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NauenThen

Monday Quote

Self-knowledge is no guarantee of happiness, but it is on the side of happiness and can supply the courage to fight for it.

~ Simone de Beauvoir

 

And makes one impervious to other's doubts. Even recognizing one's cowardice can make one braver. 

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PiJean at 4 weeks

PiJean is now two-thirds the size of her parents. She's flapping her wings but not quite flying. I saw her walk ~ maybe for the first time because she was wobbling. Someone stole her nest this morning & she's cowering behind a bucket. My neighbor saw one of her parents holding her beak in his, reassuring her, Lou was sure. I've been reading up on pigeons ~ they are loyal, smart, & have incredible insight, among other things. Having them roosting here has really opened my heart. 

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Friday is Caturday

Cat in a box!

This is Harry, my neighbor's cat, who has taken 2 years to slowly warm up to me. Today he pushed his head into my hand ~ a first. He's beautiful. And mean to Lefty. Except when they're getting along, which is about half the time. Harry's definitely the alpha of the crew.

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My bank

My bank (branch) moved from the corner of 4th St & 2nd Ave, to the corner of 7th St & 2nd Ave. Not far, but the people who work there are giddy with pleasure, as though they'd moved several neighborhoods and this was all new.

 

They seemed to be at loose ends when I stopped in. One showed me around, told me their plans, asked me questions. It felt less like a bank than a neighborhood restaurant. And yes, the balloons & banners are on their way.  I made sure to tell them about B&H, a couple doors up. "I know about B&H on 34th Street," the manager said. Nope, this is a restaurant. They want to be part of the neighborhood but aren't quite there yet, I guess.

 

It's a much bigger spot than the old one, with two large open areas, one where you could have a conference, one with some comfortable looking chairs. I'm welcome to hang around, as long as I don't come with three large dogs and sleep. 

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My sister Edie

Edie was born in Germany on March 13, 1935, and came to America in January of 1939. I don't know that she ever went back. Her mother, Ilona, died when she was around 10, and then my dad married again, my mother, so Edie became the much-older big sister to 4 more of us. She loved us simply and unstintingly. She was adventurous, hitchhiking with a girlfriend to California after her high school graduation in 1953. She married three times in Las Vegas: "Vegas is lucky for me!" she declared. She was a dramatic cook, who liked her guests to watch her toss a caesar salad. She drove a red Mustang. She stayed with me for a couple of days when I hadn't lived in New York for very long, & for years after that, guys I had never seen before would ask me if my sister was going to be visiting again soon. A champagne personality, her daughter, Ilona, often says. She took me to my first X-rated movie. One of my sisters smoked pot for the first time with her. I think my brother got his card sharp side from staying up all night on the porch, dealing hand after hand of gin rummy with Edie. My other sister told a similar story "of corruption" at her funeral. She led the way, as a big sister should. I don't know if she realized how much easier I had it because she was a rebel before me. I miss her a lot & still get confused when I count siblings: two sisters is unbearably fewer than three. 

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Comfortable

If you ask Johnny if he's comfortable, he will always say, with his best-but-terrible imitation of a Catskill comedian's accent & shrug: I make a living. 

 

After suffering for 6 months ~ a year ~ our entire marriage with a comforter where all the feathers flew to one corner, so if one person turned the other was left naked, we actually BOUGHT A NEW COMFORTER. And two covers. We are so shoemaker's-children-going-barefoot about everything that I can't get over the dispatch with which that comforter was ordered & delivered. O honey! what a good night's sleep we had! 

 

We are comfortable. 

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Monday Quote: Black hole, baby!

So often in my experience, nature wants to be beautiful.

~  astronomer Avery Broderick

 

It's fun sometimes to appreciate without understanding. 

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Post-viral malaise

That's what my cousin called it. Still struggling to stay awake much of the day. Managed to order a new comforter, read a lot, make it to the store for soup. Little by little, each task magnified by its cocoon of fatigue. 

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Poem of the Week

Teaching Second Grade

                 "Put colors in your poems"

 

Triangles are green.

A red kite

& a Donald Duck kite, a gray

& white squirrel,

flowers we love

to pink. Don't lose

your baby gun:

bang! bang! bang!

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PiJean & me

The pigeon that hatched 3 weeks ago is bigger & more pigeon-like every single day. It started out bright yellow like a duckling & now has feathers everywhere except on its head. I, meanwhile, continue bedraggled by the norovirus & have heard several people say it took 3 weeks or more to fully recover. That's my report. I'm planning or at least hoping to be as bouncy as an adolescent pigeon before PiJean is an adult.

