By the Numbers, or, Do We Buy These Numbers?

January is gone, and I'm beginning to come out of hibernation. It's good to be back. Here is the latest Smart Aleck essay:

Dire numbers tick by us these days – Boeing lays off employees, and Starbucks lays off employees and closes stores. Other employers lay off their workers by the tens of thousands. On the bright side, the US economy declined only 3.8% in the last quarter of 2008. Whoopee.
Tough times, and getting tougher. Something former Senator Daniel J. Evans said in an interview back in the 1970s keeps running through my memory.
Evans managed the affairs of Washington State as Governor from 1965 to 1977, and later served in the Senate, following Henry “Scoop” Jackson. Slade Gorton followed Evans into the Senate, but I only mention that so I can mention that we used to call Slade Gorton “Skeletor.” He earned this sobriquet by bearing a surprising likeness to the Masters of the Universe®™ villain of that name.
Getting back to Dan Evans: the Boeing Bust occurred during Evans’ terms as governor. In those pre-Microsoft, pre-Starbucks, pre-“let’s move the corporate offices to Chicago” times, Boeing employed more people than anyone else in Washington. When Boeing stumbled, Washington stumbled. In those days a famous sign along I-5 read, “Will the last person leaving Seattle turn out the lights?”
I arrived on these beloved moldy shores in 1972 and missed the lowest days of the Boeing Bust. The local economy still ailed in 1972, but improved incrementally over time. Somewhere around mid-decade someone interviewed Dan Evans about unemployment. The interviewer asked, “Are you worried about the 12% unemployment rate?” Evans replied, “Well, it depends on whether you’re looking at it on the way up or on the way down.” He pointed out that Washington was coming back from an 18% unemployment rate.
Those who lost their jobs were forced to find new paths in life. For example, Hammond Ashley, former Boeing employee, became one of the premier string bass builders in the world. I knew about Hammond Ashley because I took a cracked dulcimer to his shop for repair around 1974. His shop lay under the flight path at the south end of the SeaTac runway. When you walked from the green and gray suburban surroundings of Des Moines into his shop and saw the ranks of glowing instruments along the walls, you knew you were in a world of wonder, created from wood and glue and loving care. Although many people left the state seeking opportunities elsewhere, others, like Hammond Ashley, started a new profession, and a new life, right here.
The numbers I heard on the radio last week stated that unemployment is at 8%. Of course, if you lost your job, you experienced 100% unemployment, and the numbers (ONLY 8% unemployment; ONLY a 3.8% decrease in the economy the last quarter) comfort ye not.
We hear all these numbers, but what do they really mean? The numbers that count are: how many numbers do we have in the checking account? How many numbers do we need to keep this roof over our heads? Do we have enough numbers to buy groceries this week? Do we have jobs so we can get more numbers?
It turns out that our ability to control numbers was exaggerated. So what do we do now? All the usual remedies: we share; we cut back; we make do. We plant gardens, mend what is broken, put on a sweater, and drive less. Do these measures wound your pride?
Pride takes a lot of numbers. Pride and his brother shame may have to be two of the things we cut back in these tough times. I’m about 50% sure of that, up from 35% last quarter.

Joy Gets a New Hip; Mary Gets Lost in YouTube

My friend Joy Goldstein had a hip replaced Tuesday morning, and the word in the inbox is that it all went well. Let us all say healing prayers – or whatever you do to wish people well – for Joy.
I’ve been a little spaced out since the wedding, and am working on a larger piece which has involved a lot of “research,” which means I’ve been getting stuck watching videos on YouTube.
Of course when you’re looking up one subject, YouTube will dish up a selection of related or similar subjects, so I started listening to Odetta singing, and ended up watching videos of the second to last Johnny Carson show. It started out innocently enough: Odetta sang a song with Harry Belafonte, then Harry Belafonte had a drum battle with Animal on the Muppets Show, which brought up Buddy Rich and Animal having a drum battle, which led to Buddy Rich and Eddie Shaughnessy having a drum battle on the Johnny Carson show…and there I was, far, far away from Odetta, which is who I’m supposed to be learning about.
I’ll tell you another incredible eater of time: Facebook. I got hooked in by young friends, and now – yoicks. I can spend an hour there easily.
So it’s getting harder to get off dead center these days. But I’m working on it. And I hope that all my friends on Facebook who have been sick this week are feeling better.

