  It was a beautiful fox.

I have a snake.  It's been on the move.  I am afraid I will see it.  The bunnies aren't eating my veggies this year.  The squirrels are.  Do snakes eat squirrels?  Mother Nature forces a girl to think.  And to keep an eye out for snakes.

The world has always begun anew in the fall and I think fall things while I drive.  School stuff still, but it is also the time of the REI Labor Day sale.  It's important.  I spent a goodly amount of time thinking about what I should target for our yearly winter upgrades (boots last year).  Coats are ordered this year and I sometimes hum the "Wells Fargo Wagon" song from The Music Man at times like this.  I like this kind of thinking.   Jim will like his new coat even though he didn't "need" one.  He hasn't needed anything since we got married.

That's it.  I know the world is falling apart.  I don't think about it much.  It's a very confusing world.

I look at my mom.  She's lovely and 86 and has retreated into the Rockies, the Broncos, and Jeanette McDonald and Nelson Eddy movies.  I think about how to convince her that her twenty year old Afro American housekeeper would never, ever, in a million, billion years want to steal one of her Jeanette McDonald and Nelson Eddy movies.  I know.  I am a good daughter and I have watched one all the way through and part of another.  No one would ever steal one of these movies.  Her retreat is part of what makes her paranoid though.

I only bring Mom up because I don't know how long it takes to move from thinking about where to have lunch on the way to Scottsdale to being like my mom and living in a world where you suspect people of taking your Nelson Eddy movies.  I could be thinking about Syria instead.

On another note--It's important to note that I've thought through the casting of Ben Affleck as Batman.  I'm good with it.