The Daily Tuna

Live Free or Die!

2012-01-08T23:00:00.001-05:00

That's the State motto of New Hampshire. I would move there just for the license plate. It is a spectacularly beautiful state with serene lakes, like Squam Lake, the scene of "On Golden Pond" where I first visited my Oklahoma neighbors at their family retreat house one weekend when I was working in Washington DC. They have always been extremely hospitable, from putting up a friend from abroad who flew in for my wedding, to offering to put me up the last time I was deployed to New Hampshire, then redeployed at the last minute to Maine when a media issue broke.

I never knew growing up on a quiet street in Oklahoma we were living across the street from "The Kennedys" of New Hampshire, the Gregg family, whose political fire in the belly, brains, energy, exceptional ability, professionalism, courtesy, and pride in the place they live is in their DNA. Mrs. Hill (Carolyn Gregg) was the quintessential woman of the 70s. A Wellesley grad who tragically lost her first husband, so went to law school and became an employment lawyer for Kerr-McGee, arguing the Karen Silkwood case and proving to be one of the best lawyers in the country. Remarried and had my classmate, Victor, in addition to her older children, one of whom became Mayor of our city within a city (whose victory shocked everyone but us because he knocked on every door, unlike the beloved, larger-than-life, not apolitical incumbant who had really never had to campaign. When Mrs. Hill showed Gregg her new business suit for his graduation, he said, "couldn't you wear something a little more Joan Yoakam?") Mrs. Hill was the ultimate stage-mom, too. I miss her advice on every subject. She'd always pull me off the edge of the cliff saying "you have a case but you're better off getting another job. Don't tilt at windmills!"

They often had Marion Opala over for dinner, haulocaust survivor turned Episcopalian Oklahoma Judge. Refugees were told to go to the Episcopal church if they ended up in a town too small to have a synagogue and they'd be helped into the community, with education, which is why there are still many Jewish names on the membership rolls even though there are now temples and synagogues. Some stayed active in the community, like Justice Opala, who ushered at church with my Dad and clerked for my Uncle Rooney when he was a State Supreme Court Justice. The Hills weren't religious - this year my friend Victor wished Facebook Merry NewtonMas - but they are good, moral, ethical, kind and generous people with a New England sensibility.

After a week of trying to coordinate my daughter Rosemary's schedule and needs, I finally made a break for New Hampshire in the wee hours of the morning, driving up there just in time for the Facebook MSNBC debate. The candidate pool has tightened up from enormous to huge, leaving Newt Gingrich's yellow necktie the most colorful thing on stage. I wonder how many consultant hours were billed deliberating whether or not Newt should take the risk.

All the candidates were fairly equally matched in terms of communication skills, with Ron Paul less forceful than I would have expected based on how well he has done in the polls. Jon Huntsman performed better at the Republican 500 than he did at this morning's debate in an auditorium against other candidates. Romney was not the clear leader. Santorum was eloquent as ever. Newt did not come across as the smartest man in he room. His most condescending, sarcastic tones were easily and quickly spliced into a Wendy whiner spot on ABC radio on the way home. I lost count of how many times he said "Reagan", reflecting on his glory days. While the 101st Congress was Speaker Gingrich's finest hour, it doesn't convey a message for the future. What I liked about Jon Huntsman, when I heard him speak at the Republican 500 club last month, was that he got me thinking about the future. I can't think of another candidate who has ever done that. He has a grasp of foreign affairs with China that makes it seem not so far away as the red phone. He is extremely intelligent, as elegant a high-class salesman as Goldman presents, and he has worked in the far corners of our country and our world. None of that came across this morning, but he was a capable speaker and spoke as well as anyone. They all look like ideal candidates, except Newt, who looks a little out of shape, like he thinks his hair is sexy, which comes across as pompous. He isn't pompous in person, he is erudite and impresses his worst enemy, but he looks a little shabby, perhaps to appear human instead of like an evil nazi. While he talks a good policy game, I fear his real agenda is for women to be unpaid sex slaves, carries the same foreign policy risk as President Clinton or any other serial philanderer in public office. He doesn't want to pay for his wife's cancer care, or her jewelry, and admits he was blackmailed into marrying his "star witness". We have at least 3 solid family leaders in Romney, Santorum and Huntsman, and I've heard nothing bad about Perry and Paul, who isn't claiming to be anything but libertarian anyway. He even used the term "military industrial complex" - blast from the past and the last thing I'd expect to hear out of a GOP candidate's mouth in 2012.

Romney was great on energy. Huntsman clueless or more heavily-finance by the coal lobby than all other candidates and/or he thinks NH Republicans will not find out by Tuesday that coal, not oil, is the anti-competitive fuel driving up prices. Newt also bad in recommending off shore instead of deregulating and lowering taxes on domestically produced oil. And would someone please get rid of ethanol before my engine corrodes.

A few statistics of Sen. Santorum were unclear - if you get married before getting pregnant, you have a 2.5% chance of ending up in poverty? About something else I heard a 77% figure? It was far from the most horrifying anti-single-mother rhetoric, but the solution with many may be drug addiction rehabilitation, often in the father. Scholarships help if they are confidential and not given self-aggrandizingly. This group of kids is the growing category of students who need aid. My daughter receives no aid, despite her straight A's and income. Single Mothers have always come up with tuition. Vilifying them as axe murderers doesn't help. It takes two to get pregnant.

Another outdated comment Romney made was that people with mortgages should not go into public service. In the wake of the mortgage run up way beyond reasonable valuations forcing everybody into far more debt than his generation, those who lost in real estate deserve representation. When the new aristocrats fail, the nouveau pauvre must have a voice. We are seeing in a new way what happens when people make more money than they have brains. Like Icarus, they fly too high. President Reagan was the first to take the notion of noblesse oblige out of political appointments. What Romney probably means is that government employees who do not take risks to do what is right because they've got a car payment create a feckless ruling class. Those tempted to corruption are worse. But blue bloods do not always make the best leaders.

Sadly, I am unable to post from my iPhone 30 minutes of me talking to myself in the car on the way home. I wasn't even going to try. taped it as a voice memo, but it doesn't look as bad as I thought 30 minutes looking up my nose and chin would. Operation smile may offer me free plastic surgery and mole removal, but it isn't that bad. The best thing you can do for your communication skills is to videotape yourself and watch. Most problems are self-correcting, like when you see a picture of yourself with bad hair. Time to go to the beauty shop, quick! This is the ultimate bad-as-it-gets hair video. Don't submit this for "attractive blonde lady" on Fox News (though their hair and makeup team works wonders). I swallow a lot, because I took an antihistamine for my allergies? Anyway, it is a political road trip video of me talking to myself. Was planning to speech-to-text it, but I may just run it if I can?

Lovely Libraries

2011-11-07T15:42:00.000-05:00

I just violated my no-membership (or as few as possible) policy to join the classist-sounding "New York Society Library" from which I write. While I was applying for a job from my laptop plugged in at the 96th Street New York Public Library, a man sitting next to me started yelling obscenities at the guy sitting next to him, at which time I packed up and left as it sounded like it was coming to blows and something crashed as I told staff and security to get up there, and walked across the street to tell a couple of Police officers, who went right over (not at the speed of light, but they went there directly.

The ladies sitting across from me just complained that I'm typing too loud. I'll have to quiet down.

