So much for the World Series
Now that the Dodgers have won, it's time to vote
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Welcome
I’m enjoying a rush of new subscribers, both free and paid. I’m so glad you are here! I love sharing my odd thoughts and fresh ideas.
One thing to know about Becoming is that you don’t have to like everything you find here. I change directions often. There’s always a new fork in the road. Don’t like the photos? Read the poems. Like everything? Hit the like button.
Chasing Halloween
I didn’t see this little guy until after my last posting. He looks like a ghostly Rudolph.
I was intending to write a Halloween poem and hand it out in lieu of candy, but I forgot. As it turned out, no trick-or-treaters showed up.
The poem might have turned out to be this:
The Halloween question
What if I ask for a trick? Will you TP my house? Send me a letter with ants Crawling around in the envelope? Will you curse my tomatoes So that they never turn red? Perhaps you will wish me bedbugs— Could you be as cruel as that? On second thought, here is some candy. Now go away, leave me alone. It’s time to turn out the porch light And sit in a silence of one.
Still life
I found this basket of Chinese lantern husks on a table at the New Deal Distillery on Southeast Salmon. I like the colors and the composition, the grain of the table and the soft focus on the equipment in the background.
Baseball in the background
I’ve never worked with music or the television in the background. It’s too distracting. How my daughter could do her high school homework while “Sex and the City” was playing on her bedroom TV I’ll never know.
But tonight, Wednesday, I’m behind writing on this week’s posting. I’m trying to catch up while the fifth game of the World Series unspools in the background. The great thing about instant replay is that all I have to do is keep an ear cocked for an increase in the crowd noise. Then I can see the replay of the action I missed while my eyes were on the laptop screen.
I tuned in late and missed a lot of a really good game. That’s the way it is with baseball and me. My smart TV isn’t smart enough to handle the MLB app, and I keep forgetting to check the listings during the long summer of the season. So despite my intentions, I usually catch only a handful of games.
Root, root, root for the home team
As a fan of the National League, I’m rooting for the Dodgers. After all, my husband is from Brooklyn. He still feels the betrayal of owner Walter F. O’Malley, who moved the team to Los Angeles in 1958. Just the sight of those pinstriped Yankee uniforms strikes him with fear and dread.
The Dodgers are ahead in the series three games to one. By the time I publish this, the series will be over.* But now, the Dodgers have the bases loaded in the eighth inning. So much for getting some writing done.
*The Dodgers won game 5 by one run, taking the series. That’s the best possible outcome when the Mets aren’t in the running.
Monday, Monday
It’s not my intent, but Mondays are turning mellow for me. Sometimes I sit in my recliner and zone out, my body weightless, my mind placid.
Last Monday I felt calm once again. Maybe that’s because I had turned in my ballot Sunday. That action released some of my angst over the election.
Even so, I woke Monday to the news that ballot boxes in Portland and Vancouver, Wash., had been firebombed. (I think that’s what police mean by “incendiary device.”) Only a handful of ballots were affected in Portland, but hundreds were burned in Vancouver.
More disruption is assured before, during and after the election, so why am I so calm? I’ve done what I could: made some phone calls, donated some money, voted. Now it’s up to my fellow Americans to save the union or screw it up.
Votes and leaves
Meanwhile, those damn leaf blowers! Almost every day, another property in the neighborhood is being groomed by guys (and the occasional female homeowner) wearing headsets and pushing leaves around. I live in the company of many very tall, very old, very leafy trees.
Millions of leaves
Birch and baby maple, Leaves like tiny hands. Catalpas grow them bigger; They look like elephants’ ears. Sycamores and maples— Leaves that clog the gutters. Alders, elms and ginkgos Adding to the pile. Used to be, we burned leaves, Acrid smoke of autumn. Now the city sends a truck And everything’s composted. We love compost, don’t we? Making soil of dead leaves To spade into springtime gardens And help the earthworms thrive.
Three words
Naval
Navel
Novel
Naval
Naval is the adjective having to do with things nautical. The word has many connotations for me.
Nelson’s Column. That’s the monument in London that celebrates Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson’s decisive victory over the French and Spanish fleets in the battle of Trafalgar, 1805. The monument is in Trafalgar Square.
I have been participating in Simon Haisell’s War and Peace slow read at footnotes & tangents on Substack. The victory at Trafalgar and Britain’s participation in the decisive Battle of Waterloo in 1815 are part of the Napoleonic conflict that provides the backdrop for the novel.
Naval jelly is a shocking pink compound used to remove rust from metal. According to azrust.com, it’s a blend of water, phosphoric acid, phosphate ester, sulfuric acid, isopropyl alcohol and polysaccharides. Xanthin gum makes naval jelly jellylike. I know about naval jelly because when I bought a used file cabinet in the early 1980s, my daughters’ after-school babysitter, Frances Geske, told me to use it on the rust that marred the bottom.
