Peg Bracken, 1918-2007

In September 1964, I was living in Chicago with my then-husband and our 9-month-old son when a package arrived for me from my mother. It was a book, and on the flyleaf she'd written

"With love to Barbara. Happy housekeeping!"

The book was The I Hate to Housekeep Book, by Peg Bracken, and it was terrific—funny and irreverent about maintaining a house, it wasn't the slob approach but dedicated, she said, to those of us who are "random housekeepers." There were chapters on how to clean things ("Stains, Spots, Blots, Scars, and Dueling Wounds") and how to cook things ("Dinner Will Be Ready As Soon As I Decide What We're Having") and overall, how to not take it all--or yourself--too seriously.

I loved it. She made me laugh. I read it over and over again. I bought her other books—The I Hate to Cook Book, The I Still Hate to Cook Book, I Try to Behave Myself (this one an etiquette book) and The I Hate to Cook Almanak—but my favorite was, and still is, the housekeeping one.

I sometimes thought about writing to Peg Bracken to let her know how much I enjoyed what she'd written, but, like so many other things I think about doing, but don't, I never did. And now I never will.

I still get The I Hate to Housekeep Book out to look something up, and every time I do, I see my mom's inscription and wish again that she'd lived a whole lot longer. I wish I'd thanked Peg Bracken for her books; I'm sure I never thanked my mom enough for everything.

Parenting Rule #1: Stay on the offensive

In line at the small grocery store in Nevada City, behind a mother and her two preteen sons. Mom and younger boy are in conversation, and mom is growing increasingly irritated with what son is saying . . .

Mom [exasperated]: That's the wrong thing to say! I don't know how many times I have to tell you!
Son [in a reasonable tone]: You've never told me.
Mom [same tone as before]: I shouldn't have to tell you! You should know it yourself!

Desperado

Saturday's "This American Life" was called "Act V," as in Act V, the final act, of Shakespeare's Hamlet, as performed by inmates of a high-security prison in Missouri. The cast included men who had committed violent crimes—first-degree assault, rape, murder. Most, if not all, had never seen or read a Shakespeare play. To hear their impressions, their reflections on the characters and motivations of Hamlet, Horatio, Laertes, et al, was to hear Shakespeare interpreted as I've never heard it before.

It was hard for me to continue thinking of these men as not nice people, as people who need to be locked away for a long, long time. In talking about their crimes, they sounded compassionate, self-aware, resigned, remorseful. They talked about what prison life feels like--dehumanizing, demeaning. And yet their crimes were horrible, and they did do them. They learned to act, to interpret Shakespeare; was all the other talk an act, too?

Some years ago, I was on a ferry in San Franciso Bay that passed close enough to San Quentin that I could see the exercise yard, prisoners in their orange jumpsuits standing at the fence, looking out toward the boat as I was looking over at them. "They were all once 3 years old," I thought. What had happened to them between age 3 and that moment of my seeing them from the ferry?

Why do we put people in prison? To keep them away from us? Certainly. To teach them a lesson? That, too. To purge them of their "badness" and rehabilitate them? Not so sure about that last one; seems like that ought to be part of it, but how can any rehabilitation occur in such a place? I don't know the answers to these questions, and it seems pretty clear that the people in charge of running our prison system don't, either. Maybe, though, we need to start with the 3-year-olds.

The cast and director of Hamlet, Act V

Missouri Eastern Correctional Center

Wombat

The Wild & Scenic Environmental Film Festival screened last night at the Vets Memorial Theater. Wombat was the best—unlike many environmental "message" films, this one is short, clever, and utterly hip. Oh, and it's spot on with the message, too

One down

Yesterday's Los Angeles Times carried the obituary of Barry Tunick, who, along with Sylvia Bursztyn, had been writing the Times' Sunday crossword puzzles since the '80s. I've been working crossword puzzles for nearly ever, and those puzzles have always been my favorites for their clever clues, the wit and the puns, for how smart they are. Turns out Tunick was the one who wrote those clues, the one who loved the puns.

I never knew anything about either one of them before yesterday, only that I enjoy their creations immensely. Working one of their puzzles is one of the small yet completely satisfying occupations of my life. And now one half of that partnership is gone. Coincidentally, just yesterday I began Puzzle No. 50 in Vol. 22 of their collected puzzles. I hope when I finish it, I'll find Vol. 23 at the bookstore.

Thanks, Barry. I'll miss you.

Wild things

The cedar waxwings are back, making themselves fat (and probably tipsy) on the grapes still present in great quantities on the vines that climb into the almond tree and onto the railing of my deck—elegantly dressed bandits in their black masks and grey morning coats traveling in big gangs.