Starting Out, Still Here

We have all heard that “May you live in interesting times” is an old Chinese curse. If that is true, we are all cursed these days.
Of course in my universe we are also all blessed. For example – I put a plea for a flower girl dress, size 6-8, on Vashon Freecycle yesterday. Several women replied with offers of a dress. These are my sisters, most of whom I have not met, but when I put that request out there, they responded warmly and generously. Thank you, thank you all.
So our granddaughter will be the flower girl, dressed in flower girl style, at our goddaughter’s wedding this Saturday.
It’s an interesting time to start married life, when the market’s down and the cost of living is up, but what better time to be young and enthusiastic and ready to take on the task of making your way in the world?
Here at the other end of life, I was deeply worried about how my husband and I would be able to retire in a few years, but for some reason when the market crashed my spirits picked up – apparently I love a challenge, because that’s how I’m seeing it now. A lot of us will be facing this challenge together.
Here at the other end of life, we have experienced many losses. People we loved: parents, siblings, spouses, children, friends – gone. Our health and mobility: chipped away by inches in accidents and arthritis or chronic illness, or all at once in a diagnosis of cancer or some other life-threatening illness. Bam! Your world is now completely different from what you expected.
The money goes, the good health, the ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound. We are betrayed, and we betray others, both of which take a toll on our hearts. The dance of sexuality goes on, but some of us, with gratitude, say, OK, I’m sitting this one out.
Eventually all the striving and hoping and fighting and despairing and loving and hating runs down. Eventually our own mortality cannot be ignored any more. That’s if we’ve been fortunate enough to live so long – some people die before they’ve had time to ponder the fact of their own death.
So you reach this point and look around, and son of a gun, you’re still here. Read it out loud: “I’m still here!” Say it again: “I’m still here.” If you can say that, if you can think that, the party isn’t over, and the music is still playing.
I’m planning to rise to the challenges of these interesting times with the relish of anticipation. Oh boy – another puzzle to solve, another dilemma to work through.
For now I am rising to the challenge of seeing our goddaughter married. This is as close as I’ve come to planning a wedding. When my husband and I married, the priest said, “Getting married is a lot of trouble.” Boy, he said a mouthful.
As challenges go, this is definitely one of the happy ones. Right now, two days before the big day, things are pretty frantic. In about 48 hours, the frenzy will stop, the ceremony will begin, and all details that haven’t been covered will fall away, as the bride’s cousin plays the processional on ukulele and her father escorts her down the aisle of the Burton Church.
Blessings to you, Mr. and Mrs. Baskin. May you live long and happily, may you grow in love and wisdom, may sorrow not linger at your door. May you rise together to the challenges of all your interesting times. Amen.

