January 14, 2000

optimism

Saw ALO's 'Candide' tonight. Is it the 'best of all possible worlds' if you keep dying but then miraculously heal though you've been disemboweled and stuff. I don't think so! Anyway, the beautiful voices of John McVeigh, Cheryl Parrish and Susan Nicely and their great acting ability and the Austin Lyric Opera's clever and attractive young artists made the evening. The projection and media effect with minimal actual sets were great even though there were a couple of snafus. (Oops, we aren't on the ship yet!)

I mentioned about the exhibit I read about lynching memorabilia and the fact that many of the photos were postcards. Well, as I said, I knew there were train wreck postcards available on ebay. And, yes, I did find a truly shocking lynching photo postcard. I won't exhibit it here (instead you see a tornado aftermath postcard). It is interesting that before CNN brought you every possible view of every tragedy that they made these postcards. And sold them where? At the local general store or drugstore?

I'm scouring ebay again, also, to make some 'picture letters' to send to my sister. I wish she would get interested enough in things to send me a note. For any reader who doesn't know, my sister had an aneurysm rupture last December. (The 14th to be exact.) They operated to repair it and she subsequently had four strokes and several surgeries including another brain surgery. She was on a respirator and had a feeding tube and spent over three weeks in ICU and the next six months in one care facility or another. Miraculously, she walks with a cane and can do a lot of things although her fine hand movement with her right hand isn't great. She and my brother-in-law even made a successful visit to Dallas from Denver at Thanksgiving. But there is still a distance between where she is and where she was. And the distance between us makes it hard to keep up. (Other than Thanksgiving, I managed visits in March and August to Denver.) Anyway, these letters started as a way to cheer her up when 'get well' cards got old. She's interested in collectibles; she did miniatures, collecting dolls, old toys, things like that. So I would take a theme (say 'smiley faces') and do a letter (warning might load a while or look weird, things are designed for printing!) and illustrate it with collectibles and maybe an old family picture that fit the theme. So anyway, I'm working on a letter with Valentine collectibles. Well, I've started looking for pictures anyway.

In other family news: I am going to buy a house five minutes from my office for my parents. They live currently in Mesquite, virtual Dallas, in a house they bought over thirty years ago. They are 78 and 83 and although they are still getting around pretty well I want them closer. My parents are very reasonable people and see the reasonbleness of this. My mother woke me up this morning at 7:30AM to ask me questions about the house. I've only been in it when visiting my friend who owns it and although I'd said 'let me know if you ever sell it,' I didn't think she would. So I'm not great at answering my mom's questions. I know only this: (1) it's close to my work and not far from here; (2) I can find the money to buy it; (3) it's wheelchair accessible (not that they need it yet, but they can't do stairs in a house either); and (4) I haven't been able to find anything else even close to acceptable. It's a little bigger than their current house but arranged differently. It will have to do. My friend is moving to a town home. It's in frame at the moment so we won't be closing for a couple of months. But I'm getting my parents in the frame of mind. They have to then sell their house and pack and move and all. My aunt and uncle who live in Maine but winter in an apartment near my parents aren't pleased. I think they'd come around to wintering here, but I am worried that they can find something they can afford.

My latest discovery of other journals is the recently revitalized lagniappe of a Baton Rouge denizen and writer. I don't know if it's fair when the pros write journals. So, OK, I'm not competing with anyone, but certainly not the pros, OK?

In the above journal, she mentions hiring some organizational specialist to help her out of the morass. It's funny but this time of the year all the adverts from stores feature organizational stuff. Fix up your closet, pack those Christmas ornaments away in a specially-fitted attractive red and green storage container, etc. etc. And I've been feeling the itch, too. It's not like I don't try to keep things neat and picked up and organized. Every time I leave this office, I take a coffee cup to the kitchen or a magazine to the big room. And don't I look through the mail with the brown grocery bag at my side to instantly discard stuff into paper recycling? Don't I try to carry glasses and newspapers from the big room to the kitchen every time I head to bed from there? Don't I start a filing project every week? Don't I hang up my clothes and organize my closet by clothing type? Yes, yes, yes. And it's still a disaster.

Ah, well. Small steps, right?

"Eat with the Rich, but go to play with the Poor, who are capable of Joy"

Logan Pearsall Smith