Meals on Wheels

So Anne and I did a meals on wheels shift.  Our first guy had signs out front saying oxygen was needed and a ramp.  So we knew high needs.  On like our third knock he called out that he couldn't get up off the floor so we went In.  We walked in to set the food down and near as I can tell the vibration of our feet made this giant TV on a tiny wire case fall down.  We were across the room but it was spectacular.  TV on top of TV on top of wire stand.  Then we went in to him, explained that monstrosity and tried to pick him up.  It took both of us but we got him on the bed.  Luckily he was wheelchair strong in the arms. He told us once he got into his chair that the TV didn't work and could we dump it.  We were largely thrilled it didn't use to work and while I think Anne's true health answer was no we said yes. So we managed with slight mishaps to roll it into the car then into the dumpster.  While doing that we asked some innocuous question like do we need to keep a path to this oxygen open and it came out that his live in girlfriend had just died.  Which in retrospect was obvious.  Her bed with her oxygen next to it in the front room.  His funnygrumpy oldmannishness interspersed with most hopeless tears held in.  We left him smoking on his stoop alone in the world.

May I say for the record that this guy was by no means the representative sample of the meals on wheels circuit.  The rest were very thanks for the meals sure I had a great time with my daughter for Xmas peace out with decent lives and adequate care.  But Jesus.

I'm at Anne's and we've partied all the rest of the time.  We spent all yesterday setting up her China cabinet which we did in full.  That was a big and awesome project which involved unpacking heaps from her mom's house (who is moving).

Today is new years eve and we're doing lots of daytime fun.  A Rodin exhibit and my hair.  Woo life. Tomorrow to Tobey's.

Xmas 3 home to see

I'm home from toneys got an awesome Kindle fire and lots of beautiful clothes.  

Plus heaps of other stuff.    More itemized list later perhaps. 

Dinner at my favorite restaurant tonight. 

Hugs and peace.

True santacon

It's 9 minutes to midnight on xmas eve.  I'm about to watch it turn from Christmas eve to Christmas day.  It's a wonderful life was especially good this year and I was Clarence the good angel of xmas myself.  Hohoho and merrry xmas!!!!

Xmas Xfactor

Hey.  I got to the Us and all is well.   Everyone rules and I've seen them all. Weirdly exhausted but leaning into it.  Now at family farm for prexmas xmas.  My mom and I have been legends of the holiday spirit,  taking care of everything and experiencing the experience.  

I've been close to tears and rage all week.  But singing xmas carols through the airport.

I want to tell Jeremy. .. that I have a restless heart and a difficult mind.  But that I'm still so satisfied being with him after so many years. 

It's the last day of school

I learned something today.  I work so hard so that I do not cry. 

Now my life is going to change.  And when things change, they usually don't change back.

Waikiki

The tide is coming in as a larger than life sunset sinks below the horizon.  Surfers come in on the easy waves that ripple around my ankles.   If the moon is bigger in Australia,  perhaps the sun is bigger i Hawaii, where avoiding eye contact with the livid globule takes determination.   A cruise ship offshore achieves faerie status through the metamorphosis of scale. 

Inadvertently, I stumble upon a man playing homage to the sunset on a shell trumpet.  He wears an aloha shirt.  A tide of haulies takes selfies before the tide of sea and sand.  The half rain half shine paints a canvas of warm versus cool tones.

A torrent of water

Niagara falls do not suffer from that shrinking of things you saw in childhood. The diminishment of the world as you get bigger, so it gets smaller, both physically and spiritually. They were larger than I remembered, more majestic. The kind of thing you see a hundred pictures of but still impresses with the freshness of a first time. There's a giant fall on the US side, which from the Canadian side you get a great full on view of and then an even more giant horseshoe fall on the Canadian side, which is like at the border line, on the point between the two.

