The Horror of November 2020

 I told Christian he needed to come back from working in NC by November because I was afraid of what would happen in case of a disputed election I live in Beverly, MA—hardly a stronghold of yahoos—but after seeing the Trump Rally (unmasked, natch)  in October, I was worried.

 

All this is further proof that the danger never comes from the corner you expected it to come from. 

 

At the beginning of the month I had 2 dogs. During the month of November I  spent more that $1,000 on vet bills. And yet at the end of the month I only have 1 dog, because $600 or so was spent on my lab Hawkeye’s admittance and euthanasia by the emergency vet and the cremation of his remains. 

 

God.  I wish I hadn’t learned the phrase “Aftercare*” I wish a lot of things, but mostly I wish Hawkeye was still here.

 

It had always been Daisy that worried me—Daisy with EPI*** and behavioral problems. Daisy the German Shepherd who is clearly suffering the effects of overbreeding (see below***). In fact the first half of the enormous vet bill was because she was having exploding dog butt. 

 

My husband took her to the vet—which is no humans allowed in, due to COVID 19. Apparently after pitching a dramatic fit (lying down on the parking lot ) she agreed to go in with the vet techs and was deemed to be “a doll.” They gave us antibiotics for her.

 

I sighed with relief. The election happened. After a few days it was called (no matter the Orange Man’s mischief) I sighed with relief again. More fool me.

 

The Monday after the election, Hawkeye was suddenly drastically ill** and we bundled him into the truck to take to the emergency vet.  This was horrible. 

 

Unless you lead a charmed life, you don’t get to your 40s without some uncomfortable things, and some unbearable things happening to you.  So I hope you will understand that I am not exaggerating when I say this hurt as much as or probably more than the terrible things I have encountered in my adult life.

 

I will say this for the emergency vet—they were very good and very kind. The doctor who called us and explained what was wrong with him was very honest with us—we could spend $7,000 that we don’t have on a surgery, but we were likely to end up back there in 2-3 months.

 

So we said no. Or rather Christian said no because head experience with this before in other dogs.

 

There are many words and phrases that  I hate hearing other people use—“functionality” and “low hanging fruit” are usually at the top of my list but “so you are choosing to stop care now***” takes the prize for phrases that make me want to bite someone.

 

So we “stopped care” on our beautiful, sweet little boy. Which was awful. They allowed us to come in and visit with him for “as long as we liked’ and told us to press the doorbell on the wall when we were ready for the vet to come in. He looked like he was 100 years old when he stumbled into the visiting room—not the bouncy waggy boy he and been 12 hours ago. I don’t think he knew who we were. In some ways this made it easier—it was clear he was ¾ of the way gone—we were just stopping him from hurting more.  Even so, pressing that doorbell was hard.

 

I can’t help but think though, if he had been a human that came into a human ER they would have given him something for his pain but as he was a dog, they did not.

 

On the other hand, if he had been a human we wouldn’t have had a choice. They *would* have done whatever heroic treatment they could for him—he wouldn’t have been able to opt out of a painful and unpleasant end of life.

 

Everyone always says they want a surprise sudden death—not a lingering one, so this was the best thing for him. Suddenly unwell and then released from pain.

 

It’s less simple for us. We were shocked as much as grieved. Daisy, our German Shepherd and Hawkeye’s buddy, spent much of the day after we came back looking for her buddy “you left with him—where he now?” 

 

I have learned things from this although I don’t know that they make me feel better-I have learned that I don’t believe in heaven or the Rainbow bridge.  When he left, I knew he was gone. I have learned I can get through the most horrible things

 

When the Pet Crematorium called to tell us that they had Hawkeye “in their care” and asked what memorials we wanted from him I said yes to all of them because I was in shock and missing my little boy. Even as I agreed to them they sounded unappealing and ghoulish. Fur collected from him and prints of his feet would have been lovely—if we had collected them while he was still alive. As they were collected post-mortem they are…not something I’m going to put on my desk anytime soon.

 

 

 

*It appeared on my bill basically it means funerary expenses for my dog.

 

** Basically she has no pancreas

 

**Stomach cancer—apparently common in labs-which burst causing internal bleeding—also apparently common in labs.

 

***I give the vet credit—this was probably not her phrase—just something that the marketing people told her to say.  But really marketing people “stop care?” for a cherished pet? Maybe you should teach people to say “stop treatment?"

Save the Strand!

Now there’s a phrase I never expected to write. I was only briefly a Strandie—and only at the (now defunct) Fulton St Store. 

After graduating from Carleton College, I decided (for lack of anything better to do) to go home to NY, earn some money and go to France on a student visa, through an organization that arranged such things.