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Journalism & democracy

I encourage you to read Margaret Sullivan's op-ed in today's Washington Post, "Our democracy is under attack. Washington journalists must stop covering it like politics as usual." "Mainstream journalists want their work to be perceived as fair-minded and nonpartisan," Sullivan writes. "They want to defend themselves against charges of bias. So they equalize the unequal."

 

Some of her suggestions that might reframe the what-aboutism that seems to be destroying democracy:

• Toss out the insidious "inside-politics" frame and replace it with a "pro-democracy" frame.
• Stop calling the reporters who cover this stuff "political reporters." Start calling them "government reporters."

• Stop asking who the winners and losers were in the latest skirmish. Start asking who is serving the democracy and who is undermining it.
 

There's more & it's worth contemplating. 

 

Update: I wrote this over 2 years ago & only today realized I'd never published it. I don't know why not. Still worth a read. 

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Bird of the Year

.... is the red-shafted flicker. Tom Coppock, noted bird-watcher, was one of the judges & influencers. Even though the snowy owl is a bird that makes you happy to be alive, & I have a personal attachment to pigeons. Birds! "Little beings of pure spirit whose normal body temperature is 110 degrees." That line has been in my head my whole life. I no longer know where it comes from but maybe J. D. Salinger, said sarcastically? 

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Monday Quote

It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment.

~ Carl Friedrich Gauss

 

So fortunate to enjoy learning, looking, wondering. 

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Possessed

Last Tuesday a demon roared through me: the Elinorononvirus, norovirus for short. It swept me to death's door with loud & painful torture. Like the meteorite killed the dinosaurs, this almost killed me. I was helpless. I was hopeless.

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Poem of the Week

We Do Not Hesitate

 
Irish wedding:

body marries grave

 

 

Update: I published this in advance, a week or more ago. It does seem like a good one to appear while I was sick.

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Dreaming of Norway

As the caption of this screen shot says, Ålesund is one of Norway's most beautiful cities, because it is well put together, of a piece, consistent (that's how I would translate gjennomført). Ålesund is known for its Jugendstil (Art Nouveau) elements.

I've been watching a "Norwegian documentary series with archival gold from our cities - and new footage that points forward in time" called Bykjærlighet (literally "city love"). There's only 3 that are profiled ~ Fredrikstad, Ålesund, Drammen ~ & it's from 8 or 10 years ago so it looks like that's all we're going to get, but I've enjoyed learning about each place's renovations & updatings. 

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What I'm reading: big bird

Albert's garden on 2nd St between !st & 2nd. 

A wonderful book called What It's Like to Be a Bird, by David Allen Sibley. Full of fascinating tidbits: flickers are woodpeckers; birds have a similar inner-ear system as humans to regulate balance but a second one in their pelvises, which is why they can perch on a swaying twig while swiveling their heads; owls are among the dumbest birds. So much more! Loads of illustrations & mini-essays. Little PiJean has made me interested in all things bird. S/he is 10 days old now, gone from duckling yellow to green to starting to fledge, from something that came out of an egg the size of a pingpong ball to a sturdy little being 5x its size at hatch.

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Ice skating

I gave away my skates a couple of years ago, so sure that I would never skate again. I hadn't in 20 years. 30? 40? Maggie & June convinced me to go. I wore good underwear in case I broke something & had to have my pants cut off. I was nervous & excited. Excited & nervous. I grew up on skates ~ they flooded the little park down the block from us & we were out there every day till it got dark, till our feet & laces froze & we were crying with the pain of unfreezing. I loved it. We careened around the rink like hockey stars, swinging low & fast. It took two falls & a couple of times around the rink hanging onto the boards until I got my chops back but I was gliding. What a great day. 

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A wider world ~ or a whiter?

Funny moment in a conversation with a friend about her African husband, who was educated in Europe but planned to return to Africa. Many of his friends were incredulous. Africa when you could live in Europe or the States? He was challenging so many misconceptions that I said, this needs to be heard by a wider world. "A wider world or a whiter?" she asked.

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Phones

Even though everything seemingly happens by text & email, a phone outage does have an impact. I would mind more if it were my internet, however. 

 

Still not feeling tiptop so don't be looking for deep thoughts from me today.

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Malaise 'n' maladies

Couldn't get out of bed till 1, felt overheated till I sat outdoors for an hour with no heat at all, & now I'm back to feeling like crap. Have to go out again tonight. And tomorrow night. Will rise to the occasion, yes?

