Monday, August 3, 2020

 

I had a bad night's sleep worrying about the political situation. Judy and I are not on the same page politically, but we both feel it will be bad no matter who wins the Presidential election.  I called Dorothy on my walk.  

            Before I could say anything, she told me she had had an upsetting experience that morning. When shopping in Shoprite, she came face to face with someone who wasn't wearing their mask. She asked the woman to put it on.  The woman started screaming at Dorothy. Dorothy walked away and did her shopping. She encountered an employee and commented that they must have a job and a half getting people to put their masks on.  The woman observed her speaking to the young man and came tearing across the store's width, screaming at her.  Dorothy backed off in fear.  The woman finally went on her way. As Dorothy left, the manager came up to her to ask her what happened. She told him she had just asked the woman to put her mask on. She found out that he called the police when he heard the woman screaming as she charged at Dorothy across the store.  Dorothy asked if someone would accompany her to her car. She was concerned the woman might be waiting in the parking lot and accost her.  Everyone was agreed that this particular woman had a psychological problem probably made worse by the current stress.

            I had called because I needed some comfort. Dorothy needed comfort too.  When I was upset, I would ask Mike to sing to me. It helped. Dorothy suggested that we sing together and proposed an old camp song, sung to Drink to Me with Thine Eyes.

                        The sun is sinking in the west as evening shadows fall.

                        Across the silence of the lake, we hear a bird's low call.'      

                        So let us too, the silence keep and slowly steal away.

                        To rest and sleep until the dawn brings forth another day.

                        Good night to A and B. (A and B were the two youngest age groups among the campers, and they had an earlier bedtime than the rest of us.)

            We both found it soothing, even though my ear bud's sound quality was bad, very bad. I think it brought it us both back to a time when we felt happy and safe. Our world in the camp was small and stable, even safe from parents. Dorothy said when we were there, we had all our parents' love and attention at the safe distance of two hundred miles when we were at camp. We both loved it. 

            After we sang, we remembered funny moments in our lives and laughed together.  I have found a cure to the stress of my current life, laughter.  I haven't laughed in a long, long time. It's not because I'm sad or because life is stressful because the occasion hasn't come up.  With Mike, life was a constant stream of giggles of delight.  Not outright belly laughs.  The stress of today calls for that. I am going to have to expose myself to comedies.  Miss Congeniality always fits the bill for me. I should buy that film.     

            I ran into several of my cowalkers. I have invited others to join us for yoga. They weren't interested, but these two said they were.  I also let them know I was looking for online tutoring students. 

            When I got home, I indulged in reading Quora Digest, a gossip column. I suppose reading Quora is better for me than playing FreeCell but not by much.  Facebook was another matter. I have several conservative friends through my connections with folks from my high school and the school where I worked while living in Ohio.

            The ones from my high school are particularly disturbing.  I went to one of the primer high schools in the New York Metropolitan area, Great Neck High.  One of my classmates posted how she resented the idea that she would have to pay restitution to people who didn't directly suffer from slavery, the descendants of slaves. She argued, she did cause that suffering.  This woman compares the suffering of the Jews with that of the Afro-Americans saying that the Jews managed to thrive.  

            I have two problems with her argument. Let's start with a bit of background. My parents were refugees from Nazi Germany. The suffering of the Afro-Americans in this country is not to be compared to the Holocaust (although the current high incarceration rate can be considered a black holocaust), an explicit effort to exterminate all Jews.  My family managed to get out in time, so they avoided those camps. Our story is the suffering caused by institutional racism endorsed and supported by the government. Jews were denied citizenship, the right to vote. Jews were denied the right to own property. Jews were denied the right to employment. Sound familiar? We have systemic racism in this country, supported by government institutions.  

            Secondly, the German government recognized what it had done and paid restitution.  You could argue that those who paid were those who caused the damage, but that is only partially true. The benefits were not just given to my parents; they were extended to my sister and me. Our German peers were no more responsible for what happened in Nazi Germany than anyone alive today is in the USA for slavery.  Secondly, the Afro-American soldiers who returned from fighting in WWII were denied the GI Bill's benefits. If the US government makes up for just that oversight.  That oversight happened in my lifetime and in the lifetime of all the students in my high school class.