I applied for work at temp agencies, at head-hunters (I was—mistakenly, I believe—actually given an interview to *be* a head hunter) even at a French language temp agency, to no avail. So, not long after returning home with a college degree, I found myself applying for retail jobs on Broadway—the same as I would have done as an undergrad. On the 3^rd of July, I walked into the Bee’s Knees and asked the manager if they needed help. Reluctantly the manager agreed that they did need help and also reluctantly “hired” me but told me he expected I would never show up*. Immediately afterwards, I walked into the Strand and asked for work (couldn’t be worse than being hired by a guy who was waiting for you to fail/quit). As it turned out, they did need help, so they gave me the test.  Well, at the very least I am well-read so I did well enough—better on the French works/authors than those in English. Nancy Bass told me that she had just hired another guy but “We need someone here and someone at the Fulton St Store. I told him to go down there. Why don’t you go too, and whoever the manager prefers can work there and the other one can work here.”

A word about the Fulton St Strand—there had been a tiny little Strand by South St Seaport for quite some time. It was dark and not much bigger than some of the “museums” which were really souvenir shops dressed up by an entrance fee. When I got back to NY I had been to South St. Seaport and had gone looking for this mini-Strand amongst the outlet shops and tourist traps (for the purpose of book-purchasing) only to discover it had move to much nicer, airer digs on Fulton St. So I knew where the Fulton St Strand was (even though I’d seen it for the first time a week ago.) It was so airy, and so much less cramped than the regular Strand that I even thought it might even be air-conditioned (I was wrong.)

The next day—July 4^th—I showed up at the door of the Fulton St store with the staff right before opening hours. I was wearing a dress I had borrowed of my sister—not the suit jacket and skirt combo I normally had for interviews, but a step up from the t-shirts and jean shorts worn by the staff standing outside with bagels and coffees in their hands.

The manager of the Fulton St Strand was unaware of Nancy’s plans. I explained. “Well that’s rather..Machiavellian. She wants you both to come here. On the 4^th of July and compete against each other?” I got the job. I was working in bag check when my competitor showed up.**

I was hired as a cashier, which left me plenty of time for surreptitiously reading books behind the counter, which is nice work if you can get it—even at minimum wage. After going to school in the mid-west for 4 years, I couldn’t *not* be polite and so I got a raise after my first week ($.25 more an hour!) for my politesse. 

The Strand is named after the Strand in London, but as I got to know the other people who worked there—not just in the outlet where I worked, but after going to the main store to pick from the stacks for overtime in December I felt that the name was fitting from the perspective of the employees—a  strand—as in the shore or sandbar where one might wash up for a time.

My colleagues included playwrights, poets, anarchist Buddhist managers, artists and (it was rumored)Ca guy who had been big in real estate until he threw a client through a window. I met a man whose cat had saved him from a burglar and a woman who had contacts in Paris (met through the same program I was going to use to get a visa.)

However, the Fulton St store where I worked was not the 12th St Strand. We did not have rare books. We mostly had discount versions of Whatever Was most Popular (Angela’s Ashes and Underboss by Sammy The Bull Gravano) for the Wall St crowd to buy on their lunch breaks, as well as dollar carts out front and a dollar table in back. We also had Advanced Readers Copies (ARCs)—books given to reviewers and booksellers not intended for resale (which many reviewers did sell to the Strand, clearly) but not as big a collection as the 12th St store—although I did find a copy of Les Trois Mousquetaires in French ( I read it while sitting behind the counter.)

As far as we knew this store—on paper—was basically a warehouse from which (bonus!) the Strand occasionally sold books. At the time the Strand was the biggest used bookstore in the world. However, we knew that most of the trade came from mail order sales (I’m not even sure the Strand had a website yet.) 

We thought that the Bass family owned the building on 12^th St along with—who knows what other real estate in NYC. 

As I was trying to save up money to go abroad, I took overtime in December on my days off to pick from the upper floors of the 12^th St store. This—I was told—was where they kept the real weirdos. Not just the anarchists and the people who wrote  “Puddin Tane” on their name badges (so that when the customers complained about them the management could say “we don’t have any employees named “Puddin Tane.” Yes, that happened.)

“When you get there—there’s going to be a guy with black hair that will stare at you. You can explain that you’re there to pick for the Fulton St. store. And he will continue to stare at you” was what the manager said before I went out to the warehouse for the first time. This was an accurate description of my reception there.

Not unlike the bookstore downstairs, or downtown, each area had a custodian in charge. They were almost all young men. Most of them were listening to a Walkman. Every single one of them was polite to me and asked me to let him know if there was something I couldn’t find. Most of them were young dudes, but even the elderly guy with long hair (who I was told was a junkie and didn’t normally speak to women) was helpful.

I am shocked that the Strand is in bad way—we always assumed that the Bass family had all kinds of resources—how could this be. But of course, I worked there in the late 90s, and my sister worked there in the early aughties. The Strand at the time did a lot of mail order business. And these days, when one wants to order a book one doesn’t think of the Strand—one thinks of Amazon. I suspect this is the problem (along with the fact that the other money maker—rare book sales—is kind of an “in person” transaction.)

