Lists Are Good

I made a list today and did most of the things on it.

Some are done:

• I copied some pages from The Camp of the Saints √ - a book supposedly on Steve Bannon's must-read list.  The library was saying I couldn't renew it.  I'd been taking notes, for a blog post, but I just couldn't finish it.  Partly because it's so disgusting.  Partly because I was reading it carefully so I could blog about.  Copying pages I'd put into my notes means I can find the quotes I want when I'm ready to post about it.  I then took it and three other books back to the library.√  
• I got the hoses out in the front√ and the back√.  Washed down the chaise lounge (not on the list, but should have been), and watered the flower beds in front√ and some in back√.  I also swept the cottonwood catkins off the deck twice.  (That wasn't on the list).  
• I picked up the seedlings we'd left with friends while we were gone.√  
• I called a couple of folks ☐☐ about things I need to do, but I had to leave messages, so they're still hanging.  (I use those little boxes to mark things I did, but didn't get completed.  I'd made the calls, but had to leave messages.  So not really settled.)
• I recorded a statement for an insurance company about an accident I witnessed Wednesday afternoon in Alameda, California.  Our friends were showing us this little island in San Francisco Bay that used to have a navy and army base.  We heard a bang.  Across the street a car had pulled out of a parking space and hit a car that was passing by.  I left my card with the driver of the car that was hit and told him I'd seen it if he needed a witness.  The insurance company called.  I realized, as she asked me questions, how little I had paid attention.  I'd focused on the key aspects - the fact that car had pulled out and hit a passing car - but I couldn't tell her what street it was, what kind of cars were involved.  That wasn't on my list either.  
• I didn't call the IRS, but I called my mother's accountant √ to let him know I'd gotten a letter saying there was a discrepancy in her 2014 income taxes.  That was the year that deductions for the caregiver got messed up and it took me over a year of monthly phone calls to the IRS and help from the Alaska IRS ombudsman to clear things up.  I didn't call the IRS because I couldn't find all the forms from that year.  I'd finally put them away, thinking that horror was behind me.  Apparently it isn't.  Calling the IRS was on the list.  Instead I went through files looking for the forms and instead I found other stuff that had been dumped in the file cabinet.  Sorting that stuff wasn't on the list.  

Lists do focus me and tend to keep me from forgetting all the things I'm supposed to do.  And from getting distracted with things not on the list.  And checking things off the list is a good feeling.  I get to see all that one did in a day and don't feel that I totally wasted the day.  Getting a blog post up wasn't on the list.  Maybe I thought I'd have the Camp of The Saints post ready.  No, I knew that would take longer.

This Is Hopeless

Or so I think.  Then I plow on.

Back cleaning out my mom's house.  We're trying to get it rentable by Thursday.  The bar is pretty low, but I think we'll have to come back and do more.  But I'm getting more ruthless about throwing things away.  But what do you do with things like this?

Actually, that's fairly easy.  It will go into one of the boxes headed to the thrift shop.  But old letter and photos, jewelry, watches, and stuff.  Pictures on the wall.  The realtor helping to rent the place thinks we shouldn't leave any pictures up we wouldn't want to lose.  And there are a few.

So blogging is a low priority at the moment.

At least we can put things we can't decide on into the garage.

But I'm guessing we'll be back in a month to do more.

Not complaining, just thinking out loud.  My mom cleaned up my messes often enough, so turnabout is only fair.  She has given us a lot, and throwing things away was painful for her.

Clutter Wars: Mom Liked Pussy Willows, Files, Neighborhood Clutter

My mom's house and garage are a great stimulus to clean out our own stuff and we're working on it daily.  But the inflow of paper courtesy of the US mail makes it a never ending process.

But then there's stuff that has meaning.  For instance, my mom loved pussy willows and had bunches of dried pussy willows in vases around the house when she died.  My heartless friends saved me lots of agonizing decision making by glaring at me and pointing to the garden recycling bin in LA.  (Thank you, really.)

But as I wandered our snow free yard recently, I couldn't help but break off some fresh pussy willows.  There's a reason my mom like them.





So I put them in a vase in the bathroom.



Then I saw the little glass bowl where I've put the even littler blue velvet bag with some of my mom's ashes.  Since my mom like the pussy willows, I thought I'd put her next to them.

