Finding the Center in a Crooked World

More twists along the way

2008-12-04T03:52:00Z

Once again I find myself compelled to post -- guilt has gotten the better of me, it's been yet another long period where I've not written anything. This 'blog has a "Dear Diary" feel about it, as I really don't think anyone but me knows it's here. I do enjoy reading it, though, so an audience of one (or one's self) is worth writing for.

So, here we go ...

Despite my positive outlook in a prior post, my dancing days unfortunately seem to be over, I am sad to say. I went to the Seattle Tango Magic festival in late July and danced for 5 days. Actually, I can't say that I danced. I took classes. I went to milongas. But I did not dance.

This came as a shock to me! Yes it did. This was my first outing for Tango after the long hiatus called "The Knees", and I had prepared for the festival and felt good about my skills on the dance floor. I had invested in private lessons, I had been going to local events, and was proud to feel competent again.

It was all for naught, though.

I found myself a mere minnow in a sea of dancers, just one of many. My four years away had washed any memory of me from the U.S. community at large. In the meantime, a crop of youthful, wonderful dancers had been born, and the limited number of leaders swam with those minnows, and not with the likes of me. Mind you, I was not alone in this, there were several other aged minnows like myself, circling the edge of the dance floor pond.

I also found there had been some profound changes in the Tango community. I'd certainly had a sense of this from talking with people, reading postings and discussions online and watching You Tube videos over the last several years. Things had changed -- a new "style" of Tango had become de rigueur, the minnows had gotten a lot younger (a good sign that Tango has gained in popularity on college campuses), my dance contemporaries had advanced and become well known.

But what struck me the most (and what I really mean is that it hurt me the most) was that I found the Tango community to be fickle. I had had many friends in the community, many of whom I'd promoted in my home community. I'd gotten gigs for them, I'd danced with some of them when they were beginners. Most of all, we were friends. These people had stayed in my home, had eaten at my table, had sought me out.

When I saw these people again, after just a few years away, it was as if I could have been anyone or, more accurately, no one.

Tango creates a fragile bond. A bond that lasts three minutes, or maybe twelve if you dance a whole tanda and keep that rare connection alive for the whole thing. I didn't realize that fragile bond applied in this instance.

While I think the physical challenge I now encounter is an obstacle, it isn't insurmountable. Difficult, most definitely, but not impossible. The magical years in which I was happy dancing because I was good at it, felt comraderie, felt part of something -- for all that I have a deep pang of the loss of something special never to be regained.

It makes me sad, but I don't think I'll be dancing again.

A long and twisty road ...

2008-05-10T18:57:26Z

I happened to look at my Live Journal page and oh, look! It's been quite a while since I wrote. I think it's because I had nothing to say, at least not that I wanted to share, and I was preoccupied with other things.

It's been a long couple of years. During that time, I've had two knee replacement surgeries which were the result of a crippling congenital problem. My knees were collapsing outward and I lost all the cartilage on the inner part of the knee. I couldn't walk a half a block, not to mention dance! Thanks to the marvels of modern orthopedic surgery, though, I now have shiny metal parts and can walk again. And yes, I do set off the metal detectors in airports. Don't let anyone tell you that doesn't happen.

On top of that, in 2007 my boss, a wonderful woman by the name of Betsy Reynolds, passed away after suffering from a debilitating lymphatic cancer. She was already under treatment when I accepted the job with her, but we were all so positive that medicine would win over nature I didn't even consider turning the job down. It didn't, and her passing was widely lamented. I miss her, and value the time I was able to spend working with her.

Finally, I've changed jobs and moved to San Francisco. Now that's something GOOD! I feel I've turned the corner on all the bad stuff and am steadily heading toward Better Town. Also, after many, many months of rehabilitation, I have started dancing again. Now that's something FANTASTIC! Good for heart, mind and body, music and dance are.

Here's to the future. I am looking forward to it!

Another One Has Left Us

2006-09-20T23:32:03Z

It's been quite some time since I entered anything in this journal, and it's a sad picture of my life that between then and now the only thing I've had the time or energy to write about is death. But that is a subject for another posting.

A couple of weeks ago Werner, an old family friend, passed away. After battling Parkinson's Disease for many years he finally succumbed to a massive stroke, casting away the bonds of his disease and fleeing this earth in his sleep. He is finally free.

This man was a giant -- huge in personality, massive in character, like a redwood tree physically and as loud as a foghorn, big big big in every way, there was nothing small about him. This included how people felt about him -- everyone had passionate feelings when it came to Werner, and no matter whether it was anger or admiration, suspicion or love, it was big. He just inspired this kind of strong emotion. No one was on the fence about Werner.

