Street people

Speaking of the long-term unemployed, the ups and downs (mostly downs) of our economy are probably not of much interest to the truly long-term unemployed, those poor souls who have been on the streets for years, usually due to mental illness and addiction. Over the years I've become accustomed to some of them - I see them every day, as they seem to keep to similar schedules. For example, this fellow pushes his dog down the sidewalk in a baby stroller along Market Street at the same time almost every evening, as I walk toward the train station. Here he is with his placard asking for money.

Then there is the 51-Year-Old Veteran who is trying to collect enough money to get to the VA hospital. It's a pretty good pitch, except that he's been accosting folks on Market Street with the exact same story for the last 8 years - the age never changes. "Excuse me, ma'am, I'm a 51-year-old veteran . . ." He never seems to remember anyone, so he has been telling the same story to the same people for years and years.

I don't have any answers. It's all sad.

"Job searching is not dissimilar to living Bill Murray's life in Groundhog Day."

A collection of good (by which I mean sad and heartbreaking) responses to Derek Thompson's call for readers to respond to what it's like to be looking for work.

I have experienced this situation second-hand. Neil has been out of work for more than a year now, but he has a temp job lined up, starting next week. Tim has had inadequate part-time jobs for several years.

It's tiring. And the thing is, we are actually in a pretty good spot - the story of the guy from Louisiana at the link is really sad.

Update: here's an interesting (but also sad) site on the same topic, Down But Not Out.

Beautiful, beautiful weather

The days after a big storm are usually great. Not just by comparison - this was some seriously wonderful weather. Not my favorite, which is in the sixties and slightly breezy - but really beautiful.

I walked around the city on my lunch hour, and saw Penn students still moving in. Move-in days were officially last week, but you can still see people pushing those big cardboard boxes on wheels down the sidewalk.

I took a picture of a Toynbee tile, which reminds me that crazy people are all around (and usually harmless).

I like the ephemera on the streets, and also the objects that seem much more permanent.

Nothing is more ephemeral than beautiful weather on this planet. Glad I'm not on Jupiter.

Mezzaluna

Good night, Irene. The big blow did not harm us at all. We did not lose power, and our sump pumps kept pumping. Others, not too far from here, were not as lucky.

Of greater personal interest at the moment - I bought a mezzaluna at a kitchen store that is going out of business. The mezzaluna (half moon) is a blade with a handle, for chopping. Tonight I chopped up pistachios for garnishing a stir fry.

A knife works just as well, but it's fun to have a new kitchen tool.

Anothe thing I did today - read proofs of an article that will be published soon, about educational programs in maximum security prisons. I feel very honored and privileged to have been able to write the article. I cannot truly imagine surviving life in a maximum security facility. I hope very, very, very much that I never have that experience.

We spent about an hour cleaning up debris from the front yard. The back yard will have to wait till next weekend.

All in all, a good weekend.

Hurricane prelude

I don't think Hurricane Irene will be too much trouble for us in the Philly suburbs - but what do I know? So far, just a lot of rain. Two sump pumps working away faithfully.

Of course, if we lose power, and the sump pumps stop pumping, that will be a problem.

A big problem.

But, till then - carry on.

Hurricane preparations

Preparing for Hurricane Irene - which just means buying batteries and bringing some patio stuff inside. And we bought some bottled water. Not really a whole lot more we can do. I hope this storm has been over-hyped. It's really hard to tell - the weather people seem to get apoplectic over every storm.

Actually, we couldn't find batteries. So if we lose power tomorrow night, we will have to sit in the dark, listening to the rain.

At the Franklin Institute on Wednesday, with my granddaughter Bernadette, the exhibits may have been an omen of the storm to come:

But I'd rather remember Bern greeting the world (a version of the world generated by light on mist):

And contemplating a small slice of Philadelphia.