I understand this could seem rather bizarre, but having a bit of my mom nearby gives me some sense of normalcy, that she's still around.  I can share things with her that she would like.  Fortunately, I have no sense of her being there when I wouldn't want her watching me.   She always gave me lots of space and freedom and never guilted me over things.  That was a great gift.

As I said, I've been tackling old paperwork, sorting through files upon files.  One pile is for direct transit to the recycling bin.  (I've been removing this pile before getting more files, so there was a lot more than just this.)  Another pile has to be shredded first - anything with identifiers, particularly social security numbers.

As you can see in the picture, there are a lot of empty folders too.  Some go to recycling, some I might reuse.

And there are things to sort through more carefully.  For instance, I found a small envelope from my father with a handwritten label, "Some poetry Steve might enjoy reading."   There's insight to parts of my father's life we never discussed when he was alive.  And then there's a poem called "Heimweh."  Only the title is in German (it means homesick).  It's about suddenly thinking about his childhood home and how it made him cry..  (His aunt in Chicago helped him secure a visa so he could flee Nazi Germany, but he was never able to secure visas to get his parents out.)   The last stanza gives some justification for keeping some of this stuff.

"I shed my tears in agony
for I was mourning,
      but in vain,
since all the world that
      used to be
will never be again"

My father lives here still with me, through his poems, his old letters, some of his things and documents.  This document was in the same folder with the poems.

It fills in bits and pieces of his life I knew very little about.  This was in files I'd glanced through after he died and knew enough to keep for sorting later.  Later is here, I guess.  It's back into another keep and look through later pile.  But I'm getting rid of a lot of the stuff that is just taking up room.  And while the historian/archeologist in me would keep all the old income tax folders and checkbooks, because they do document the times I lived and how we spent money and how much things cost, my mom's garage screams out at me to just shred it.  

Here's the nearly empty file cabinet where all this came from.  There are some folders I still need to go through and sort more carefully, but this does feel like I've accomplished something.







And then I walked around the block to get some fresh air and was reminded that my clutter level wasn't all that bad.







Here's the house that burned last month.

And here's another neighbor's backyard.  

And front yard.





Stuff!!  Glad I don't have to clean out their yard and house.

Clutter Wars Report

Here's the garage yesterday.  I'm sure it looks hopeless to most of you.  But I have to tell you that since August, we've gotten probably 50-60% of the stuff in the garage (by volume) out.  To anyone who was in the garage a year ago, this is an enormous improvement.  But this is also why I feel like for every bag of stuff we take to the thrift shop, throw out, or give away, it feels like two more reappear in the garage.

Here's just one of many car fulls of stuff headed for the nearby thrift shop.

  

And here's the line up waiting for Monday trash day.  Fortunately, my mom's neighbors don't fill up their garbage cans very much and they are more than happy to let me use them.  In LA, I found out that styrofoam and shredded paper can go in the recycling bin.  The latter if it's in a plastic bag so it doesn't fly all over when they dump it all into the truck.

And then there are all the interesting things we've been finding.  Some are treasures like my brothers old record albums.  These and a bunch of others have been in a box on an upper shelf in the back in the garage for probably almost 40 years.  I'm looking forward to getting them home to the turntable.  

And this chess table was stored in a box with the legs detached.  And yes, I've done some photoshopping with a few of the images in this post.  

Or this 1930 school photo of my step-father's class in Germany.  The photo is getting a little funky, but it's really sharp - at least in the original.  If you click the photo it will get bigger and sharper, but still not as good as the original.

This one is 13 years later after he's immigrated to the US and getting ready to go back to Europe, but this time in a US military uniform.  It says on the picture, in part,  "the 8th Medical Training Regiment in Camp Grant, Illinois, August 1943."  I could even find him in the picture.  This is a small portion of the long panorama shot and the sharpness in the original is amazing.  

I found other photos of his time in the army and letters commending him for his work.  Since he spoke fluent English, German, and French, I'm sure he was useful when the US got into France and then Germany.  

And then there are the stranger things like this bathrobe I found.  At least that's what I thought it was at first, though it seemed pretty heavy for a bathrobe.  Then I looked at the label.

