House rules

Posted on May 17, 2011 by Old Woman

We have 3 houses. Jerry says if I write this people will think we are rich. Well, we aren’t rich — but not poor either.

The house we live in most of the time is the largest and the nicest. It is about 1600 sq ft and has a bedroom, a sleeping loft, 2 bathrooms and a powder room (under construction.) The setting is rural, on a small island in Puget Sound. The house and a couple of out buildings — my studio and Jerry’s shop — nestle in 5 acres of woods, so it doesn’t have much of a view because of tall trees. It is part of a duplex; we try to rent the other side in summer as a vacation site.

Island house

Lummi interior

Our second house is in Manley Hot Springs Alaska. It is very small, perhaps 900 sq ft. It has indoor plumbing — 1 bathroom, and 2 tiny bedrooms upstairs. We plan to add another tiny bedroom on the main floor this fall.

Manley house in winter

Manley house in summer

Manley house living room

Our third house is a condo in Bellingham that we just bought. It is a little over 900 sq ft, has 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. It’s simple and basic. No frills. The condo buildings are about 30 years old and back on a large wooded park where there is a creek, waterfalls and many walking trails.

The condos

 

Condo interior -- living/dining room

The condo setting

Each of these places comes with its own way of life and its own rules.

In Alaska you have the feeling of being able to do anything you like. There are no building codes outside the boroughs and no property taxes. Jerry built a new staircase in our house which was far steeper than allowed by building codes where they exist. There is no such thing as building inspection. Some people bury an old car as a septic tank. Gray water is often just dumped on the ground. There are no rules for outhouses. Junk accumulates in people’s yards — in remote parts of Alaska there is a reluctance to throw anything away because “you might need it sometime.” On the other hand, the town dump is littered with old appliances which are peppered with bullet holes.

At our house on the island the county collects property taxes and enforces building codes. Jerry does all the work on our house — wiring, plumbing and construction — but if it’s a big project that can be seen from the outside we have to get a permit from the county and it must pass an inspection when complete. There are rules governing every aspect of construction. There are rules about the uses of property for agriculture or business, about burning rubbish, about fence height, number of dwelling units per land parcel and so on.

When we bought the condo we were given a 3 ring binder with several inches of filler informing us of the by-laws and rules of the condo. These are in addition to rules of both the city of Bellingham and the county. The condo rules cover everything from number and kind of pets you can have to what kind of appliances you can install and who can install them to TV antennas and noise, parking, outdoor grills and more.

The way of life in each place is different. Manley is isolated and small. Only about 65 people live there. They regard themselves as independent and self-sufficient and in many ways they are. They hunt for much of their meat (but rules are enforced about game and hunting) and they grow vegetables in the summer. Many live without indoor plumbing and some even without electricity. Many of them repair their own vehicles and appliances. Jerry loves the freedom of not having to answer to authority.

But there is pressure to conform in a lot of ways, and within the small community there are quarrels and tensions both political and personal that stay unresolved and limit peoples‘ freedom and autonomy. I fell afoul of Manley mores with my blog soon after I got there. Now there are a number of people in Manley who don’t speak to me because of what I write. There are 2 native groups who are at odds with each other. Besides that, the natives have prohibited non-natives from walking on their land. Since they own most of the land in the town and its surroundings this is pretty restrictive. It is largely ignored, but it remains a source of tension.

Our island community is about 1000 people. I have been here for 11 years and I know many people of all ages and persuasions. I think there is less tendency here for people to try to control others than there is in Manley. People are generally tolerant of each other’s politics and quirks. There was a split here at one time among the church goers, and an attempt was made to fire the preacher at the island church for being too liberal. The attempt didn’t succeed and the conservative evangelicals formed their own church which now meets at the Grange hall. For a while I belonged to an island group which had the aim of developing low income housing here and that group became a target of the conservative faction. The low income housing group self destructed, mostly from its own internal incompetence, but it was helped along by outside factions which opposed its goals.

Bellingham is a small city, but it is big enough for one to be quietly anonymous. Since we have begun to occupy our condo nobody has spoken to us there or taken any interest in our presence. I have a kind of freedom there I have nowhere else. The first night we stayed in the condo I went to the nearby grocery store, one of the high-end stores in town, its shelves well stocked with a variety of items, like fresh baked bread, an extensive deli and sushi bar. I felt exhilarated at being just 5 minutes from a world of food. We can go out in the evening on impulse when we are there and not have to plan for the ferry. Haircuts, doctors, drugstores, bookstores and lattes are always available.

I love going to Manley. I will be sorry when we are too old to make the long trip. I love its quiet and lack of distractions. I get a lot accomplished there, mostly painting, but some writing as well. We still have some good friends there who don’t mind my blog and who think the way we do.

I love my island home, where I am finally becoming a real resident — it takes a while in a small community to belong. I love its beauty. It is full of good people who care about their community even when they don’t agree on every issue.

I think I will love the freedom of being in the city from time to time. I have a little trouble getting Jerry to go; he dislikes crowds and traffic, and money gets spent there. But he’s adjusting, and if it ever stops raining long enough to take a walk in the big well maintained park I think I’ll have him sold.

I have to add a post script about the condo. Since I wrote this I have talked to one other resident. I was outside walking the poodles and in the parking lot I encountered a youngish black man in lounging clothes and bedroom slippers. He wanted to tell me what a great location the condos have next to the park, and he pointed out an eagle’s nest nearby. His name is Jonathan.

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There’s still time to party (even when you’re old)

Posted on May 8, 2011 by Old Woman

Last week Jerry and I had dinner with friends. The food was excellent. First we had wine with a spread of anchovy toasts, prosciutto wrapped melon wedges, delicious cheese and wine grapes. Dinner was succulent lamb patties accompanied by carrots cooked with cumin and a vegetable mélange. Lis and Mark used to own and operate the Beach Store Café in the days when it was a fine restaurant.

The house itself was a work of art, crafted from finely finished wood and decorated with lovely objects collected on travels or created by the hosts’ talented children. The surrounding gardens were manicured and mulched. The view across fields was snow covered Mt Baker and Sisters mountains.

Besides her collection of peony varieties Lis raises vegetables for a produce stand and she and Mark keep more than 100 laying chickens. Mark still works as a respiratory therapist. The other guests, Barbara and Toby, who have just retired, live in Santa Fe in the winter and have a tiny but elegant cabin here on Lummi where they spend summers.

We talked about books and movies and sailboats and local people and local events and ferry politics. We talked about house construction, different kinds of wood and their uses and wood stoves for heating. We talked about food and chickens and more.

