20th Century Woman

Those are the things I seem to be doing these days.  And spending money; construction and decoration costs money.

Ten years ago, when I bought the house that Jerry and I now live in, I was getting divorced from my third husband and I didn’t have much money.  I wanted a house on this island, so I drove around looking for “For Sale” signs.  I thought this one looked small and not too expensive. It didn’t have a water view, but it nestled pleasantly in the woods and I reckoned I couldn’t afford a water view.

I called the agent.  She said, “That’s a duplex, you know.”  But the price was right.  I looked at the house.  It consisted of 2 apartments, each 800 square feet, each with two tiny bedrooms and 1 bath.  Both sides were occupied.

The tenant in the front apartment was an obese woman with a teen age son.  The decorating theme seemed to be angels.  Angels were everywhere as ornaments and art, wall plates and decals.  But the place looked well kept, if over full.  A family of five lived in the back apartment.  There were 3 children.  The mother was playing solitaire the computer when I came to look.  The floor was piled with cardboard boxes and the few pieces of furniture looked like Goodwill rejects.  The kitchen was black with soot.  I was told that there had recently been a fire in it, but that the owner would replace the stove and repair the damage and he had already asked the renters to move.

The agent said I could live in the back apartment and keep the tenant, who paid rent regularly, in the front.  I thought about it, undecided.  I wasn’t sure about being a landlord, but suddenly I heard myself say, “I’m going to make an offer on that house.”

I lived in the back apartment as it was (fire damage repaired) for about 3 years.  But house remodeling and building are in my blood.  I got an equity loan, hired a contractor and began an addition.  The addition contains the kitchen,

the kitchen

a dining area

dining area

and a loft with a bathroom, which served as my bedroom.

the loft

I installed laminate flooring throughout and got a new propane heating stove instead of the old ugly industrial thing that had heated the house in the past.  I added a window where the old stove had been.

living room

When Jerry and I married he sold his house, which was on another island, San Juan, and moved here.  He likes this island because it is small and rural.  Friday Harbor, where his house was, had become congested.

We slept in the loft at first, but it was too small for 2 people.  Jerry is a builder, I a building addict; we started another addition.  We combined the 2 tiny bedrooms and added a big area for office and TV (which we hardly ever watch.)  Now we are converting part of this new space into a fancy bathroom.

The bathroom is almost finished.

Almost finished bathroom

We have done about as much as we can to this side.  It is twice as large as it was when I came.  I am beginning to focus on the apartment.  I have not had a tenant there for a couple of years.  We use the apartment sometimes as a guest space, and I rent it sporadically in the summer on a nightly basis.  This past summer we had almost no traffic, partly because I don’t advertise and partly because of the economy.

Daughter number 1 is staying with us at present. She and I began to talk about making the apartment (which she says I must refer to as “the Cottage”) more elegant and stylish.  We agreed that to rip out the old stained carpet and install wood floors would be essential.  She said she would do it.

She is doing it!  It looks terrific!

almost finished flooring

We are planning painting, new cover for the futon, curtains, rugs and cushions.  I will hang my own paintings of island scenes on the walls.

In the meantime, I have been recollecting old times and old friends.  When my children were tiny I had some friends who lived in the same apartment complex that I did.

This is how I came to know them.  One day there was a knock on my second floor apartment door.  A tall, Irish-looking young man said, “My name is Ed and I live across the parking lot.  I noticed the picture you have on your living room wall,” (it could be seen from the sidewalk below; it was a print of a Klee mask).  He continued, “My wife, Helen, is at home with our baby, and she doesn’t know anyone here and is lonely.  I thought you and she might have common interests.”

After that we were in constant contact for a few years.  While we lived in the same apartment complex we saw each other almost daily.  Pete, my husband, and I played bridge with Helen and Ed.  In fact, they taught us to play.  We cooked together, went on outings with the children and picnicked together.  We talked about art and politics and families and books.  Ed was a lawyer and worked for the government.  Helen was an artist.  He was, indeed, of Irish descent, she was Jewish.  They had met in college and married against the wishes of both families.

Helen was my first really grown-up friend.  I was only about 23 when we met, and I think a bit of a baby.  I didn’t know much.  She had a painting she had done on an old wooden ironing board hanging on the wall of her apartment.  The image was of a woman bent double, her head at her feet. I admired this imaginative piece of art.  Helen taught me a lot about cooking.  She introduced me to lox and to salad as a first course.