It says:

COVERALLS, COOLING, ROCKET
FUEL HANDLER'S 

WEAR OVER COVERALLS, ROCKET FUEL
HANDLERS, VINYL COATED, TO PREVENT
OVERHEATING OF BODY.
DO NOT SHORTEN LEGS OR SLEEVES BY CUFFING.
KEEP SOAKED WITH WATER TO GET MAXIMUM
EVAPORATION FOR COOLING
PUT ON OVER PROTECTIVE FOOTWEAR.
IF CORROSIVE AGENTS ARE SPILLED OVER
SUIT GET UNDER SHOWER IMMEDIATELY.
USE LARGE QUANTITIES OF WATER, IF SUIT
IS DAMAGED EXCHANGE FOR NEW SUIT.
AFTER USING RINSE SUIT THOROUGHLY
AND HANG UP TO DRY.

I couldn't tell you how it got into my mom's garage.  I don't know of any rocket fuel handlers in the family.

We have Anchorage friends who will stay in the house for the next three months - they have a new grandchild who lives a few miles away and will play Mary Poppins for a while.  So we'll get as much done as we can in the next few days, and then tackle it again in the spring.  

Getting Things Done Part 2: The Unexpected

We discovered that we had come home to a leaking water heater.   This fits yesterday's unexpected tasks.  Things that sneak up on you unexpectedly. 

The plumber came out and we're finally just going to toss the Amtrol (this is the 3rd or 4th one - after the first one exploded, they've given us new ones when we had problems) and go to a totally different company.  This water heater thing has been a multi-year failed attempt to get something done - get the shower water to not drop 10 degrees after two minutes in the shower.  One company cost us a ton of money as they tried this and that to fix it.  Whatever they did then led to the furnace shutting down on its own and not starting up again without help.  Eventually we got a new company and the guy fixed the furnace shutting down problem in 30 minutes.  But the hot water for the shower didn't get fixed.

The guy who came today, K, sounds like he knows what he's doing.  He's already diagnosed the shower problem and thinks he can fix it.  He pointed to a cold water pipe that starts adding water to the shower water.  He even tested it by having me turn on the bathtub water.  No hype.  Modest and straightforward.  Enough grey hairs to suggest he's got experience. 

But it will be an all day job and there wasn't enough time today to finish.  And we'd be out of hot water for the weekend.  So he's coming back Tuesday.  Meanwhile it's dripping - from the bolts on the bottom.  I'm hopeful. 

Meanwhile, another unexpected problem has been solved well.  Our internet speed was slow on tests so I called ACS and they tested it and agreed.  The solution was to get a new modem and a shorter telephone outlet cord.  So the new modem includes a router.  So we went from this:

to this:

This definitely simplifies our life by getting rid of all that stuff and replacing it with just this one small item and two cords.  And the speed is back up where it belongs.  This was very satisfying. 

These are two long term fixes - that is, you get them done right and you don't have to mess with them for a long time.  And I'm sure hoping our water heater blues are over. 

Getting Things Done

We got back early this morning.  Alaska Airline's 20 minute baggage guarantee meant that we were home less than 30 minutes after we left the plane.  I remember days past when it took over an hour for suitcases to show up on the luggage carousel. 

Our house sitter left a beautifully clean house, all the plants thriving, and a beautiful offering of fresh vegetables.

I looked into the fridge to see what  I needed to put on the shopping list.  It was pretty empty.  A good time to go through and see what needed to be thrown out.   And as I did that I realized I needed to take everything out and do some cleaning. [No pictures, too embarrassing.]



 And I started sorting the mail.  

 And as I did that I was thinking of all the things we have to do while we're home - for here, with my mom's stuff, and just generally, to regroup after these two years of monthly trips to see my mom.  Getting back a rhythm for getting things done.  Not just the basics, but to move ahead.
 

I'd been thinking about a post on this idea already and this seemed like a good time to make a start.  It just seemed to me that there were things we do that have to be done over and over again.  And there are things we do that settle some issue and let us move on.  So here's a first stab at figuring that out.  Any suggestions warmly accepted.  