There was something on our minds that we only mentioned briefly, but it was there: the aches and pains of time. Jerry and I are both approaching 80. The others are much younger. But one member of each couple has issues with joints. Toby has just had knee replacements, and Lis is contemplating a hip replacement.

I have had a sudden flare of joint problems. First it was the left knee. Then other joints — the other knee, shoulder, fingers, wrists and finally, back. I got up one morning feeling as if I had suddenly crossed the 100 year mark. Nothing in my body seemed to be working properly. The doctor mostly dismissed it. “Osteoarthritis” he said. Inevitable result of aging. Finally, after some discussion he agreed to another x-ray and some blood tests. I have not yet done these. I am reluctant to have tests that the doctor seems to feel are not necessary. I remember that my mother pestered the medical world with demands for tests when what was really the matter was old age. And she remained physically fit until just before she died.

Our next social engagement was an art opening which included some work by Lorna Libert who teaches the art class I am currently taking. It was held at St Josephs hospital and called “Healing through Art.” Jerry remarked that he had never been in this part of the hospital. I reminded him that he had been there when he had his heart attack, but he came via the emergency room rather than through the front lobby. The art reception was in the cafeteria where we greeted Lorna and picked up a map of the art locations in the corridors.

Artistic shoes at the art reception

We took the elevator to the next floor up where we found groups of well dressed people wandering the corridors and sipping wine while chatting and looking at the paintings, prints and photographs of the show.

A doctor joins the party

From time to time patients on stretchers with IV bags attached, busy doctors, orderlies and technicians threaded their way through the loitering guests. At one point a small but determined nurse came striding down a long corridor calling out loudly: “ Move to the left, coming through, move to the left!” She was fast followed by stretcher bearing a middle aged bearded man who looked more dead than alive.

It seemed a good thing to let the world display itself in the hidden, sequestered habitat of the hospital: a party among the dying and recovering. It’s all part of life.

Art is for everyone

Last night we were invited to an engagement party. Our friends Holly and Brian had invited what seemed like everyone on the island to a party celebrating the engagement of their son Jeff to a beautiful young lady named Max who has just finished her Ph. D.– I think in some field of biology because I heard snippets of conversations which included mention of rat urine.

It was a good party: a pot luck in which people outdid each other with exotic dishes. There was a table with do-it-yourself oyster opening. I opened and ate 2 of them. I talked to many people of all ages. I had an adult conversation with the 18 year old son of a friend who I have known since he was a little kid. I talked to the sister of the bride to be about Los Angeles (where she lives) and how it has changed in the 35 years since I lived there. I told my friend Thurid that I was the oldest person at the party. She said no, she was, but when we compared ages I won by a long way at 79.

Brian demonstrated his chicken coop invention: Brian is an inventor. A big TV screen was mounted on the living room wall and the party gathered to watch a slide show of the bride and groom to be, from babyhood to engagement.

After champagne toasts to the happy couple Jerry and I said our goodbyes. We were tired and needed the peace of our own home. We left the younger folk to a long evening of dancing and celebrating.

Posted in Art, Day to day, Island life | Tagged , , , | 15 Comments

Heloise and Bill

Posted on April 27, 2011 by Old Woman

I got Heloise and Abelard as kittens. My lawyer daughter had taken in a feral cat, and though I offered to have it neutered she didn’t get to it in time. Thus, kittens. She kept one, a short-haired gray and I took the two black fluffy ones.Abelard

Abelard

They played together as kittens, but as they got older it became clear that they were not lovers like their famous namesakes. When I lived alone Heloise slept on the foot of my bed. Abelard roamed the woods at night, and about 3 in the morning he would leap to the top of the fence, then to the roof and come in the bathroom window of the loft where I slept. A little hissy fight would follow and Heloise would retreat under the bed while Abelard took her place at the foot for the rest of the night. Heloise

Heloise

Five years ago, just before Jerry and I met, Abelard vanished in the woods for good. My friend Basel, who engraves stone monuments, made a little stone plaque that says: Abelard: Gone but not Forgotten. I put it under the honeysuckle bush where Zute, my white mutt terrier, is buried. Zute’s stone reads: Zute: A Good Dog.

Now I must add another marker for Heloise.

She had been looking poorly for a couple of months, but she still came to sleep with me — on my side of the bed. She steered clear of Jerry. She was 14.

She had been an avid mouser when we first came to live in these woods on this island. She dragged plump field mice in through the cat door almost every day. Later she got fat and lazy and the field mice lived longer and quieter lives. She was gentle and timid with people, unlike Abelard who often bit people who tried to pet him. She never learned to meow in a normal way. The vet said there was nothing wrong with her vocal chords — she just never learned how to use them, so she had a raspy whisper meow.

Heloise spent most of her days outside. She had places she liked to sit when the sun was out, and places to curl up in when the weather was bad. Lately she spent more and more time indoors. She was losing weight. I considered having our island vet, Bill Bazlen, come to take blood. He and I discussed it, and decided that it wouldn’t lead to any useful end. I wasn’t going to subject her to any invasive treatments.

My British daughter is visiting. She worked at enticing Heloise to eat. It seemed that she wanted food, would have a few bites, then lose interest. We thought perhaps there was some problem in her mouth. I called Bill again and asked him to come and examine her without any needles.

We are blessed here on this island to have Bill. Because he makes house calls we don’t have to subject our pets to the trauma of going to the vet — a terrifying experience for them. Bill is “retired” from California. He has a long gray pony tail and a bushy gray mustache and always dresses in jeans. When he first came here he and his wife took in newborn babies waiting for adoption and cared for them in their first weeks of life. A real labor of love. They also had older foster children from time to time and one that they finally adopted permanently. She is now in high school.

Bill came to examine Heloise. He gently felt her wasted body, listened to her heart and lungs and said he was pretty sure she had lymphoma. He told us there is chemotherapy for this. I said I wouldn’t have that. He stroked Heloise and said, “I wouldn’t do it to my animals, either.” He said a shot of cortisone might make her last weeks more comfortable and improve her appetite. I said I would like to think about it and talk it over with my daughter.

The next day he came back with 2 shots — he said both might help her feel better. I held her while he gave the shots, which she didn’t appear to feel at all. However, one shot went all the way through the skin to the outside and the contents were lost. “I haven’t done that for a long time,” Bill said, “I’ll go home and get another.”

On weekdays Bill lives in Bellingham so his daughter can go to a good high school. But he told me that if I needed him he would come out to the island for Heloise. He gave me his cell number and promised to call me the next day to see how she was.

