Life of Wry

I hope everyone lives in a town with a Central Park.  Ours is particularly lovely these days.

This picture was actually taken yesterday. Battering winds today knocked the remaining leaves off most of our trees. (Bonus: Not only did the wind strip the trees in our yard, the winds then swept all the leaves away, leaving a super clean driveway and patio.)

It’s still violent out there as I write this.. at midnight. Anxious to see what things look like when the sun comes up.

*just realized fall down is redundant.

Pretty goofy, huh? (Not the pink plaid flannel PJs, though those are pretty goofy, too.)

Please pardon the unlady-like pose.

Much ado about achilles tendons, I must say.  For the record, I LOVE these things. I’m kind of weird that way; I love the differentness of walking around on these sloped-bottom, soft-as-marshmallows-on-the-inside boots. It’s quite fun tromping around the house. No more difficult than climbing stairs in ski boots. It’s challenging to walk straight, to get up and down in a chair, to cross my legs daintily while watching Mad Men.  Noisy, too. But I love wearing them.

Going to try sleeping in them tonight.  That should go well.

Why is this guy in so much pain?

Because he’s having trouble with these:

All part of a generalized condition called tendonitis:

Which is what I’ve been dealing with for the last couple of years.  And actually, the duration classifies it as something more on the order of  tendinopathy, which I’ve written about before, so I won’t go into it.  Except to say I’m staring a new thing (as soon as my appliances arrive).

Excited, because this tendon injury stuff is no picnic (note expression on Mr. Wincy Guy’s face).

What, you’ve already seen this picture?  I know. It’s just that this is also my day today.  Exactly like yesterday.  Same spot, same chair, same pillow, same computer, same fire, same stuff on the table to my right (Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, Games magazine, Blackberry, holiday list, pencil, cuppa tea).

It’s still grey and cold outside.  And nothing’s pressing.

I get up from time to time to 1) make more tea, 2) eat a piece of See’s candy, 3) scoop a spoonful of dressing, 4) have a parmesan cracker with olive tapenade, 5) repeat.

Did manage a walk this morning and a spontaneous breakfast with friends.  So there’s that.

Ok. Back to it.

The peacefulness of this moment.. my goodness, it’s like the quietness at the bottom of the ocean (never been there, but I imagine it’s a heavy silence, the way it feels now). Am I allowed to love this peace and stillness and still love the frenetic-ness of a houseful of family members, who were guests for four days but are now, as of a couple hours ago, gone?  Of course I know the answer to that.

There is so much to enjoy in this moment, sitting alone by the fire in complete silence, not a thing to do. Enjoying it so much because I (have to say) earned it.  Many, I’m sure, are sitting on couches, next to fires having earned this moment, after a frenzy of planning and cooking and hosting and entertaining and cleaning. A wonderful and worthwhile frenzy, but a relentless one… without which this moment in deep comfort and doziness would be less contrastingly pleasurable.

But more than the quiet and odd lack of something to do, I feel intensely accomplished. I’m intensely satisfied by the effort of the last couple weeks preparing for this holiday, for their visit.  It was my gift to my mom, who hadn’t traveled in years, but who rose to the occasion with some but not an unreasonable amount of anxiety.

It all went so well.

Matt and Chris said she was giddy as she climbed, four days ago, aboard the 30-f00t, rented RV (thank you, Matt.. a brilliant idea that allowed her to travel comfortably).  She’d anticipated the trip for a couple of months and had been mostly packed weeks ago. She’d assembled a beautiful basket of wines, cheeses, crackers and candy to present to us and was so eager to get here.  But she also had no idea how she’d do so far from home, away from routines and resources.  Having some kind of medical emergency was not a far-fetched idea, she has them fairly frequently.

So we kept it low key; some activities, but mostly stayed close to home.  We had a couple meals out, many meals in (including the big one), a movie, and lots of game time. I even had my massage therapist come over to give mom a relaxation massage.

She loved all of it, or at least appreciated it all. She said numerous time, “I feel so normal.”

