The Day As It Is.

So.
It has been a while. Missed you.

I've been a bit busy. My father has had open heart surgery and then, less than a week later, emergency open-heart surgery. He is finally slowly recovering. He went into the hospital my first day of rehearsal; we've now opened and are running and he is out of the ICU. It has been scary for a while. Thank goodness, he is recovering.

My current show is remarkable. THE NIGHT WATCHER, written and performed by Charlayne Woodard. She is a National Treasure. The country has yet to see it. She is the story teller of our lives. If you are in L.A. you must take an evening and see her. Truly... we are doing great theatre. (We are at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City.) You won't be disappointed. I'm so proud of her and my work with her. Please come!

I am watching the Los Angeles Police dismantle Occupy L.A. right now. In real time. I'm a little confused by Occupy L.A. They've been offered office space free for 10 years. Why not take that and start a real movement? Feels like such a gift to me. What we could have done with that in 1970. Really.

Ultimately you can't protest for the sake of protesting. You have to finally DO something. These children, new to protesting need to appreciate the world has changed and take the opportunities offered.

Take a look at how organized the Black Panthers were. How about all the work Martin Luther King did to organize. You can't just sit in a park. This all has to be bigger than yourself.

I agree with near everything the protesters want. But... it has all become about something else. They have turned this into a free speech movement. Hmmm, I thought it was about the banks and Wall Street and the Super Rich playing against the rest of us. Wasn't all of this supposed to be about who gets the most money?

Money, money, money.... I don't work for money... okay.. I do... But, mostly I work for my art. My life is my art. The money I earn seems to be calculated by how valuable my art is to most people. You know what? I'm okay with that. I think my art is worth trillions of dollars.

I think the art of my colleagues and friends are worth much more than that.

I think all of us, every single one of us, needs to reach out and find someone who needs help.

I think we have to give up on government to help us. I think we almost need to adopt Amish ways and always help our neighbor. Really. Look next door.

You know, you don't have to "wake up happy" but you do need to wake up and face each new day with a little bit of joy. Trust me. It makes all the difference in the world.

xoxo
so glad you stayed with me, my friends.

Dear Prudence.

So, politics lately... WTF. No, you know what.. I can say it, "What the fuck?" I heard that congress spent today again arguing about abortion. Yeah, you know what? No one is a fan of abortion. It is a horrible form of birth control. But! Women and their doctors need to make these horrible decisions, not congress. I am past the age of child-bearing and yet I worry about all our young women. Congress seems intent on passing legislation re: miscarriages. I don't get this. Don't these people understand that miscarriages are nature's way of correcting mistakes? Oh, yeah, I forgot. They don't believe in nature. They would prefer mothers to die in an attempt to keep an inviable fetus alive and leave the living children motherless then deny those children basic health care or support of any kind.
Since 1976 there has been a law preventing government from paying for abortions. Abortions are in fact legal in this country as long as the government doesn't pay for it. Ok. I'll buy that. Some people don't want their tax dollars spent on something that is diametrically opposed to "right to life." I get it. Why do we have to keep talking about it? This is a law on the books. If you don't believe in abortion, don't have one. If you need an abortion, pay for it yourself. Ok. Got it. Leave it. If you think it is murder, change the constitution, and then be prepared for the consequences and take care of those thousand unwanted children and those poor desperate women looking for some relief.  You men need to take a little more responsibility here. Stop raping. Stop impregnating. Stop forcing. Stop cajoling. Stop threatening. Stop taking advantage. Stop. (Oh, and STOP having sex.)

The larger problem is that abortion is not what the country cares about right now. People need jobs! You've read my blog... work is hard to find. Could I help to make ends meet working at a fast-food restaurant? Well, of course. Will they hire me? No. I'm 57 years old. I have a BA and a year of graduate work. The low income employers will not spend the time to train me when they risk losing me to a better job. This is the reality. And health care? Those low income jobs do not offer health care. They will keep one to 39 hours a week so one is always a part-time worker.

I teach on Mondays at USC. It is a part-time job I've had for years. I teach on Mondays because in my business that is my day off. When I do get a "full-time" job I work Tuesdays thru Sundays. When I'm working, I work 7 days a week. Theatre is what I know and what I do well. I'm lucky right now. I've work until well into June. But my work doesn't exist unless people support the arts. (Oh, and I make less now than I did in the 1980s. Substantially less.)

I support the "Occupy Wall Street." I don't care that they don't have a concrete solution. I support and agree with their frustration. I will never understand the Supreme Court decision to make corporations individuals and allow all that 1% money to flow to ultra right conservatives. I feel like our democracy has been stolen from us.

Not what I ever want to talk about. I hate this stuff. I NEED to stay light and happy and optimistic each and every day. I have to think of my family. Day to day we have to more than survive. We have to thrive. We have to make each day count for something.

At least once a couple of weeks I have to talk to our health insurance company. We see doctors all months of the year. We talk to doctors nearly every week. That is the world one lives in when one has a spouse with a chronic disease. It's okay. I accept that. But does our do nothing congress have to make everyday life more difficult?