The shot seemed to work like a charm. That evening she ate hungrily. The next morning she went outside. When it started to rain I went out and carried her in. She was not doing so well. She threw up. The next day was worse. I asked Jerry to prepare a grave under the honeysuckle bush. Bill called and I asked him to come.

Heloise could barely walk, but she went to the door and asked to go out. I let her and she struggled out to the patio and crouched under the hydrangea bush. It was cold, and after a while I carried her back in. She felt almost weightless.

Heloise lay on the rug in the hall. I worked on a painting of a highland steer with my easel near her. Every few minutes I stroked her and she lifted her head and gave her little whisper meow. It was a long day. Bill came at about 4. He had to be in Bellingham long enough to drive his daughter home from school. He knelt beside her and gave her a shot of sedative which she did not seem to feel, then we moved her to a towel on the sofa. She died peacefully. Bill gave me a hug. Jerry and I took her out to the place we had prepared. It was raining. I put her in the ground and covered her with earth. Jerry finished for me.

My friend Basel was at the house a few days later for a party. I ordered a gravestone. I wrote what I wanted engraved on it, to make sure it was spelled correctly and because I couldn’t trust myself not to cry.

It will just say: Sweet Heloise.

Posted in Day to day, Island life | Tagged , , | 19 Comments

Fashion

Posted on April 11, 2011 by Old Woman

I lived in California for almost a year. I was on a postdoc at USC in electron microscopy. It was a long time ago. I had completed my Ph.D. at the University of South Florida and I had driven across the country with my oldest daughter (now my British Daughter) and my youngest son (now 38) who was then 3. Our vehicle was a 12 year old Plymouth, old enough to have tail fins.

For her own reasons my daughter went on to Bakersfield, where she had various adventures and I settled down to a life of labs and freeways. From time to time my daughter came down to L. A. from Bakersfield to visit. She understood fashion and monitored my wardrobe. One day, while going through my drawers she came upon a pair of white trousers. “Oh mother!” she said, “White pants! You just can’t. NOBODY wears white pants.”

I don’t like to throw away perfectly good clothes, so I put away the white pants, and never again considered putting them on. As my late brother-in-law used to say, I’d rather be dead than out of style.

A few years later, the same daughter visited me, this time in Washington D C, before she went off to England to take up studies at Oxford University. I was working as an electron miscoscopist at the Department of Agriculture. Another life of labs and freeways. My daughter, soon to become my British Daughter, inventoried my wardrobe. “Ooooh,” she exclaimed, “Look at these lovely white pants! You never wear these, can I have them?”

Now, 35 years later, from time to time she visits me from England. She no longer says much about how I dress, except to comment that I wear my trousers too short. She herself dresses according to advice from her 26 year old daughter. But she still guides me in other ways. A couple of years ago when she visited she said, “Mother, you should have a blog.”

“What’s a blog?” I asked.

Soon I was choosing themes, starting blog rolls and trying to write weekly posts.

Again my British daughter is visiting. “Mother,” she said. “It’s time to update your blog. Would you like to change your theme?”

She showed me some themes and I liked the idea of having a banner header of a photo I had taken. We talked about widgets, some changes in the sidebar. She worked for hours fixing up my new look and taught me how to change the header. I have always been fascinated with seagulls — and other birds too. I have discovered that it is lots of fun to construct new banners for the header, so I think I’ll change them often. But there will be many seagulls.

I have a new, more recent picture in “About” and I have updated that a bit. I plan to work on it more later.

On my blogroll I have the titles and post times of most of the blogs I read. For technical reasons we couldn’t include all of them, and for this I apologize. We are working on it.

Or rather, she’s working on it. I am not very good at tech stuff.

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The show must go on

Posted on April 5, 2011 by Old Woman


Pat and I hung the show on Thursday afternoon.

Woodpecker, Heron and Jay hung

Woodpecker, Heron and Jay hung

We put the birds in a corner.

Rows of bottles, rows of pictures

Rows of bottles, rows of pictures

Jerry made all the frames from alder wood from our own trees.

Coyote and Garden Gate hung

Coyote and Garden Gate hung

It opened Friday night. On Saturday morning I could hardly get out of bed. I was that tired. Such a little show; only 20 pieces, only 9 of them new. But they all had to be framed, and the old ones were on paper and had to be matted and glazed. Jerry made all the frames and he turned out to be good at cutting mats — what a treasure. But they all had to be assembled, glazing ordered and then installed. My studio was too cold and too full of construction materials and tools to use, so the dining room table was covered with framing materials for weeks. Then I had to get ready for the party and I wanted as little interruption as possible to the routines of Jerry and the poodles, so we did our daily exercise and I cooked every day.

Here’s the show, almost complete except for a few pictures I didn’t get around to photographing.

St George and the Dragon

St George and the Dragon

This is an etching I did a couple of years after I finished art school. I liked to play with the works of old masters; here I made an etching after a painting by Raphael which hangs in the National Gallery, gave the Saint and his maiden cat heads and gave them a tropical setting. I have another version of this which has a second plate of aquatint, but I have not yet (20 years later) perfected the printing of that combination.

Elemental Habitats: Paradise

Elemental Habitats: Paradise

This is another piece of plagiarism, or to put it more nicely, a reference to art history. I took an image by Durer, a 13th century printmaker (a favorite of mine), put cat heads on Adam and Eve and filled paradise with little beasts. And of course, this image is colored. The original one by Durer was an engraving, black ink.

Elemental Habitats: Fire

Elemental Habitats: Fire

This is the work I like the best from my art school efforts. It was selected for the juried student show the year I did it, and the president of the college, Ofelia Garcia, bought one. The edition is 15, and is the last one. I sold a couple of reproductions of it at my opening the other night. The image is obviously entirely invented, though I did sometimes need to look at my own cat to get some of the heads the way I wanted them.

Horse of another color

Horse of another color

Horse of another color is another post art school reductive linoleum cut. The horses were drawn from photographs I took. This, too, is the last of an edition of 15.

Abandoned Boat

Abandoned Boat

Here is a watercolor sketch I did about 6 years ago on site here on the island. The boat is still there and the foxgloves still grow around it in early summer. Its condition has deteriorated some.

Hippie Boat

Hippie Boat

I finished up this painting for the show. The boat was moored off our beach and all the kids on the island would row out to it and party. They often left trash on the beach, but I thought it was worth taking pictures of.