The human heart

For some unknown reason, I have just finished an Internet break of about a week or so. I don't know why I took a break. It just happened. I haven't posted anything within the last week or so (after a run of posting almost every day this year). I have peeked at other blogs every so often, but much less frequently than usual. I haven't even been keeping up with the ongoing stream of casual news on Facebook.

I don't know why this happened. I haven't been busier than usual. It just happened. I guess I needed a break.

So, to catch up - I have been to a couple of farmers' markets, where I saw gorgeous tomatoes:

I played games with my granddaughter, Bernadette:

I visited the Franklin Institute, where I took a photo of Bern walking through the human heart. Here she is in the left ventricle:

We're all here, hearts beating. Life is good.

Tomato-centric day

Yesterday was a tomato kind of day.

As usual, I checked the tomatoes on the patio in the early morning. For some reason or other we are getting one ripe tomato every few days, although there are lots and lots of green ones. This means that about every three days or so we pick our one red tomato, slice it, and eagerly eat it. (That's our most recent red tomato, hiding behind the green ones, above.) But one tomato doesn't go very far for three people, so in spite of all those pots on the patio, we are still hungry for tomatoes.

So we go to a local farmer's market on Saturdays to stock up on tomatoes.

Yesterday we went to the farmer's market at the Glenside train station. We met a man who is kind of a hemp evangelist; he sells hemp seeds, hemp granola bars, hemp pretzels, hemp mustard, hemp tee shirts, hemp jam, hemp milk -- and even more hemp products than those. Those are just the ones I can recall now.

Salted hemp seeds are quite tasty. I ended up buying a few hemp products.

The sourdough hemp pretzels are jalapeno- and sesame-flavored. He gave me the hemp bracelet for free.

We also tried fresh gazpacho, which was so good that we bought a tub. The man who makes it told us that the tomatoes he used were so beautiful he almost hated to cut them up - in fact, he took pictures of them before he cut them up. They were that beautiful.

That's a tomato-lover after my own heart. I tore up a few basil leaves from our garden and sprinkled them over the soup, and drizzled a little olive oil on top, too.

And then in the evening we made Bloody Marys, to round out a very tomato-centric day.

Many happy returns, Edna

I don't know why, but I am the owner of a small collection of old post cards from strangers. I don't remember if I inherited this little stash, or if I bought them at an antique store, or what. It's within the bounds of possibility that I bought them many, many years ago, with a vague idea that I might use them in some sort of collage or design or something.

At any rate, I came across them again recently, and was thinking about how people make fun of the birthday greetings aspect of Facebook - dozens or hundreds of posts that say nothing more than Happy Birthday!

It occurred to me that these old postcards are the equivalent from sixty or seventy years ago. They arrived a little more slowly, but obviously in many cases the sender has nothing more to say than Happy Birthday!

Of course, the colors and designs are great. And sometimes the messages are a little puzzling.

Two examples. First:

Great old design. On the reverse:

What? So many questions. Edna's best feller is Liz Tootle???? What is meant by A.M.H.? Who abbreviates Kansas as Kans? Also, did someone try to pry off the stamp and re-use it?

Second example:

Another lovely design. On the back:

Another birthday postcard for Edna; this time no one tried to scrape off the one cent stamp. The note reads:

Hello Edna we got here all right and took Jenny over to the graveyard this eve with Jakes [??] will send more cards this eve Mom

Poor Edna. Happy belated birthday to her.

Luminous Vermont

A recent post at Ambiance includes this lovely text:


The most striking thing about Vermont per se is its luminous sky.  It’s almost always full of dramatic, puffy white clouds, and the day seems lit not by the sun but by the silvery, icy light of these clouds, which makes the green land and blue sky look hyperreal.

it’s not the sun but
the icy-white clouds that light
luminous Vermont

Which made me think of my own recent trip to Stowe.

Reflections at Market East

Septa bus and subway stations have been in the news lately, and not for good things - people have been shooting on buses and at subway stops. No one has been hurt so far, but it's scary.

