Monthly Archives: April 2024

Did you see the game?

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Yesterday’s incomparable Women’s NCAA Basketball Final? 🏀

This is not a debriefing. We have professionals for post-game analysis. This is just to say that if you can watch a recording, or the top plays on your favorite sports’ station, do it!

I have been watching women’s NCAA basketball for many years now. One of our family members played against Diana Taurasi in an AAU Tournament in Coronado, California, and scored against her, too! I have spent holiday weekends at AAU tournaments for the love of the game.

Iowa and South Carolina both played exceptional games. Team stars Clark and Cardoso lit up the stadium. The game was so good that bench players poured in points as well. 6’7” Brazilian player, Kamilla Cardoso, and American player, Caitlin Clark of Iowa, record-setting three-point shooter, brought different styles of play to today’s game. Who did you most enjoy watching on the court yesterday?

For me, it is important to see the teams coached by women win. Thanks to Dawn Staley and Lisa Bluder we watched two women’s teams coached by women in the 2024 NCAA Women’s Final! Once women are the head coaches of men’s teams, I will relax on this point, but as our brilliant US Women’s Soccer Team keeps reminding us, sexism is alive and well in sports ⚽️

Did you call the winner of this game? I did not! Who do you most look forward to watching in the WNBA?

He’s got hops!

Friends from Buy Nothing

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You would never know what an effort I have put into giving away unused and underutilized possessions in this home!

At least the exercise equipment is colorful. Some of it is merely aspirational at this point, and will find a new home in our basement. (The basement was waterproofed during the pandemic, but not finished, so it is not a comfortable place to spend time.)

We bought this home twenty years ago. It was built in 1955, and the race car curtains hanging in the boys’ bedroom were definitely from that era. They looked worn, but I couldn’t just toss them. Today they hang in a Volkswagen Microbus sporting 1950s decor.

Curtains from the 1950s?

Parting with my beloved Frye boots was possibly an overhasty move. But they no longer fit comfortably. Since I never have used curlers, I was surprised to find an unused set in the closet: They appeared dated, yet were also quickly claimed.

Conair Curlers Lurking in the Closet

The best gift I received from Buy Nothing, the best possible gift, has been the gift of friendship with a young family. They will move back to their home country in a few months, and we will sorely miss them!

When people ask how we met, the answer is always “through Buy Nothing!” When they first arrived to an empty apartment, they realized that they did not have the IKEA tool necessary to assemble their toddler’s bed. Our house is decorated with a mix of antiques from grandparents and consignment shops, along with “Early IKEA,” purchased twenty plus years ago from the IKEA in Tustin, California.

From the IKEA tool, and a follow up thank you via the Messenger app, a tentative friendship began. I mentioned that I was studying Portuguese when my friend, Anita, said they were here from Brazil. We have no grandchildren, and they have no family in the US, so our intergenerational friendship has grown. We enjoy visits from Caio when his parents are busy. Our basement holds tubs of Duplos, Tinker Toys, Playmobil, and K’Nex, and our bookshelves are full of Dr. Seuss books.

Caio with Tinker Toys

Our friends have had a new family member since their arrival! I had so much fun baking a child’s birthday cake, and bringing out my Tupperware “Cake Taker” for the first time in years for George’s first birthday. He is a little boy now ❤️

Art Classes

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Last April, post-pandemic, I joined an online art class, drawing with pencil and ink. Six weeks later, I enrolled in drawing one morning a week, and watercolor the next. Most students are either professional artists, or started in 2020 at the beginning of the Covid pandemic, so I am truly a novice in this group, and in general.

But I thrive on a challenge, and have nurtured my beginners’ mind. It’s more difficult to be an advanced beginner or an intermediate, so this may simply be laziness on my part! How can I do anything wrong? Well? I’m not that relaxed about it a year later!

The videos of classes are deleted so quickly after being posted, that certain procrastinators never quite watch the full replay, but this evening I managed some relevant parts. Shadows and reflections are so challenging. I am only now learning to see them, and still with difficulty figuring out from whence the light is falling.