I had known this man since I was a very young child. While there are lots of stories I could tell, I won't do so here. I will, though, paraphrase what I said at the memorial held in his honor ...

Werner had a huge extended family, made up of wives, children, friends, ex-employees, current employees, their children ... you get the picture, it was big (what else could we expect?). Several people within this extended family stood up to speak, and many of them told stories about a key moment in their life or the lives of their children that Werner had been responsible for. When I got up to speak I said:

Every young person has difficult periods in their life, those times when they could use a kind word. I was no different. Werner had an uncanny ability to sense just when a kind word was needed. I hope that the men of this family will carry on that tradition. Everyone needs an Uncle Werner.

I last saw Werner a couple of weeks before he died, wrapped up in a colorful blanket, lying on a divan in the garden, surrounded by his favorite Ugly Dolls. He seemed happy. I will always remember how kind he was to me. That's my big feeling about him.

Eulogy for George

2006-02-05T01:45:05Z

George died very suddenly last week. I didn't know him well, he was a friend of my parents and had joined us for Thanksgiving dinner. He lived alone, making his living as a multi-lingual tour guide and translater. George was Hungarian, but grew up in Argentina, and spoke all sorts of languages.

George was very popular on the Palm Springs party circuit. He was charming, a divorced bachelor, a bit dissheveled, a terrific story teller with a treasure chest of tales. At Thanksgiving he was very proud to tell us that he'd been watching his diet, as he had the usual concerns about Diabetes and was very health conscious. He was tall and slim and tan, and played frequent tennis despite the fact that he was in his 80's. He really was the picture of aging gracefully.

But his life ended very suddenly last week. In the last months he hadn't been feeling well and had gone to his doctor. His health coverage is through an HMO, so he had to wait for a referral. That took a while to come through, but he eventually went to a specialist. The doctor was so alarmed he sent George directly to the hospital, didn't even allow him to go home. He was in intensive care before the end of the day. He had left us by the time two or three more days had passed.

George has two daughters who live in Spain. They still had not arrived in the US several days after his death. No one among his friends has been able to find out how they may help or pay their respects.

I feel as if George died alone, and that someone should acknowledge that he lived, that he was loved by his friends, and that his death has made us all sad. We'll miss him.

LA Stats

2006-01-18T22:44:41Z

From this week's Downtown News:

"More than 82,200 people are homeless in Los Angeles County at any one time, according to the results of a report released last week by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA)... The statistics are the result of interviews conducted last year by about 1,000 LAHSA volunteers. Among the findings of the county's homeless population are that 20% are under 18; 88% go unsheltered each night; and 34% experienced mental illness. The study also found that 1 in 40 people in L.A. County will go homeless at least one day out of the year."

To put this into some kind of context, if there are 82,000 people homeless in Los Angeles County at any one time, calculating using the percentages above:

-- 16,400 are under the age of 18.
-- 27,880 suffer from mental illness.
-- 72,160 (most of them) go unsheltered at night.

It's this last number that shocks me and gets me thinking about what "unsheltered" means. I see them in my neighborhood every night, in the dark corners of parking lots, tucked into stairwells and against the sides of buildings. Sometimes just out on the sidewalk. It also means that the majority of those who are homeless go without shelter of any kind. The undermeaning of that is there are not enough places providing shelter -- county agencies, churches, charities, humanitarian organizations.

Another shocking statistic is the "1 in 40" number. Think of 40 people you know and imagine one of them being homeless.

As an aside, most of the volunteers conducting the interviews referred to above were homeless themselves.

In another article from the same issue of the Downtown News:

"Average Downtown Condo Nears $600,000 - The average condominium in Downtown Los Angeles sold for a record $584,557 in 2005, according to a report recently released by the condominium and loft realty firm CondoSource. That figure is up 22% - or more than $100,000 - from 2004. The study also found an increase in the number of units sold; the 146 in 2005 was up from just 68 in 2004. Units in South Park sold the fastest, an average of 30 days, and also scored the highest average sales price, around $700,000. The report credited the boosts to low interest rates, high consumer confidence, a limited housing stock and the recovery efforts underway in Downtown."

I wonder if a portion of proceeds from these sales could be channeled to homeless services?

Bakeoff

2006-01-17T19:54:24Z

I made my very first cake this weekend! Didn't work out so well. I gave it some thought and then made another. That one was first rate. Just goes to show that failure should not prevent you from trying again.

I've been obsessing about ricotta lately. Don't know why, except that a friend of mine who is a fabulous cook once made a ricotta cake and I've been thinking about it ever since. I'm not sure why, this was quite some time ago, but wondering about it has not brought me an answer. It just is.