            To boot, Germany has extended citizenship to the children and the grandchildren of holocaust survivors.  I have dual citizenship, as do the other members of my immediate family. This means that I can move to Germany and receive the full benefit of the German social network.  

            One of my classmates said that she lived a normal life in our elite town with two parents.  My question to her is how many friends did she have from Afro-American families who lived in Kings Point, a high-end neighborhood in a high-end town?  I know the answer. It's none. Why? Because no Afro-American families were living in most of Great Neck. I wonder why that was?

            I went down to Yvette's quarters to retrieve a pair of clippers to work on a shrub I've been eyeing for several months.  This is the first time that walking down the hill to get to the clippers sounded comfortably doable.  Scott was down there. It was an opportunity to talk about a few projects I had in mind.

            I want to get these projects done now in anticipation of the apocalypse. I want to do it while I still have the money. We still have to finish up the sound insulation over Yvette and Josh's bedroom. This is in anticipation of the family moving in from the mainland. That way, Yvette and Josh won't be tormented by the squeaky floor overhead.  The second is finding some way to contain the water runoff from the gutters when it comes down like a firehose.  It washes out everything in its path.  I think we will have to add a well of some sort, or maybe just a good-sized hole in the ground to collect the water, letting it seep into the ground at its own pace.

            The third thing is a solar attic fan.  I want to be as off the grid as I can be when the time comes.  This will include having the electric company come out to switch back and forth between being on the grid and off.  Yes, we have solar panels, but they go out when the electricity does. I have to have a switch installed that will allow me to go back and forth. Why do I want to be on the grid when I don't have to? It's cheaper, considerably so. The electric company buys some back from me, and it is free when I use it during the day. When solar panels are used off the grid, there has to be a particular battery that converts the solar panels' direct current to alternating current of our electricity. I believe Europe is all on direct current. I have no idea why one area of the world wound up with one kind of current instead of another.

            I was down as I talked to Scott, so much so I was inarticulate.  That doesn't happen often.  I am very gloomy about the political situation. Judy and I agree it's not going to be good no matter who gets elected.  Scott told me to take heart; we were much better off here in Hawaii than on the mainland. Maybe, maybe not. There are whites here, myself included, who benefit from white privilege. There are minority groups here as well that harbor resentment, not that they shouldn't.  Whether I am responsible for the systemic limitations placed on minority groups or not, I am a beneficiary of my own white person status. Knowing the impact of being put down in my personal life, I appreciate how it feels to be put down as a group member.  A put down is a put-down; a limitation is a limitation. 

             I did get into action when I got upstairs. First, I washed the kitchen floor. Then, I finally got down on my hands and knees and cut back a hedge, eliminating deadwood. I was channeling Judy W., Yvette's mother-in-law.  When she was out to visit a few years ago, she did a job and a half on my front yard. But she only trimmed back one of a matching set of hedges on either side of the front walk. Hers looks fantastic. The other one, which I just cut back, looked leggy and scrawny.  I had to put some serious physical effort into pressing the handles of the clipper.  Just that physical effort made me feel better.  

            I got to work on another neglected plant. It looks a little like a snake with blades sticking up rather than leaves. The problem is it seems scruffy as the dead leaves accumulate around the base of the plant.  I had pictured it being a big job to clean them up. I had never tried before. Quite to the contrary, it was easy peasy.  All  I had to do was knock them off with my hand.  I gather the dead leaves and put them in the composter. I still had plenty of energy. I filled up a sprayer with vinegar and did the whole front yard, part of the side, and part of the back yard.  Then I took a shower. Ah, I felt much better. The shower certainly helped my gloomy mood but doing something productive helped too. 

            As I got out of the shower, Marissa from Progressive called. She said she spoke to the Policy Department; they said they had to talk to me directly.  She told me she was working on including more information in my question section to make it easier for the policy department folks to access the information on their end. Marissa also told me that her parents were doing much better. They were recovering from Covid and were out of intensive care. Holy cow!  They must have been bad off.

            Scott came up to help me get two cartons of almond milk out of my car's trunk and into my house. He was bearing a plate with two slices of pizza with mushrooms, which Yvette had sent up. Dinner!