Brown Bear

Brown Bear

Here’s another recent painting. I used a photograph that I took on the Cassiar Highway in British Columbia. It was spring and the bear was eating dandelions. It paid no attention to us, and I had to yell at it from the safety of the truck cab to make it look up for the camera.

Midnight fantasy

Midnight fantasy

I was just learning aquatint when I did this etching. It is mostly out of my head, but I used various photographs for some of the creatures. I never made a real edition of it, just played with various ways of printing it.

Showing the aquatint color

Showing the aquatint color

This detail of Midnight Fantasy shows the way the color of three plates laid over each other gives a full spectrum. The watery look, called aquatint, is created by using tiny specs of resin baked on the etching plate as acid resist. I love to play with different effects in printmaking.

Great blue heron

Great blue heron

The heron fished all summer last year on the same beach where the Hippie Boat was moored. There were actually 2 of them and they had a nest in the trees near the beach. They fished constantly for their offspring, and this spring, recently, I have seen 3 of them fishing there.

The Onlooker

The Onlooker

I guess by now you have guessed that I am in love with animals and the world of living things. This etching was done from a composite of photos I took at the zoo in Columbia, South Carolina many years ago. I created the image after visiting my daughter with her young family in England, and it reflects my feeling of being an outsider — no longer central in her life, but feeling that what I saw was lovely.

Chinese dragon

Chinese dragon

I started this some years ago from a photograph my mother took in China. I have worked on it and two others of the same subject off and on for some time, and finally finished this one recently. I am going to China this summer to see my daughter, and perhaps I’ll run across this dragon. I don’t actually know where it is.

Hat party

Hat party

Last spring The Civic Club, the island ladies club, had a tea party at which guests were supposed to wear hats. I took pictures and planned to do a series of paintings of the ladies in hats. I only got two done, and I forgot to take a picture of the other one. This one is mostly about the hat and the hands.

Coyote

Coyote

The coyote was painted from a photograph I took on the Alcan Highway in Yukon. Jerry doesn’t like it because he says it is too fat for a coyote. He thinks coyotes should have, like yon Cassius, a lean and hungry look. I think perhaps it was pregnant, and it has its winter coat. Coyotes are beautiful animals dressed in winter white.

The party was fun. Not as many people came as did the last time, but there was plenty of noise and conversation. Richard, the wine shop owner and host, whispered in my ear, “Nobody is looking at art, you should circulate.” You can see from these pictures that he was right.

Myra looking like art itself

Myra looking like art itself

My cousins Jon and Betsy, and my friend Ria

My cousins Jon and Betsy, and my friend Ria

Bobbie, sophisticated and elegant as always

Bobbie, sophisticated and elegant as always

I walked up to the wine shop on Saturday afternoon while a tasting was going on. There I met a couple of young men who said they thought that the show was the work of at least 3 different artists. I understand why. Each medium that I use seems to vary my style — if I have one. If I am working from something I see, rather than from my head, I tend to be literal. I want to get it right, and I don’t deliberately distort — at least not usually. Sometimes I play with distortion too. The friends who came to my show were about equally divided between those who like my printmaking and those who like the paintings. Other artists almost always like the prints better.

I used to worry about this lack of a consistent style. But it’s too late in life for discipline. I do want to get back to printmaking — I used to tell students when I taught it that it’s the art of liking what you get. There will always be surprises.

Posted in Art, Day to day, Island life | Tagged , , , , , | 14 Comments

Dinner on the Reservation

Posted on April 2, 2011 by Old Woman

Monday night, when I went to dinner on the Lummi Reservation, what I saw was the legacy of my forefathers.

The Lummi tribal leaders invited all Lummi Islanders to come across the water to a salmon dinner, in the hospitality tradition of the indigenous people who have inhabited this coastal land for thousands of years.

They wanted to tell us their side of the ferry problem.

They say they want the Whatcom Chief, our ferry, to go somewhere else because they don’t like ferry traffic on the reservation and they want to build a marina where the ferry dock now exists.

Jerry and I went over on the 6:10 ferry. A shuttle service had been organized from the Gooseberry Point ferry dock to the Wes li em Lummi Community Center, the place where the Lummi people have celebrations and funerals. I had not been there before and I was impressed with its size and the simple elegance of the interior, The great main hall is supported by huge hewn logs adorned with a few traditional carvings.

Lummi Community Center

Lummi Community Center

There were a many of us islanders (about 200) and only a few Lummi tribal members.

Guests at the Lummi dinner

Guests at the Lummi dinner

I immediately struck up a conversation with a well dressed woman who appeared to be native. She told me she wasn’t from the Lummi tribe but was a consultant to the Lummis from the Tulalip tribe whose reservation is further south near Seattle. It’s casino is big and elegant with elaborate native theme sculptures and many fountains. Later I talked to Cliff Cultee, the Chairman of the Lummi Indian Business Council which seems to be the principal policy making body of the tribe. He told me he is a busy man, on call 24/7.

I saw lots of friends, some I see frequently, some I haven’t seen all winter. We sat with Mark Marshall (he and his wife Lis do a bed and breakfast) and Sam Giffin and his girlfriend (they go to college). Sam and friend make movies and videos. We talked about that for a while. Then the conversation turned to chickens where it stayed for the rest of the dinner.

After dinner we had a power point presentation by Richard Jefferson, one of the tribal leaders. We found seats near Tammy, my neighbor, and her partner, John. More chicken news. She said her 5 old chickens are fighting with her 6 newly acquired chickens. No fatalities as yet.

Richard Jefferson is a good looking middle aged man, slim and dark with graying hair and a resonant voice. The consensus of islanders afterward was that his presentation was rambling and ineffective. He stressed that the main concern of the tribe is safety. They worry about their children walking to school or playing near the road where traffic speeds to the ferry. His tone became urgent and emotional. If we don’t get this right, he said, our children’s children will ask, what were they thinking when they made this deal?

He left the impression that if we can solve the safety issue we are there. The county, he said, has not been forthcoming, but they are doing better. The Indians wanted expensive solutions, but it seems they will accept less expensive ones. He said much progress has been made on this point. In fact, he said, the safety problem is just about solved.

So are we done?

Well, no. It seems that safety isn’t the only issue after all. They’d like the county to pay part of the cost of the marina they want to build at the ferry dock.

Richard congratulated himself on his success in getting federal money for reservation projects. But he said it is much easier to get when you have a partner and are asking for matching funds. The county needs to offer seed money.

Waiting for the ferry in the cold wind

Waiting for the ferry in the cold wind

Looking back at history, I ask myself what my forefathers were thinking when they made this deal with the conquered peoples of our country.