All of us moved away from those apartments, but we still got together often for dinner or bridge.  Then Helen and Ed left the Washington area and moved to Chicago.  I visited them once there, but they moved again to upstate New York.  Pete and I went to Burma, and subsequently broke up our household and got divorced.  When I emerged on the other side of those life upheavals I had lost Helen and Ed’s address.

Now, almost 50 years later, I found a possible clue.  I had been baby sitting their oldest child when their second child was born, in the backseat of a 1941 Cadillac convertible en route to the hospital.  Later Ed told us he had pulled into a gas station to call the doctor as the baby was emerging.

“Oh Ed,” I said, “What did you do?”

“I caught it.” He replied.

I googled the name of this child, who is now in her 50’s.  I had had no luck with the names of the rest of the family, since their last name was a common one.  But this baby had an unusual name.  I found a pretty good match with a picture that looked a lot like Helen.   It was on Facebook, so I mustered my nerve (I get quite shy about approaching strangers) and sent a message.

To my delight, I got a positive reply.  It is Helen and Ed’s daughter.  She copied my message to her mother, and I have sent Helen an email.  I am hoping for a reply.  We have 50 years to catch up on.  A lifetime.

I’ll keep you posted!

I started this blog one year ago.  My daughter helped me; in fact she suggested it.

I have tried some writing in the past.  (Not counting scientific papers.)  Since I was a kid I have occasionally written short stories.  At one time I even thought I might write a novel.  I composed novels in my head while driving alone on long trips.  When I lived in Atlanta I sometimes visited my friend Penny who lived in southern Virginia.  The drive took about 6 hours and during those trips I concocted a long yarn, most of which never got written.

The novel was to be set at a school like Florida Southern College where I had taught biology when I lived in Tampa, with characters imported from the job I was currently working in Atlanta, a research job at Emory University.  At the Atlanta job I had the worst boss ever. He was a professor of physiology and I was hired on his NIH grant to study stomach ulcers.  Funny thing, I was diagnosed with an ulcer myself while working there.  I planned to make the boss the villain; the novel was to be my revenge. 

At that job I used a computer for the first time to write and I learned WordStar, the first commercially successful word processing program.  I wrote scientific papers, one of which still comes up early when I Google my name along with my boss’s.  I was captivated by the computer and I declared my intention to stay after work and write a novel.  My boss, who guessed he would be a central character, had a fit.  He forbade me from using the computer in my office for anything personal, even on my own time.  I bought my own computer.  My boss darkly threatened libel suits if I included any character that resembled him.  But, alas, I never wrote the novel.

A few years later I took some poetry classes in Washington, D. C. where I worked at the Department of Agriculture.  The classes were at Glen Echo, a place that had been an amusement park when I was a child, and still had some of the old carnival structures.  It was converted into an artist’s colony; it was a suitable setting for artists.  Though the Writer’s Center has since moved from Glen Echo, it still exists.  It is a small press that publishes books of poetry.  I often went to poetry readings there. 

The first class I took at the Writer’s Center was really good, and I had a wonderful time.  The teacher was a young man who taught classes at George Washington University (where it happens I got my bachelor’s and master’s degrees.)  He was a poet himself, and he may have been a fine one; I couldn’t judge because I never understood any of his poems.  He was, however, an excellent teacher.

We had to read our poems aloud to the class.  Then he and the class would critique.  This system scared me to death at first, but I found that it resulted in rapid improvement of my writing, and I learned a lot from the comments on the poems of others, as well as my own.

The next class I took at the same place had a teacher who was far less effective, and he yeilded to people in the class who were afraid to let their peoms be publicly read.  The class was boring and I stopped going. 

After I retired from biology I went to art school, and most of my creative energy was spent in making prints and painting.

The blog is an exercise in writing.  I read the blogs of others whose writing is more elegant than mine, and I try to learn from them.  When I wrote scientific papers in which I wanted to convey information I felt that brevity and clarity were the operative principles.  When I wrote poetry I was looking for harmonious sound and cadence, and I tried to choose words and phrases that evoked images and emotion.  Prose writing can combine these things if it’s good.  When I read blogs I want to be able to enjoy and understand.  If the writing gets too abstruse and wordy I can’t be bothered and I go on to the next one.  I feel the same way about poems.  I am willing to read a short poem 3 times.  If I can’t figure out what it’s about on the third reading, I give up.