            I took care of a few other things. I texted Margo, asking about the hibiscus plant I was interested in. I called her the other day, but she didn't get back to me.  When she did call back this morning, she pointed out that I had just called on Friday. Really?  I thought I had called over a week ago. My perspective on time is way off.  She told me she had this one variety called a cosmic dancer.  It sounds amazing. I wanted it, and it's in my price range. Yay!

            I also texted Sandor, asking for the company's address that sells the ceiling sound insulation used in high-end condos.  He answered me promptly.

            I lay down for a minute to do some reading, then Damon called. He was walking in Griffith Park. He makes a point of not making phone calls while in the house. A great idea as far as I'm concerned. But it does mean that he gets winded, and there are breaks in our communication when he loses connection. Nothing unmanageable. 

            We talked about politics.  Damon is more optimistic than I am.  Whatever, it is good to speak to someone close to my point of view. He did make me feel better. Just talking to him at any time makes me feel better.  I am fortunate to have him in my life.

            I have been pushing my interest in tutoring with everyone I speak to.  I told Damon.  He said he thought he could get some contacts for me with August's old elementary school. LA tutoring rates were very high, and I'm willing to do a sliding scale. I am often called a miracle worker for those of you who don't know it already. I do great work. I have a lot of training and experience.  I have also developed methods that help students to teach themselves to read, which is what all readers who learned easily did.  So I teach all students to be good students.  I get praise but not the type of recognition I want.  I screamed at Damon, "I WANT RECOGNITION!" Damon said, "Don't we all?" Well, not really, but probably everyone in his profession does.  He is a producer at Dreamworks Animation.  He gets recognition within the profession.  People love working with him. He is an all-around great guy and bright as they come.  Everyone in his profession wants recognition. He wants public recognition of his name, and he wouldn't sneeze at an Academy Award. I just want teachers and parents to learn my methods to help their students instead of handing me just their hard-to-work-with students and waiting for me to pull off another miracle. 

            While I was on the phone with Damon, Judy called.  I didn't answer, but a few minutes later, I saw her pulling into my driveway.  I knew what that was about. She was bringing me the leftover peach cobbler she made. Yum! Dinner tonight will be pizza, salad, and peach cobbler. The only problem is she gave me enough peach cobbler to last for the rest of the week.

                        Once I was off the phone with Damon, I sat down to write up the day.  I am certainly in a better mood now than I was this morning. Hopefully, I sleep well tonight. Then it was driveway yoga in the morning.

            As I was typing away, a mail truck pulled into the driveway.  Was it Bruce, our mailman, or Josh, who lives here, stopping by for some reason before he finished his route?  All I got to see was a rear-end as the driver dug around in his truck.  It was Bruce with two packaMonday, August 3, 2020

 

            I had a bad night's sleep worrying about the political situation. Judy and I are not on the same page politically, but we both feel it will be bad no matter who wins the Presidential election.  I called Dorothy on my walk.  

            Before I could say anything, she told me she had had an upsetting experience that morning. When shopping in Shoprite, she came face to face with someone who wasn't wearing their mask. She asked the woman to put it on.  The woman started screaming at Dorothy. Dorothy walked away and did her shopping. She encountered an employee and commented that they must have a job and a half getting people to put their masks on.  The woman observed her speaking to the young man and came tearing across the store's width, screaming at her.  Dorothy backed off in fear.  The woman finally went on her way. As Dorothy left, the manager came up to her to ask her what happened. She told him she had just asked the woman to put her mask on. She found out that he called the police when he heard the woman screaming as she charged at Dorothy across the store.  Dorothy asked if someone would accompany her to her car. She was concerned the woman might be waiting in the parking lot and accost her.  Everyone was agreed that this particular woman had a psychological problem probably made worse by the current stress.

            I had called because I needed some comfort. Dorothy needed comfort too.  When I was upset, I would ask Mike to sing to me. It helped. Dorothy suggested that we sing together and proposed an old camp song, sung to Drink to Me with Thine Eyes.

                        The sun is sinking in the west as evening shadows fall.

                        Across the silence of the lake, we hear a bird's low call.'      

                        So let us too, the silence keep and slowly steal away.