When I think of this threat, it is not the customers that I worry about, or even the demise of another NY institution. I’m thinking of the Strandies—the poets and junkies and the artists and the bibliophiles and the merely confused who washed up on the shore of the Strand and found they could stay there. I’m thinking of my sister—who went to baking school while working as a paperback sorter, of her leftist (ex) boyfriend, of the ex-tennis pro who I worked with, and the guy who had one more college class to take before he graduated, and the poet and the manager that had dumplings every Sunday while arguing in a Beatrice and Benedict fashion.  I’m thinking of a place that people can come and work and *be* without having to put a tie on or makeup and heels. It doesn’t pay well, but you’re allowed to be an intelligent person without having to catch the early train (boat) in clothes that must be dry cleaned only to be admonished by a manager to “think outside the box.”

* To be fair, I did not—having been hired by the Strand

**Apparently after being told to report to 12^th St, he showed up the next morning, clocked out at lunch and was never heard from again 

What Else Will This Change?

Amazon is sold out of toilet paper and the Boston Marathon is postponed.

The president has declared a state of emergency and there are calls to close NYC's schools. The Met is closed--as is the MFA in Boston.

I am about to get an up-close and personal experience of what my dogs lives are like.  

I am glad we* are all taking a proactive approach to the prevention of the spread of Corona Virus. However, I am worried about which measures adopted in crisis may become normal business activities.

Not all of these are bad things—companies adopting paid sick leave policies are long overdue and any steps we take toward providing universal healthcare are also good.

My concern is with other things—crisis measures adopted that ”prove” that whatever services are withheld or replaced were never really necessary. I’m worried about in-person classes. It’s great that we can offer distance learning so that students (from grade school to grad school) do not have their education thoroughly disrupted, but these are not replacements for in-person classes in the same room as the other students and the professor.

Museums and libraries are closing as a way to stop infections—this does not mean that we don’t need museums and libraries.

The City of NY has banned gatherings of more than 500 people. As a stopgap to disease spread this is a great idea, but this does not mean that we do not “need” the ability to gather more than 500 people in one place ever again.

It is a good thing for the moment to allow hospitals to relax rules on where they can treat patients, but in the long run this is a terrible idea—this is why rules about this were set up in the first place.

Working from home—It’s awesome that we are now in a position (technologically) where many of us can work from home. Is it a good thing that this proves that many jobs don’t need in person attendance? I love getting back 3 hours a day because I don’t have to commute, but this plan relies on employees using their own internet service and their owns phones and their own second monitor—there’s a lot of BYOD** in there. I am also worried that this will “prove” to cities and states that they don’t need to invest in infrastructure such as public transit or highways as this crisis proved we all could work from home.

Crises are times when we need to try out new ideas (because the old ones don’t work—see also “Crisis”) some of these innovations are leaps forward  that never would have been possible in normal times (think of all of the surgical advances made during the Civil War.)  Crises are also a chance for the powers that be to erode our civil liberties or present us with reality TV. 

*in this case “we” means our corporate maters

**SAHAUYOD (Stay At Home And Use Your Own Devices)

Bo Rho in 2019

I watched Bohemian Rhapsody a few weeks ago on Amazon. I loved it--I was thoroughly impressed, but partly for reasons I never anticipated.

This film had been in the making for quite a while--with various complications. In 2015/6 someone  (Brian May?) said the best part of the film was halfway through when Freddie died. Which made no sense, for a film that was about Freddie.

Sasha Baron Cohen was going to play Freddie, but then he quit. And no--I don't follow this kind of thing, but I just did a Google Search on "Freddie Dies Halfway Through" and it reminded me of this stuff and served up another page which claims there was never a script where he died half way through the movie.

So yeah, this was a movie that had a bit of a rocky road to screen, apparently.

I was interested, because Queen was not a band I knew much about. I first really noticed Queen when Wayne's World came out my junior year of high school, because the film brought Bohemian Rhapsody back into vogue.*

In many ways it has a lot in common with other music bio-pics--Walk the Line, Velvet Goldmine, Amadeus**, etc. Artist starts in obscurity,  artist makes it,  fame goes to artist's head and he becomes a dick, resolutions afterwards vary.

In one way however this film was different (at least from my perspective). By 2018, everyone has access to youtube, so anyone--even those of us who didn't know Queen existed in 1985--can see Queen's Live Aid performance. This means that when Rami Malek and his and the rest of the cast do the Live Aid concert, they are redoing something that anyone in the audience could have seen. They are not giving their interpretation of the characters-they are reproducing the characters every gesture. I'm guessing this made for an interesting acting experience.