Besides being an exercise in writing, the blog is a way to record some parts of my life.  Much of what I have written is memoire, and I hope someday one or two of my great grandchildren will enjoy reading it to find out a bit about the world of their ancestors.  I hope there’s a bit of history here.

This blog has been a record of my year.  It has recounted major and minor events, trips, births, deaths, parties, conversations, projects.  Of course, there are things that happened this year that are too private to tell about.  My descendents are not getting the whole unvarnished truth.  They will understand that nobody tells everything.  I tend to tell more than most; sometimes a bit too much.

While writing my blog I have explored the blogs of others.  On other blogs, besides some excellent prose writing, I find poetry, sometimes exceptionally good.  I find drawings, prints, photographs, painting.  I find recipes, gardening tips, history, life stories, political essays and more.  There are videos, and music and jokes.  It’s great entertainment.

Three of my island neighbors have blogs.  They are Rich and Pat of Artisan Wine Gallery, Cathy of IslandCAT’s blog and Wynne of Lummi Island Living. The blog has been a way to make wonderful new friends.  This was an unexpected happy surprise.  I have met interesting people and found kindred spirits through reading their creations and the exchange of comments.  Some of these fellow bloggers live nearby, others are in far away places.  I have met two bloggers in person.  Natalie of Blaugustine, and Marja-Leena of Marja-leena Rathje.  Both were a great treat and adventures.

To meet Natalie I traveled from Oxford to London by bus, and then took the tube to find my way to Natalie’s flat.  From that meeting and from our web exchanges I feel she is my friend for life.  I was able to look at and hold some of the beautiful books she makes, and to see where she lives and to give her a hug. 

I went to Bowen Island in British Columbia to meet Marja-leena.  She is a printmaker, and some of her work was in a show at the Bowen Island Gallery.  Jerry and I went for the opening.  I am sure we will meet again.  I want to visit her in Vancouver, and I hope she will come to my island as well.  And I got to see her interesting work, which I had also admired on the internet and to give her a hug.

Other blog friends I plan to meet soon are Dale (Mole) and Naomi (A Little Red Hen), both in Portland.  When I get back to England I want to meet Friko (Firko’s Musings) and Dick (Patteran Pages.)  I have spoken to Dick on the telephone but did not have the chance to meet him.  Someday I want to meet Ruth Pennebaker (The Fabulous Geezer Sisters), Darlene (Darlene’s Hodge-podge) and Jan (Jan’s Sushi Bar.)  I wish I could meet both of the Annies, (Canyon Cottage and Mzodell’s Page) and Mary (Red Nose.)  Perhaps someday I will visit my sister in San Diego and I wlill meet Maggie (Postcards.)

There are bloggers in places I am unlikely to go, such as Spain, Australia, and Montreal.  But one never knows.  And I hereby invite you, my bloggy pals, to come to my island.  I have a nice guest apartment and I would love to have you stay — one and all (just not all at the same time.) This invitation is real and standing as long as I am well.

During my year of blogging I have occasionally written about politics.  Obama was elected president and I celebrated.  Health care has been an issue and it is one I care about, so I have posted a couple of times on it.  Ted Kennedy died and I said goodbye.

I have posted some of my art; only what I consider the best, of course.  I have posted a couple of my poems, though I find that most of the poetry I have written is lost (or at least, I can’t find it.  Once, when my grandson was looking for his cell phone I, said, “Have you lost it, Tom?”  He replied, “It isn’t lost.  I just can’t find it.”

I have made some mistakes with the blog.  The biggest one was, I think, that I was too open about my identity and location, given the material I was writing.  I used some conversations with a friend in a tongue in cheek post about writing a murder mystery; someone who knew about my blog showed the post to the friend; the friend was offended.  A controversy arose in the comments, and some really unpleasant things were said.  I apologized to the friend I had offended, and I withdrew the post. But the moving finger writes.  There is again an angry comment on my last post.  I think it is symptomatic of the lapse of civility that characterizes current public discourse.  It is a sad trend.

My blog, like that of many others, is personal.  I express my opinion about a lot of things, and I have a lot of strongly held opinions.  I welcome constructive criticism and I am glad when there is some disagreement and some real discussion.  That’s what makes the blog interesting.  That is not the same, however, as attacks that are purely personal and not about a topic.

The whole experience of writing the blog has been rewarding and educational.  I am glad my daughter fixed me up with the chance to do it. 

So here’s the beginning of the second year.