Coincidentally I got a new cookbook for Christmas -- my first since my mother handed down her 1950's edition The Joy of Cooking to me. For those who like this sort of thing, it's the Silver Spoon cookbook published by Phaidon Press. It's 1,500 pages of very simple recipes, mostly European traditional dishses. Each recipe is only a few lines long, and none uses more than about 8-10 ingredients. The book is filled with useful general information. But what I like most about it? The essay at the front titled "Eating Is A Serious Business". Now that's someone who knows what's important in life! (Want one? Click here! Or you can try Costco, they may still have copies.)

So about the cake. As you may have surmised, what with my ricotta obsession, the cake was, what else, a Ricotta Cake. The new cookbook just happened to have recipe for one. It's a very, very simple cake, not much sugar, very plain. The first one I made was just okay, but seemed to need some moisture and could also have used some more flavor. I happened to have some pears that needed to be used, so I added them to the mix. Voila! A perfect cake!

Here's the recipe the way I made it for those who'd like to try it.

4 Eggs
1 cup brown sugar (loose, not packed)
3/4 cup milk
5 tablespoons olive oil
1-3/4 cups ricotta cheese
2-1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
3 ripe pears
1/2-3/4 cup crystallized ginger

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a tart or cake pan with butter and dust with flour. (I don't own one of these, so I used a glass casserole dish that is roundish and about 9-10 inches across. Worked perfectly.)

Combine eggs and sugar and whisk until fluffy and a pale color. (I used my hand mixer with the whisk attachment. You have to whisk for quite a while to get the proper color, a pale yellow.)

Add oil, milk and ricotta and stir.

Sift in flour and baking powder. (It's best to do this slowly in stages. You can use the hand mixer at low speed with the whisk attachment to make sure the flour is completely blended.)

Chop the chrystallized ginger into fine pieces and add it to the mix.

Peel the pears. Chop two of the pears into small bits and add them into the mix. Gently stir the ginger and pears into the mix. Pour it into the cake or tart pan.

Thinly slice the third pear into rounds or other decorative shapes. (Be sure to do the pears last, as they quickly oxidize and turn brown.) Place the pear slices on top of the mix in the pan. Dust with some extra brown sugar.

The original recipe said to bake for 40 minutes at 350 degrees. That wasn't quite enough with the addition of the pears, so I added another 10-15 minutes. Test with a knife in the center of the cake. When it comes up non-goopy, it's ready.

Remove from the oven and cool. Once it's cooled you can remove it from the baking dish and put it on a pretty plate.

The end product is slightly dense, kind of like a dry cheesecake. The pears add moisture, the ginger gives it a bit of a spark. It's not too sweet, and would be really yummy with fresh whipped cream or a bit of syrup or brandy.

Enjoy!!!

LA, LA

2006-01-06T01:28:15Z

I live in the city of Los Angeles. When I try to describe it to people who's familiarity with the city comes from TV and film, I can never seem to get across to them the true nature of the place. Thus, I offer you the following from today's Los Angeles Times ...

"Los Angeles is the more-money-than-sense capital of the Western World. While the annual [auto] show at the L.A. Convention Center (through Jan. 15) typically is upstaged by the January show in Detroit, super-exclusive carmakers — Aston Martin, Rolls-Royce, Lamborghini, and rare isotopes such as Fisker and Spyker — regard Los Angeles, not Motown, as the biggest show of the year."

Right on.

Music Cures All Ills

2006-01-04T02:49:29Z

It's my first day back at work and I'm listening to fabulous music on my brand spanking new iPod. Yes!!! This lazy girl finally got around to loading some music on the thing, about 300 songs. That doesn't sound like a lot and it didn't put much of a dent into my collection of CD's, but that's a lot of music.

This is so great, and I am happy happy happy that the gift gods heard my plea. For once I am blissfully ignorant of the loud conversation outside my miserable cube.

About the cube, as one of my colleagues put it, the cube looks like Beirut, only really, really small.

Here's the situation ...

Every day around 5:30 or 6:00, a bunch of the lawyers who have offices near my cube get together and talk. Usually it's about their training regimens (they're of the incredible overachiever uber class), what their coaches said about how they swim, run or bike (triathletes, all), what they ate, what they weigh, what their kids said, etc. etc. etc., on and on and on, ad nauseum ... you get the picture. They find my cube to be a central location, equidistant between their offices, and a great place to settle in for a long chat. And no sotto voce here, kids, we're talking bellowing as if there were no one else around trying to work, write or think. Who would be doing such a thing? They're not!

Prior to that, the secretaries and their bosses all get together and go over the gossip of the day. Who is Lance Armstrong sleeping with? Who did he sleep with before that person? What they ate for lunch, the progress of someone's daughter's pregnancy. Again, all in loud, joyous, boisterous tones of voice. Ack!