I love libraries. As a place to hide or study when you don't want to spend money on tuition or entertainment, New York is full of wonderful libraries on every subject. Founder Benjamin Franklin was right that public education and a free library are essential to an educated citizenry to support Democracy. I just happily paid $250 so my daughter and I won't get caught in the middle of a fist fight.

Raisin' Cain!

2011-11-07T15:33:00.000-05:00

Today at the Friars' Club, a New York Jewish Comedy Club, a real live human with a face and a name came forward with a lawyer to formally accuse Herman Cain of making sexual advances. The venue alone is enough to make you laugh, so in the spirit of Yiddish theater (and I sincerely hope not to offend here) why would a Chicago white woman ask a Southern black man for a job in the 1990s? She was not employed by him at the time, so would it still fall into the legal category of sexual harassment? He has been married since 1968 to Gloria Cain, so if true, it would not be okay to make sexual advances to another woman. Herman Cain does deny it, though, and just breaking the news from the Friars Club gives it an ethnic warfare flavor from the most protected venue from which to launch a potentially racist and political attack. I think it is politically motivated and not racist, but it attempts to disqualify him as a combined Clarence Thomas-Sarah Palin hybrid, sending the message "run him if you want another year of great Saturday Night Live skits."

The settlements while he was employed at the National Restaurant Association from 1996 to 1999 could be dismissed as women who weren't doing a good job, so filed a claim after they got fired. Unless they were first harassed, quit, and made to look like they got fired.

If it were true, it would be gross even if it doesn't violate any laws against the woman making the complaint here. Personal/ professional boundaries are important when running a business or a country. She was a former employee of the National Restaurant Association, so he should have known better than to make advances toward her of all people. Until proven guilty, I'll believe that he did.

Attn: Herman Cain

2011-11-04T23:44:00.000-04:00

All Herman Cain had to do was what Arnold Schwarzenegger did in his October surprise of 2003: The text is here, can't find the video online, but if you can locate it, watch, but the press carried the script:

"I have offended people, and to those people who I have offended I am deeply sorry about that and I apologize because that is not what I tried to do," Schwarzenegger said the charges are untrue, but added that "where there's smoke there's fire, that is true, so I want to say yes, I have behaved badly.
"Yes, it is true that I was on rowdy movie sets and I have done things that were not right which I thought then was playful but now I recognize that I offended people." He went on to say that he would not behave this way in the future and if elected, would be "a champion of the women."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,98883,00.html#ixzz1cnWDwNfU

And don't remind us of Clarence Thomas' days in History. Some conservative/libertarian writers are taking a different tone than they did during the Clinton scandals (which were far worse) in saying sexual harassment is a bunch of carp. This won't help either. The bottom line is that when somebody done somebody wrong, the target loses whether she sues them or not because he creates a reason for a lawsuit, thereby making her a legal threat regardless of whether or not she hires a lawyer or files a claim.

Hopefully, if he doesn't habitually make it hard for women in the office to work, it's not too late to admit, apologize and get back to campaign issues. It shouldn't go on, and it definitely can't happen in the White House.

My other question I have is was he married when these vague allegations took place? The Schwarzenegger story was much clearer, which helped it not to turn into a mystery novel.

My early impression of Cain was that he was normal, like the Obamas, the Bushes, the Quayles. We are not the party of no fun, we are the party of fun with your wife forever, and caring for your children.

Occupy Wally World

2011-10-20T23:46:00.001-04:00

Your New York dream vacation starts here!

...wth a suggestion box. Don't mind if I do make a few:

The overall impression is "gross". This really is the "Flea Party" complete with a beat up old sofabed with missing upholstery. This will not catch on, to the point it makes observers prefer Wall Street, thereby proving my theory. Some Wall Streeters give their alms generously in private, but most give overwhelmingly to the Democratic Party.

The best part: hand silk screened t-shirts. Sign said their prints were free, so I got in line, thinking I'd take a free t-shirt for my political memorabilia collection (and leave nothing in their tip jar) until someone told me you have to buy your own shirt at Modell's...(gasp, a corporation? I dared not ask so as not to get arrested with the cast of Reds, 30 years later).

This guy is pretty funny, in good taste.

First Aid Tents (financial disaster field camp?)

Scary drums sounded vaguely like those on B16's Papal Visit route and resembled a folk mass.

What would bring many New Yorkers into the top 1%, or at least in the ballpark, is fracking. So OWS is against that. And while they're at it, let's kill all the plants (the green things that convert Carbon to Oxygen).

Knitter or nutter?

I don't want to know about the bin marked "pants", "underwear".

I took a look at what I had heard was a Marxist book fair and saw a Nora Roberts housewife novel.

Occupy Easy Street

2011-10-13T23:00:00.001-04:00

As much as I feel for people who marched up Park Avenue yesterday chanting, "We're hungry, we're broke, we're coming over for dinner!" while I was serving a free lunch at church (there's one every day of the week up here) and refer them to my "Thin Cat" page (Gristedes has $1.69 loaves of Hauswald's bread and 8" pies for $2.50), who they are really occupying is comical:

Occupy the schools that produced conservative icons Gwyneth Paltrow and Lady Gaga!

Occupy the Russian Consulate!

Occupy those right-wing nuts the Rockefellers! Woody Allen! Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney!

How 'bout a federally-funded National museum?

Mitchell-Lama housing?

The 92nd Street Y?

Gracie Mansion is arguable.

These days, even in Manhattan's only historically Republican neighborhood, only 20% of the vote goes GOP in any given election.

If they want to protest Republicans, they'll have to take the ferry to Staten Island.

Or Indiana...

What I did after I graduated in the job market of 1992, when the museum I wanted to work for was under a hiring freeze, was to work as an intern to get some experience. One of these led to a good, paid job offer, just not where I thought I would thrive. I had passed on an unpaid White House internship because I needed to support myself. Yet when someone offered me an internship at The President's Council on Competitiveness, it seemed like a way to confront the issue of jobs and underemployment on a national level.

The Council's Executive Director was David McIntosh, who is again running for Congress http://davidmcintosh.org. At a kick-off fund raiser at Boyden Gray's house in Georgetown, a friend of David's recalled how she knew he had made it big when the press called him "evil". Those were the good old days, when "evil" stood for something. I learned all about the forces that were dragging the U.S. economy down: regulation, taxation, litigation, interest rates, and brought what I knew about small energy producers. Though Bush lost, it was a fascinating experience that led to work in New York.

One project I worked on at The Manhattan Institute was "Albany's Toxic Taxes". This link does not include the charts, which make the article, so I will iPhone-pic them until I have time to scan them. It is still the best illustration of how taxes kill jobs. http://www.city-journal.org/printable.php?id=1366. It was Editor Myron Magnet's idea for Rob Norton to write the article. My job was to track down a report Myron knew about by Alvin Rabushka, put the data into spreadsheets, then hand it over to a graphic designer who made them look "snazzy".

Betsy McCaughey, the Manhattan Institute's health care expert who went on to run for Lt. Governor, reproduced very similar charts as campaign posters in speeches on her victorious run with George Pataki. The original report disappeared, so I regret I never got to return it to the National Review library, but we think we know who has it!

That's what helped me, though timing has been everything -- when the economy finally picked up, I got married and had a baby. Ending up, as my friend Todd Seavey said when I told him about the divorce, "You're the least likely person I ever thought would end up like Murphy Brown" and came up with the tag line for my blog. I'm not like Murphy Brown as I had a husband who is my child's father and have no career, yet ended up in the same boat!