Jerry and I had dentist appointments on Thursday.  We took the foot ferry to town early so we could get some errands done before the dentist.  After the dentist we like to go to Barns and Noble for a treat.

Passenger ferry

First errand was to Lynden to pick up a faucet for the new bathroom tub.  We passed through fertile farmland stretching out to the mountains of the Cascade range 50 miles away.  This fine land was settled 100 years ago by farmers from Holland, rib-rock conservative, narrow minded, hard working, prosperous people.  Their cows stood placidly in the morning sun.  Their corn fields and rows of berries and grapes looked green and fruitful. 

On the other side of the fast food and RV sales district of Lynden we obtained our faucet, then drove back to Bellingham and more errands: those accomplished we had our teeth cleaned.  At Barnes and Noble besides coffee and goodies and the New York Times I bought The Lonely Planet guide to New Zealand.  I have already bought our tickets.  We go in November.

We were too late for the 1:10 ferry: just missed it.  We couldn’t walk onto the pier because they are doing some construction on the dock.  There were a lot of construction vehicles, cranes, workers in hard hats and a worker whose only job was to keep ferry passengers off the pier.  We had an hour to wait so I wandered around taking pictures of the dock and fishing boats and stacked crab pots. 

I asked the pier guard what they were doing to the dock.  He told me they were replacing the pulley ropes that raise the ramp.  There are 4 of them on each side and they cost $100,000 each.  Wow! 

I chatted with another waiting passenger, a tall blond lady who used to manage a lot of vacation rentals on the island, but who got into some trouble with her clients and also the tax people over money.  She seems to be back in business, and she looked great.

Then Felix, a retired physics teacher and dog enthusiast, came.  He had taken his dog, Bailey, to the vet.  I remembered that we intended to give him our old Science magazines (I hate to throw them away).  He said he would like them.  Felix has a million projects going, so he had been to a junk yard for parts.  I asked what kind of junk he was interested in at the moment, and when he replied (I can’t remember what — some kind of cables) Jerry said, “Oh, I have lots of those.”  So we can unload some more junk.  Yay!

Next Beverly came.  She is an island lady, around 10 years younger than me, who is active in the community and knows all the interesting news.  Here’s my chance, I thought, to find out all about the jumper. 

For this story I have to go back to Tuesday when my daughter, Clare, took the ferry.  She and her husband caught the ferry back to the island and they wondered why, though loaded, it was waiting at the dock.  Then they heard the sound of a police siren.  Next, a young man jumped from the upper deck into the water and began swimming across Hale’s Passage toward the island. 

This was a poor plan to evade the police.  Felix, as an athletic feat, had swum it a few years ago.  He said it took him about an hour, and he had started from the post office to gain the advantage of the current direction.  He had done it in August, but even so had worn a wet suit top, for warmth. 

The young man was clearly a strong swimmer.  He was alternating strokes, freestyle, backstroke, breast stroke, but still, he began to flounder.  The police were calling to him to come out, and a life preserver was thrown to him.  He grabbed it, but when he realized that it had a rope attached and he was being pulled in he let go and began swimming away.  A coast guard boat arrived and cruised along with him.  He remained in the water.  An orange Homeland  Security boat had recently passed by and it was called back.  Then another coast guard boat arrived on the scene; now he was surrounded by 3 boats.  He was cold and out of steam.  They pulled him from the water and took him away.

I asked Beverly who the jumper was.  She said it was Mike’s son.  That according to the news report he had had an altercation with his father and the police had been called.  Mike is a good man.  He is a retired teacher, a biologist and I like him.  He lives alone, except for his dog.  I feel sorry that he has a child who is a problem.

The hour of waiting was up for us and the ferry came.   Our neighbor, Duncan, helped us carry all our stuff.  Duncan is the fire chief, and he is on our water association board.  I asked him when we would be charged for water according to our newly installed water meters, rather than our present flat hook-up fee.  I am eager for that to happen, since the association manager says that Jerry and I are among the lowest water users on the system.  Duncan said soon, when they figure out an average usage in order to get a median price range. 

As we disembarked we saw the truck of the septic tank inspectors.  The county has decreed that every household on the island has to have its septic tank inspected for leaks.  I have been meaning to set it up.  I asked Duncan who was going to inspect his system.  “That one,” he said, pointing to the truck.  So I arranged with the driver to have ours inspected on the same day as Duncan. 

I always say that you get a lot accomplished riding the foot ferry.