Things we must and should do

1.  Regular tasks  (you do them and they need to be done again)
1. Things that you  do regularly (daily to weekly)
1. brush teeth
2. make dinner 
3. take out trash
2.  Things that you do regularly (monthly)
1. pay bills
2. clean the refrigerator
3.  Things that you do regularly (annually)
1. go on vacation
2. clean the garage
3. service the car 
2.  Irregular Tasks  (you do them and they are taken care of for a long time)
1. Remodel the kitchen
2. Have a wedding or just a dinner party
3. Find a new job
3.  Unexpected Tasks (they happen and interrupt your routine)
1. Breakdowns that need repairs - cars, machines, houses, computers, etc.
2. Serious health emergency
3.  Relationship change - death, breakup/divorce, infidelity, birth
4.  Changes that move you to a better place
1. I think this overlaps with #2 and probably #3, I need to figure these out more.

 
It seems for the regular tasks, it's best to find routines so these get done quickly without having to spend much time thinking about them.  The other tasks are often difficult because they are new and we don't know how to get started.  But nowadays anything can be figured out with google.  You can just get a list of steps for how to do pretty much anything.

The other thing I did along these lines was try to make a list of all the different areas of my life that need my attention.  It reminded me that I probably have too many different areas and I'll need to pull back in some and then set priorities in the remaining ones.  What's most important?  After spending a week with my granddaughter (I'm not allowed to post pictures here and telling you how smart and funny she is would sound like typically biased grandfatherly opinion) I'm reminded how important the family category is.

I know that when the number of things I want to do starts to exceed greatly what I actually get done, my mental well being suffers.  Writing everything down and figuring out how much time things will take and how much time there actually is tends to have a calming effect.  Usually I find out things aren't as overwhelming as they seem.  And I can prioritize what things are most important and what things can be abandoned, and that helps avoid all the time temptresses that urge me to do something totally off my list that won't get me where I want to go. 




OK, now I have to go do the shopping.  And I also have on my list to begin the sourdough starter that's critical to all the recipes in the new bread making book I got last month.  I know, this is not something I need to do, but making bread is so satisfying and fresh bread makes a great gift when you visit. 
 

'How important is it for hoarders to address the psychological underpinnings of their condition before cleaning up?"

The LA Times had an interview with, among other things, author Barry Yourgrau, about his book,
"Mess: One Man's Struggle to Clean Up His House and His Act" while I was working on cleaning up my mom's place.  His response to the title question:

"Addressing the psychological aspect is always essential.  I'd say, as part of any cleaning up.  Hoarding a clutter often become acute after trauma;  the objects are a buffer against the pain.  This was the case for me.  So one needs to peel away of-so-carefully.  And people hang on to emotions as much as objects [and] are unable to face the pain of letting go of either.  This is deep-rooted stuff."

This is just one of many, many similar drawers.


To be fair, my mom lived in the same house for 59 years.  And she knew where things were. If anyone moved things around, she wouldn't any more.  There were enough times when I'd ask for something and she'd tell me exactly where it was.  

Trying to group similar things together.  Here it's scissor like items plus that lamp that didn't fit anywhere else.  

When I'd ask if I could throw some things out, she'd say, "You can do what you want when I'm gone, but not now."  There were a few times when I got her to sit in the garage and go through old boxes with me and allow me to throw some things out.  

I brought this tiny book with me to Seattle to give to my granddaughter, but the pages started to fall out.

This recent trip we managed to get about ten big garbage bags to the thrift shop.  We filled the garbage cans and used a couple of the extra garbage tags I got for $2 each from the city sanitation service. 

Before there was Dilbert . . .










I also got rid of some things through freecycle.org  a website where you can advertise things for free, including things like opened shampoo bottles. 

 This dried fuchsia fell out of a book.

But there was something of the hoarder in my mom.  There were a number of deep seated issues that would have contributed to that.  She lost pretty much everything when she left Germany alone as a 17 year old.  Some family things her brother had gotten out of Germany when he left, but most of the family's possessions never made it out.  Nor did her parents.  While she used that to teach me that things were not important when I was a kid, I suspect that what items from her childhood that did survive the move to the US and eventually California had very great value. 

I'm sure this book had belonged to my step-father.



She also lost a 23 year old son in an accident and the things in his room were always untouchable.

Another factor was that as a child in post-WW I Germany, things were scarce and so lights were never left on if no one was in the room and water wasn't left running while you brushed your teeth and everything that could be recycled somehow was.  Waste was bad.  So throwing things out if they might be used sometime in the future was hard.  This was much more exaggerated in her later years.