The white people (my ancestors) who settled this land wanted it all for themselves; the indigenous population, whom they called Indians, were an impediment to that end and a nuisance. My ancestors tried to kill the Indians; besides shooting them, missionaries (men of God) handed out blankets deliberately infected with small pox and measles. Still some Indians survived. So they made “treaties” with them. In 1855 the Point Elliot Treaty was signed with the Lummi tribe and they were forced onto a peninsula reservation that covers about 20 square miles. In those days there was so much land it seemed that if they confined the Indians to this out of the way place they could forget about them.

My ancestors called the reservations “sovereign nations” and made them “self governing.”  They would have their own laws, which could be different from those of the rest of the country. On the “sovereign nation” Lummi Reservation it was a crime for the people to speak their own language and whites systematically attempted to destroy the native culture and traditional practices. In Canada the potlatch and dancing were criminalized.

As time passed the courts began to insist that at least some provisions of the “treaties” were adhered to. There is a legal maze surrounding the world of the reservations that could take a life time to untangle.

Here’s what the situation looks like today to a non-expert like me. Some things are permitted on reservation that are not allowed elsewhere in the State: there is a casino, while outside the reservation gambling is not permitted — except, of course, for the State sponsored lottery. The sale of fireworks (illegal elsewhere) is permitted and there are many small fireworks stands all year round. Around July 4th additional temporary stands spring up. Cigarettes are sold with less tax (but not no tax). Tribal members have special privileges about fishing and hunting.

There are reservation police and reservation courts but serious crimes are dealt with elsewhere. The whole thing has to be regulated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, a department of the Federal Government. Tribal members have government provided medical care and various other kinds of governmental support. The Northwest Indian College is located on the Lummi reservation.

Income on the reservation comes from the casino (The Silver Reef Casino), the Indian College, the tribal bureaucracy, fishing and a few small businesses. The tribe, like other tribes, survives by getting Federal Government grants to fund various projects.  Almost everything the tribe wants or needs to do requires public money. And they often get quite a lot of it.

Probably the richest of the native American people are the Alaskan natives. Alaskan Native Corporations are major players in the Alaskan economy. In Alaska there are designated Native Villages rather than reservations. On the other hand, there are some reservations in the lower 48 where children are starving. On most reservations poverty, drugs, drunkenness and violence against women are ongoing problems.

I think it’s a system that encourages dependency and ghettoizes Native Americans. Of course, people are perfectly free to leave the reservations if they wish to, and many do, but there are incentives to stay. It is often (not always) the place where they grew up. They often have family there. There is free medical care, and there is the possibility of income from tribal enterprises.

Who is actually a native? Many generations have passed since the reservations were set up. There has been intermarriage and intermingling. One of my daughters-in-law had a great grandmother who was 100% Cherokee Indian. Somewhere in my son‘s father‘s past Pocahontas was supposed to have been an ancestor. Genes being what they are, my little granddaughter, Jameson, has a native American look. People have asked Katie, her mother, about Jameson’s “ethnicity.”

Jameson

Jameson

Like so many situations in the world, what should have been is irrelevant to present reality. The reservations are here and are not going away. They should become self sustaining and prosperous. It would be an improvement if they could develop enterprises other than gambling and explosives. I think that for the Lummis a marina would be a good thing. It would help their fishing industry and encourage tourism. There is talk of a restaurant at the marina which could feature local seafood. The ferry docking at the marina would bring customers for a restaurant and buyers for local seafood and crafts.

The ferry cabin

The ferry cabin

The best thing to come from our dinner at the Lummi reservation was the suggestion, made by Richard Jefferson, that we have such a gathering once a year. That drew the only applause of the evening. I think we on the island should reciprocate. We are such close neighbors, separated by less than a mile of water, but by a deep historical chasm of misunderstanding. If we came to know each other better I’m sure we could be friends.

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Anticipation

Posted on March 26, 2011 by Old Woman

We are having some wonderful spring days. I spend a little time almost every day in the garden, pulling up dandelions and buttercups (I never think of them as buttercups when I pull them up — I mutter nasty ranunculus between clenched teeth as I gouge them out of my flower beds). I check the lettuce and peas I planted. Lettuce is up, peas not yet. There is promise of  blossom everywhere. Hyacinths, periwinkle and daffodils already out.

Dafs and hyacinths

Dafs and hyacinths

Primroses

Primroses

And fruit blossoms. Perhaps this year I’ll have a pear or two on the tree my lawyer daughter gave me for my birthday a few years ago. Lovely things to anticipate. Tulips and roses are coming soon.

The promise of roses

The promise of roses

My British daughter is visiting soon. I visualize us buying splendid oysters at Barlene’s and feasting on them together. Perhaps she will help me a little in the garden after she chides me for its disorder.

Jerry and I have bought a condo! Out main home will still be on the island, but we will spend some time in the condo when we have appointments in town. We haven’t closed on it yet, but in less than a month I will be figuring out what furniture we can take from here and what I will have to buy. Then Jerry and I will have a tiny new home in town. Bellingham is a minor city (80 thousand people), but still there’s more over there than there is over here on the island. There are restaurants, movies, music, an occasional play.

The condo is in my old neighborhood, next to the park where I used to walk for hours with my late small white dog, Zute. It’s a big lovely park with a creek, a waterfall and a fish hatchery. I’ll show it to Jerry and the poodles.

I will hang a small show of my recent paintings and less recent etchings and relief prints at the wine gallery up the street; the opening is Friday evening, April Fool’s Day. Perhaps I’ll sell a painting or one of my old prints.

And then there’s the ferry, and there’s the rub. I have written about the ferry from time to time in the past. It’s a five minute run from the island to mainland but it’s our lifeline to the world of doctors and groceries. Some island dwellers actually work or go to school over there. The mainland dock is on the Lummi Indian Reservation. The Indians say they don’t want islanders driving through their reservation. They have threatened to blockade the ferry three times in the last 15 months. The next threatened blockade date is April 10.

There have been meetings and negotiations, deliberations in the Whatcom County Council and letters to Senators, Representatives and lawyers. There have been news reports and petitions and angry comments on line. There is an undercurrent of racism on both sides. Island gossip says death threats were made by islanders against those on the island who are trying to resolve the situation and against leaders on the Indian side. People are getting nervous.

Suddenly an invitation was issued by the Lummi tribal leaders to islanders to come to a dinner on the reservation. They want to explain their reasons for what they are doing. In the past they have said that islanders are killing their children with reckless driving. There is actually no truth to this. In the past 20 years only one Indian has died as a result of an auto accident involving an island driver: the man was drunk and lurched in front of the car. The driver was not charged.