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Another reason to love the public library

When I suggested a book, they not only ordered it, they got a copy for my branch. Which I only found by accident when I was looking around the other day. 

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Monday Quote

The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see. 

~ G.K. Chesterton

 

The tourist also ticks off as many places as possible. The tourist has a "bucket list" & is happy to cross off yet another destination. The tourist is homesick on the first day in a different place, & tries to find what reminds him of home. The traveler keeps his mouth shut & his eyes open. 

 

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I said it's my


‎*"˜˜"*°•.¸☆ ★ ☆¸.•°*"˜˜"*°•.¸☆
╔╗╔╦══╦═╦═╦╗╔╗ ★ ★ ★
║╚╝║══║═║═║╚╝║ ☆¸.•°*"˜˜"*°•.¸☆
║╔╗║╔╗║╔╣╔╩╗╔╝ ★ BIRTHDAY! ☆
╚╝╚╩╝╚╩╝╚╝═╚╝ ♥¥☆★☆★☆¥♥ ★☆

to me! 

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Anthem

Two songs I took to heart as a teen were "Angel of the Morning" & "Different Drum." Both songs about taking responsibility for our (sexual) choices, or that's how I read them.


I know now that "Different Drum," though sung by Linda Ronstadt, was written by a guy (Mike Nesmith of the Monkees!) who was dumping a girl: "I'm not in the market / For a boy who wants to love only me. / … I'm not ready for any person, / Place or thing to try and pull the reins in on me."

 
Merrilee Rush singing "Angel" (also written by a guy, Chip Taylor, who wrote "Wild Thing"): "There'll be no strings to bind your hands / Not if my love can't bind your heart." 

 
I believed them. I understood what those songs meant & what they meant for me. That I would always do whatever the hell I wanted.

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Pijohn/Pijean!

Photo by Louis Dobday. 

Our little John or Jean (short for PiJohn/PiJean) got him/herself born an hour or two ago. So excited! I've never seen a baby pigeon before. Almost no one has, I believe. Look out cute s/he is! I am anthropomorphizing the hell out of this. Every time I go in or out I talk kindly to the parent & I toss food to the little family. Now what? Will I get to see the passing of pigeon milk? Should I have bought a 5-pound bag of bird seed at the grocery store? It seemed like a lot & I don't want the rats to come back. This is such a happy event. I hope they stick around so I can see the little one grow up. (Oh my god, pronouns.)

 

All of a sudden two other pigeons are hanging around. I don't like that.

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Poem of the Week

This Too I Love

 
Johnny on his side

one hand flung

between us

the cat

half-moving

I lie

next to

whimpering dreamers

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In the neighborhood: Art

Terrific show at Tibor of a new-to-me artist named Kenneth Aptekar, who does illuminated manuscripts on contemporary themes. Many are funny but all of them illuminate something about the world we live in. His drawing & lettering are fantastic. All the shows at Tibor de Nagy are small enough to really see them but large enough to get a real sense of the artist's work. 

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What I'm reading

The Cost of Free Land: Jews, Lakota, and an American Inheritance, by Rebecca Clarren, is another entry in a category it's hard to believe exists: Jews in South Dakota. SoDak has the fewest Jews of any state & until a couple of years ago, it looked like there might be a Chabad on Mars before there was one in my home state. Yet there seem to be as many books about Jews in South Dakota as there are Jews in the state. 

 

Clarren's book is an important addition. She's not from there but her great-great grandparents homesteaded in a place not far from Rapid City called Jew Flats. Her book is about her personal history, the shameful actions of the United States government towards Native Americans, how everyone in this country benefits from that mistreatment ~ and what we can do right now towards repentance and reconciliation

 

You can listen to her speak with Tiokasin Ghosthorse on his First Voices Radio show. Tiokasin, amazingly enough, has lived in my small building & is from South Dakotan & not Scandinavian. 

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Brooklyn

I have no idea where I was. Maybe I got on a plane & got off in Cincinnati or Milan or Buenos Aires. Wide streets, small shops. Who knows? I always wondered why Walt Whitman lived in Brooklyn when the rent in Manhattan, where he spent all his time, must have been maybe $10. I actually tried to find out Brooklyn rents 175 years ago but to little avail. Why do people prefer to live in Brooklyn now, when New York City (i.e., Manhattan) is right here. I don't get it. Maybe if I didn't get lost every single time I go to a new place in Brooklyn. It's like the reverse of the dream every New Yorker has at some point, that there's a door we never noticed & we actually have another whole room in our apartment. Brooklyn IS the extra room but it's not clean, calm, empty. 

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