So I understand some of those deep seated issues that kept this all around and as we go through it, I don't resent it.  My mom did lots for me and this is the least I can do.  And I get new connections to her and others in the things I'm finding.    

So if clutter is an issue for you, be sure to read the interview.  (He distingishes between cluttering and hoarding.)

Work, Then Play

Spent the morning on the phone doing things like negotiating with Verizon to put my mom's  tv on hold, but keeping the phone and internet.  Cell phone reception in here is terrible and I need the internet when we're here.  Also cancelled her supplemental insurance and arranged for reimbursement for the two months they've taken through their 'easy pay' system.  I don't like any system where someone else is taking money out of my account until I say stop.  Also stopped by the bank to give them some more paperwork.  Everyone was very polite and helpful, which makes it easier to go on and do the rest of these chores. 

We had lunch with friends and then started the second attack on my mom's room.  We made the first attack last July before we left, but there is still so much we hadn't seen yet.  Like this self-defense tear gas permit.  Never knew she had this.

Also found an old invitation to a baby shower for my wife.  And lots of purses and necklaces.  And pens.   Readers, recycling and reusing are both great, but if you haven't used it in the last five years, consider starting the process of giving away, selling, or tossing.  Rubber bands, I've learned, have a short shelf life.  Paper clips last much longer. 

I didn't mention it's hot in LA.  And it's humid.  Hot and humid didn't use to happen in LA.  And it's supposed to be warmer for the next two days.  I was feeling sticky most of the day and needed a break. 

We got to the beach just as the sun was going down. 


I went down and tested the water.  It's almost always chilly when you do that here in LA, but after you catch the first wave, it's fine.  This time it felt only refreshingly cool.  So I got rid of my shirt and watch and went to get unstickied.  It was fantastic.  The surf was not very big and just rolled gently down.  Easy to catch, and even though it was breaking close to sure, it was just deep enough not to scrape the sand.  Body surfing a few waves was heaven. 

I watched others enjoying the small, but catchable surf  as I dried off.

Then before it got much darker,  we walked back to La Fiesta Brava for a little Mexican food.

Now, let's see how my Achilles tendon reacts to the sand walking and sandals.  It's been fine for a couple of months now.  No problems walking, though I still know it's there, and I'm not running yet.  That may be a thing of the past. 

Tomorrow more garbage bags to give away and throw away, plus consolidating the things to keep this round in smaller piles. 

Going Through The Old Liquor Cabinet - Mumms, Peter Heering, Vandermint, and Tawny Port

There were some old photo albums in the living room that I hadn't put back in the hall closet last time we were visiting my mom.  But to put them back I had to make room.  I did this by pulling out some old boxes that had alcohol in them.  Old champagne, tawny port, vermouth.  I'm not a drinker.  I drink a beer now and then and I like a good glass of wine, but I never really got into hard liquor.  Well, all the Mekhong - a common Thai whiskey - that was forced on me when I was a Peace Corps volunteer so many years ago, when I would, to be culturally open, say yes to anything, probably cured me of wanting hard liquor. 



I started googling how long champagne and the other bottles are good for.  The answers I found online suggest things are still drinkable but not in their prime.




From For The Love Of Port:

How long do I cellar Vintage and other styles of port?

Vintage Ports typically need at least 15 years to start reaching maturity. The top Vintage Ports can easily last 30-100+ years if stored properly.
Late Bottle Vintage Ports that are filtered are not meant to be aged. So there is no reason to do so. Unfiltered LBV’s generally will start showing their best at around 10+ years of age. Generally, they are not designed to be aged beyond 20 years, with a few exceptions.
Tawny Port with an Indication of Age is not meant to age in bottle. This type of Port group is usually best when consumed closer to the date of bottling.

This all led to another cabinet that was full of a wide variety of bottles.  I offered my mom a couple of sips of the Vandermint.  And she seemed to really enjoy it.  The fragrance lingered most of the night around the dining room table.  I found this description at This Next:

"Few things are as obscure and good as Vandermint: the chocolate and mint liqueur from Holland. You might not take milk glass-like bottle seriously but the contents will surpise and likely amaze. Unlike its lesser mint & chocolate counterparts this elixir is smooth, rich, creamy and alluring - all without being milky, syrupy sweet or heavy in any way. Dont be fooled, this is a serious drink with refined taste. If you want alcohol steeped candy, look elsewhere. A few sips and you'll be solving the world's problems from your sofa throne in no time at all."