And finally, my late former father-in-law, Nelson Gardner (probably not named after the British admiral as his ancestry was French) was a naval officer during and after WWII. My former husband, Mark Gardner, was born in Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland in 1952. Lt. Nelson Gardner was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, the highest non-combat decoration awarded for heroism by the United States Department of the Navy, for his role in aiding the survivors of an explosion at a munitions plant in Elkton, Md., in 1943. An engineer, he was later head of solid rocket design for Aerojet-General Corp. A real rocket scientist!
Navel
Your navel is a scar, the reminder that you were once attached to your mother inside the womb. It takes up real estate in the center of your abdomen. Refer to the Internet for all the variations of its appearance, starting with innie and outie.
Navel oranges are sweet, seedless oranges that have a scar on the blossom end that looks like a navel. That protuberance is actually a small, separate underdeveloped fruit, which you will discover as you peel the orange. The plant is a natural mutation from early 19th century Brazil. The popular Cara Cara orange is a further navel mutation from 1970s Venezuela.
Novel
Let’s explore the adjective, meaning new or unusual, rather than the noun that describes a work of fiction.
Compared to the early decades of my life, so much more is novel now. Every day, every hour, every minute, something new to think about, explore or ignore.
Many of us don’t even bother with social media anymore because new stuff is always turning up everywhere else.
Find new things, new ideas, things to explore in lots of places:
The news: Concentrate on magazines and newspapers that employ real journalists who deal with real facts.
The blogs: Opinion, observations, facts, stories and recipes from people you know and trust. Substack is a great example. You could spend your entire day, and some of us do, reading and exploring and diving down wormholes.
The bus: Something new is always appearing out the window. And often, the other passengers surprise you. A man got on recently with a narrow handmade leather case. What was it, I asked him: a fishing rod? An instrument? It was a pool cue, broken down to fit in about 24 inches. He has had people ask if it is golf clubs. Only for a midget golfer.
Your life, your connections, your daily interactions—new stuff, novelty, is out there. Just pay attention.
Have you voted?
In Oregon, all voting has been by mail since 2000. This year, ballots went out three weeks before Election Day, Nov. 5. Nearly 30 percent of them statewide were returned by Oct. 31, when I am writing this. The number is less for Multnomah County, where the ballot is unusually complex this year.
Starting with this election, Portland city government changes from a five-member commission with a strong mayor to a 12-member city council with a weaker mayor and a city manager.
Some 22 candidates are vying for three spots on the new City Council from District 3, where we live. We were to choose up to six of them on a ranked-choice ballot. The choices for mayor are ranked as well.
Robert and I spent hours poring over dozens of candidates in the Voters’ Pamphlet and working with ranked choice for the first time.
Wading through the photos and info on the candidates was daunting. Bernie Sanders sent me his choices for the top three, only one of which I agreed with. Just one candidate came to our door. We ranked him first.
Fix this
All of the candidates for Portland mayor claim to have a handle on solving Portland’s atrocious homeless situation. Let’s hope the winner can deliver on the promise.
Check out
Other writing
I was privileged to interview former Portlander Ransom Riggs about his new young adult novel, The Extraordinary Disappointments of Leopold Berry. The review is at Oregon ArtsWatch.
You may know Riggs as the best-selling author of Miss Peregrine’s School for Peculiar Children. He appeared at the Portland Book Festival today, Nov. 2.
Poem
Little Secrets
Simple secrets— Not the juicy one, The one to ruin your life If anybody knows. And then when someone does— You could not keep from telling, Just once, just to trust— It’s too late for denial. Secrets thrive on fear, What if everyone knew? Usually, someone does, Maybe not the person you think. Some secrets are caustic Like knowing where the body is buried, Or who the daddy really is, Or what happened to that bag of caramels. Others may be involved— A menage á trois, a dog fight. Some you may know alone, The glowing coals within you. Everyone on the street, Everyone on the bus, The stranger sleeping next to you— Everyone has secrets, everyone denies them.
Out with the old
Daylight Saving Time ends tomorrow. If you read Becoming right when it comes out at 7 pm Saturday, this might be a good time to reset your manual clocks. Your smart phone and computer will take care of the task for you.
Remember . . .
—30—
You’ve read this before
But I’m still asking.
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Hearing the roar of the crowd during baseball games is what draws me back into the living room to watch too. I can't seem to sit through a whole game but love to catch the exciting moments. After my beloved Phillies lost I rooted for the Dodgers. I watched that fateful fifth inning of the final game three times on YouTube!
Most of my clocks reset automatically but two needed resetting manually...and I did that at 7, but 7 am ET!