She might have lots of these kinds of trips left in her.  But she might not have any more.  It’s impossible to say.  I know I feel very gratified that it all unfolded smoothly.  I wasn’t always relaxed–worried she might slide off a stool, slip in the shower, fall out of bed, cough embarrassingly (for her) in the theater, have a heart episode, hit her head, get sick, throw up, fall down, faint.. whatever.   I wasn’t always patient–frustrated when she offered unwanted advice on how to prepare the dressing, or took too many sleeping pills one night and got up crazy late, acting and sounding slurry and drunk, or didn’t bring warm enough clothing (for the umpteenth millionth time.. I just can never impress upon her how cold it is in northern California).. but actually, even these tried and true trigger points were less charged than usual, I think because we all knew it was a bfd that she was even here at all and we just wanted everything to be nice.

It was.  I think it’ll get even richer in the retelling and will linger in her memory as perfect, once the memory of any imperfections fades. She now knows she can do it (!) and will be less reticent, maybe, next time.  We’ll see.

And here she is looking super happy, sitting in the front seat, just before departure.  She wasn’t in a hurry to leave at all, but she’s happy everything went well.  It’s a really nice picture of her, relaxed and unselfconscious (shot through the window):

Here’s Matt, without whom the trip would NOT have happened.  He is a god.  A god. A god. A god. A god.

Here’s Chris, the go along with whatever guy. I think he actually liked Davis, in a I-would-never-live-here-but-it’s-a-nice-enough-place-if-too-far-from-surfing way.

And here’s the RV, just backed out of the driveway. Big, huh?

Anyway, a good, good trip in the bag!  And another Thanksgiving in the can. Yay.

The day after Thanksgiving started with a morning walk with Matt and Chris, ending at Mishka’s, as walks often do.  Kind of  sweet to share a small piece of my Davis life with them.

I can just about count the number of times my brothers have visited during my 34 years in Davis.  Surprisingly satisfying to give them a taste of life in the northland, even if it’s not their cup of tea.

Because everything Thanksgiving family gathering requires a photo around the table.

[Post publish: Jeez, I write a blog post with 11 total words, and manage to screw it up. I must be pooped. In case it’s not obvious, that should read: Because every Thanksgiving family gathering…]

Almost done with the prep.

Happy Thanksgiving Eve y’all.

They have arrived.

In dramatic fashion–or at least a fashion foreign to this family–they pulled up in a rented home on wheels.  Matt rented a 30-foot long RV so mom could be as comfortable as possible for her first road trip in I don’t know how many years. Mom was able to go back to the “bedroom” and put her feet up and read while 18-wheelers past freakishly close to her bedroom window.  Took them ten hours to get here from southern California.  Not impressive time, but comfy. The RV’s a kick, and takes up most of our driveway. Matt’s using it as his hotel room while here, making him, by his own words, the perfect guest.

Anyway, here they are gathered in the living room–Matty, Chris and mom (Jay’s in Thailand.. another story worth telling).  Which means Jim’s made himself scarce, hiding out somewhere in the back of the house.

Peter’s playing his new video game, I’m baking pies.

And so the holiday begins..

A huge crowd–estimated at about 7,000–showed up at the Occupy UC Davis rally this afternoon.. check this out!

Worth clicking on, otherwise it just looks like a swarm of bees.  As I understand it, the photo was taken by the UC Davis Geography Graduate Group using a helium-filled weather balloon (or some such).

Many are calling this the pepper spray rally, inspired by the events of last Friday (I’ve written about this plenty already).  The first hour was all about recognizing the students who had been unjustifiably sprayed.  Each had a few minutes to tell his or her story.  They were extraordinary and moving.  Here’s a shot of one of those students.  This one repeated numerous times, we are just kids!

During the hour in which these young men and women shared their experiences, we learned that Chancellor Katehi was in the crowd.  It wasn’t obvious, she hadn’t been acknowledged, but a friend pointed her out to me and it turned out, she was just about six feet away.