A new thing we did this time was to take a boat at the foot of the falls. This was pretty spectacular. The boat doesn't go far/for long. They just drive in, turn around drive out. But you got close enough that the spray watered your face and leaked into your emergency poncho. Because of the turn around both sides of the boat got the closest best view—in fact everywhere on the boat had a good view. In between the falls was a massive sea gull rookery I never knew existed but was its own beauty. And at its top moment you were so close the steam blinded you and you tried to look up but there was only a limitless wall of steam.

We got to stay at the falls for 2 ½ hours which was still too short but probably enough. The rest of the tour we got to try icewine (too sweet) at a winery, went to the little town of Niagrara on the lake (cute town but we didn't get to see the lake :( I did put a maple leaf in my hair). It had all the worst excesses of a tour though, trying to upsell you, herding everyone on and off the bus to have identical experiences, etc. Still it came out about the same price as the train over so it seemed worth it.

We doubled down after that and went up the CN tower, where we had dinner at the top. There were many awesome views of Lake Ontario, as well as the city, and we could see the neighbourhood where we were staying. Looking down was one of the best bits as it's so high. I had also forgotten the glass floor area which was super scary, even as you watched children frolic all around you without harm. Still awesome.

That day was huge, and we kind of died out on either end of it, dinner at a french bistro the first night and flying out the next day to New York.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

There's a statue of Ghandi in Roma St parklands. A statue of Ghandi near the zoo on Waikiki. A statue of Ghandi at the wharf in San Francisco. I'm thinking of starting a collection.

People in motion

San Francisco is defined by the bay, which nearly encircles it, slate grey and cold. We stayed by the shore, the murky sand leading to a desolate sea. Fog encompassed the city when we arrived, but broke to tourist friendly sunny days by the next morning.

We flew in overnight (exhausting, glad I decided not to do it in december) and landed at our bayside home at 7 in the morning.

Space age lock combination which you scan with your palm and then punch in a code. I started a puzzle of san francisco.

We slept first off for about 6 hours, til noon. We then broke free for breakfast lunch at this really good surf cafe with vinyl wood benches. Then walked across golden gate park from the end to the rose garden. You can smell the pines here, but not as strong as home.

To the wharf where the 4^th of July crowds flowed. We walked through for a long time, just observing, and got cold and bought extra jumpers. I noticed the line for our boat was already down the pier, so we joined, and waited there about an hour.

We got a little 4 top to ourselves on the not too overcrowded boat. Took a loop under the Golden Gate bridge and around Alcatraz, to a playlist of songs with America in the title.

The fireworks: when the high ones went off they discoloured the fog in their tints. And then the explosions would drop out of the fog like rain. The lower ones showed up well and we got a great view being out on the bay where they shoot them off a barge. The finale, all in red white and blue, lit up the sky, under over and through the fog.

In the fog, the golden gate bridge disappears into it like a mountain into clouds.

We walked ages waiting for taxi prices to drop, and stumbled upon Lombard street. We climbed it in the night, through the moonlit hydrangias, watching the traffic lights climb the high hills.

The next day we slept in, and Melinda arrived. We took a bit of a tour of the city, rode a streetcar and went back to lombard street for pictures, and wandered to the wharf. We ordered pizza and got in a bit early.

On the 6^th we went to Muir woods, taking an uber over the golden gate to sausalito, then the shuttle from there. I came down crazy sick this day, but powered through with the help of pills.

Redwoods have textured bark, so corrugated you could put a palm span between the crevasses. They grow in what they call “family groups,” fairy circles of trees sprung from the same root system. The roots grow shallow and wide, and sometimes the central, oldest tree has died in the wildfire long ago.

We walked through. A cool thing about Ray is that he really loves trees, which is notable when he sees any but also through offhand comments which betray fairly deep knowledge. So we walked through, and took the ferry back to town.

Now we fly to Toronto for Niagara falls.  

Aloha Oe

Marilyn wanted to explore the island a bit so we went to Waimanalo (home of the keikis). I got to swim in the ocean twice and explore a tidal pool. And we got shave ice from a real truckshack.

