A Bag of Onions

Posted by Holly at October 17th, 2008

Now, really, this is the most ridiculous thing I ever heard of – raiding Medicare to pay for an ill-conceived health care plan in the first place. I hope John McCain keeps touting this idea because, if he even needed any help, this has got to be the one thing that will guarantee he stays our of the While House.

All those pundits who talk about the long-term….don’t worry, everything will be fine in the long-term….I’ve been hearing them since the 1970s when the market tanked and my now late husband inherited the last of an estate against which he had financed his first house. His inheritance was guaranteed, just not the amount so, when the market plummeted, he had just enough left to pay back the lender and not enough for capital gains taxes. I can’t tell you what a nightmare that was for me when he died, seven years later.

But, not to worry, everything would be alright in about 10 years when it was the long-term. Okay, so by the time the next long-term rolled around it was the 80s and, well, we know what happened then. Oh, and then there was the dot-com era of 2000 that became dot-don’t. All the while, I was starting to worry, not about my long-term – I had given up on having one a long time ago – but about my mother’s. My parents raised us as well as they could and we had everything we needed and a lot of what we wanted. We, and they, assumed they would be okay well into their retirement. But they aren’t. Or, at least, my mother who is the only one left is not. Her long-term is terrible, frankly. And I am paying for it so that makes my present long-term scary and my future long-term iffy if not doubtful. Mine improved significantly, for a moment, when I remarried in 2006. Now my husband’s hard work, rewarded in his retirement portfolio, is going with the wind just like everyone else’s.

And now John McCain wants to take what little my mother has left to take care of her medical needs and steal from it? Is he out of his mind? Shame on you, John McCain.

Posted by Holly at October 6th, 2008

I’ve been looking for a moment to write this for weeks but, the pace of my life quickens daily and finding moments is like stealing second base – you hoped you could and had to be ready for the opportunity when it popped up. The opportunity, today, is that Jim went to pick up pumps or filters or something important for the winery so, after a meeting in town for me and a bunch of errands, I’m actually sitting at the computer, wine glass in hand (I should be careful about that, as I have already once frozen a computer by spilling wine….), thinking about the recent Cinderalla aspect of my life.

A couple of weeks ago when I went to LA for a meeting, got to go to a BIG movie premiere party and, two days later, took off my pretty clothes, turned not quite into a pumpkin and ended up rafting on the America River in real rapids – Class 3!

The meeting was even interesting and dinner the first night was in a Mexican restaurant in Santa Monica. Now, I have had dinner twice in a Mexican restaurant in California in my entire life and, wonder of wonders, it turns out to be the same restaurant. I will be working with these people and think it will turn out just fine. When I worked for Pacific Science Center in Seattle before I got married, we weren’t allowed to drink alcohol at a meal if we were going back to work. Couldn’t go back to work, in fact, if we did. That was a darn sight different than the kinds of meals depicted in Mad Men on AMC, which is pretty accurate. Take it from one who was there – lunches, dinners and many opportunities in the office to be pretty lubricated. Anyway, at dinner we shared several pitchers of Margaritas. A good start.

From there I went to the movie party for The Women, written and directed by my longtime friend and my son’s godmother. I was really excited, not just to share in Diane’s achievement but also to get to see really dressed up people and their Manolos. Yes, I wanted to see shoes. So, even though I hadn’t been able to go to the premiere of the movie, I slipped into my fetching black, swoopy dress, uniquely adorned with a pin of Sojourner Truth made by an artist friend of mine in New York and quite presentable shoes, got into a cab and headed for Hollywood. There were about 700 people at the party, heralded by Hollywood movie spotlights. It was great. I knew four people there – Diane and her husband and an old friend of theirs and Diane’s mother. I wandered aimlessly for the first few minutes past long tables with lots of food and the numerous bars at the outskirts of the rooms. Finally I figured out there was an outer room and an inner sanctum and cleverly figured out the tier system so I headed for the center inner circle. It was even more densely populated so that I never really saw below the waistline of any person in the room. Alas, no shoe checks would be possible, as I couldn’t bend my head without bumping foreheads with someone else. More wandering, no Diane. Finally, I decided to stand still and, miraculously, the next person to glide by was Diane! The top half of her dress was a gorgeous deep, brown silk? Satin? Some luxurious fabric. As she slid by, beatific smile on her face, martini in hand, I softly said her name and, as she recognized me, she literally screamed that my being there was the icing on the cake. Well, that was really sweet of her to say and I think I’ll go on believing it ….

In a flash, someone whisked her away to interview her. She told me not to move, she would be back. Of course I moved. I almost had to move as the crowd began to act like a conveyor belt.

So, after a futile attempt at some sort of conversation with the other three people I knew, and because I would be getting up early for a day of meetings, I slipped out. I spent more time in the cab going and coming than I actually spent at the party. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

Next day, bunch of meetings and a quick trip to the airport where I hopped on a plane (well, was herded onto a plane), flew to San Francisco where I met Jim who was flying from Portland and we got on the plane to Sacramento.

The next two days were incredible. I do not camp. I do not seriously hike – although I have hiked up Mount Tamalpais in Marin County. I do not have an outdoor nature that would incline me to participate in nature any other way than the one in which I live; namely, I understand the boundaries of our farm and can pull weeds with the best of them, dig holes and plant things when required, carry irrigation pipes if I need to, and any number of other things I’ve never done before; but, I do it with the house in sight. I would never actually choose to engage in an outdoor activity.

Once, when Charlie was 10, we took the trip up the Inside Passage to Alaska, sleeping in sleeping bags on the solarium deck of several ferries we took. That was my first – and last – time in a sleeping bag. I loved that trip and the amazing things I saw: millions of Bald Eagles perching and nesting in the wispiest tops of trees along the route; and salmon swimming upstream into the tiniest rivulets – just like on Marlin Perkins – the very ones where they had been spawned; miraculous sunsets and sunrises; shiny, gleaming glaciers. It was the very best trip I ever took. Just as fabulous as my first trip to Paris.

Still, it’s the last trip like that I ever took and Charlie is 35. I knew Jim wanted to go rafting and I actually wanted to do it, too, because it’s his niece and her husband who are river guides who would be leading us. It was so totally out of my sphere, in fact, that I wasn’t scared and didn’t think too much about it beforehand. It was as if it was someone else who was going to do in my body. I was a little nervous about the fact that I get pretty sea sick, even on stationary boats like the Pirate’s Ship at Disneyland. Obviously, partly it’s a psychological issue of some unknown nature and not one I plan to spend any time figuring out.

I prepped myself for that part by not thinking about it too much ahead of time, talking myself into it and trying to believe Jim and the others who told me it was a river and I wouldn’t get sick. And I didn’t. Instead, it was thrilling and spectacular, cold and wet. There’s very little that can prepare you for the sensation of gently rafting along, pulling your paddle through the water as you have been instructed right or left, gently and easily and then seeing the churn picking up, hearing your guide (Bubba) describe what’s going to happen and suddenly realizing that those big rocks you’ve been seeing sticking up out of the water could very easily rip your rubber raft apart and disengage some one or more of your limbs or innards leaving them behind in the water while you continued hurling downstream.

We did that about 12 times the first day and 12 times the second day, going through rapids with names like Trouble Maker, Satan’s Cesspool, Bouncing Rock, Hospital Bar and Recovery Room. My cocktail dress of choice for this leg of the trip was waterproof shorts and a life-vest. I did have on pink water shoes.

So there it is – carrying a beaded clutch one night to clutching a paddle for dear life in the middle of a swirling rapid. Clearly an American Cinderella story.