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Woke up yesterday on Yom Kippur and looked out at the blue San Francisco bay. Pelicans and seagulls flew past my window. And out in the water was a long pier where people walked to the end and turned around to come back. In the foreground stood Treasure Island and in the background the global economic crisis. Deep breath. I went for a walk along the Embarcadero to gather my wits and think about the…
I sat tonight at a bar in San Francisco and finally had dinner – I was leaning towards low blood sugar that accompanies some of my trips – and a woman who sat next to me, who had lost recently, like the rest of us, some of her retirement portfolio said she was “proud of her company” because in 2006 when they were set to have their annual conference of 900 people, they decided to…
Good lord – arrived in San Francisco and rented a car since it seemed like the better way to go then cabbing and turns out to park the damn car cost as much as to rent it – after being accosted by homeless people in the Safeway parking lot at Portrero Hill where I stopped to get water, I was outraged when the hotel told me that $40 was the going rate here in the…
Yesterday it was 99 degrees in El Lay, today it was 94 – yikes! – I was meeting someone who was two hours late because they got trapped due to simultaneous scenarios occurring on Highway 143 and Highway 2 – one had a gang killing of motorcyclist and the other a car chase, which closed both highways and forced drivers into a two-hour surface commute as temperatures spiked in the 90s. And New Orleans thought…
This was my affirmation today – now, mind you, I like it – and maybe it is befitting these heavy duty times – but geez Louise, who had the energy to write it this morning is what I want to know: Daily Affirmation October 8, 2008 I know that every apparent death is a resurrection; therefore, gladly I die to everything that is unlike the good. Joyfully I am resurrected into that which is beautiful,…
The four hour plane ride from New Orleans to Los Angeles last night was punctuated by a toddler who began wailing at take off and did not stop for one tiny second until we landed in LAX. I woke this morning to a toddler screaming at the top of his lungs in the hotel room next door and right now, nearly four hours later, the crying has not abated. Lord have mercy.
T was reading me a passage about language and the metaphor was used about animal sounds in the forest, where a bird takes flight that you don’t see but only hear, like words unspoken. It was such a beautiful metaphor. The power of language is so incredibly strong: a turn of tongue can excite a lover while it can hurt a friend – a misunderstanding can plant seeds of doubt or hope – the failure…
I woke this morning to palm trees and a hazy sunrise – must be El Lay. I turned twice in the bed to get my bearings and realized I was not home because there was no Bam Bam, the shim sham man meowing to get out the door, there was no Arlene the Bean skating around the hardwood floors looking for a place to stand, and no sounds of Loca lowing in her kennel and…
I was making my way through the security line at the New Orleans Airport and the TSA guard was unusually jocular and entertaining. The lady in front was going to Pennsylvania and he said something to her about a long way to go for not much. When I got up to him, he looked at my boarding pass and with furrowed brow he said, “El Lay? But why?”
These are definitely some interesting times. I think about the 80s, when my brother was called a criminal genius by Forbes for his participation in the Savings and Loan scandal. I think about the 90’s and facing 20 year olds driving Hummers and buying up real estate for millions of dollars more than it was worth and then the subsequent collapse – the dot.com bomb. Here we are in the 2000s and has the party…