So my response to people who prevent my daughter from having outdoor recess (besides, thanks, I'll try that line on my relatives about coming to dinner!) is work with the people working to create jobs! You're even being ridiculed by people who agree with you about Wall Street and certain economic policies!

Occupy Carnegie Hill

2011-10-11T21:52:00.000-04:00

I still haven't made it downtown to observe "Occupy Wall Street", yet today was told that a few hundred of them occupied MY street!

How did I miss it when I was in and out, up and down this quiet few blocks the entire time they were here? All I heard were helicopters, which made me wonder, is the President having a fund raiser? Terrorists? Escapee? No, they were just occupying the occupation.

I had just been thinking (not out loud) good thing they're down there instead of up here. The press were reportedly taking pictures of Spence students. The Mom who told me asked if they were allowed to publish pictures of their children. I thought not without your permission. Usually when people I don't know take pictures of my child, I get their card and ask them to email me a copy. That way I know who they are if something weird happens. I've gotten some of my best photographs that way.

The protesters seem to be taking "Occupy Sesame Street" seriously. If they don't realize that liberals picketing Wall Street and Spence is the same as liberals picketing themselves, they probably didn't realize the Sesame Street analogy was a joke. Spence has basically one really prosperous guy who donated all the money.

The protesters should also realize that the jobs they claim to seek aren't there because of income taxes. When taxes are lowered, people hire people and start businesses. And they buy things that somebody has to create and sell in a capacity known as a job. Nobody's buying "Occupy Wall Street". I thought twice about hiring someone this week. Passed another I had hired in the past collecting cans from recycling bags on the curb. Why am I not hiring people to do jobs I wouldn't have considered doing solo a few years ago? Liberals and their policies!

As healthy as it is to our Democracy to demonstrate that you have student loans and no job, promoting economic policy that will delete more jobs is to your peril.

I haven't heard that anyone who lost their house is out there demonstrating. Those are the people I would like to hear from.

If everyone who lost money in the stock market over the bundling and resale of bad loans, real estate fraud and false statements in annual reports protested, there'd be nobody left to watch or write about it. They took a risk. It wasn't a risk that they'd be lied to, for that is illegal. But the risk-reward ratio is why they did it.

Part of the problem may be that those who still have jobs and capital are really taking no more risk than a tenured postal worker. They go to jobs with 401k's and health insurance and expect to be compensated whether they produce profit for their investors or ruin them. Hedge funds are betting so many different ways they cannot lose their house money. It would be great if this system worked for everyone, but it doesn't seem to be.

Our street really is like Sesame Street. There's the Children's General Store, Giuliano's coffee, King's pharmacy, Italian restaurants, Pick-up-Sticks Chinese food, little boutiques, a museum, a church. We sit on the "stoop" and talk. People walk their dogs, jog, go to the library like everybody else in America. It is full of children who go happily to school on our street and a few blocks beyond. I know one neighbor on Wall Street, but we also have architects, salespeople, entrepreneurs, designers, medical professionals, philanthropists, and regular bankers the Fed is forcing to charge fees, then turning around and telling account holders to "walk with their feet". Our street has a public school and used to have a parochial school that closed. A pizza place closed because the tax increases make the food too expensive for the contracting market to bear. Crime may be on the rise.

As flattering as it is to be occupied, our neighbors up and down the block are probably having as many financial concerns as anybody.

The liberals (and some libertarians) want to legalize pot to de-motivate the protesters before they realize they are picketing themselves. While giving the crown opiants would add brain damage to the nation of zombies they can control, what are they going to do about the violence? Or is that the excuse they are looking for to use force themselves?

Idea du jour

2011-09-16T12:31:00.001-04:00

Just when I thought I must be the only one who can't quite put the 9-11 tenth completely out of my mind, a lady on the bus sitting next to a bag leaves the bag behind. Everyone notices. The guy next closest to the bag leaps to the back door (where I'm already standing) and about 6 people get off the bus. Everyone is asking about the bag: Can we throw the bag off the bus? Could someone check to see what's inside? Is there an NYPD officer around who could take the bag? Driver stops, whips on plastic gloves, makes last call, then checks the bag. "Fruit," he reports. Then an older lady sitting caddy-corner from the luggage rack says, "Oh, that's my bag!" At least we could all laugh about it!

Another friend told me about her "if you see something, say something" calls, including 3 guys wearing fez hats in a zip car, which is unusual in our "get preppy" neighborhood. One was like, "What do you expect? It's New York!" reminiscent of the SNL crisis hotline skit "I've been shot!"..."Yes, but where else can you see CATS 10 times a week?"

So while we're all still on our own personal high-alert, I wondered today, does New York City have a heli-jet? A helicopter that puts out fires might have worked on 9-11-01 and in the future. Usually used to put out wild fires, why wouldn't it work on buildings? It would have to be quick, whereas wildfires go on for days and weeks, allowing more time to spray or drop water by helicopter both to put out the fire and prevent it from spreading. They can be brought in by contract from far away. For it to work within the short time before a building falls, it would have to already be in town, filled and ready to go.

Collective Bargaining

2011-09-13T12:32:00.001-04:00

After school started, Rosemary's school sent home a letter in her backpack saying the teachers' contract had expired August 31st. They are engaged in collective bargaining , the schools offering pay increases of 2.7 and 3.7% while the Federation of Catholic Teachers seeks 2- 2.5% on top of that.

When I think of unions, Jimmy Hoffa yelling, "Let's take these sons of bitches out!" comes to mind. I'm not a member of the Tea Party, but to say something like that at a Presidential event is scary.

There were also fairly recent stories about union death threats in Wisconsin.

I've never heard of the Catholic Teachers Union doing anything like that to children during a negotiation. I have heard of them striking. I don't know if parents get involved in the negotiations.

It makes sense to pay teachers as much as possible. Yet this is not the financial climate to raise expenses, tuition, though taxes and cost of living are going up for teachers, too.

They do work hard. My mother taught in private schools. Yet they aren't abused the way garment workers were a century ago and some may still be illegally or in other countries.

Parents in some parochial schools like Immaculate Conception uptown can't even afford $4000 annual tuition in the current job market. How can anybody? That's what 4 years at The University of Oklahoma cost and nearly one year of private school back when I went.

Yet the public schools are dominated by a worse teachers union. The unions are not to be confused with teachers and employees, who are good, yet are forced to pay dues to union leaders, who may not have their interests at heart. All unions are not tainted by organized crime. No idea who the players are in the Archdiocese of New York. In the public schools, even the leading anti-trust lawyer hasn't improved students' education.

One idea would be to offer them what they want if they will disband the union, thereby returning their union dues to their paychecks. Somebody somewhere may have tried that, yet the union bosses do not want to give up those dues, so they sell out the members of their unions in order to keep their positions.

Another few thoughts

2011-09-12T20:44:00.000-04:00

I hesitated to write about the jumpers at first, and understand why nobody wanted to tell them. Yet does it really do any good to make terrorists seem less terrible?

For ten years this family has wondered where he was and what happened. To me, that's more terrible. It may not give them the peace they seek, but if answering one question helps this family in any way, or inspires future targets to make a run for it and carry their ID, isn't it better than trying to spare them a gory detail they'll wonder about for the rest of their life?