She was listening to their stories, and the angry chanting that went on between speakers calling for her resignation.  At one point, one of the organizers indicated that she was present on the quad and would be addressing the crowd. This announcement was followed by boos and, again, angry calls for her resignation. She approached the stage and the woman who was acting as emcee told her–very rudely I thought–that she’d have to wait her turn to speak. Another three or four people spoke and then the chancellor was given her moment.

She spoke for about two minutes, starting with an apology. She agreed with students who’d said this was not the kind of university they wanted to attend by saying it was not the kind of university she wanted to be chancellor of.  She said, in fact, UC Davis has many things it needs to improve upon, things she needs to improve upon, and that she wants to talk to students and listen to their ideas.  She talked about a plaque (somewhere on the quad) that commemorates the 1973 uprising in Greece, that she was there and it was awful.  She was visibly and audibly shaken.  She seemed genuinely pained by everything that had gone on in recent days and genuinely committed to change.  Her entire presentation is already up on YouTube (but brace yourself, the comments are brutal, some justified I’m sure, but some just downright cruel, especially those having to do with her speech, accent and command of english).

A friend this evening said she had the expression of someone who’d been villainized but who also realized she deserved it.  A lot of pain there.

I didn’t really hear boos when she finished, but the chants for her resignation resumed, if slightly (very slightly) less charged.

Part of me is ready to accept that she is a compassionate human being whose judgment misfired under challenging circumstances.  I totally don’t know anything about her performance these first two years on the job, other than some favorable anecdotal accounts from people I don’t know personally.  I’m inclined to think she’s a cog in a much larger wheel, a wheel that is part of the modern university educational system which has become totally corporatized, impersonal, and apparently, militarized. UC Davis is certainly not unique in this. And…. of course I have no idea what I’m talking about, but part of me thinks that anyone who is a chancellor in the University of California system is under the thumb of the president and regents and is simply carrying out its policies, strategic directives and practices. Her replacement will be no different. I’m under the impression, based on things I’ve read lately, that chancellors are more CEO-like and that university leaders are an administrative branch far removed from the academic and student side of the house.  Students are data points, education has been commodified, and.. here I go again talking about stuff I know nothing about.

I could be dead wrong about her and the latitude she may or may not have.

But I do understand that the buck stops with her, everything that is wrong with UC Davis is ultimately her responsibility, and there is legitimacy behind symbolic gestures.  So maybe she has to go.  She’s become an easy person to point fingers at.  And while we can’t easily fix the real problem, which is, you know, the corporatizing of education, we can drive her out and that feels like something, a little victory for a lot of people who feel hugely, frustratingly disempowered.

(I should say they can do all that; I have nothing at all to do with the university these days.)

Which brings me to Occupy UC Davis and why I was even there.  I mean, I don’t have a dog in the tuition fight, or a stake in the university’s leadership choices (except that Peter will one day be on his way to college and we’re going to care a lot about its costs then, and tuition in California has been rising insanely and by the time Peter’s college-bound we’ll be able to support him for maybe a quarter, but will run out of money long before his fourth, or fifth, year), but I wanted to be there today because I’m deeply, deeply inspired by the occupy movement (so called… are we ever going to get a better name for this thing?).

And it turns out, I guess, that each gathering of protesters has a different angle on the same problem.  Wall Street’s focusing on the banks; globally, different countries are concerned with oppressive regimes; in Oakland, they headed to the port; and here it’s about tuition.  Systemically, it’s all about issues of power imbalance and an inequitable distribution of resources. For me, it boils down to things like the Citizen’s United decision, the ability of corporations to buy candidates and dictate the outcome of elections, the ability of corporations to own and control the media.  Pretty much, it’s the power that corporations have to dominate every aspect of our lives for their profit at our expense.

That.

It just pisses me off.

But I digress.

Here are a couple more shots of the rally today.  Some of the passion in the crowd:

And some great signage:

Mostly, it was good to hang out with the kids, who are, for the most part, smart, articulate, committed and very likely on to something here…