There is a lot of hoopla about this dinner. We have been told not to bring food. It is not a pot luck. That would violate the Indian tradition of hospitality. There will be lots of fish and other food. Then an islander who works on the reservation asked her employers whether we might bring pies. She was told that pie would be “very nice.”  I was asked bring one, but, sadly, I don’t do pie.

Islanders will be allowed to ask questions at this dinner if they write them out on a card at the door. Otherwise it looks as if we will not be permitted to speak.

In the meantime, there have been reports in the newspapers of all day negotiations between the Lummis and the County Council. “Progress” has been announced — no details. Monday morning there will be more negotiations. Perhaps by the Monday evening dinner a “settlement” will have been reached and presented to us by the Lummis.

A number of my friends who have been active in the ferry dispute on this side are not planning to attend the dinner. It is said that we will not be permitted to speak. It is rumored that the only Lummis who will be present will be the negotiating committee members and their lawyers. What’s the point of going, my friends say, if only to be lectured to?

I think there will be people present to cook and serve the dinner, and I am guessing that there will be conversation of some sort. I have not been in any building inside the reservation except the gym, and I am curious. I want to see for myself how everybody behaves. There are a lot of strong feelings. I think the event might warrant a blog post.

I suppose the Lummi leaders have planned this as a public relations event. As has happened in the past at meetings of this kind, I expect that some sort of “settlement in principle” will be announced. Everybody heaves a sigh of relief and goes home. Of course, we will be told, there are details to be worked out.

Then, over time, the “settlement” unravels because of disputes over details and misunderstandings over what was settled. Another deadline will be set. And so it goes. I bet this will not be the end of the affair. But I bet the Ferry will keep on chugging across Hale Passage.

The Whatcom Chief crossing Hale Passage

The Whatcom Chief crossing Hale Passage

I’ll keep you posted.

Two Notes off the Subject:

1. Bumper sticker seen at the ferry landing: “If teaching evolution is outlawed, only outlaws will evolve.”

2. Congratulations to my Canadian friends on their sane way of conducting elections: announce them 6 weeks in advance. And good luck in getting rid of Harper.

Posted in Day to day, Island life | Tagged , , , , | 13 Comments

Time

Posted on March 14, 2011 by Old Woman
Sunset over Orcas Island

Sunset over Orcas Island

Yesterday the time changed. I love daylight saving time. It means we can take a walk after dinner; now in the twilight, but as the spring turns into summer we will watch the sun set over Orcas Island, and later watch it set to the north across the sound over Vancouver Island.

We are learning about the sun in our teaching company course this month which is about images from the Hubble telescope.  The one we watched before this was on the evolution of life.  In the course on evolution we grappled with the concept of geologic time. With the Hubble images we have to cope with time spans that are even more unthinkable. Both provide ideas to play with while cooking or sweeping and before going to sleep at night. Both carry a load of emotion as I try to get my head around the idea of the germination of consciousness in living things, and the end of that consciousness when all life ceases to exist.

Thinking about the evolution of life evokes ideas of hope and progress but the message of astronomy seems to be one of violent forces and death. The earth is 4 ½ billion years old.  The sun is a little older; it is a middle aged star. It will last about another 6 billion years; after gradually heating up to become a red giant it will shrink to a white dwarf and finally die. Long before it becomes a red giant all life on earth will be snuffed out.

After studying the sun our course moved on to the milky way and other nebulae that are unimaginable distances and times away from our little world. I begin to lose the flow and get fidgety. I have always found that cosmology made me nervous.

It is really difficult to relate these vast times and scales to human existence. Sometimes I imagine what it would be like to experience the world as an ant might. Of course, I know this is silly; an ant’s sensory input is entirely different from the human, but the scale makes a kind of comparison. I suppose an ant-sized human would hardly be able to comprehend me as a unit. Perhaps one day to such a tiny creature would be like my lifetime.

And what about my cat and poodles.  How do they experience time? My late husband, Hugh, was a lawyer, and like all lawyers he had a store of “war stories” and legal jokes that I heard many times. One that I always enjoyed was about two farmers. (This story, by the way, was told to Hugh by a federal judge a propos the Speedy Trial Rule — the rule that says an accused person has the right to a speedy trial.) Anyway, one farmer has a feed lot to fatten livestock for slaughter.  He visits his country cousin and sees pigs running around loose, rooting in the garden, looking skinny and tough. He says, “Jake, if you penned up those pigs and fed them grain you could get them to market a lot quicker.”

Jake scratches his head and thinks a minute. “Yeah,” he says, “but what’s time to a hog?”

I have an old cat: Heloise. She is going on 14. Lately she has been losing weight. She sleeps all the time, doesn’t eat much, often forgets to come sleep next to me at night — just stays all night in the same chair and refuses to go out in the morning unless the weather is nice. I worry about her. I think perhaps her life is coming to an end. I said to Tammy, my friend who used to be a veterinary assistant, that I guessed Heloise was just getting old, but Tammy said 13 isn’t that old for a cat and maybe I should have blood tests done. Bill Bazlen, our island vet, could come to the house and Tammy could hold Heloise while he took blood from her jugular. I thought perhaps I should have that done.

In the meantime, my littlest poodle, Daisy, had a seizure. This was very scary and I nearly had a heart attack (well, not really). I called Bill Bazlen in a panic. He was in town doing surgery at Fountain Veterinary Hospital. He said seizures in poodles were common and not to worry too much, but to bring her in to the hospital for blood tests to be on the safe side. So into town we went ($20 on the ferry). A nice young woman veterinarian examined Daisy, said she was healthy and normal, and asked how long the seizure had lasted. When I replied about 3 minutes she opined that it probably wasn’t that long, just seemed so because it was so traumatic for me. Then she and took Daisy in the back to have blood taken from her jugular. I was glad not to watch that, but I could hear Daisy objecting loudly. It seemed forever before the vet brought Daisy back. She has clotted blood on the fur of her neck that I haven’t wanted to mess with. The vet bill was $126.

Bill Bazlen called to ask if I wanted him to come over to take blood from Heloise. I have been thinking this over, I said. She would hate to be held to have blood taken from her jugular. He agreed that she would. I said she didn’t appear to be in any pain or distress, just sleeps all the time. He said when old cats lose weight it’s almost always from kidney failure, and about the only thing you can do about that is change diet. So I decided to hold off on the blood test.

