Monthly Archives: November 2008

Today’s time-wasting meme

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Picked up from Spynotes. Tag yourself if interested.

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? All I know about my name is that, after my dad came up with Virgil Ralph for my brother (Virgil = dad’s cousin, Ralph = dad’s first name), my mother (who wanted Dwight David) said she would get to name me and did.

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? When was the last time I didn’t? My tears are internal.

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? I wish it were more regular so that it looked neat and more like a font, but I don’t have strong feelings about it.

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT? I don’t often eat lunch meat, but have been eating a lot of tuna salad, heirloom tomato, and goat cheese with lemon zest on wheat bread for lunch.

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS? Nay.

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? Probably, until I drove myself crazy with moodiness. But I would make myself laugh, so maybe that balances it out.

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT? Sarcasm hides a lot of sins.

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? Yes, and they are still enormous. And full of tonsil stones.

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? There are things I’d rather do.

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? Kamut.

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? No.

12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG? Physically, it would depend on who you’re comparing me to. Emotionally, probably. Lots of exercise.

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM? Ben and Jerry’s cookie dough.

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE? Who they remind me of.

15. RED OR PINK? Neither.

16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? I try not to dwell on that.

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? My family and family life.

18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO SEND THIS BACK TO YOU? Oh, why not?

19. WHAT COLOR SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? I’m barefoot, but was wearing black walking shoes in the sleet.

20. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE? Bread and butter pickles.

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? Silence and occasional running water from upstairs.

22. IF YOU WHERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? Midnight blue.

23. FAVORITE SMELLS? Fresh bread, coffee.

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? J.

25. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? Sure.

26. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH? Equestrian events, as long as no one gets hurt.

27. HAIR COLOR? Light brown-red with a smattering of gray and white.

28. EYE COLOR? Grey-green-hazel. Or something like that. My hair and eye colors have never been well defined.

29. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? Not anymore.

30. FAVORITE FOOD? Babaganooj, if made right.

31. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? A scary movie with a happy ending, e.g., Gaslight.

32. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? I started to watch Holiday Inn and have 20 minutes left to go.

33. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING? A mauve shirt that J. gave me yesterday.

34. SUMMER OR WINTER? Summer, although not in Chicago. My favorite seasons are spring and fall.

35. HUGS OR KISSES? Doesn’t that depend?

36. FAVORITE DESSERT? Devil’s food cake.

37. MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? Don’t know.

38. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND? Errol Flynn.

39. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW?

Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson.

The New Penguin History of the World (Fifth Edition) by J. M. Roberts.

Who Murdered Chaucer?: A Medieval Mystery by Terry Jones, Robert Yeager, Alan Fletcher, Juliette Dor, and Terry Dolan.

40. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? I don’t use one, but I have a lot of them somewhere around here.

41. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT? Antiques Roadshow.

42. FAVORITE SOUND? Certain voices.

43. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES? Both.

44. WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME? San Francisco, California.

45. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT? I wish.

46. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? In a hospital.

47. WHOSE ANSWERS ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO GETTING BACK? Any.

Dream: Headlines

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At around 1:30 a.m. I woke up from a vivid dream that may have come from the headlines. I was with an older man, perhaps my father in the dream but not my real father, in an aerie hideout when armed men broke in. They told us they were going to kill him bloodily, but that I could leave with one of them across the treetops. I don’t remember wrestling with the decision, saying good-bye, or leaving; I recall only fleeing through the treetops, hearing gunfire, and being told not to look back. I didn’t need to turn to see the horror in my imagination and to wonder at the ease with which I had left and my cowardice. I did not feel what I should have. When I awoke, I was shaking.

Next I dreamed that I was choosing my room at the White House, but it was nothing like the building on Pennsylvania Avenue. I liked every room I looked into better than the last, although all of them were bare bones, and some were underground. I wondered how I had come to be there and to have this opportunity. The strangeness of it frightened me.

Book review: Mansfield Park

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Mansfield Park by Jane Austen, edited by James Kinsley and with an introduction and notes by Jane Stabler. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc. 2003. 480 pages.

In Mansfield Park, “All the world’s a stage/And all the men and women merely players.” The cast of characters of both the novel and the play within it is drawn from three families and their social circles: the Bertrams of Mansfield Park, the Grants/Crawfords of the parsonage, and the Prices of Portsmouth. Even as she refuses to participate in her cousins’ staging of Lovers’ Vows, Fanny Price is at center stage as the observer we observe in Austen’s social and familial drama.