                        To rest and sleep until the dawn brings forth another day.

                        Good night to A and B. (A and B were the two youngest age groups among the campers, and they had an earlier bedtime than the rest of us.)

            We both found it soothing, even though my ear bud's sound quality was bad, very bad. I think it brought it us both back to a time when we felt happy and safe. Our world in the camp was small and stable, even safe from parents. Dorothy said when we were there, we had all our parents' love and attention at the safe distance of two hundred miles when we were at camp. We both loved it. 

            After we sang, we remembered funny moments in our lives and laughed together.  I have found a cure to the stress of my current life, laughter.  I haven't laughed in a long, long time. It's not because I'm sad or because life is stressful because the occasion hasn't come up.  With Mike, life was a constant stream of giggles of delight.  Not outright belly laughs.  The stress of today calls for that. I am going to have to expose myself to comedies.  Miss Congeniality always fits the bill for me. I should buy that film.     

            I ran into several of my cowalkers. I have invited others to join us for yoga. They weren't interested, but these two said they were.  I also let them know I was looking for online tutoring students. 

            When I got home, I indulged in reading Quora Digest, a gossip column. I suppose reading Quora is better for me than playing FreeCell but not by much.  Facebook was another matter. I have several conservative friends through my connections with folks from my high school and the school where I worked while living in Ohio.

            The ones from my high school are particularly disturbing.  I went to one of the primer high schools in the New York Metropolitan area, Great Neck High.  One of my classmates posted how she resented the idea that she would have to pay restitution to people who didn't directly suffer from slavery, the descendants of slaves. She argued, she did cause that suffering.  This woman compares the suffering of the Jews with that of the Afro-Americans saying that the Jews managed to thrive.  

            I have two problems with her argument. Let's start with a bit of background. My parents were refugees from Nazi Germany. The suffering of the Afro-Americans in this country is not to be compared to the Holocaust (although the current high incarceration rate can be considered a black holocaust), an explicit effort to exterminate all Jews.  My family managed to get out in time, so they avoided those camps. Our story is the suffering caused by institutional racism endorsed and supported by the government. Jews were denied citizenship, the right to vote. Jews were denied the right to own property. Jews were denied the right to employment. Sound familiar? We have systemic racism in this country, supported by government institutions.  

            Secondly, the German government recognized what it had done and paid restitution.  You could argue that those who paid were those who caused the damage, but that is only partially true. The benefits were not just given to my parents; they were extended to my sister and me. Our German peers were no more responsible for what happened in Nazi Germany than anyone alive today is in the USA for slavery.  Secondly, the Afro-American soldiers who returned from fighting in WWII were denied the GI Bill's benefits. If the US government makes up for just that oversight.  That oversight happened in my lifetime and in the lifetime of all the students in my high school class.

            To boot, Germany has extended citizenship to the children and the grandchildren of holocaust survivors.  I have dual citizenship, as do the other members of my immediate family. This means that I can move to Germany and receive the full benefit of the German social network.  

            One of my classmates said that she lived a normal life in our elite town with two parents.  My question to her is how many friends did she have from Afro-American families who lived in Kings Point, a high-end neighborhood in a high-end town?  I know the answer. It's none. Why? Because no Afro-American families were living in most of Great Neck. I wonder why that was?

            I went down to Yvette's quarters to retrieve a pair of clippers to work on a shrub I've been eyeing for several months.  This is the first time that walking down the hill to get to the clippers sounded comfortably doable.  Scott was down there. It was an opportunity to talk about a few projects I had in mind.

            I want to get these projects done now in anticipation of the apocalypse. I want to do it while I still have the money. We still have to finish up the sound insulation over Yvette and Josh's bedroom. This is in anticipation of the family moving in from the mainland. That way, Yvette and Josh won't be tormented by the squeaky floor overhead.  The second is finding some way to contain the water runoff from the gutters when it comes down like a firehose.  It washes out everything in its path.  I think we will have to add a well of some sort, or maybe just a good-sized hole in the ground to collect the water, letting it seep into the ground at its own pace.