I have had Heloise since she was a kitten. She was the offspring of a feral cat my lawyer daughter took in for a while. She is not an interesting cat, but she used to be a good hunter; many a mouse’s life was shortened by her. She is calm and sweet natured with people, though timid. I love her in a quiet way and I do not want her to die. But of course, like all of us, she must die sometime. I try to think like a cat. Does she really experience time? Would she be grateful for extra months or years? Would she, if she could comprehend the connection, accept them as compensation for the experience of being held while the vet took blood from her jugular? If she turned out to have something other than declining kidney function would she want to be treated for it? Would she rather live out her time quietly, unmolested by vets?

I try to think about time. Perhaps to a mayfly it’s a day. Mayflies belong to the insect order Ephemeroptera meaning short-lived.  To a human it’s a lifetime; perhaps fourscore years. For a geologist a short time is a million years. Astronomers talk about billions of light years. To a physicist it’s the fourth dimension.

The question I can’t seem to answer is, what’s time to a cat?

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Teeth

Posted on March 8, 2011 by Old Woman

I have been thinking about teeth.  Jerry and I watch a Teaching Company lecture every night before bed and this month it has been a course on Evolution.  Much of what is known about animals of the past comes from looking at fossil teeth.  After death teeth last better than any other part of the body, so often the only clue to a long gone creature’s existence is its teeth.  Paleontologists can tell fish from amphibian, amphibian from reptile and reptile from mammal by examining teeth. Mammals have milk teeth and their teeth are differentiated for different specific functions.

Recently there was a find in Alaska of an 11,500 year old site that showed the earliest evidence of human habitation there.  At the site they found the teeth of a young child. The teeth showed the baby to have been about 3 when he or she died.  The child had apparently been cremated in the camp fire, and then the site was abandoned.

You might think that the only function of teeth is to chew food — or to catch it in the case of animals like sharks or crocodiles. In primates, and perhaps in other animals, teeth have a social function which has evolved along with their morphology.  Chimps have big canines. This is not related to diet, but rather the chimp “grin” (not friendly) is meant to threaten other chimps.  It may be used in sexual rivalries between males.  Chimps bare their teeth and rush around flapping branches and waving their arms in dominance displays. The human smile, with its puny little canines, is a friendly, sociable greeting meaning peace.

As humans evolved from ape like ancestors their teeth evolved reflecting changes in diet. As the African climate changed during the ice ages — it got progressively cooler and dryer — the teeth of our primate ancestors changed to cope with a wide variety of foods. They gradually shifted from a diet that was mostly soft fruits and leaves to one that included meat, potato like roots, seeds, parts of grasses, insects, flowers and nuts. Pretty much anything they could get their hands on.

Some people have inferred a rather specific prehistoric diet from the structure of teeth.  This is the so called “paleo” diet, supposed to include the things that humans ate in the Paleolithic era, presumably before agriculture but probably not before cooking.  It seems probable that the diets of paleolithic people differed depending on the environment that a particular population lived in.  Some ate more meat and seafood, some more insects (ugh), some more fruits, some more roots, seeds of grasses and nuts.  They ate what was available.

According to some researchers it was when people learned how to cook that tooth trouble started.  Cooked food is softer.  Teeth got smaller and more crowded.  When agriculture began this got worse. We didn’t need our wisdom teeth any more. Our occlusion got sloppy.  We needed orthodontia and dentures.  And implants.

Implants are another reason I have been thinking about teeth.  Like other animals of my species, my teeth are the result of the evils of agriculture and cooking. I was genetically lacking two permanent teeth, the second molars in my upper jaw.  The baby teeth lasted into middle age, when they finally became loose and I had bridges made.  This meant that four other teeth, two on either side of the missing teeth, had to be ground down. Recently one of the bridges failed and one of the ground down teeth became abscessed. Woe is me!

My choice was between more bridge work (more ground down teeth) or implants.  I chose implants, despite the horrendous cost. Of course it’s partly vanity; I don’t want to go around with big dark gaps between my teeth that would show when I smile.

Ancient people cared about this too.  The skull of a young Mayan woman of around 600 AD was found with tooth shaped pieces of shell implanted in the bone of her jaw. At first archeologists thought that this was done to prepare her body for burial, but when the bone was studied microscopically it was found that bone tissue had grown around the implanted shells, indicating that they were placed during her life.

Implants today are done in stages. My first appointment with the implant specialist was for x-rays and evaluation to make sure I had enough bone left in my jaw (though my regular dentist declared that I had “oodles of bone.”)
The implant specialist’s office was in Burlington, dreary town of strip malls about 30 miles from Bellingham.  There were 3 pleasant receptionists and technicians, all of whom had really beautiful teeth. One of them took the 3-d x-rays of my jaw and neck.

The dentist introduced himself and shook my hand.  “I’m Curtis Wade,” he said.  I liked that.  He didn’t say, “I’m Dr. Wade.” He was short and nice looking, in his late 50’s I would guess, though I find it hard these days to tell how old people are.  He wore surgical scrubs and a cap with a trout fishing fly pattern. White curls escaped from the band of his cap.  He showed me the x-rays — a scan of the bones of my head and neck.  I saw my jaws and teeth, the arthritis in my neck, my hyoid bone (one of the things that makes me human and gives me the ability to talk.) Dr. Wade explained it all.

The next day, as he was screwing the titanium rod into my jaw bone all the way up to the sinus, he said, “It’s sort of like working on a car.”

The next time I had an opportunity to speak I asked, “Do you have a little wrench in there?”

They keep everything behind you so you have no idea what they’re doing.  Every now and then he would say, “You’re going to hear a pop,” or “You’re going to feel pressure,” or “You’re going to hear a lot of grinding.” It isn’t something I’d want to experience often.

The procedure took less than an hour.  I have 2 titanium rods in my jaw.  In 4 months I get teeth screwed on them.  In the meantime I have a “flipper,” or what my dentist calls “party teeth.”  I am not yet allowed to wear it, so I have to cover one side of my face when I smile.

I think I’ll be allowed to use the flipper next Thursday at the Mah Jongg game.

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Yet another birthday

Posted on February 27, 2011 by Old Woman

“Did you have a wonderful time?” my friend Ria asked.

“A wonderful time might be overstating it,“ I replied.

Springtime in Charleston

Springtime in Charleston

I had visited my son, Stephen, in Charleston, South Carolina for my birthday.  It was a long flight; I changed planes twice.  I arrived on Saturday at midnight.

The flight was uneventful for the most part.  I experienced the new x-ray machines at security.  Everyone had to go through them and everyone I saw got patted down as well.  For some reason they only found it necessary to pat my left leg. Along the way most people were pleasant.  I find as I age that it makes a difference to be smiled at.