Unemployed: Artist

I went to the bank the other day to open a savings account, a few decades too late. I’ve always joked that we would have enough when we retired to have lunch and then commit suicide, but it’s not so funny anymore. I mean, we might be able to have lunch, but we won’t be able to have dessert, much less afford to kill ourselves. There used to be the “put the old folks on an ice floe and let them float off to die” alternative, but with global warming, that’s out.
But – getting back to the bank.
The efficient young woman filling out the paperwork asked me what my occupation is, and I told her I didn’t have a job, and that I’m a singer, songwriter, and writer. She wrote in the blank: “Unemployed: artist.”
Ouch. I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to justify my existence to myself, and in two words the edifice of my self-worth trembled, and all the dark fears that my parents were right billowed around me. Remember, I grew up on a farm, and came from conservative hard-working people. I remember well their attitude toward artists.
Artists, actors, musicians, dancers, writers, god help us poets and their ilk did not really work. They had fun during the day and stayed out late having fun at night – not like the workers of the world who were early to bed, early to rise, and none of that damned arts nonsense. All musicians were hopheads. All dancers were queer. All painters were dreamy lay-abouts who couldn’t even make a picture that looked like anything. All artists were parasites living off the pissed-off people who had to get up and go to a job every day.
If that is what you believe, there is nothing I could tell you that would teach you what hard work it takes to create art. To create something wonderful out of what you can do with your body, your mind, and your willingness to be a channel for something greater than yourself is something you achieve by years of hard work and practice, all of which you do for no money. In fact, you might have to pay people to teach you technique – voice lessons, drawing lessons, acting lessons, dancing lessons, instrument lessons. Talent is also helpful.
Meanwhile, while studying and practicing, you wait tables, you type, you clean houses or paint houses or build houses, you do something to support your art habit, and you take a lot of criticism, both artistic and personal.
You will be told more than once not to quit your day job, because you just don’t have what it takes.
When you fill out forms that say, “Occupation – check one,” they will never have a box for what you do.
Artistic success tends to be temporary – a painting sold, a few paying gigs. If you get to be the member of a dance or opera company – well, do you realize how many people are competing for those spots, and how good they are? Do you have any idea how many failed auditions every single dancer, actor, and musician lives through?
Oh yeah, it’s a real walk in the park, the life artistic. That’s why most people do it as a hobby. Going to a job is much easier than being an artist. So why do people do it? They have to. It’s who they are.
That’s why it says on my savings account form, “Unemployed: artist.” I’ll go on struggling with the self-worth thing. Why stop now?
You could help by buying one or two CDs. Why didn’t I think of saying that ‘way before Christmas? Oh well. The music’s been good for over 20 years, and it will still be good in January. Email me at: mary.litchfieldtuel@gmail.com, and we’ll talk.

Snowed In

Dear Hearts and Gentle People ~
It’s a cold Saturday in Puget Sound, and according to the Weather Channel it’s a cold day in a lot of the US of A, except down in southern Texas, where my friend Susan advises me they have the air conditioning on.
I have revised my cold weather getaway plan. I won’t go to California. I’ll pass through California on the way to Houston.
My Brave Knight (that would be Rick) departed for town a few minutes ago, in a pickup truck with chains. He was carrying library books and a grocery list. He qualifies for the Brave Knight rating today because the snow is deep and more is expected. I was going to go with him, but he said that my holey old athletic shoes are not adequate for the snow, and I don’t have any more substantial shoes. So I made the list and sent him off. There was a time I might have argued to go, but that was when I had good knees.
Our road was graded and sanded yesterday, but we haven’t had mail or a paper for two days. I haven’t left the house since last Tuesday.
Being snowed in is not such a big deal when you’ve got cable and internet, but a wind storm is predicted for this evening, so we could be in the dark soon. On the upside of that, we don’t have to worry about losing food in the freezer. We can store it outside and it will keep fine. As long as the raccoons don’t get it. But we’ll deal with that problem when it arises.
So I’m sitting here listening to the Kingston Trio Christmas album, “The Last Month of the Year.” My grand daughter is gluing together a Santa Claus and a snow man my cousin Nancy sent her. After raising two boys I am always amazed that this little girl will sit down with a project and follow the directions and get it done. Wow. As a process person, I appreciate goal-oriented people. They are mysterious and miraculous to me.
Meanwhile I sit here in the middle of a zillion uncompleted projects, with the Kingston Trio singing me through the season.
“One for the little bitty baby who was born, born, born in Bethlehem!”
Stay warm, friends.