Who are these people controlling our lives? Why does my husband's drug for MS cost $40,000 a year? Really? Are you fucking kidding me? We already pay nearly nine grand a year for the privilege of coverage. Our co-pay is so high we have a charity paying part of it. I HATE this.

There is something just plain wrong here.

And yet, I will wake up happy every morning, hoping and looking at the new day. My husband does the same thing. Maybe today will be better.

So.. we start the day with hope and will not be deterred. The sun is up. The sky is blue. It's beautiful and so are you.

Dear Prudence. Won't you come out to play?

Kinda Perfect Day.

No more rants right now. I'm just tired of being angry.

I love the protests going on all over the country. I love the "Occupy Wall Street." I think we are finally seeing a "grass-roots" response to what has been going on in our country. The Tea-Party was never grass-roots, as we've all finally discovered. (Though some members may still believe that so.)

I had a beautiful day. My husband can no longer walk any real distance at all. He has always taken himself to a particularly good dentist in West L.A. by himself. (He's been seeing this dentist for a very long time and when we moved was not willing to change dentists.) Parking in West L.A. and very adjacent Brentwood is expensive. In the past, he'd find a meter on the street and could use his handicapped placard and his cane. (The dentist is in a medical building that provides handicapped spaces, but they are always in use and are always VERY expensive.) He can't walk from "up the street" anymore. I drove him today. I let him off and we agreed I'd come back when he was finished with his appointment.

Well. We were very far from our home. But. We were very close to to my first school. Down the block and on the same street as Phil's dentist, St. Sebastian's School where I started kindergarten 52 years ago last month. I was 4. My mother was in labor with my sister so my older brother and my Dad had to take me to school. I didn't know it then, but my brother hung outside the kindergarten room and watched me thru the window until he was sure I was ok. Yeah! Brothers are good!

I walked around a neighborhood I hadn't walked since I was about 6. I parked near the apartment my mother rented for us all on Ohio St. I gazed up at the 2nd floor apt. and made the walk to the school as I'd done many times in 1958-1959. I remembered there was a field we crossed as a short cut. The field is long gone, all apartments now. I once lost a precious piece of jewelry my mother let me wear to school one day. A crucifix. I lost it in that field. I looked for it yet again, today.. over the paved parking lots and outside the new buildings. How could I not?

When I started school St. Sebastian's had a small wooden church across the street from the school. The parish tore it down and built a larger church. I remember, at 6 years old, "Oh, no! My Church will be too big!" I was sad. I'd had my first communion in the old church. When the new rebuilt one opened it seemed overwhelmingly large and too new. Right at that time Vatican II came in. Everything about the church was less magical. I can't explain it right now. But, at 6 years old, it all felt different, foreign and ultimately less.

I went into the church today. You know? It is still a tiny little church. It smelled right. It was open to all, in the middle of the day. I looked for someone to talk to... to say, "I've not been here in 50 years.." and there was no one. The church was wide open. I was astounded by the trust, as I trusted when I was young, that no one would dare defame a church left open. I felt welcome and safe. Hm. Hope.

Thinking I still had time I walked up the very long hill to the Dentist's Office hoping to use the restroom. By the time I'd walked a much longer distance than I'd expected, Phil was done with his appointment and ready to leave. Oh, great. The car is 1/2 a mile away. Uh. Sorry, honey, wait right here!  (I walked very quickly back to the car.)

We decided to get off the freeway early to stop at Forensis Farms. (My dad knows the farmer... his name is John, so we call it: Farmer John's!) Phil and I bought the always amazingly good corn and the most beautiful and tasteful tomatoes ever grown. We bought a huge green/red/yellow/orange pepper so perfect I want to display it and never eat it. Then, encouraged, we went to Trader Joe's. Phil was feeling up to it.

Back again to home. I made some necessary calls to our insurance company and arranged for another round of meds for my dear husband. Then, both of us sat and played online on our separate computers until dinner. (I made BLT's with those beautiful tomatoes and cooked some of the luscious corn.) We watched a little Keith, we watched Ken Burn's Prohibition, we watched a little Netflix.

Right now I'm listening to coyotes howl.

Kinda perfect day.

My New Rant.

My disbelief in what Americans will buy these days is stretched to its limit. When did we become a country that was more religious and less rational? I did not grow up this way and I was raised Catholic! We, my family and I, have always believed in the separation of Church and State. When did this become an issue?

Who are these people who want to put religion back into the constitution? Why do they want to take away rights all the time saying they want the government to have less power? Do they have an inkling of understanding that to enforce what they want, they need the government? When they say, "Cut taxes, not defense" it is an oxymoron. Do they even understand the word "oxymoron."?

No, because they are "morons." I may not know where to put the period in my piece, but I know the difference between piece and peace. I know that there and their and they're are different words and mean different things. I know its and it's have very different meanings. I know were, where, we're are in fact different words and board and bored do not mean the same thing.  Your, you're communicate different meanings.  What the fuck.