After reading that, I guess I better try some before I go to bed tonight.

When I looked up the Peter Heering Liqueur, I learned this history about the Singapore Sling (which I'd known about, and I think actually have had one in my younger days.)  From Heering.com:

The Singapore Sling was created at Raffles Hotel at the turn-of-the-century by Hainanese-Chinese bartender mr Ngiam Tong Boon. Till today, in the Hotel’s museum, visitors may view the safe in which Mr Ngiam locked away his precious recipe books, as well as the Sling recipe hastily jotted down on a bar-chit in 1936 by a visitor to the Hotel who asked the waiter for it. Mr Ngiam Tong Boon concocted the very first coctail to achieve global fame by mixing 30 ml gin, 15 ml Heering Cherry Liqueur, 120 ml pineapple juice, 15 ml lime juice, 7.5 ml Cointreau, 7.5 ml Dom Benedictine, 10 ml Grenadine and a dash of Angostura Bitters. Shaken not stirred, served on ice in a cocktail glass.

Somewhere I have a slide of the Raffles Hotel from 1968 or 69, and a more recent one - it didn't look at all the same - from when I visited my son in 2008.

 One more thing.  Does anyone have any idea what this item is for.  I've photoshopped two views into this one image.  One of the excuses I've used to get my mom to allow me to go through the stuff in the closets now, is so that she can explain things.  But she didn't know what this was either. 

Pre-Checked Through Security - So Much Easier

Well, actually, there was only one other person in the regular line.  But not having to take off my shoes, or take my computer out, or my toothpaste was nice.  We didn't even have to put our hands over our heads, just through the old security walk through. 

And it made me think how when the pain is reduced, it feels good, even if it is still a pain.  There was a time when your friends and family could walk you to the gate or wait for you there as you got off the plane. 

Back in those days, they fed you on the plane and there was leg room.  BUT, and a big BUT, people could smoke on the plane.  So awful.  Even when the put the smokers in the back it was still awful.  

We checked in four pieces today.  Part of the clutter war - taking our daughter's old things still stored in our garage.  Mostly books.  And some baby stuff from friends who's kids are a little older. 

Our houseguest has gotten comfortable in the house.  What a pleasure to have him.  When he's home for dinner, he won't let us clear the table or wash the dishes.  Sometimes I actually like to do those kinds of mindless tasks, but I can get used to this. 

We'll see our daughter and granddaughter and the guys in a few hours.  So I better post this.  Enjoy the weekend.  It's warmed back up into the twenties here in Anchorage and it's mostly cloudy, but I can see blue and it's not raining or snowing. 

Clutter War - Recapturing Old Territory For T

Monday T moved in.  He's a teacher at the Confucius Institute at UAA.  He's a warm, curious, bright, and funny young man.  An ulterior motive was that we'd have to totally reclaim the downstairs storage room, a battle, without a strong motive, we had been losing for ten years. 

Here's an image I posted in December.

December 20, 2013

And here's what the room looked like on Sunday. 

January 26, 2014

And now we have to learn how to adjust to having a new member of the household.  But he's making that very easy so far.  And we have to decide how much of a role he'll play on the blog here.  He decided he liked having a photoshopped mask like I've been using on my granddaughter.

1972 - The Book

Here's a transcript of Nixon talking to Haldeman that came in an emailed promo on 1972  [the real title I think is The Nixon Tapes] from the Richard Nixon tape archives.

December 14, 1972

President Nixon and Bob Haldeman, Oval Office 1:05 p.m.

Audio: http://bit.ly/1hJikFG

Haldeman: There are a lot of good stories from the first term.

Nixon: A book should be written, called “1972.”

Haldeman: Yeah.

Nixon: That would be a hell of a good book. And somebody should have thought of it. It should, you know, that should be on its way. And it should either be a monograph or a book. You get in China, you get in Russia, you get in May 8^th, and you get in the election. And it’s a hell of a damn year. That’s what I would write as a book. “1972,” period.