            The third thing is a solar attic fan.  I want to be as off the grid as I can be when the time comes.  This will include having the electric company come out to switch back and forth between being on the grid and off.  Yes, we have solar panels, but they go out when the electricity does. I have to have a switch installed that will allow me to go back and forth. Why do I want to be on the grid when I don't have to? It's cheaper, considerably so. The electric company buys some back from me, and it is free when I use it during the day. When solar panels are used off the grid, there has to be a particular battery that converts the solar panels' direct current to alternating current of our electricity. I believe Europe is all on direct current. I have no idea why one area of the world wound up with one kind of current instead of another.

            I was down as I talked to Scott, so much so I was inarticulate.  That doesn't happen often.  I am very gloomy about the political situation. Judy and I agree it's not going to be good no matter who gets elected.  Scott told me to take heart; we were much better off here in Hawaii than on the mainland. Maybe, maybe not. There are whites here, myself included, who benefit from white privilege. There are minority groups here as well that harbor resentment, not that they shouldn't.  Whether I am responsible for the systemic limitations placed on minority groups or not, I am a beneficiary of my own white person status. Knowing the impact of being put down in my personal life, I appreciate how it feels to be put down as a group member.  A put down is a put-down; a limitation is a limitation. 

             I did get into action when I got upstairs. First, I washed the kitchen floor. Then, I finally got down on my hands and knees and cut back a hedge, eliminating deadwood. I was channeling Judy W., Yvette's mother-in-law.  When she was out to visit a few years ago, she did a job and a half on my front yard. But she only trimmed back one of a matching set of hedges on either side of the front walk. Hers looks fantastic. The other one, which I just cut back, looked leggy and scrawny.  I had to put some serious physical effort into pressing the handles of the clipper.  Just that physical effort made me feel better.  

            I got to work on another neglected plant. It looks a little like a snake with blades sticking up rather than leaves. The problem is it seems scruffy as the dead leaves accumulate around the base of the plant.  I had pictured it being a big job to clean them up. I had never tried before. Quite to the contrary, it was easy peasy.  All  I had to do was knock them off with my hand.  I gather the dead leaves and put them in the composter. I still had plenty of energy. I filled up a sprayer with vinegar and did the whole front yard, part of the side, and part of the back yard.  Then I took a shower. Ah, I felt much better. The shower certainly helped my gloomy mood but doing something productive helped too. 

            As I got out of the shower, Marissa from Progressive called. She said she spoke to the Policy Department; they said they had to talk to me directly.  She told me she was working on including more information in my question section to make it easier for the policy department folks to access the information on their end. Marissa also told me that her parents were doing much better. They were recovering from Covid and were out of intensive care. Holy cow!  They must have been bad off.

            Scott came up to help me get two cartons of almond milk out of my car's trunk and into my house. He was bearing a plate with two slices of pizza with mushrooms, which Yvette had sent up. Dinner!

            I took care of a few other things. I texted Margo, asking about the hibiscus plant I was interested in. I called her the other day, but she didn't get back to me.  When she did call back this morning, she pointed out that I had just called on Friday. Really?  I thought I had called over a week ago. My perspective on time is way off.  She told me she had this one variety called a cosmic dancer.  It sounds amazing. I wanted it, and it's in my price range. Yay!

            I also texted Sandor, asking for the company's address that sells the ceiling sound insulation used in high-end condos.  He answered me promptly.

            I lay down for a minute to do some reading, then Damon called. He was walking in Griffith Park. He makes a point of not making phone calls while in the house. A great idea as far as I'm concerned. But it does mean that he gets winded, and there are breaks in our communication when he loses connection. Nothing unmanageable. 

            We talked about politics.  Damon is more optimistic than I am.  Whatever, it is good to speak to someone close to my point of view. He did make me feel better. Just talking to him at any time makes me feel better.  I am fortunate to have him in my life.