He made it out. It must have been quick and silent. It was his hour, but he almost outran it. He called his family. He ran farther than anyone else. He was a General, not a footsoldier who stayed at their desk because a loudspeaker told them to. They probably wanted to keep the stairwells free for the fire department to rescue them. They probably thought they could run up and put out the fire. But it wasn't to be.

I don't know how the families were informed. In individual tragedies, a police officer comes to the house. Maybe something was lost in the transcription. Maybe there were too many at once. May there be clarity and peace.

I saw someone at church last week who did the same thing. Big, tall man. When he was told to stay, he thought about it, said "no way," went down flights of stairs, walked to Brooklyn, then called his family before walking to the upper East side. He was lucky. He didn't get hit. He couldn't have seen a jumper through his ash-covered glasses. He just made it. Two young children. Thank God for them. I heard so many stories of people who missed it by chance, including my former husband, who was heading downtown in a car that morning. It wasn't their hour, as Father Benefict told a bunch of nervous Nellies at a rosary in someone's home (actually we were strong as stone, but what a scary time). He came all the way from the Bronx to pray with a small group of us.

When I started my political appointment in the Pataki Administration at his downstate office at the World Trade Center, I found this American flag wadded up in a corner of the mail room. I was so horrified that the Cuomo Administration would do something like that, that they had no respect for the flag, that I got permission to take it. "We were gonna throw it away," said the mail staff. The proper thing to do would have been to burn it. Someone suggested a boy scout ceremony. Yet I thought it might have historical value someday. No idea what might happen.

I offered it for a 9-11 memorial ceremony and/or museum. was told I wouldn't get it back. State Curator implied they might try to say I didn't have the right to it in the first place. Some said Cuomo would deny it, might even try to blame us. I hesitate to give it away now that I've got a daughter and tuition, at least until I have some taxable income to deduct it against.

I folded it up into a triangle years ago. In the beginning, I hung it in my backyard during barbeques, then decided I should take care of it, even in the stained, trampled, wadded state I rescued it in. It isn't the first flag I've rescued, yet it is the first I've held onto.

Downtown Friends a Decade After

2011-09-11T23:51:00.001-04:00

After church, to reflect on the lives lived until ten years ago today, we went downtown with my friend Jane, who serves on the board of the Sarah Skaggs Dance Company.

We got off the subway at the Bolling Green station to the sound of a solo bagpiper, to see the familiar sphere that once sat in the center of the plaza between the Twin Towers. People used to sit outside and eat lunch when we could get away from our desks or didn't have an event, which was rare. Today the sphere reminded me of the one contemporary sculpture at the Vatican Museum.

I looked at one of the many flags placed in Battery Park to find the name of David Rice from Oklahoma City. Tonight, I watched a documentary about him.

His sister and brother said they wanted to know if he got out of the building. I thought they must have known.

One of the first calls I got after both towers fell and we knew it was a terrorist attack, from either Mom or my friend Kathryn, was about David Rice. I knew David, but hadn't kept in touch enough even to know he was working in the World Trade Center. I had worked in Governor Pataki's Office when it was at the World Trade Center and called a former colleague who still worked for the Governor. She looked into it and called me back to say that the first people who were identified, as David was, had made it out of the building and were walking (or running) across the plaza, and had their ID or drivers licenses on them. They were hit by jumpers because the temperature from the fire reached the point where people do that.

The Rices go to Mom's parish in Oklahoma City, but I didn't know them well enough to call on them. Thought if they didn't know, the person I talked to would relay the message, and that though there's no luck in this entire situation, they were spared an excruciating process I saw firsthand after TWA 800 of families waiting to hear news. To that extent alone, God was merciful.

All I knew about David was that he was awesome. Tall, blonde, great-looking, athlete, Catholic. There were 800 people at his funeral.

I won't post the video, all I can say is add to my will if I'm stricken in a high profile situation is no video, please! but if you must, my rehearsal dinner toasts only! David's sister is lovely, who knows what mine would say! I did learn that David was a Fulbright scholar, which was no surprise for an outstanding person.

The highlight of my day was the Sarah Skaggs Dance Company performance. Sarah and Jane went to Sweetbriar together.

Years ago, Jane invited her friends to a performance downtown, where Sarah looked like she was born on Park Avenue in her black velvet pants, cream top and diamond earrings and danced like she was raised someplace dancier.

This past July, Sarah got the brainstorm to have 3 performances in 3 different cities on the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on 9-11. After 9-11-2001, Sarah started these "guerilla" outdoor dance performances. Today concluded her 9-11 choreography with bells, blasts, laying flat on the concrete, then and rising up.

There's no stage, no permit, no seated audience. Suddenly you look up and there are dancers everywhere ready to begin, all in Sarah's signature black pants and white tops of their choice. And they dance. And there's music. And it's beautiful. And you think about the falling of the towers in a new way. Instead of the day a great nation was brought to its knees, you see that it rose up with strength never seen before. The 9-minute dance on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNg2fG82394&feature=youtube_gdata_player

After that we went to Fraunces Tavern, which has been redecorated wild-west-style. Meet Dick and Jane:

Jane introduced me to Dick at one of his gallery openings. I asked Dick if we could hang some of his work in the Governor's Office for awhile. The idea was to feature various New York artists on the expansive grey walls of the World Trade Center's 57th floor, as the Governor of Oklahoma had displayed mine and other students'. Dick's was my dry run. We got too concerned about insurance. His work wasn't insured for it so I asked if we were. I'm sure we were enough, nothing could happen with all the State Police there and security cameras, and it would have worked out in the end if anything had, but we couldn't insure it specifically, so Dick loaned us a few drawings, watercolors as I recall, and we didn't have a reception. I wrote up a sign and talked it up, but I wish we had been bolder or gotten a gallery to take it on. Everyone doesn't understand how the arts are a vital part if the economy, especially in a bear market.

Jane's former boss was killed on 9-11, having just started a job the week before as head of security at the World Trade Center, "The Man Who Knew."

We talked about the border, not only in terms of terrorists getting in, but of people like the current dirty-bomb threateners getting out.

I met Jane at a Women's National Republican Club dinner I was invited to by my first employer in NYC, former Ambassador Faith Whittlesey. We all keep in touch and Jane remains one of my best friends. I was even a bridesmaid in Jane and Jay's wedding at St. Ignatius Loyola. Jane and Jay married around age 40, as New Yorkers don't even think about marriage until they're 40 and have kids up to age 50 (not six, but one or two.) Jane has an amazing job and I hope she never retires.

Fraunces Tavern, where George Washington gave his "Farewell to the Troops" address when he resigned from office because he could not pay his soldiers, is where we celebrated Rosemary's first birthday with colonial music, tea from King's Carriage House, Cupcake Cafe and dear friends. Jane Fulton made tricorn hats for the children. We had loads of fun planning CAR (Children of the American Revolution) events in those days.

Today, it would make a great spot to bring back the 89ers parties on the anniversary of the Oklahoma Land Run, conveniently located near the Smithsonian American Indian Museum. This was an annual event where everyone from Oklahoma got to know who was in town (say, before they heard about it because a couple of planes flew into their office.) It used to be held in Deborah Solomon's apartment, but sounds like a gathering better suited for this cow-hide-coated tavern down by the river. This may be my next project, unless somebody else volunteers.