As the poor relation of the Bertrams, Fanny is a natural outsider. Lacking social or financial aspirations, she is free to see the folly of those around her and bound by what seems to have become a quaint form of honor from warning Edmund about his. For all her acquiescence to fate, however, Fanny is not weak. Just as she takes a firm stand about not appearing in the ill-fated Lovers’ Vows with its ill-fated cast, she stays on her moral high road even when it requires her to assert herself to Sir Thomas, to whom she is beholden and whose own daughters dare not defy him so directly.

Marriage is central to Mansfield Park. Maria Ward “had the good luck . . . to be thereby raised to the rank of a baronet’s lady, with all the comforts and consequences of an handsome house and large income.” Despite the narrator’s cynicism, the Bertrams have what seems to be an effective marriage; Sir Thomas is the domineering household head, while his decorative lady provides the services of her busybody widowed sister and her niece Fanny. Lady Bertram’s passivity complements Sir Thomas’s active nature; she is “guided in everything important by Sir Thomas, and in smaller concerns by her sister.” She can do without companionship, but only if Sir Thomas reassures her.

Motivated by his money and status and her good looks, the Bertrams have established a solid marriage, but its sons and daughters are not its pride. Restrained by and resentful of Sir Thomas’s patriarchal hand, his elder son and daughter rebel against and eventually flout his authority and threaten the family’s good name. His younger daughter seeks escape through the closest means possible, and even his younger son is spared from his poor judgment only by fate.

Unlike Lady Bertram, her youngest sister marries for love, or at least on impulse, and suffers the consequences of ignoring what matters most—money and social standing. Self-condemned to a life of poverty and negligence, Mrs. Price cannot depend on either husband or servants to manage day-to-day life so she can indulge in her natural laziness, as Lady Bertram does. Even as her family lives in filthy squalor, Mrs. Price, could, if she were capable of noticing, take pride in Fanny’s personal growth and moral fortitude, William’s accomplishments and career, and Susan’s promise. Like the Bertrams on their extensive estate, she is trapped in the narrow drama she has written for herself. Those who exit—Fanny, William, Susan—are able, it seems, to craft a more positive narrative for themselves.

Like a proscenium arch, the trip to Sotherton and the use of Lovers’ Vows frame Fanny’s view of the relationships around her. Much of the action takes place out of her sight (to her dismay), but Fanny sees enough to disturb her sense of propriety and to bring to light her own desires. Fanny, and the reader, can only guess what is happening offstage and how it may affect her.

Relationships founded solely on money (Rushworths), rebellion or love (Prices, presumably), and lust (Henry/Maria) fare poorly, as does the Crawfords’ sister’s second marriage (to the admiral). Austen’s narrator does not give up on the institution, however. “With so much true merit and true love, and no want of fortune or friends . . . happiness . . . must appear as secure as earthly happiness can be,” the omnipotent stage director steps in to say after having dispensed justice and wisdom to those characters who require one or the other, just before before the curtain falls on Mansfield Park and environs. In the end and with a heavy hand, the narrator redeems marriage, at least for the deserving (Fanny) and the enduring (the Bertrams).

Readers who prefer strong, attractive women may not appreciate Fanny, her apparently rigid morality, and her seeming weakness of will. As a perceptive outsider who understands what she observes, Fanny is a complex character. She knows and respects how Sir Thomas would feel about Lovers’ Vows and participates to the extent she can so she can keep an eye on Edmund. She knows where his future unhappiness lies, yet does not deter him although it is in her power. She may be judgmental, as people are, but she asserts herself strongly only when she is herself affected, for example, when she is wanted for the play and when Henry pays his attentions. She is true to herself and allows others the same freedom, succeed or fail, with her real feelings hidden within her inner emotional life.

Set in a time of war and slave-supported prosperity that seems remote, Mansfield Park can still reach across the years. In spite of the antiquated social and moral codes that rule their lives, the out-of-touch adults, the rebellious children, and the lonely and unconventional heroine still hold interest today.

Friday, 28 November 2008.
Copyright © 2008 by Diane L. Schirf.

Fall of an elder (tree)

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[I meant to post this in May. Spring has come and gone and will come again.]

The tree on the southwest corner of 56th Street and Hyde Park Boulevard took a long time to die.

First, the leaves of one limb would turn yellow, dry up, and fall off, and another would follow, and another. By last autumn, one limb of leaves remained, and it was dying. Of course, when winter came it didn’t matter — it looked like all the living but leafless tress around it.

It made me sad to think of spring arriving, knowing that at least one prominent old tree would still be a stark hulk against the blue skies after all its brethren had burst into bud.