The other returning visitors are the leaf-footed bugs that for reasons known only to them have found the inside of the metal reinforceing plate on my screen door to be an ideal home. They don't bother anything (leastways, not me), but I suppose they could be gathering their strength in preparation for an onslaught on some plant or other. I get an up-close-and-personal look at them, as they're usually clinging to the screen, making it easy to view both topside and underside.

I have images of both these critters, but there seems to be a glitch at blogspot HQ, and I haven't been able to add them to this post; thus the links. Maybe later . . . maybe tomorrow . . . maybe never. It's a virtual world thing.

Rocktober

The Colorado Rockies have swept the Arizona D'backs, four games to zip, and are headed to the World Series—first time for the franchise. I like both those teams but am happy for the Rockies and especially for Yorvit Torrealba, who once upon a time played for the Giants. Liked him then; like him now. Matt Herges, one of the Rocks' relief pitchers, was also once a Giant. My best memory of him is something he once said about how he focuses when he's on the mound: "I look for a pebble, and I concentrate on it before I begin my windup." When he began faltering and losing games, some of us considered sending him a handful of pebbles to help out.

Meanwhile, east of the Mississippi, the Boston Red Sox are down two games to one against the Cleveland Indians, and I'm rooting for the Tribe, mostly because they haven't won a Series since 1948 or so. Plus, they have Kenny Lofton, also a former Giant, who knocked in the winning run back in '02 (or some such year—I'm not very good at remembering that kind of stuff) to send the Giants to the Series.

What I'm enjoying most about watching these games is how nice it is not to care so bloody much about who wins. When the Giants are playing a game, every pitch is fraught with anxiety. Nevertheless, despite my more-detached attitude, it's my nature (and maybe human nature) to come down on the side of one or the other (which may explain world politics). Anyway, just having baseball for a few more days is happiness . . . soaking it up to try to make it last until spring.

Lovely Rita

Today is my sister's birthday. She's now 62 years old. I find this incomprehensible. I'm not bothered being 63—to my mind, getting older is much preferable to the alternative—but having a younger sister who is working her way into her 60s just doesn't compute for me. She's my little sister, fercryinoutloud! So stop kidding around—surely she's scarcely into her 30s!

Happy, happy birthday, dearest Reet! I'm very glad you were born.

Hot dam!

The Monticello Dam is 50 years old this year, and today the Solano Irrigation District, which owns the dam, was having a birthday celebration. I'd thought vaguely about going. Instead, I decided to do a bike ride out to Winters with four other Davis Bike Club members.

Beautiful October day, easy ride to Winters, where we had some lunch at Steady Eddy's coffee house. "Hey," I said, "there are tours this afternoon up at the dam. Anybody want to ride to Lake Solano and take the shuttle up to the dam and take the tour?"

Three of the four others headed back to Davis, but S of D and I headed to Lake Solano. "Sorry," the volunteer said, "all the spaces on the rest of the shuttle trips are filled." We thought briefly of waiting around to see if anybody turned in their tickets, but it didn't take long for us to decide to just ride up there, ourselves, and try to tag along. So we did, and bingo--got up to the dam at the same time the shuttle did. No problem getting on to the tour.

Tour itself was a bit disappointing--I had hopes of actually going down into the dam, itself (turns out the only way to do that is through the dam's "front door," located nearly at the base on the downstream side), but we did get to walk out on the top and look over each side. Best little tidbit: The "glory hole" (the overflow structure) is a seamless 30-ft in diameter concrete tube, which, until 9/11 precipitated major upgrades in the dam's security measures, was a magnet for skateboarders. Cowabunga!

The best part of the day, though, was how leisurely it all was--I ended up riding 52 miles without even thinking about it, chatting with S of D, whom I hadn't seen for a while, drinking in this marvelous fall weather, the trees coloring up, the buckeye seeds looking like pears hanging on the almost-leafless branches. October is the best of months.

Here comes the bride, J.D.

The Thursday edition of the local paper features what used to be called the "Society" pages (earlier version: the "Women's Section")--wedding announcements, anniversary celebration stories, that sort of thing. I always read them, especially the wedding ones. I don't know why I'm so interested. I don't know the couples, and I was in a wedding once (my own) and am not looking for ideas for another one. They're just these little slices of people's lives, and you can sometimes figure out what's important to them from what's included. For instance, yesterday's paper featured an attorney couple who apparently were so proud of their law degrees that they had "J.D." appended to each of their names. I suppose it's possible it was not the bride, herself, but her mother who was so eager to have her daughter's status (and that of her new son-in-law) highlighted front and center, but I think Miss Manners would disapprove. The reception was pretty lavish, though; the bride and groom sat at a 25-foot-long table (called, for some reason, the "King's Table") decorated with an equally long floral swag and a 6-ft. curly willow arragement, so maybe those not-so-discreet references to the couple's professions will bring in the money to pay the bill.