I'm sure the production team was aware of this and played with it--the film starts with a man in a wife-beater  and stone washed wrangler jeans with a studded arm band going on stage (without showing his face). But they don't have to--we all know recognize the outfit.



*While waiting in the East Caf to go on for Sing the song came on the radio and we all--actors, singers, orchestra, techs sung along.

**yes, this is part of the same swim lane as Walk the Line. Don't believe me--consider Freddy playing the piano underneath it/backwards--total hat tip to Amadeus

Not-stalgia

My work life has gotten interesting lately, so I've taken to looking up the videos of 80s and 90s songs on YouTube as a sort of comfort. I looked up Phil Collins's "You Can't Hurry Love" one evening and saw the video below. I was immediately transported back to 1990--my friend Goldie had stayed over for a night at my house. We were supposed to be studying for the Biology Achievement test, but instead we spent the whole night dancing to Phil Collins Greatest Hits. 

It was a happy memory (if a bit embarrassing to admit) but here's the thing. Watching old videos by Phil Collins or Billy Joel or Bananara or Michael Jackson does not make me wish it was 199X again--not one little bit--not even 1998 (the year I lived in Paris after college.)

Why? Because I was miserable for most of that time. I went to a specialized high school and a good college, so I was probably less miserable than I could have been, but I spent an awful lot of my young-adulthood being miserable. Some of this was due to depression,  some of it I suspect is that it sucks being an adolescent.  It also--in my experience--sucks being a recent college grad. Of course, that's my experience only. Judging by the younger folks where I work, it doesn't suck so much if you majored in Business.

Do other people forget the misery of adolescence on purpose? Does high school appeal as a better simpler world, because the pains of having that guy/girl not like you, or passing Math pale compared to the drudgery of work/chores/bill-paying?

I don't know. All I can think is that when anyone near me says "Man I wish I was 21 again." I think of crying about my eviction notice written in Latin.

Perhaps I'm oversimplifying--perhaps it high school and college look especially bad because I've viewing them through the lens of my miserable 20s. I spent some time thinking about this today ( I wrote a sloppy draft of this last night.)

On one hand, I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure I had my first bout of adult depression the summer before my senior year of high school That blew normal adolescent anxieties (Math, Drafting, will I ever be asked out by someone I like? Why did I decide to cut my own bangs? etc.) out of the water. That doesn't mean they were all fun.

Frida Kahlo Barbie

Frida Kahlo Barbie

There’s a Frida Kahlo Barbie out now—also an Amelia Earhart Barbie and a Katherine Johnson[1] Barbie. The Frida Kahlo Barbie has two eyebrows, which some people are objecting to[2]. I can see their point. I can also see the point of the people who decided that it would be a good thing for girls to have dolls of daring, famous women.

Speaking as the former owner of a set of Famous Women paper dolls[3], this whole campaign seems well intentioned, but pointless to me. Why? Because it didn’t matter what the short bio said the paper doll was, I used them all for whatever parts the play they fit in the play my brain came up with.  

Maybe I played with toys differently than other kids, but the whole point of a doll (or a set of Legos) was that it was a toy you could make into whatever you decided it should be. To my mind, that’s part of the point of play. If you give a kid a toy and tell them “This is Frida Kahlo” then you are telling them what to do with the toy—are they playing with it wrong if Frida is cast in the part of Morgan Le Fay for the afternoon[4]?

Similarly, (to my mind) if you give a kid a Lego kit and tell them that the kit only makes one thing, then the toy is done (and no longer fun) once they have made the X-Wing Fighter, or the Moon Landing Unit.[5]

I admit I am biased, but if you want girls to know and be inspired by women like Frida Kahlo, buy them books—not just the boring, wholesome/virtuous, scholastic library books (although you may have to start there), but books of her art. Tell them why you think she’s important (don’t wait until your daughter has to do a report for women’s history month—that defeats the purpose.)  If you do this, girls will not need a Frida Kahlo doll—if they want a doll to be Frida, they will make her so.

 

---

[1] Mathematician and Physicist. She’s in Hidden Figures, and yes I had to look this up.

[2] Yes, I get why Frida Kahlo Barbie should violate the rules of the Universe—making a Communist into a Barbie is probably a sign of the appocolypse.

[3] They probably came from the Smithsonian. They were to be colored in. Each doll came with one other “outfit” (Amelia’s Earhart’s outfit was her plane.) Each doll had a bio, explaining why this woman was cool.a

[4] I’m sorry to say that My Amelia Earhart paper doll often had to play a dude, because she had short hair and wore pants and a baggy coat and some of my plotlines as a kid called for dudes, but there were (obviously) no male paper dolls in my set of Famous Women paper dolls.

[5] When I first saw these kits, I was horrified. I see them differently now—more like puzzles or model-building kits, but they still don’t encourage creativity the way a giant box of random Legos does.