That’s why I was relieved a few weeks ago to find a crew cutting it down. By the time I arrived at the bus stop across the street, they had cut its limbs off, and one man had sawed through about half the trunk. I had shown up in time for the crucial moment. One of the crew cleared the other southbound lane and halted traffic. I wondered how they were going to control its fall, then I noticed that the ropes tied to the tree were anchored to a bar on the front of one of the trucks. As the truck slowly reversed, the tree tumbled. It seemed almost like a gentle fall rather than a hard crash. I could imagine that the spirit of the dead tree was relieved of its burden at last.

By the next morning, all that remained was the stump and some wood chips missed during the cleanup. Within a few days, the stump had been cut down and removed, and all that is left today is a large, roughly circular patch of wood chips, the kind the Chicago Park District and landscapers sometimes put on the bare patches under healthy trees.

I miss that tree, and the one on the southeast corner behind the bus stop that was struck by lightning or torn apart during one of the spate of micro-bursts that have devastated so many trees here in recent years. I miss their shade and their guardianship of the ad hoc footpath through the park and of the bus stop, each a little like the sole remaining pillar of an ancient gate. When I look at the wood chips that mark the location of the one and the three spindly bushes that encircle the patch left by the other, I feel like I am visiting the grave sites of respected, beloved elders. Both look like scars that will take a long time to heal.

I wonder if their spirits ever leave, or if they too still mourn.

Cooling lakes and hot spots

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November 22, 2008

After the customary detour to Caribou Coffee in Homewood, where I picked up Bodum Pavina glasses, a boardroom mug, and a sweet little caribou, J. and I headed out to Goose Lake Prairie State Natural Area.

Or so we thought.

I don’t think I can call the drive “scenic.” The area is mostly flat and bereft of interesting features, at least to my uninformed eye. We passed through the Illinois and Michigan Canal National Heritage Corridor but didn’t have a chance to look around and appreciate the history, which I suppose is based on industry and transportation.

We did see lots of industry. The area around Joliet and to the southwest reminded me of Buffalo and Lackawanna, New York, during the heyday of the steel mills and brought back my faint memories of northern New Jersey, which in turn evoked visions of a post-apocalyptic world.

I felt almost like I had come home to 1960s Buffalo when we crossed a huge steel bridge over the Des Plaines River, which at that point is flanked by steel and concrete. Further along the highway the Kankakee River, edged by trees, retains some of the its original natural beauty — that is, it looks like a river, not an industrial cesspool.

Interspersed along the way were small farms, houses, red barns, and rotting barns and outbuildings.

Off the expressway in Morris, we drove along fenced-off water set against a backdrop of power and industrial towers. We found an entrance to the lake shore on Jugtown Road, although the fields were closed to everyone except hunters shotgunning for deer. As we got out of the car, we heard guns popping off in the distance.

“I see,” I said. “You brought me here knowing that it was closed for deer hunting, hoping a stray shot would get me.”

J. laughed but didn’t deny it.

Our first sight was of a live bait machine. The idea of keeping live animals, yes, even fish bait, in a machine disturbed me, so I distracted myself by looking at the names of the selections. “Fathead” was the clear winner.

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We walked out onto one of the floating piers. I stayed well behind J., amused by the pier’s side-to-side sway as he stepped heavily down it. Flat chunks of ice dotted the water’s surface, which made the prospect of losing footing on the unsteady pier even less appealing. J. thought it best that we continue to leave space between us on the jaunt back to solid ground. After getting directions from the concessionaire (human food and fish bait), we returned to the car, where we took photos of the tall grasses bent away from the wind and of a camouflaged blind draped in hunter orange.

Later, I would learn that Heidecke Lake State Fish and Wildlife Area is the cooling lake for the Collins (fossil fuel) power plant. Dresden and Braidwood (nuclear) are also nearby, and J. remarked on the number of plants so close together and the availability of land.

I’m not sure that the Goose Lake Prairie Visitor Center was open because we didn’t find an open road to get to it, although we eventually came to a spot that may have been the bank fishing point the concessionaire tried to steer us toward. It was confusing, and I’m not sure where we ended up, only that it was closed for the season and that a sign instructed visitors what to do if a warning siren went off for three to five minutes. Warning of what? Tornadoes? Or meltdown?

Before we got to that point, however, we’d driven past a small herd of cows and down a road with fenced fields and signs proclaiming that there’s no trespassing allowed on this government property. At the end, we reached an open gate with clear indications that something to do with the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers lay beyond (we’d seen signs but hadn’t thought much about them). I suggested that we not proceed, and J. said that now would be a good time to backtrack. I told J. that, between Dresden and this Army Corps of Engineers area, we’d probably been tracked by satellite and his license plate information captured as he’d driven slowly and stopped periodically to take photos of part of Dresden. We’re probably in an FBI database now. And all we wanted to walk some nature trails. Honest.