On the other hand, sometimes the stations are very pretty.

Zoom zoom zoom

I have been marveling at the ability I have to zoom in photos. 

First, the original shot, a window table at Fork restaurant. I just took a quick photo before the group arrived for our dinner a couple weeks ago. Nothing special about the table - I'm just enjoying taking photos.

Shall we look a little closer? I am very fond of paintings that include glassware.

Isn't the glass pretty? Like a little frozen waterfall.

Hey - maybe I could read the license plate on that car if I zoomed in a little more.

Why yes, I sure can.

This is just a cheap Kodak Easyshare camera! I am astonished by its power.

The S&P downgrade is our first taste of pain.

I like William Saletan. I like almost every article he ever wrote for Slate.

And I like his essay on the debt ceiling mess very much, even though his predictions are deeply uncomfortable:

Medicare will be cut deeply, no matter what Democrats say. . . .

Taxes will go up, no matter what Republicans say. . . . .

The middle, in the end, will rule.

Veggies

What food looks more unappetizing than leeks in their natural state?

It doesn't help that you have throw most of the plant away.

But you can end up with the most delicious vegetable ever, after discarding most of the thing, cleaning the remainder thoroughly, browning in olive oil, simmering in white wine, and adding a little salt, pepper, and  honey. Yum.

Also, tried lots of delicious tomatoes from the local farmers' market today.

Food for all palates

We have a tomato thief:

A groundhog, also known as a woodchuck, also known as a land beaver (I learned that last one from Wikipedia). I captured a shot of him enjoying a yellow tomato in our back yard this morning.

He doesn't seem to be able to reach very high, though. If I stake the tomatoes well, he may not be able to get very many. And I don't see any tunnels or burrows in the lawn, so I'm hoping this doesn't turn into a big problem. I empathize with his effort to enjoy the summer's bounty. Very much like me.

Visited a Korean grocery today. Interesting to see what kinds of things are considered edible, even delicacies, in other cultures.

Silkworm pupa? Really? They have lots, so it must be popular. And probably, if I had grown up in Korea, I would enjoy them too.

We tried something new tonight: cherry soup.

Bring cherries, tart cherry juice, a little sugar, a cinnamon stick, and a little port wine to a boil. Simmer 15 minutes. Blend. Add a little cornstarch, and cool 3 hours. Serve with a few chopped cherries.

Yum. Summertime, and the eating is easy.

It's always sunny in Philadelphia

Gorgeous day . . .

Looking at Center City from 38th Street.

It even looks nice in reflections.

And then it's time to walk back downstairs and get on the computer again.

Daily dose of art deco

I walk through Philadelphia's 30th Street station twice daily,  Monday through Friday, except for the days I work from home.

You can find better photos of the station's many architectural details and marvels on line, but these are the ones I happened to pay attention to this afternoon.

Waking with my ears ringing

Sometimes I wake up in the night.
I squint at the green-eyed clock
and it tells me two fourteen. Outside
rain sidles down. Why does my head
ring with shouting? Words, loud words
have been thrown tumbling like empty
boxes down the steps of my spine.

Who argues in my head at night
after I have crawled into the wet
cave of my own belly to sleep?
My cats snooze in a multicolored heap,
one snoring, one whimpering. My
love is chewing the cud of his day
grinding his teeth and mumbling.

But my brain bears the scuff marks of boots.
Somebody has been pacing there ranting --
the dogmatist I was at thirty-two?
Noisy ghosts have been making speeches.
Are these sins of omission screeching?
Unworn alternate selves in chartreuse?
Scorned opinions demanding equal air time?

I am like the beds in rooming houses
of Word War II Detroit in the housing crisis
of my childhood, slept on in turns,
one guy getting into bed from the graveyard
shift when another crawled out to shower,
my head is in continuous use, rented out
to ghosts whenever I shut off the lights.