Fraunces Tavern, owned by the Sons of the American Revolution, once Fish, Chips and Beer, now has a cappuccino bar and Irish music on Friday nights.

Rosemary and Cody feed the birds.

This morning Rosemary woke up to not only her friend's new puppy, Pebbles, but also a new kitty who arrived last night, Mr. Meow Meow.

God bless all those people I must have passed in the halls, stood in line next to at the cafeteria, saw walking outside in the blinding sun, and shared the best view in the world. Sorry you were there on that horrifying day. May you rest in peace. We did not experience what you and your families did, but we grieve your loss and thank God you were here. May you always give us strength.

A Better Day

2011-09-10T14:36:00.001-04:00

Today is a better day. You can still leave Manhattan, there's no lock down, but I'd take the ballet and a dirty bomb over anyplace else in the world. Bought some ballet tickets for the Paul McCartney Oceans. Rosemary preferred riding her scooter to going out to Long Island to watch Polo. She needs a weekend in town after being away for six or seven weeks before starting school.

I took her to the awesome new Fairway grocery 86th. Then we stopped into the paint store to check out floor finishes and oil-based, high gloss paint prices and colors. We made hot dogs and took them to the Cooper-Hewitt backyard for lunch. Blissfully normal. Back to dialing for playdates.

Here's what we made for dinner night before last:

Homemade heart-shaped ravioli

A simple salad and parmesean garlic bread...bon appetite!

Tonights white clam spaghetti.

I forgot to buy olives to make dirty martinis to ward off those dirty bombs! Here's hoping the 3 malatov cocktail mixers forget the nuclear.

Too-Late-To-Go-Kit

2011-09-10T00:38:00.000-04:00

I still haven't replaced my stolen TV, so am catching 9-11 anniversary terrorist threat info via Facebook and word of mouth.

The NYC Office of Emergency Management has suggested contacting local relatives in advance of a potential attack to set up a meeting place, etc. I actually heard back from one cousin!

Hopefully, this will be another thing we prepare for where nothing happens. The millennium, the hurricane (at least in my neighborhood, though it could have been worse without evacuation and prior clear-cut deforestation based on past storm casualties), where I bought cases of tunafish, candles, and the only flashlight we could find was a pair of fluorescent "pocket trouts" after the run on k-mart. [who needs a flashlight in NY? We hung blackout curtains to keep out the street vapor lights!]

Now that we know it could happen and what it means to be in NYC after a terrorist attack, I would go anyplace but here. Yet it's too late. Traffics a mess with all the check points.

So here we are, recalling what we would have done if we had known what could happen, besides get the h*** out.

This threat is just a dirty bomb. They probably have a car around here somewhere with whatever incendiary and nuclear explosives they could get their hands on. It would freak people out, but do little or no real harm. But we don't really know as it wasn't patented by a major defense contractor.

It wouldn't be a surprise. Probably wouldn't take down buildings or bridges. It would just be a mess.

Already is, whether they detonate or not.

The date 9-11 happens every year. The decade marks a bigger wave of memories. There isn't much other news - the jobs bill, yet another special election due to a Congressman sending a shirtless iPhoto, the Greeks dunking the stock market a little, so we reflect on what we would have done differently if we had known.

I have my FEMA gas mask. I have my first aid kit. My car happens to be packed with clothes from summer as the work is not complete in our building. I was torn today between running to Costco to get cases of provisions and keeping my parking place in front of my building both to prevent a car-bomber from parking there and to have my getaway car ready to go.

Not that I have a place to go. That is what has changed.

On 9-11, I was practically a newlywed. We had just moved into our first almost-grown-up apartment. The cable guy hadn't even come.

So if it happened again today that would be the same, no TV. Amazingly, several neighbors did not have TVs. We all ran out into the hall and stairwell and went to my neighbor's apt. After we watched the towers come down several times, we all looked at each other and thought to ourselves, maybe no TV is not a bad thing, and left. Alex had a transistor radio. We took it to the park, where lots of people were sitting around with radios, far enough away from each other to hear.

We packed "go kits" with water bottles, etc, to venture across the park to make sure his Aunt and her young boy were okay, and that we would come back for them if we left. We were the only people not walking North.

We had a rental car for a business trip and held onto it for 3 weeks, though Alex refused to let the terrorists run him out of his home. A colleague of his was in town for a meeting, and I regret that we were so petrified we sat in our apartment and left him alone in his hotel room.

That is the main thing I would do differently. We should have brought them over to our place or left town with them. The people who were the most traumatized by the WTC attacks were people with young children. Now that I'm a divorced mother, I can't believe we left our Aunt and cousin over there by herself.

Yet no one is ever alone in New York. We sat in church. We talked to neighbors on the stoop. Everyone called us from all over the world.

My friend Heidi Snow Cinader, who lost her first fiancé on TWA flight 800, and with whose current husband I worked out of our homes to develop ACCESS, Heidi's Air Craft Casualty Emotional Support Service, http://accesshelp.org, which helps connect people with similar experiences long distance, invited me to a VOAD meeting (Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster) facilitated by FEMA. I met Heidi at a memorial service she organized at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine.

I started volunteering at the FEMA Disaster Field Office. I can't imagine being able to do that now with a 7-year-old. I will always admire how unflappable the people from the Red Cross, Salvation Army, Catholic Charities and many other organizations were in coordinating relief efforts, especially Ken Curtain for his sense of humor.

At this moment, traffic is reported to be a mess with checkpoints everywhere. Two of the three threateners are U.S. Citizens.

Last time, I talked with my cousin about where to go if it happened again. She suggested the Adirondacks, where she's from, where nobody is lookin for anybody.

Now there are a few more cousins moved to New York. Yet Rosemary and I are alone. And don't want to be. A terrorist attack is not something to go through alone with a child. Nor is a holiday, but a crisis would be worse.

Hopefully, they'll catch these dirty-bomber wanna be's soon. A terrorist attack could happen anyday, anytime, anywhere, yet here, today we are warned. So we have to think and prepare.

I thought I was kidding

2011-09-08T23:28:00.000-04:00

I thought I was only kidding about the Mayor not inviting the firefighters to the 9/11 memorial, but he really isn't! Maybe he just wanted to focus on the families and not create a 3-ring political circus. Or now that the New York Times has reported a terrorist threat on the memorial ceremony, he wants the first responders available to respond.

We've had nine years of political speeches, readings of every name by a different VIP, poetry, prayers, even a Papal visit. The Mayor may just want it to be simple, solemn, short; not another long, hard day for the families and all who reflect on that time.