Living the Boring Life

Winter weather makes me a little nervous. This house I’m living in has no wood stove, so if the electricity goes off, it will get cold, and stay that way. When I asked the owner of the house what she did when the power was out, she told me that her kind neighbors took her in for a day or two, and after that she flew to California.
I am considering whether I shall follow her sensible course of action if the electricity goes off for an extended period of time. I haven’t been to California for a while.
California is where I was born and where I grew up until my early 20s, when I moved to Vashon Island. I was born in a little town called Watsonville, a farming community on the southern end of Santa Cruz County.
Today at the store I stood in front of a large Martinelli’s Sparkling Cider display, picking up bottles and looking at the pictures from Martinelli’s history on the labels, trying to see if I could recognize anything in them.
The Martinelli’s plant was across the street from my high school. I remember sitting in Mr. Plummer’s freshman English class in the basement of the old high school building (built in 1903, now long gone), staring out the ground level windows at Martinelli’s on the other side of Beach Street. I was waiting for life to begin, waiting to be free from school, and bells, and petty tyrants, of which there seemed to be so many, both adult and student.
One day a man who looked like Gabby Hayes, or a prospector straight out of the Gold Rush, came walking down Beach Street leading a donkey that was carrying a pack. This would have been in 1962 or so. I was curious, but I never found out who he was or why he and his donkey walked by the high school. He was a character, no doubt, one of the people at whom we rolled our eyes and twirled our fingers around our ears to indicate, “crazy.” In 1962 there weren’t many characters. Characters came in a few years later when we all decided to let our hair grow.
I wish I could say that I saw other interesting things while gazing out the windows of my high school classes, but that was pretty much it, just that one guy and his donkey. Other than that it was four years of boredom.
Growing up in California in the fifties and sixties felt pretty boring. I know now that I was living a comfortable life in a place where the temperature stayed between 50 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit all year ‘round. I guess that being safe and comfortable can seem boring to a kid.
My cousin and I are planning a road trip to California next spring. We’ll drive out to Green Valley to see the ranches, both my grandfather’s and my father’s. My father’s apple trees are gone, replaced by dwarf varieties that produce more apples. Also gone are the peach, apricot, fig, and lemon trees that we had for our personal use. Once the place was sold and became a part of agribusiness, no longer a family farm, those oddities had to go. Too bad. I remember how happy my dad looked when he sat down to a bowl of fresh peach slices drenched in cream.
Now when I go up to the top of the hill and look at the views I so loved as a child, I am trespassing on someone else’s land. But I go, anyway, so I can look at the flat orchard-covered floor of Green Valley to the north, and the long vista over the Pajaro Valley and off to Fremont Peak in the hazy distance to the south, and drink the view in.
I must be getting old, to mourn times and people that are no more. Makes me wonder why we want long life, when the older we get, the more losses we carry. Still, you know I wouldn’t miss it for the world.
I wish you all a warm and wonderful Christmas, or whatever the heck you celebrate. May it be safe, and comfortable, and boring. You know: enough to eat, clothes to wear, a roof over your head, family and friends, no sickness or death or other catastrophes. Boring. Let’s hear it for boring.

Superwoman No More

In a conversation with some other women who have had significant health challenges, I heard myself saying, “It is so hard to wrap your consciousness around the fact that your body is not the same.”
They agreed: “No one prepared us for this.”
“This” could be one or more of any events or illnesses: cancer, car wrecks, chronic illness of any kind, falls, breaks, loss of hearing, sight, smell, taste, or cognitive ability; and whatever else I have forgotten or don’t know about that belongs on this list.
For me it has been various accidents, with mononucleosis piled on top. I cannot rely on my body to do what I once took for granted.
For example, move all these boxes of stuff so I can put up the Christmas tree? At one time that was the work of a moment. Not any more, brothers and sisters. Now it’s a matter of figuring out if I can catch my sons or my husband long enough to do the heavy lifting and shifting. If not, the thing does not get moved, and the little project does not get done.
When I do manage to get something done, I have to rest up afterwards. Crap. Insult added to injury, and then I’m too tired to sustain the insult, and need a nap.
Actually, the naps are great, but there was a time when I would not stop for anything, especially not a nap, which appears to be “doing nothing,” and horrors, we can’t have that, superwoman doing nothing.
Superwoman is beginning to realize that her high flyin’ days are over. They got left behind somewhere – for me, in that car wreck, in various falls and broken bones, and in the mononucleosis that left me with no energy.
It wasn’t until today, when I was talking about how when things happen to your body it takes forever for your conscious mind to catch up, that I realized that my mind still hasn’t caught up. I’m not sure if my mind has even started to admit that there’s anything different than it used to be.
It’s pretty frustrating to stand and look at work you used to do easily and confront the new reality that you can’t do it. It bodes well for anyone who plans on coming to the garage sale I’m going to have one of these days, though. I’m leaning in a lot of ways, but mainly I’m leaning towards getting rid of anything that’s in my way, and that’s practically everything.
Superwoman needs a nap now.