At the forest park there were dogs on the beach and on a surf board, people played juke boxes on the sand. I was by this point pretty burned.

The bus took us back by the pele highway, so we got to see some inland on the windward side as well, with the lush jungle. Marilyn and Ray have been pretty impressed by the volcanic crater, from the view of Diamond Head out our window to wherever. They went to a luau that night and J and I had tacos at a shack as you do.

Our big Pearl Harbor day was next. We really did arrive at 7 am to get in the massive line, which moved fast and did the whole thing. Submarine (submarines be small yo we climbed right through, this one magically never had a death), museums (surprisingly evenhanded for a military museums, and some awesome prescient quotes from Yamamoto and the US general) memorial (I had a bunch of inappropriately hostile nonmemorially thoughts, like the way we leave the human bodies and oily pollutants alike just dumped down there where they sank, put a white bridge over the lot and act like that makes it ok), USS Missouri (cheerleading battleship yay our guns commentary a weird contrast to sombre memorial to loss of life on same battleship but thing itself was satisfyingly huge and full of brass knobs), and airplane hanger (which was chock full of rad fully restored planes from lots of eras and places just kind of lined up in giant hangers, a great finisher cause you could just say look a rad plane).

Then we stumbled on our bloody stumps to dinner which was weirdly cursed with everyone being booked out.

Last day we were pretty lazy, laundry, poolside, bit of a walk in the afternoon, dinner, caught plane.  

Dance integration

Landing in Honolulu at 7:30 am we hit our hotel, and then to Cafe Lulu for breakfast, on the Waikiki beach. We're at the east end, near Diamond Head and the statue of duke. We walked up to the other end of the strip after bkfast and then for lack of other energy and ideas, went back to the hotel to hang out poolside. I wound up swimming for an hour or so, which was like an uncoiling from the last dayweekmonth.

I felt a real sense of reconnection with my body. I swam slowly, feeling virtuous just for not being asleep, which was ahead of the rest of the group, and stretching kind of randomly at each end. I feel like I've lost the sense that this is my body. Half naked in the water, I started to feel where it was and how each part interacted. My shoulder audibly unkinked as I swam.

Our hotel, upgraded to 2 bedroom (thanks for that god) randomly, overlooks diamond head from the 27^th floor, full views off the balcony, and some great views of the middle range and alu wai canal from our bedrooms.

We're trying to hold out to dinner and then feel free to collapse.   

Elmer and the dragon

I'll be even richer than the king because I'll keep my treasure where I can see it every day.

Goethe—“Everything has been thought of before; the task is to think of it again.”

Some always going, some always coming

In the castle of cats the kitten asked for his birthday to look through the cool mother's telescope. He watched his friends run away and make their own difficult lives. This was hard, but new kittens arrived and played pat bat.

"My dear fur child. They did not have to go, they wanted to go, and they were ready to go. You are not ready to go, and I would not let you go, not for a long long time."

In Tahiti, I soaked in the milky sunshine on the verandah over the water and watched the white sails. They seemed still, anchored off the bay but their number and array would change from time to time, and day to day. Some always going, some always coming.

In my adult life as an international jet setter I've been trying to take the same view, for forming friendships, for people nearby, for the practicality of closeness. It's not easy, my heart is still smalltown. But the vision is in my mind of sailboats anchored off the shore.

School ends, joy begins

I finished work and now I'm going to the airport.  I had to run to the train.  J made me dinner.  I keep whispering. .. I just need a day,  just an hour.  It doesn't come and I keep going.  I haven't dropped anything yet but I'm getting tired. 

I keep thinking the anonymous someone should be more amazed by me.  I need to hire an audience formy act or something. 

Can we be saved

I've been looking for the answer
Singing for a dancer
Sliding through the mock and muck
Hoping to run out of luck.

These vagabond shoes are longing to stray. I want to be a part of it: New York, New York.

If I can make it there I'll make it anywhere -it's up to you ...