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On the return, we found a rocky trail down to the water’s edge, a little too steep and unstable for me, constrained as I was by winter clothes. I couldn’t quite trust myself to make it to the bottom gracefully without falling. J. found what he thought were black mushrooms, which he said were disgusting to touch. In the photos he took, they look almost like rusted metal caps. A friend tells me they’re dried water lotus seed pods. They look alien. Or mutant . . .

We passed the cows again. I told J., “They started out as pigs . . .”

After some final tallgrass photos, we took off. On the highway in the distance I spotted a black silhouette broken up by bright squares of golden light. It looked like a 1940s stage set depicting a city skyline at night. J., who’d noticed it on the way, said it’s an oil refinery and speculated that the proliferation of lights is meant to prevent any confusion on the part of pilots.

We stopped at a Mobil station because J., whose gas tank was nearly full, couldn’t resist topping it off with premium, given that the price of regular was $1.829. While he took care of business, I took care of my own in the store’s ladies’ room, then explored a bit. The store was surprisingly large and was stocked with everything from convenience food and lures to winter jackets. I couldn’t resist buying the only wolf t-shirt, which happened to be my size.

In Frankfort, Cactus Carol’s was closed, so we went to Chef Klaus’s Bier Stube for heavy German food. If you don’t have enough meat, organ meat, or fat in your diet, this is the place to dine. After I’d said earlier how much I wanted to become a vegetarian for humane reasons, I ordered chicken breast stuffed with ham and cheese. I’m a woman of principle, if not of practice.

And so to the Flamingo for holiday chai, pumpkin cheesecake from Bonjour, and BBC America. In my mailbox was a pleasant surprise — a refund check from Northwestern Memorial Hospital for $195.43. I have no idea what it’s for, but I’m not one to look gift cash in the mouth at such troubled times as these.

I also received Medieval Lives by Terry Jones, obtained with Borders Bucks.

Life is good.

For now.

Dream: Vampire and gargoyle

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The economy was very bad, and my father was washing his white pickup truck for sale. I asked how much he wanted — $20,000. I looked into its white bed flecked with rust and wondered at his lack of pragmatism.

We went for a drive in the country and stopped at the foot of a hill, where a man offered to make my sister and me something of our choice. She asked for a vampire. He disappeared. When he returned with it, his behavior had become very strange. Discreetly and without haste he pursued my sister, never quite catching her but always staying right behind her. He commented on her virtue and beauty and seemed delighted by her mounting nervousness.

I asked for a gargoyle, although I’m not sure that that is what I wanted. It was the first thing that occurred to me. When he returned, he did not follow or pursue me, and his comments were of a different nature. I sensed that he was attracted to me for more than looks alone. I and my attributes were desirable to him on some deeper level, and it frightened me that I could read his mind. His variable character repulsed, horrified, and fascinated me, and I was troubled that I understood him so well.

Torture!

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During my second physical therapy session, an older woman lay on the bed next to mine moaning something about “torture.” I said that I had felt that way about the work on my shoulder several years ago, and she seemed pleased that someone understood her pain. “It’s torture. They torture you,” she continued.

I was speaking only from memory, from when my shoulders hurt so much and were so weak that I had to lift my arm with the other hand. Therapy had to be undertaken gradually because anything that caused pain (movement) would make the condition worse.

At first we eased into it, but now I recall that at some point when I felt better the therapist picked up the pace, adding repetitions, new exercises, and resistance — a slow introduction to what my neighbor might call “torture.”

During the first session for my knee, I did 10 repetitions; during the second, two sets of 10. Wednesday she told me to do three sets of 10. Not sure that I had heard her correctly with my hearing problems, I said, “You mean 30?”

“Yes, 30. But three sets of 10 sounds better.”

Even if it doesn’t feel better.

Perhaps hoping to demonstrate that, deep down, physical therapists are sadists, I said, half-jokingly, “So next time we’re going to do 40?”

“No,” she said.

“No?”

“No,” she said. “Next time we’re going to add weights.”

I could almost hear the cackle I was sure she had had to suppress.

Dream: Stop, thief!

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I walked into a restaurant bar and found people I’d known in high school, although I couldn’t put all the names with the faces. I was right about a few, and EP introduced me to some of the rest. Many of them were boys who had bullied me, including SF. They, and EP, would not look at me directly.

Two fish escaped from an enormous aquarium and began to chase each other and fight outside it. They were much larger than typical aquarium fish and seemed to be getting bigger. I finally wrestled the more aggressive fish to the ground and tried to heave it back into the aquarium. At first it was half in/half out and struggled against me, but with a mighty effort I tipped it in. The other fish was caught, too.