I'm listening and reading people who can't communicate in their own language. They are  running for President! Doesn't that disturb you on some level?  Really? It doesn't? Is it because you don't know how to use your own language? So.. you want everyone to be as dumb as you are?  Really? The President? You want to have a beer with him? Wouldn't you rather he/she make the choices you can't make? Wouldn't you rather have someone smarter than you who could lead the planet to new beginnings?

Really. Grow up. Listen. Look. Who is smarter. We want the smartest person to be President. NOT the guy we want to hang with. He's okay. But, can he talk to the world?

WAKE UP! We cannot have the religious right take over the country. I'm honestly worried about this. We need clear thinkers. We need to pay attention to our Nobel Laurate Economists. We need to listen to our scientists. We need to be smart.

Ok.
My Rant.
Done.
xo.

More About California.

I told my father about my husband and my attempts to have day vacations. Local things where I could get us back in time to have dinner at home.

So, my Dad said, "How about San Francisquito Canyon?" (Think: San Francis Quito. Then you can pronounce it.) My dear husband and I traveled the complicated route off the Golden State Freeway into Saugus, some strange directions through very populated areas and made a left. My goodness. Such a wilderness! Thanks Dad! We traveled up and up over a very circuitous route and then up and over the San Andreas Fault and back again.  We saw desert wildness and calmer woodlands. We found a pasture with American Buffalo! I've never seen them in California before! Llamas, yes, Ostriches, yes. But Buffalo? Too cool and new.

The adventure was completely new and took us 3 hours from home.. round trip!

It stuns me how much is right here.

My mother traveled to Italy once, and the Italians asked her, "Why would you come here when you are from California? We want to go there!"

She also told me, "There is a no more beautiful place than California." She showed me the state when I was a child. She took me to Yosemite, to the Muir Woods, to San Francisco. She showed me Tahoe and the High Desert, the Sierras, Santa Cruz, Monterey, Big Sur and San Diego. She took me to every mission in the state.  I have to agree with her. What a GREAT place to live and learn and continually discover. I am constantly discovering and re-discovering new dimensions to this wondrous place. I think California might be heaven.

Phil and I can walk out our door and within 5 blocks be in the wilderness. Within 2 miles we are in the Angeles National Forest. In the car we can be at 5000 feet in about 18 minutes. Oh! What a gift.

I miss the ocean, but he does not. I drag him to the sea every now and again. It is a little farther. But, Oh! the Ocean! And there it is, about 45 minutes away.

My home. My California. My big open spaces.

What I've Been Doing.

I miss talking to my best friends. I love spending time with my husband. And... I miss my friends. I have one friend who has become a pen-pal. How wonderful is that? And how cool. We are intimate in letters, albeit, email letters. It doesn't matter, the communication comes from talking with written words. I love that.

I have another dear friend I need to call. Oh, Nansi, I miss you so. Our timing is just off right now. I will call.. soon.

I got back from 7 weeks away. I'm spending a lot of time with my husband. We miss each other so when we are apart and my work has always kept us away from each other too often. Now is the time to spend time.. together.

We've taken day trips. Day-tripper. He is really not well enough to go overnight anywhere. We've traveled up to a stream in the San Gabriel Mountains. We've taken the back roads to Free Zuma Beach, we've taken a day trip up to Mt. Pinos near Frasier Park. Ah. So Beautiful and so cool and we are back by 5pm.

I need new directions and new destinations. We are never looking for the city thing. We are looking for a little bit of wilderness and isolation. Next time, I think we'll try east. (And into the desert.)

Not going south. Done that too often, and too recently. By the way, it is almost solid city from LA to San Diego.

Almost.

Yeah, East is next. Joshua Tree National Forest. Yeah. East. Out the 210 (Foothill Fwy) to the 10 (Christopher Columbus Transcontinental Hwy.) Out towards the desert.

And back again.

Sorghum And Other Disconnected Observations.

Outside the Dept. of Agriculture the "powers that be" are growing sunflowers, corn and sorghum. I looked at the sorghum and thought, "Hmm, that must be sorghum." I have no idea why I thought that. I don't remember ever seeing sorghum before in my life, can't imagine what it is used for, but I just knew. Sorghum. I later looked it up on Google. Yep. Sorghum. What a word. Sorghum.

Why are there windows on subway trains? Not really much to see. I'm just saying.

Not smart to go out in a Hurricane. Pretty dumb, actually. (I speak from personal experience.)

To my dear East Coast friends: When an earthquake happens "duck and cover." Cover your head with your hands. Duck under a desk or table. Wait until the shaking stops and assess. Do not run around the room in a panic. Do not crowd into an elevator. Do not run outside! Things like bricks are falling from the sky.

Just after one has packed the umbrella and sealed up the box, it starts to rain.

I think as I get older I just don't want to hold my stomach in anymore. Also, my pants tend to fall down.

Off into the late afternoon on a quest for dinner.

Later.

Sorghum...hmmm.