Memories come back whwn you least expect them. A couple weeks ago, I met quite coincidentally a couple my Grandaddy told me to look up a few years back. We have a large family and keep in touch with most of them, so I called my closest New York cousin at the time and asked if she knew them. There is a relative on that side with a similar sounding name, yet when later I ran across it in the cemetery next to that Grandfather, it was spelled differently. Turns out they are on my Father's side of the family. I had run across the name of two Yoakams in the New York Junior League Archives after 9/11 when I was reading about the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire and the President of the New York Junior League was interested to know if any league volunteers were among the Colony Club members who walked the strike lines with Anne Morgan, daughter of J. P. Morgan. I cross-referenced the membership list for the years around 1911. None of the names published were. As a non-member of the Colony Club, I couldn't ask for their membership list for that year. Of personal interest in the NYJL archives were two Yoakams, one named Bessie, whom I wondered about as the original Yoakam from whom I descend came from Amsterdam to New Amsterdam, though I didn't think any of them stayed. After reading a couple of articles and wishing I were related to Bessie Yoakam, the name was spelled YoakUm in the New York Times, and surely I would have heard of these famous Texans, whom I thought must be German from that part of Texas, so decided we must not be related. This week, I found the same articles on the blog Hard Times http://pcolamus.blogspot.com/2009/10/my-cousin-bessie-yoakum-belle-of-ny.html by Ann Hill, who has traced the entire Yoakam genealogy and confirmed that yes, Bessie Yoakam's family and mine descend from the same son of the earliest documented Yoakam in America (Philip, son of Matthias in 1705). Not exactly first cousins, but what are the chances two Yoakam descendants who had moved West centuries ago would marry back into New York and live within 12 blocks of each other? I don't know if it is any closer than that, there is a reference to some "Cherokee" acres willed to a nephew; my Great Uncle Cy started the Cherokee Ranch, but I had never heard they were related to the larger piece of land nearby.

Other Junior League memories jogged about the volunteers lost, one just a month after her wedding. There was an interfaith service that one of the husbands, maybe hers, didn't attend. The NYJL tried to make it ecumenical by giving equal time to the 96th street Imam, who lead with "God mend thine every flaw." As much as I hoped the second language barrier meant that he thought "flaw" was that giant scar on the earth where the World Trade Center once stood, it sounded a little like "this happened because America is flawed" and as much as Americans can take a hit like no other country, I wasn't surprised to hear later that that Imam got sent home.

I told my Grandparents about it, that we should all write in our wills if we don't want any 3rd party memorial services should we die in a high profile situation, or designate who will eulogize to avoid any politics. They both chose no eulogies but the Pastor's sermons, which was a little sad because there are so many good speakers in our family and so many great stories and memories, but the Priests said fine things about their faith, which is the proper way. It kept it less emotional.

Non-emotion-evoking was the design goal of the concrete chairs of the Oklahoma City bombing memorial. People still put Teddy bears, photographs and fake flowers on chain link fences.

I prefer the winged victory statues of yore. Allegories were neither religious nor spiritless. They were a way to inspire strength without being dogmatic.

This year will be different. Whether or not it will be better remains to be seen.

Storm damage

2011-09-02T15:50:00.001-04:00

On the way home from Central Park tennis:

Up the coast and inland sounds like a mess. People trapped in powerless houses running out of groceries. Wish I could help!

Might As Well Ban Firefighters

2011-08-25T00:39:00.000-04:00

Mayor Bloomberg announced that all clergy is banned from the ceremonies commemorating the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

Unless I'm missing something, like a blanket ban is the only politically correct way to keep out Islamo-terrorist "clergy," he might as well ban firefighters.

Clergy died giving last rites to the dying that day. They comforted traumatized people who survived and saw horror that day. They went into buildings to help people clean dust out of their apartments. They prayed for divine intervention when human systems had failed in a way no one had previously imagined. They raised and distributed aid and support of all kinds right along with secular institutions. They opened their doors beyond normal business hours on September 11th as those who were left of the downtown community walked North. They didn't preach. They just offered a place to rest or get out of the anxious isolation of an apartment. They buried thousands and presided over their funerals. A friend who worked across from St. Patrick's Cathedral could not believe how long it went on -- just the firefighters, back-to-back, day-after-day for weeks and months, all with bagpipes and full music. Most clergy are so busy with scheduled services they wouldn't have time to attend the 9-11 memorial. To ban people who belong there because of their faith or their leadership role in a church, synagogue or mainstream mosque, is incomprehensible. Especially in a line of work where most people have a strong faith that calls them to work someplace like the Salvation Army or Red Cross-Red Crescent.

I don't know what kind of uninspiring, totally depressing and just plain weird ceremony is being planned, but I have seen God removed from ceremonies and it doesn't make them more more welcoming, it makes them seem like a dark, pagan, ancient ritual. They can even be ridiculous.

Godlessness isn't tolerance. It is a replacement religion of its own that is offensive to the majority who hold a faith of their choice. Ceremonies that incorporate many faiths are as beautiful as a tasteful ecumenical wedding. I don't see why a city like New York shouldn't have a short prayer in every major religion and language. The politics of choosing who says what may not be easy, but the politics of leaving out the inspiration New Yorkers draw from in difficult times could lead to the chaos of last summer's ground-zero mosque debate. I was just today thinking how far we've come from there. And now this.

Faith is what carried many through the day, weeks and years that followed. To shut out the leaders and their words at a time when everyone needs to reflect is inexplicable.

The Mayor won't stop the faithful from praying. I am sure there will be commemorations in every church, synagogue and religious institution in town and beyond. I don't see what he is trying to accomplish by leaving them out of the official ceremony. In future times of crisis, they will be there for the city, whether he invites them to this or not. Yet their participation in the crisis we recollect is worthy of inclusion and reconsideration. I know it makes the ceremonies long, but if reading every name means something to the people who lost loved ones, I'll listen. Or the clergy could be invited to just sit and not say or read anything. But to say they can't come, when they were so involved with the families, is undeserved.

They must be really praying for the Mayor now.

Concrete, Parallel Parking, Crime

2011-08-19T21:55:00.000-04:00

I was prepared for unfinished work on my apartment in New York, because nothing gets done here if you don't supervise and surveil. Yet I was not prepared for no work begun and the Superintendent losing my new key. Not even a measurement or an order for a security shutter. I've had fire escape gates installed every place I've lived in New York, which ran up to $2000 in the 1990s and took a day or 2 to get done. This apartment line has stoves that would block a hinged door gate. My neighbor, famous architect Luis Guitierrez, came up with an attractive looking security shutter that works in his apartment. I am trying to replicate it for mine.

Not only because someone entered our apartment through a cracked fire escape window while we slept, stole our TV, exited the front door, but also because there've been 3 rapists caught within 7 blocks in the last 2 months, two a block down. One went through the gated window at night of a 20-something who had just moved here from Texas and had an Arkansas razorback sign on her window. She had the right kind of gate.

Accordion gates do not work. A cousin I've never met who had accordion gates came home from her aspiring actress-supporting bartending job to 4 Black men in her apartment when she got home and raped her. This was shared with me and my family in hushed tones to make the point to them that if they needed to chip in on the rent to make sure I had secure housing, it was worth it, notwithstanding the unprecedented investment we missed. Don't bother with self-defense, even against the kind you let into your home, the weakest man will overpower the highest-trained woman. Mace will bring you to the ground, too. Even after a victorious custody battle to keep her children, someone I know was wrecked by acquaintance rape. Her lawyer refused to prosecute so as not to risk custody loss. Yet she did go to some kind of rehab over it, so isn't that at least temporary custody loss? And the guy is still out there. That leaves steel bars, guns, or nuns.

So I put safety first, even if it meant living in a nunnery for awhile (a residence run by nuns, sort of like a Catholic Barbizon Hotel, which was where people like my Dad's and his Mother's friend's stayed for their jobs in New York.) At the end of the Dinkins-Cuomo administrations, I didn't want to live alone in New York. A year or two into the Giuliani/ Pataki years, it was okay with gates. By the time we moved to this apartment, you didn't really need gates in a doorman building. Now you do. My first doorman in New York stole from me, so you still have to protect your belongings, but a doorman saved one of the women on the next block after my friend called the cops on her cell phone. This is a heroic break from the old New York phenomenon of New Yorkers running, looking the other way and not calling the police, but Sarah is strong and from California.