Both escaped again and began to terrify the people. One took on the appearance of a cartoon whale, with an exaggerated head, no body, and tiny tail, but that made it no less dangerous, and those unable to flee from before it were bitten, mauled, or worse. As I came closer to waking, I wondered how these fish survived, moved about, grew, and morphed out of the water. 

I used a wheelchair to get to a store at South Shore Plaza and debated how secure it would be if I parked it outside unlocked. I seemed to have little choice, so I did.

Inside I expected to find a glittering, high-end jewelry store, but the shop was stark, mostly empty, and stocked with such valueless but useful items as old newspapers. I reflected upon how much had changed, although there had never been a high-end jewelry store at the plaza. My surprise was a mystery. I still puzzled over the fish, which I had escaped.

Only moments later I came out to find my wheelchair missing. I saw the thief running toward the edge of the trees and bushes and called for someone to stop him. A man, perhaps a classmate from the bar, took off in pursuit, but as the foliage swallowed them, I knew he would always be a step or two behind and would never catch the wheelchair thief.

I was afraid of encountering the fishes again.

Lights, camera, 911

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Late yesterday afternoon I was able to get a seat at Bonjour, where in the colder weather I like to watch darkness fall outdoors. It’s a cozy, reassuring feeling to be warm indoors with people under bright lights when the darkness descends and the cold gets colder. I was writing, drinking coffee, and waiting for J.

Behind me was something I’d never seen there before — a wood screen with a painted floral design. Despite sleeping much of the day (a bad habit I thought I’d broken), I was still tired and too incurious to look into this phenomenon.

An older, ashen-faced man looked at me several times without focusing and then told a young man at the counter that he’d better call 911 — he couldn’t feel his legs, and he thought one had an area of discoloration.

The poised young man called and relayed questions and answers such as: “How old are you?” “He’s 59.” He told the man, who had the same emaciated, weather-beaten look as the late Jacques Cousteau, that he’d been advised not to give him anything to eat or drink. They decided to elevate the man’s legs, and he arranged a chair for that purpose. The young man was willing to help but hesitated to touch the patron’s bare, toothpick-thin legs or his socks, so he finally grabbed his shoes to heave up his legs.

The paramedics arrived within minutes and asked the man questions about his health breathing, medications, and so forth. They also wanted to know how he’d gotten there (walked) and how he’d felt when he’d left home. They took his blood pressure — 100/70. He said something about going home, but the paramedics told him that he was going to the hospital. More showed up with a stretcher-chair, and away they went. All this took no more than 10 or 15 minutes.

J. showed up moments later and, after some discussion, was the first to realize that it was a fireplace screen. We watched as cake after cake was lifted carefully off its plate and doily and placed behind the screen, then J. spotted what I’d overlooked — a camera. A photo shoot! It turns out that they were taking photos for the Web site that is apparently in the works. Someday the rest of the world can drool over gâteau au chocolat from Bonjour.

While J. went in pursuit of yet more treats, a girl began hanging around behind me, trying to talk to Madame. “Comment ça-va?” Madame asked. “How are you?” I translated (loosely). The girl looked at me helplessly. “Tell her, ‘Très bien,'” I suggested. She struggled. “Très bien,” I repeated. She said in that fast, breathless way children have, “I’m learning Spanish at school,” perhaps to explain her apparent deficiencies in French. Then she added, “I don’t know any French.” I told her that that is all right, as I don’t speak Spanish. She failed to recognize my attempt, which I won’t re-create here. Sigh.

Madame gave her two ornate, pastel-colored lollipops, but after running off for a few seconds with them, she returned and said, “I don’t think my mom would want me to have these.” I saw her with them later, so even her cautious mother knows better than to turn down a gift from Madame. Meanwhile, my mind had blanked on “merci.”

We stopped at Treasure Island and Borders and came out to tiny snowflakes sparking in the streetlights. With no wind blowing, the air was warm enough that it was hard to mind this precursor to winter.

Next we headed to Valois, where you can “see your food.” I found myself puzzled by the juxtaposition of the Chicago skyline on one side with alpine mountains on the other — not exactly representative of downstate Illinois.

At the Flamingo, we watched as an experienced male bald eagle and his young bride successfully raised two offspring, despite the latter’s rather stupid mistakes, such as turning tail to a 40 mph wind and stepping on the kids. As I told J., it was the old man eagle’s fault for going after a young trophy wife. Almost on that note, he decided it was time to leave for work.

Au revoir.