Throughout the day, the secretaries yell down the hall to their bosses (the intercom must not be working, right?), who then yell back to them (their intercoms aren't working either, I guess).

It's miserable trying to actually do anything serious. I guess since I'm somewhat out of sight, hidden here in my itty bitty cubespace, that I'm also out of mind -- as in never mind, there's no one else around. Sigh!

But all that's changed now. I've got iPod Power! Thank you, thank you, thank you ...

[I'd like at this time to reveal the true identity of the gift gods -- my brother and his wife! A thousand thank you's, I love you very much.]

Turning A Corner

2006-01-01T20:08:47Z

I so enjoy reading everyone's resolutions at the new year. They are deeply inspiring, and I am filled with love for those who take the time to reflect upon what they want to change or improve about themselves or their lives, what they want to add or remove from their life orbit. A few even vow to take on the ills of the world and make a personal impact on the injustices that exist in the lives of others.

But most of the resolutions I read are about making oneself or one's life better, shinier, happier, more satisfying ... you get the picture. What could be bad about that?

I don't make resolutions myself, I know I can't keep them. Rather, I approach my life with a great deal of fluidity, as I've found that, for me, setting goals usually ends badly. I'm much better off if I take each event, each possibility, and evaluate it on its merits (or de-merits, as they case may be), and make my decisions in the moment. Does that sound flaky and half-baked? Perhaps it does, but I've just found that this has better results for me.

I do have guiding principles, so don't think I'm totally woo-woo with about as much substance as a puddle. My life decisions are made within the framework of these principles.

For instance, there is a Buddhist concept that can be described as "consciousness". I interpret this to mean living consciously, that for every event that occurs one must evaluate the impact one's response to the event will have. For example, you say something to me, and if I don't listen carefully I may say the wrong thing, or not hear what you're really trying to tell me. Thus, the right thing to do (and Buddhism is all about doing the right thing) would be to listen carefully, respond with sensitivity, conscious not only of what you're saying but also of what my words may mean to you.

Wow, I'm exhausted just thinking about that! I try to do the right thing -- sometimes I succeed, and sometimes I don't, but at least I try.

Even though New Year's resolutions are not a personal custom, I do greet each new year as if I were turning corner.

I'm a bit breathless as I approach it, thinking of the possibilities that will greet me as I round it, when all comes into view. Will it be love? Will it be that person who's been on my mind? Will it be good? Will it be filled with challenges? Will I look good in that dress I love so much? Lots of questions, the answers pregnant with possibility.

The Gift Gods Heard Me!

2005-12-27T19:25:38Z

Well, the gift gods were listening and lo and behold, what did I get for Xmas? An iPOD! Yay! It's truly incredible technology, so tiny yet so powerful. (Hmmm, can you tell I'm a geek? I also like power tools. Now, if I can just figure out how to load those cute pictures to my blog, I can put in for my Uber Geek Certification ...)

The holidays were a lot of fun. I cooked for my parents and some of their friends. Dinner was Turducken, creamy mashed sweet potatoes with brown sugar and lime, and green beans.

Wait! What was that? What is a Turducken, you ask? Well, listen closely ...

Once upon a time there was a chicken. The chicken knew that it was very boring, and this pained the chicken so it decided to keep company with a duck. The duck, you see, was much more interesting. But the the holidays were coming up and the chicken and the duck felt like outsiders. You see, turkey was the "it" bird for the holidays, so the chicken and the duck joined up with the turkey. Voila! Turducken. The trio was an instant celebrity.

Really, I'm not kidding. A Turducken is a chicken inside a duck inside a turkey, with stuffing and spices between each layer. It's fantastic! I'm told that JG, Shemaiah's very talented husband, has made one himself, and that people are still talking about it. I am not so talented, so I resorted to the Internet, treasure chest that it is.

You can get your very own Turducken here or here. But beware, invite a lot of people to dinner because they're huge. We had eight on Christmas Eve and they ate less than half of the monster. My leftovers were shared with JG and Shemaiah at our weekly community dinner (shorthand for what's in the icebox, I'll share mine with you).

On the first day ...

2005-12-22T22:47:24Z

... she created her blog!

Here it is, my first posting. I usually consider these things pretty self-indulgent, but I'll have to live with that for the moment until I think of some really great excuse to impose my will upon the world. I know, it's only the blogworld, but still ...

Perhaps I should have called this blog The Big Ellipsis?

...

In any event, this is (part of) who I am:

I'm a dancer of Argentine Tango and a believer in the teachings of Buddhism as well as the principle that you can live a Buddhist life in the modern world.

I work in a technical profession and pursue it with creativity.

I live in what passes for a loft for yuppies like myself in downtown Los Angeles.

I was born here, then I left, and then I came back.

I care about what people say, so speak to me!