1972 was a big year for me.  I celebrated my first wedding anniversary, we spent the summer in our VW camper wandering through Mexico, British Honduras, and Guatemala.  I was in my second semester as a graduate student in at USC.  I remember the summer before in our first big summer camping adventure driving through Idaho in the evening alongside a river as President Nixon announced on the radio that he was going to China.  I had to stop the car to be sure of what I heard.  It was such an unexpected and incredible announcement.   And a day before [a couple of days after (never totally trust your memory)] my son was born, in 1974, Nixon resigned.  And that's the day they're releasing the book.

Out of SE Asia Now Protest- around 1972 - LA

I'm not sure how I got on the mailing list - maybe I looked through the Nixon tapes archive online for this blog once - and I don't normally pass on these kinds of things.  But this one promises to fill in some gaps in what I knew at the time.   Nixon is one of those great Shakespearian figures - so flawed yet also doing great things,  like going to China.  And flawed as he was, divided as the country was over the war, Republicans and Democrats in Congress socialized, worked together, and got things done.



The clutter war is going well enough that I was able to find, without much trouble, this photo I took around 1972 of an anti-war demonstration in Los Angeles.

Here's what else they say about this book:

Our book will not rehash old stories. It will be the first to put a substantial quantity of the Nixon tapes within easy reach of the public, focusing on the major foreign policy achievements of 1972: 1) the opening to China, 2) reducing Cold War tensions with the Soviet Union, and 3) ending the Vietnam War and bringing our POWs home.

Here's a bit about author Luke Nichter from his website.

Luke’s current book project is The Nixon Tapes, co-authored with Douglas Brinkley, to be published in 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to coincide with the 40^th anniversary of Richard Nixon’s resignation (August 9, 2014). He is also currently revising a book manuscript tentatively titled Richard Nixon and Europe, based on multilingual research in 16 archives in six countries. Luke is finishing work on a series of book-length presidential biographies for Nova's First Men, America's Presidents series, including volumes on George W. Bush (2012), Lyndon B. Johnson (2013), and Richard M. Nixon (2014). 

Luke is a former founding Executive Producer of C-SPAN's American History TV, which debuted in 2010 and is seen in approximately 41 million homes on C-SPAN3. There, he created programs such as "American Artifacts," a weekly series that takes viewers behind the scenes to museums, archives, and historic sites to see items they would not normally be able to see.

Anyone asking "What happened on May 8, 1972?"  From Day In History:

Vietnam War – U.S. President Richard M. Nixon announces his order to place mines in major North Vietnamese ports in order to stem the flow of weapons and other goods to that nation. 

I guess he still thought he was going to win the war.

2014 New Year's Res: Can Terror Management Lead to Better Time Management?

I used to be phenomenally well organized.  But after I retired I decided to become, not disorganized, but more like non-organized.  That led to occasional missed meetings and things not getting done (like the clutter room downstairs) and I learned to not worry about such things. 

But I do have to get that downstairs room cleaned up - we have someone moving into it in February - and I'm going to be teaching a class at UAA in the spring and that means deadlines I have to meet for the students' sakes.  Plus this blog has - so it tells me - 4387 published posts and 183 unpublished drafts.  I need to do some housekeeping here. I want to give readers better guidance to what's here.  What can I do with the redistricting posts?  What about the notes to readers that need updating?  And there are some academic articles to finish up and submit.

I can do this.  I know how.  But being non-organized for the last six or seven years has also helped me understand those of my students who could never get their work in on time.

I was already thinking about this when I heard the NPR piece on the tikker this morning.  A Swedish guy has created a wristwatch that tells you how much time you have until you die.  That's supposed to be a reminder to use the time you have on things you really want to do.  That's how I'd use it.  But the piece cited terror management experts who said that thinking about death makes people xenophobic.  I don't think that would be a problem for me, since I think of myself as part of the human tribe.

I don't usually do New Year's resolutions and this isn't so much of a resolution as a decision and the new year is a good time to start. 

Anyone else resolving things?  Don't worry if you're not.  Have a great new year's eve and day and may you enjoy the beauty around you in 2014.  It's there if you look. 