Sunday morning I helped prepare for a Sunday afternoon party my son and his wife, Michelle, had planned for my birthday, (which was not until Tuesday.)  Steve remembered the Sunday lunches of his childhood that my aunt Clare hosted every week .  There was always a mix of interesting people — artists, writers, neighbors, children, dogs and anybody my aunt happened to run into the week before.   There was usually a leg of lamb which one of the gentlemen guests presided over carving.  There was always plenty to drink.

For my (Steve’s) party I made a salad and roasted a leg of lamb.  There were other dishes — chicken with olives, roasted root vegetables, beets with blue cheese — already cooked the day before by Michelle and her friend.  Steve and Michelle had never, in almost 10 years of marriage, given a party.  They had a lot to learn quickly.  Dishes, glasses, napkins, chairs had to be arranged.  Michelle wanted a sit down dinner; Steve wanted a buffet dinner.  Guests were to arrive in one hour.  Steve declared that everyone was making too much fuss.  There was confusion and slightly raised voices, but when the first guests arrived it looked as if they were expected.

The party was a success.  I had a good time.  I talked to Suellen Hawkins Reiss, a psychotherapist and her husband Jonathan Reiss, a photographer and advisor about happiness.  His business card says, “Methods for Clarity and Awareness.”  He tried to explain some important points about meditation.  I told him that I find meditation difficult; I either think about something (not allowed) or go to sleep.  Jonathan explained that, if I allowed my mind to roam freely, I would eventually achieve thinking about nothing. I really mean to try this sometime, but I put it off because I really enjoy thinking.

I talked to two young, tall, handsome black men. One was a biologist with whom I had a lot in common because we had both worked (at different times) at Emory University on the cell biology of the gut.  The other was a dentist.  I got some good dental advice from him.  I talked to Steve’s friend Mike.  I knew Mike from past visits and enjoy talking to him — he is quick and funny.  He is recovering from a bad motorcycle accident , has a broken leg and was rather subdued on this occasion.

And I talked to Paulo.  Paulo is an enigmatic Italian who talks a lot. He says little about himself, but Michelle told me that he used to be a teacher at an art school and that he is a photographer. Sometimes months go by, she told me, that they don’t see him because he becomes depressed and stays in his tiny apartment. Stevie showed me a photograph by Paulo of the hands of a black man with ornate rings on every finger.  He cautioned me not to let Paulo know I had seen the photograph because he had forbidden Stevie from showing it to me.  Paulo makes a living now as a gardener for rich people.

Steve enjoyed the party.  He said his criterion for issuing invitations was that only smart people would be invited.  It worked well.

Michelle stayed in the kitchen most of the time with a friend from her work.

After the party was over Stevie, Paulo and I took a long walk through the streets of Charleston around the University.

A street in Charleston

A street in Charleston

There were ante-bellum houses, churches, grave yards and government buildings of historical interest; Paulo told us about every one of them.  His accent was heavy and it was an effort to understand him.  He had a lot to say about the old jail which is now being converted into art studios for students.  He feels it should remain a monument to the people who had been imprisoned there.  When he finally said he had to go home to his cat (Lucy) to feed her the bits of roast lamb we had given him I was quite tired, both from walking and from concentrating on what Paulo was telling us.

On Monday Steve, Michelle and I went to the coffee shop where Stevie goes every morning (before he goes to work) to study mathematics and  quantum mechanics.  I must explain that Steve is a doctor, but he went to medical school late.  First he got a Ph. D. in math, and math is his true love.  He fills many note books with mysterious equations and notes.  Someday he may publish, but first, he says, he must have results.

There was tension in the air.  Michelle suddenly left to visit some friends.  Steve and I talked, he fidgeted, talked to people in the coffee shop and I read the New York Times.  Michelle came back; I mentioned a need for the loo.  Michelle said the one in the coffee shop was undesirable and suggested we go across the street to a more elegant one in an upmarket mall.  When I emerged from the marble tiled rest room I saw Michelle in a jewelry store across the hall.  I joined her there and she bought both of us lovely earrings. I was surprised because she is the antithesis of an impulse spender.

In the afternoon Steve and Michelle went to their separate gyms to workout.  I napped, read and waited for the event of the evening, dinner out.  There had been some problems connected with the dinner.  No place had been booked or decided on.  Steve said he didn’t want to spend a lot of money. We walked to a place on the waterfront that had good oysters and otherwise mediocre food.  Steve was in a terribly bad mood and Michelle looked glum. I was puzzled and unhappy. After a while Steve said it was not my fault; there were problems.

Michelle, me and Steve -- my birthday dinner

Michelle, me and Steve -- my birthday dinner

I slept badly, and the next morning Michelle went to work and Steve, who had the day off went to the coffee shop to do math. It was my 79th birthday.

In the afternoon Steve and I went to Folly Beach.  The day was warm and sunny.  We walked along the smooth, empty beach to a point where we could see a lighthouse.  There were palm trees and bleached remains of other trees jutting out of the sand.

Folly Beach

Folly Beach

We picked up shells and found the sarcophagus of a little bird.

a little dead bird in driftwood

a little dead bird in driftwood

We saw some well camouflaged live birds.

bird in oyster patch

bird in oyster patch

We talked quietly about his troubles — the sort of troubles so many (if not all) people have in mid-life. It was a good walk, a good talk.

on the beach

on the beach

Steve on the beach

Steve on the beach

When we got home we were both tired. No dinner had been organized for that evening, but Steve and I snacked on party left-overs and talked well into the night about science, math, the origin of life and quantum mechanics.  For many years he has explained quantum mechanics to me; perhaps someday I’ll know what it’s about.  It was comforting to have it explained once again. Next he told me about Collatz’ Conjecture: this definition is from Wikipedia.

Take any natural number n. If n is even, divide it by 2 to get n / 2, if n is odd multiply it by 3 and add 1 to obtain 3n + 1. Repeat the process (which has been called “Half Or Triple Plus One”, or HOTPO indefinitely. The conjecture is that no matter what number you start with, you will always eventually reach 1.

Steve said that all mathematicians (including himself) have spent a few weeks trying to prove this and then given up to work on something more important. He said “A really obnoxious (expletive deleted), Paul Erdos, said ’it is beyond present day mathematics’”

I went to bed feeling I had reconnected with my brilliant, erratic, funny and kind son. I believe he and Michelle will resume a comfortable loving life together.

Posted in In the news, Uncategorized | 19 Comments