Apropos of something entirely different, one of our sons just adopted a dog this past Saturday. This fell on the seventh anniversary of another shelter adoption by another son, which I will write about tomorrow. It ended tragically, and my heart still aches. Our son is trying to decide on a name for the newly adopted dog, and suggested Oslo or Berlin. “Oslo or Berlin? Have you seen Money Heist?” It was one of our favorite Netflix series. “Berlin” was one the best actors in my view. As was Nairobi. I was also a fan of Denver…but that was the name of the dog adopted seven years ago. We may know what the chosen name is tomorrow:-)

Circe learns from Edward Hopper

Above I have posted a photo of my attempt at learning from the great painter, Edward Hopper. His painting is of a farm in South Truro, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, when The Cape was farm country. Happily a barn painting. I love barns, and I ❤️Vermont, but I am happy to try to paint a barn on The Cape. No lighthouses, please! They are so trite. The stuff calendars are made of.

Circe

Physiatrists and Orthopedists

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There is no way I can communicate at any length, with openness, without mentioning my medical issues.

Today I am off to the physiatrists office for a spinal epidural. Last year I had lumbar spine facet joint injections twice. So at least I know the doctor.

At the moment, I am procrastinating, and won’t make it to the appointment on time unless I leave now. Footnote: I was on time. The physician was not….

Some phrases I love in Portuguese and Spanish:

“Estou atrasada, como sempre”⏰

“Un ratito. Estoy casi lista” ⏰

We have devastating weather on top of devastating news. The pathetic fallacy often appears to hold true. The tragedy of World Central Kitchen aid workers killed while delivering food is disabling. Please read Chef José Andrés guest New York Times Opinion essay. He looks for, and calls upon, the best in everyone.

One of our son’s friends from his WCK weeks in Poland was one of the seven aid workers killed yesterday. Our son is planning to sing at a local friend’s funeral this weekend. He will doubtless also hold his Polish friend in his heart as he sings.

In the photos below, I look back upon the time just before Covid. Just typical photos of two tourists in Mexico in March 2020. We stayed at a wonderful Airbnb, but strolled down to a hotel one afternoon.

Circe in San Felipe del Agua, Oaxaca de Juarez
SO in San Felipe del Agua, Oaxaca de Juarez

Hoje vai ser um bom dia

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Studying Brazilian Portuguese is one of my pastimes. More correctly, one of my passions. I’ll have to ask a Brazilian friend how to spell “Puanhol,” i.e., Portuguese mixed with Spanish. Our family speaks a lot of “Swinglish.” (Can you guess which two languages we casually blend?) I’m also working on Latin American Spanish. The city of Oaxaca de Juarez has a hold on our hearts, and we plan to return. Our son and daughter-in-law were engaged in Oaxaca last year 💞

The other day, my phone presented me with a silent challenge: It opened to my translation app, indicating that I should say something in Portuguese to be translated into English: Portuguese 🧿 English. So my first words of the day were “Hoje vai ser um bom dia.” 😃 “Today will be a good day.”

It’s time for my evening lesson now. But like many people learning a language online, I don’t speak enough of any of the languages I am trying to learn. Speaking into the microphone is one way to speak more.

What language(s) are you studying? What have you learned or spoken in your new language today?

I am the one wearing an ACL brace in the photo below.

Hierve el Agua, Oaxaca de Juarez

April 1

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Retired. Retired is a term that applies to people of a certain age. The elders in our family range from 86 to ninety, so they do not think of themselves as retired, nor would anyone think to inquire. Their project is to have as much fun as possible.

Since I never worked in the corporate world, and my only full time position was as a parent, retirement crept up on me. Retired from what, exactly?

I had several careers, which I may dissect at a later date. But today I am here to remark upon my somewhat new status. I have not responded to the last two requests to work as a tutor of English for our local school district. The hourly fee is fair enough, but engaging with guidance counselors is generally painful. I found it to be so in high school, and though there are exceptions, I find it so today. In addition to corresponding with counselors, the school tutor must correspond with teachers, parents, and school administrators. Interacting with the students themselves is often delightful and rewarding. But being paid one hour for every four or five worked is unrewarding, and even a bit offensive. I suggested free lessons at our public library to a neighbor I was tutoring in ESL. Tutoring ESL to an adult involved intercultural exchange of ideas, and I do wish we had continued.

But I am so busy! No, I am neither a grandparent, nor am I a frequent world traveler. So how do I keep so busy and largely satisfied with my own company during the days?

Read on, tomorrow!

Sketch by Circe