            I have been pushing my interest in tutoring with everyone I speak to.  I told Damon.  He said he thought he could get some contacts for me with August's old elementary school. LA tutoring rates were very high, and I'm willing to do a sliding scale. I am often called a miracle worker for those of you who don't know it already. I do great work. I have a lot of training and experience.  I have also developed methods that help students to teach themselves to read, which is what all readers who learned easily did.  So I teach all students to be good students.  I get praise but not the type of recognition I want.  I screamed at Damon, "I WANT RECOGNITION!" Damon said, "Don't we all?" Well, not really, but probably everyone in his profession does.  He is a producer at Dreamworks Animation.  He gets recognition within the profession.  People love working with him. He is an all-around great guy and bright as they come.  Everyone in his profession wants recognition. He wants public recognition of his name, and he wouldn't sneeze at an Academy Award. I just want teachers and parents to learn my methods to help their students instead of handing me just their hard-to-work-with students and waiting for me to pull off another miracle. 

            While I was on the phone with Damon, Judy called.  I didn't answer, but a few minutes later, I saw her pulling into my driveway.  I knew what that was about. She was bringing me the leftover peach cobbler she made. Yum! Dinner tonight will be pizza, salad, and peach cobbler. The only problem is she gave me enough peach cobbler to last for the rest of the week.

                        Once I was off the phone with Damon, I sat down to write up the day.  I am certainly in a better mood now than I was this morning. Hopefully, I sleep well tonight. Then it was driveway yoga in the morning.

            As I was typing away, a mail truck pulled into the driveway.  Was it Bruce, our mailman, or Josh, who lives here, stopping by for some reason before he finished his route?  All I got to see was a rear-end as the driver dug around in his truck.  It was Bruce with two packages for me.  I, along with the rest of America, am buying through Amazon. If the USPS gets closed down, it won't be just one of Trump's many arch enemies who will suffer. I, along with many others, will suffer too. Both packages were for me, three containers of a protein drink and two more books.  I have taken over Mike's role in buying books and more books and more books.  I will have to stop soon. There is no way I will finish them all before I go senile.

________ ___________ _________

Musings:

A plan for restitution for Afro-Americans.

            Afro-Americans who fought in WWI and WWII were denied the post-war benefits distributed to white veterans.  After WWII, they were not beneficiaries of the GI Bill benefits, which paid for college educations and mortgages. 

            This oversight is a specific amount of money. We can figure out exactly how much an equivalent white veteran was entitled to. 

            That payment has to be adjusted on two counts:

1.         It has to be  adjusted for inflation

2.         Since the vet was denied these benefits, it directly affected their children.  The German program of restitution extends to the grandchildren of those directly affected. I propose some form of compensation be extended to the children and the grandchildren of those vets.  The restitution would have to be greater than the equivalent of what they would have received, adjusted for inflation because we have to assume that the children and grandchildren would have prospered if their father and grandfather had had that money. Some sort of algorithm would have to be worked out. But it would start with a known sum, not some amorphous amount of compensation of two hundred years of unpaid forced labor.  

.           This may not be a perfect solution, but it sounds workable to me, assuming we have any money left in the treasury in the foreseeable future.ges for me.  I, along with the rest of America, am buying through Amazon. If the USPS gets closed down, it won't be just one of Trump's many arch enemies who will suffer. I, along with many others, will suffer too. Both packages were for me, three containers of a protein drink and two more books.  I have taken over Mike's role in buying books and more books and more books.  I will have to stop soon. There is no way I will finish them all before I go senile.

________ ___________ _________

Musings:

A plan for restitution for Afro-Americans.

            Afro-Americans who fought in WWI and WWII were denied the post-war benefits distributed to white veterans.  After WWII, they were not beneficiaries of the GI Bill benefits, which paid for college educations and mortgages. 

            This oversight is a specific amount of money. We can figure out exactly how much an equivalent white veteran was entitled to. 

            That payment has to be adjusted on two counts:

1.         It has to be  adjusted for inflation

2.         Since the vet was denied these benefits, it directly affected their children.  The German program of restitution extends to the grandchildren of those directly affected. I propose some form of compensation be extended to the children and the grandchildren of those vets.  The restitution would have to be greater than the equivalent of what they would have received, adjusted for inflation because we have to assume that the children and grandchildren would have prospered if their father and grandfather had had that money. Some sort of algorithm would have to be worked out. But it would start with a known sum, not some amorphous amount of compensation of two hundred years of unpaid forced labor.  

.           This may not be a perfect solution, but it sounds workable to me, assuming we have any money left in the treasury in the foreseeable future.