People didn't flee New York in droves until a boy got kidnapped in the 1970s. They'd come home to their neighbors saying, "Don't go in your house yet, there's a robber inside who hasn't left."

Before we left for the summer, there was a kidnapping murder in Brooklyn, yet it shouldn't quite scare people off. It should scare anybody who lets their nine-year-old walk home from school without a parent. It was his first day to walk home by himself. I haven't read much, but it sounded like the boy may have known the kidnapper as they went to an out of town wedding together, then returned home to find missing persons signs, which caused the man to panic, dismember the boy, and confess. So don't leave your children unsupervised for a minute and live as close to school as you can.

This is not the classic ransom kidnapping, in which case you always pay the ransom, then let the police get them. These are not terrorists taking hostages or POWs for state secrets. A relative of mine was abducted as a 4-year-old girl from her home in her pajamas and saw the police shoot the gunman in the bank lobby. As a parent, that's what to do: say yes, get the your child, then let the bank and the police take care of the kidnapper and the money.

Another thing you can do is to keep track of your coordinates. When Mr. Urshel was taken from his home playing bridge, thrown into the trunk of machine-gun Kelly's car, he memorized how many seconds were between each turn, houdini'd out of there when Kelly fell asleep, made his way back and was able to tell the police where Kelly had taken him. For details, read "Machine Gun Kelly's Last Stand" (my copy got stolen, so if you find the used copy with an inscription by my Father, whose parents were the second owners of the Urshel house, please let me know.)

The other category are union threats. When the unions came to my great Grandfather's house at breakfast, he went outside to talk to them. Oklahoma had been union free since the 1980s, so they don't have to worry about that anymore there.

That is my biggest fear about the teachers union because they already have your kid. I can't tell you the look of jaw-dropped horror my Great Aunt had when she heard the Catholic parochial school teachers were unionized in New York.

Most kidnappings are by family members for child custody. Schools should know that by now, but preventative measures are not having other people drop off and pick up your kids. Arrive early. If you are consistent, the teachers will be more likely to notice something different. That said, people who do the exact sane routine every day are targeted because it makes it easier for kidnappers and terrorists to hit them. Leave at slightly different times and take different routes.

Personal security is gating your fire escape window with strong steel that is easily opened in case of fire (and you have to take the outdoor escape because indoor stairs don't work).

Key security-- don't give anyone a copy. Legally you must notify you before emergency entry, in which case you could get a key to them then. I've always felt the citizenly thing to do in a building full of people was to give my landlord and super a key, usually a relative, too, in case I get locked out, but the police say do not ever give a key to anyone for a second. My Texas neighbor wouldn't even let the exterminator in. The one time I had a plumbing leak, they didn't use my key anyway, or call. I came home to find they had cut through my steel door and charged me a few thousand bucks. I had been calling them for months about running water sounds, but they didn't come until something broke and they had to cut through my door and my floor. So it does no good to give out keys. Legally, you may have to go through eviction proceedings to get someone out of your apartment whom you've given a key.

So now I just need a shutter and yet another new lock. And I'm trying to use my building's people, who are busy because they are good. I've always sworn that if I bought and renovated a place here I would fly in contractors from Oklahoma. I am on the verge of treating my landlord to this extreme measure, except nobody in Oklahoma knows anything about gates because they aren't necessary.

If we didn't have a decent looking fire escape, I'd say take it off and give everyone indoor metal chain ladders to throw out the back window, or all windows. That way nobody can climb up.

Cottage Industry

2011-08-19T21:53:00.001-04:00

Ten paintings

Ten fish taco toppings

Boston Cream Pie is an American favorite even served at Camp Waldemar in Texas,

...yet not as finely decorated as...

Sorry I didn't take party pics of our beautiful friends and neighbors, but the NISDA courtyard has potential for a big party; next year I may bring my long linen tablecloth and line up the tables.

Reminder not to send the jeep ahead of those last few bags...

Land ho!

We've motored away from lobster, clams, scrimshaw, lighthouse baskets, hydrangeas and sailboats...

Art Show on Nantucket -- You're invited!

2011-08-15T13:43:00.001-04:00

Please come to our Thank You, Nantucket Party!

Oil Paintings en plein air by Anne Yoakam

Thursday, August 18th

5:00pm

71 Washington Street
Nantucket Island School of Design and the Arts
Harbor Cottages Courtyard

Friends, guests, passers-by and potluck welcome!

The Boston Pops

2011-08-13T19:38:00.012-04:00

Carley Simon on the 100th Anniversary of the Nantucket Cottage Hospital

Crowds gather all the way to the water and beyond on boats.

Sunset on Jetties Beach

Fireworks also pop

Rosemary thinks this one looks like a chandelier

The end of an amazing day.

This perfect day began with a trip to see the Great Point Light House. My painting class's trip keeps getting postponed, probably because the road to Great Point has been closed. I offered to split an oversand permit with some friends we've made who are staying in another cottage and try our luck with my jeep. Then found out the price and thought it might be cheaper and better to rent a boat than to let the air out of the tires given we have less experience driving on soft sand than sailing.

On the beach, we found a couple of pieces of blue beach glass, which our friend identified as Bristol glass from the place in England where she is from. It was used to bottle Portuguese creme liquor. It was fun to finally see the light house and all the wildlife and variety of shells and rocks you won't find in the more crowded areas. Only challenge was that we ran out of gas while motoring in (another reason wind power is preferable) and got a tow, which left us a little sun and diesel-fume-fatigued.

After I made Rosemary lunch, we went Quahauging. This time I cooked them correctly and my sauce was much better. It is absolutely delicious to eat fresh seafood half an hour after you pull it out of the ocean. Quahaugs are like New York Cherrystone clams. There, we eat them raw or in pan roasts at the Oyster Bar. Here, you steam them up, all they need is a little onion and garlic, then you make a cream sauce out of the juice with butter, milk, I added parsley, and serve it all over pasta, shells on. We saw two large blue crabs and lots of baby crabs, so I am hoping to catch some and make gumbo this week.

Then right before we were headed to the beach to try and buy tickets at the gate to the Boston Pops, tickets fell into our laps from some neighbors. We zoomed down on our bikes, spotted kids climbing all over the lifeguard stand, and I managed to tuck myself in on the box behind it, nearly losing my seat every time I ducked out to check on Rosemary. They played patriotic music, shades of political conventions from Lee Greenwood to Bruce Springstein, along with some traditional Pops hits (watching Rosemary sing them was as entertaining as Carley Simon), then she brought in the choir and sang the Itsy Bitsy Spider song and the theme to the movie "Working Girl", which I taped on my iphone and hope I can post, either as a sound clip or I'll try to make a slide show. [You Tube says it will take 143 minutes just to post the songs, so I'm going beddy bye and may not get back to this until Fall.]

The Nantucket Cottage Hospital was there for us when Rosemary got a bullseye rash on a weekend morning. We went to the emergency room, saw a doctor who prescribed antibiotics and referred us to Dr. Lepore, an expert on Lyme's Disease. We were delighted to share in the celebration. Based on the turnout, the doors should be able to stay open another year, and many more. Carley Simon and a reminder to this Okie girl that Massachusetts is part of America was just what the Doctor ordered.