Clutter War: Happy Birthday Glen

Today, the floor is more cluttered, but the closet is emptier.  This is the room that has served as our staging area.  This first happened ten years ago when we were gone for a year and rented out the house and used this room to store things we didn't want to leave out.  Since then, this is the room we put things that we don't need elsewhere or just want to hide when people come over.  I've had pictures of this room up before - use the label clutter war.  But we're having someone move in with us for a year in February and so this room has to be habitable.  

Some things are easy:  boxes of stuff quickly thrown in here without too much review.  I'm able to go through some boxes and get rid of most things - either trash or find a way to recycle.  The Arc called and took stuff away this week already.  But other things - like the 30 year old art work from my daughter I posted the other day - is more difficult.

And so is this:

My brother died in a work accident in August 1975 when my son was just a year old.  I hadn't seen this letter for years.  So this goes into one of the caches of letters from family and friends.  This is not something people of the future will have to worry much about.  Most everything today is electronic and searchable.  But there is something about holding this envelope that Glen held, wrote on, with a stamp that he licked.

Oh, and today, December 20 would be his 61st birthday.  Happy Birthday Glen, wherever you are.  We've missed you terribly all these years. 







By the way, here's a picture of this room cluttered and cleaned back in 2010.

Clutter War: How Do I Throw These Things Away?

The Film Festival is pretty much over - just a couple best of the fest nights. 
Time to get back to normal life.  Our film maker guest departed last night. But we've got a Chinese teacher who's going to move in soon and his room has been our storage closet. 

So I went down to get something done there.  But much of what is stuffed in the closet is stuff that has already been sorted and retained two or three times already.  How do I throw this stuff away:

Click to Make Clear

  Here's the front - a porcupine.

Here's the back:

Do I need to keep this?  Of course not.  But how can I toss it?  Especially as I watch the little girl who made it raise her own daughter now? 

And this calendar will be good again in . . . 2040.  If I'd have cleaned this stuff earlier, I could have used it in 2112.

Garden Tour, Lavatera, Spenard, and Corn

Sunday was the Anchorage Garden Club's Annual City Garden Tour.  This is always a delightful affair, a chance to discover hidden neighborhoods, and  wander through people's gardens, ask questions, and dream about the possibilities of your own garden. 


[NOTE:  Click to enlarge and sharpen any photo.]



The first garden we saw was in the heart of Spenard.  I have to give the Garden Club credit.  Snootier clubs would have never chosen this garden.  But it was the quintessential Spenard garden - flowers and junk.  A plastic flamingo and a bald eagle on top of a metal flag pole.   Of course, junk is a subjective term.  But how many garden clubs do you think would include a garden that had this next to the driveway?

But this is so Spenard.















Since four of the five gardens (seemed a low number this year) were close to Turnagain Road, we biked over there in the beautiful, warm sunshine.

This was the back yard of one of the Turnagain gardens.  They had bright pink flowers that looked something like hibiscus and I learned they were lavatera.

Here's more detail from malvaceae.info:

"Lavatera is a genus within the family Malvaceae, which also includes, inter alia, Althaea, Abutilon, Gossypium, Hibiscus, Malva and Sidalcea, and is particularly close to Malva. The 20-25 species of Lavatera have a broadly Mediterranean distribution, stretching to southwest Britain, the Canary Is., Abyssinia, Central Asia and Kashmir, with outlying species in Australia (Lavatera plebeia), California (Lavatera assurgentiflora, Lavatera insularis, Lavatera lindsayi, Lavatera occidentalis and Lavatera venosa), and eastern Siberia.

Lavateras are annual, biennial or short-lived perennial herbs and sub-shrubs. The flowers are pink to purple, or white, or yellow in some forms of Lavatera triloba. The stems and foliage are typically downy or hairy. The fruits consist of a divided capsule containing a ring of nutlets."

 

This window box of flowers nearby was probably my favorite spot on the tour.  It just worked beautifully.  

The last house was near the Coastal trail, which we got off at Arctic to find some dinner.  

 



These corn plants were growing in the two inch crack between the asphalt and the building.  Corn is usually iffy in Anchorage, but this is an exceptionally warm summer and this south facing wall is probably five or ten degrees warmer yet.  There were a few big ears getting close to ripe.   This wasn't part of the garden tour, but it should have been.

There was one more garden on the tour, but it was in South Anchorage and we started late.