Nantucket Light Ship

Saturday regatta

Kill the Deer

2011-08-11T00:25:00.000-04:00

Fisher's Island got rid of Lyme's Disease by killing all the deer.

It can be done.

Now that I've feasted my eyes and imagination on whaling, there must be some use for dead deer. A few should be kept quarantined in captivity, de-ticked, if possible, or bred tick-free, then reintroduced after the Lyme's Disease epidemic is over.

My friend's friend got a rare disorder from a tick bite that made her believe she had to remove blue fibers from her skin. She bought a bunch of $50,000 microscopes to try and find blue fibers in her skin and constantly plucked herself with all these tweezers. A round of Doxycycline cured her. There are only 50 known cases of this in the world, but that's 50 too many if they can get rid of the ticks and the disease by killing the deer. I cried every time I listed to my "Bambi" record as a child, but people can die from Lyme's Disease if they get a tick bite and don't treat it. If a tick bites you in your hair and you don't see the bulls-eye rash, you may not know you have it until you are rushed to the emergency room in the night, not breathing, spiking a fever, nearly dead. That's the best case scenario. If you get the kind where you don't have symptoms right away, you get progressive debilitation.

There are conspiracy theories on how it got started, that it was a government germ warfare research project that got out of the lab, that they are covering it up because it would be sooooo shocking that the government messed up! They've never done that before!

It doesn't really matter. It just has to go away. Lyme's Disease is a particular danger to young children as they can't take Doxycycline and Amoxicillin is less effective. We have to put children over deer.

The Nantucketers

2011-08-11T00:09:00.000-04:00

Required reading for Nantucket: Moby Dick. I started it in 5th grade. Mr. Stephens was so excited I wanted to read it, he offered credit for 2 book reports. Now I see why I didn't finish it, that cannibalism was a bit much for a 5th grader, but I will try to get through it this Winter as there is too much to do here to read.

Spent more than 4 hours in the Whaling Museum Sunday, our first rainy day since we've been here. My forebears in the Petroleum business do not get enough credit for saving the Whales. For all the environmental flack given to fossil fuels businesses, going after the live oil is the bloodthirstiest thing I've ever seen on film.

First of all, they send out about 6 or 8 sailors in a small wooden boat (maybe 30 feet, size of the whale or smaller). Only two guys get to look for and see the whale, the one at the front and the one at the stern. The rowers face backwards. The guy at the front hooks the whale, then the boat goes on a "Nantucket sleigh ride" towed by the whale for hours. Then the harpooners switch places when he decides it is time to launch a second harpoon before they get pulled under or have to cut the line. When the whale finally dies, they send a 14-year-old boy down into the whale to cut and hand out valuable body parts.

What a death-defying and harrowing way to make a living. What strength it took. But it paid well when successful.

Rosemary was on a playdate for that story and for the sinking of the Essex, a survival story so delicately told, it made it even creepier as it slowly sank in what he was really talking about. Still totally fascinating for someone who grew up in land-locked Oklahoma, whose only experience was ocean sailing, waterskiing and the QE2. Tankers and barges come to mind for industrial use. I've been deep sea fishing, but whale-chasing takes it to a new level.

Rosemary got to see the beautiful Ric Burns documentary about how the artist colony saved the economy of Nantucket. With the stock market tanking again, a little Island called New York should take note.

Many men were lost at sea. The cottages here are designed for women to be able to manage them alone. It would not have been unusual to have eight husbands. They remarried within a few months, without carrying on about "healing" people do today when they lose a spouse. Pregnant? Children by a previous marriage? Non-issues (no pun intended.)

One fact about today's Nantucket you won't read about in the bottle cap of a Nantucket Nectar is that there are 4000 heroin addicts here. Out of a total population of less than 10,000. I was just thinking what an ideal place this was to bring a child and family when I heard this shocking statistic. I keep looking at people and wondering, who are the heroin addicts, and why? Just being here is like dope. Or maybe heroin is a downer and they need downers. I don't want to know. They say the Winters are rough. Last year was the first year there wasn't a school suicide.

The churches are packed out the door. There is a thriving Spanish community. From my last visit here when I was pregnant with Rosemary, I only remember roses and hydrangeas. Now there are sunflowers, zinias, and all kinds of popular flora. We biked all day one day and sailed all day the next. We didn't bring a car. I might as well be a suburban housewife for all the driving I do here. Now Rosemary can ride her bike, so we made our inaugural voyage to the beach. Yet there are so many cars, biking and walking can be stressful, too, on the narrow streets, all of which do not have sidewalks. Eight years ago, I ordered Welsh Rarebit from a menu. Now there are Italian restaurants, breakfast burritos, splenda pickles in the grocery store. Live music during dinner at the beach.

Yesterday, Rosemary's little friend taught her how to find Quahogs and mussels. I cooked them up for dinner with pasta. It is inspiring to be able to catch one's dinner and to cook it so fresh from the sea. A family we met at the beach told us a couple easy recipes (which I botched, but not beyond salvage for the first try, still tasted delicious, just didn't present as well as next time.) Our search party for the lost crab trap concluded, we may venture out to the recommended pond dock and try try again. All this chowdah is delicious, but we need some gumbo.

Flattering to think we are saving Nantucket, in residence here, painting our hearts out, but not as much as Nantucket is saving us. Since Rosemary was a baby, I have thought, if I could even just take an art class, but they always started a little before I could drop her off and ended a little after. NISDA has been flexible as I can catch up to the group after I drop Rosemary off and cut out early. My painting teacher, Rob Head, helps me set up and put away in a hurry. Today I only had an hour, but I finished a painting on a beautiful piece of canvas (I mean, there's always more to do on a painting, but the canvas is covered enough to sign if I want to, or I can put in the antique blue sailboat I took a picture of.) All my art supplies are packed up in New York while work is done on my apartment. I spend all my online time ordering things Rosemary needs that I never take time to buy more supplies (and I'm a little loathe to have turpentine and possibly toxic pigments around a 7-year-old.) Once a week I get to work with Rosemary and a guest Artist. Our cottage is decorated with all of our art work. I finally have a piece of work I can point to and say, I did something. I produced something (besides breakfast, lunch, dinner, laundry.) That builds confidence.

There once was an Anne on Nantucket

2011-08-10T22:21:00.002-04:00

Today en plein air (in progress)

Printmaking inspired by Nantucket water gardens

Lotus leaf prints at NISDA

Lotus flower

Rosemary thinks this is Ollie, the lost cat. Signs posted everywhere. Sorry to see Erica Passage''s show move on. Have so enjoyed her painterly pottery and would like to take some home with me.

Rosemary learned to ride a bike solo the same day she learned to sail (not yet solo)

Can you imagine a more beautiful setting to learn to ride a bike? (and Mommy could breathe the salt air instead of wheezing cut grass. Pushing her off in high-heel, platform espadrilles was the only challenge. It didn't take her as many tries to ride a bike as it did for me to buy the bike - we own three if anyone wants to buy the one brand new in box.)

Madaket sunset, said to be the best on the island

First Sailing Lesson

2011-08-04T15:05:00.001-04:00

Rosemary is out there on one of those sailboats!

That would be the one that capsized! At least that lesson is behind her on day one.

Here's another one a few lessons later...

Kozy Shak

2011-07-31T12:37:00.000-04:00