Marge Piercy

Don't worry; I've been on antibiotics for five days

The Evangelical Lutheran Church of our Savior
Haddonfield, NJ
December 2, 2007

I'm getting lazy about choosing new churches to visit - just picking one close to home is so easy. Luckily, there are so many churches around here that I could do this for months. One thing this project has convinced me of - this country may have too many churches! Or perhaps not - perhaps it's a good thing that there's a different church on almost every corner, with a slightly different outlook and flavor and perspective. But it's hard to believe that they will all survive another thirty years, when you see how many people are sitting in the pews on any random Sunday.

Oh well - I chose a nearby church today not just out of laziness, but also because today is the first day of slightly bad weather since I began this project seven months ago - that is an impressive run of good weather. And this is not really VERY bad weather - just a slight dusting of snow and a hint of iciness on the roads. Still, no sense driving a long distance today unless I really need to.

ELC of our Savior is in a quiet residential neighborhood. There may be a parking lot, but I don't see it, so I park on the street. Inside, I walk up a short flight of stairs, and someone hands me a bulletin when I reach the top of the stairs.

The sanctuary is rectangular, with a large raised altar. The interior is white (or perhaps light grey) with wood accents. There is a white and gold cross on a white background against what looks like a wooden grill covering the organ pipes, and the cross features red alpha and omega symbols. The baptistery is a large copper bowl on a marble pedestal in the center of the entrance to the altar area.

The sanctuary windows are clear glass  - a nice change from stained glass. (Readers may have noticed that I'm not a fan of stained glass in general, although I've certainly been wowed by some exceptional examples during these visits.) This is the first Sunday in Advent, and there are Christmas decorations on the window sills, and an Advent wreath hanging from the ceiling - it looks difficult to light way up there, but they must have some way of doing this.

A man in a robe with a blue stole greets us, urges us to sign the guest book if we are visitors, and makes a few announcements. The church furnace needs a new hot water boiler and repairs to its fire alarm panels.

The service begins with confession and forgiveness, a hymn (or Gathering Song, as they term it in the bulletin), and then the Blessing of the Advent Wreath ("as we light this candle, kindle in us the fire of your justice and righteousness"). Yes, they have a special long-handled lighter for reaching the candles. Looks a little tricky.

I think the sanctuary would seat at least 400 people, but only about 60 are here for this 8:00 service. The number might be a little low because of the weather, and perhaps the early service is the one fewer people attend. (The church was later featured in the "Your House of Worship" section of the Philadelphia Inquirer, and they claimed to have exactly 1, 243 members, so this level of attendance really is low, compared with membership.)

The sermon, by Pastor Wayne Zschech, is twelve minutes long. And - okay, here's where I really fall down on the job. I can't remember what it was about. Something related to Advent, of course. My notes are blank, except for noting the length. I apologize, Pastor Zschech. This omission says more about my attention span than about your preaching.

So what do I notice? The hymnals have very nice colored leather bookmark strips, five per hymnal, for keeping track of all the hymns and readings. However, the part of the service that makes the biggest impression on me is when Pastor Zschech begins Communion by assuring everyone, "Don't worry; I've been on antibiotics for five days." That gets my attention, and not in a good way.

His statement is the opposite of reassuring, even though I know perfectly well that people don't get sick from communion chalices. We germaphobic Americans would know if people were getting sick from taking communion. It just isn't happening.

Nevertheless, even though I know that no evidence exists linking illness to the common communion cup, I have an irrational dislike of them. Neil's first church after seminary, Alexandria Presbyterian, had an intricate tiered wooden communion set with those little glass cups. I thought it was lovely, and was interested to notice one afternoon, while we were washing the cups in the church kitchen, this logo on the underside of the lowest tier: Sanitary Communion Company, 1922.

That date makes sense. Sanitary individual communion sets must have surged in popularity after the terrible influenza epidemic of 1918, which killed more people than World War I. The introduction of individual communion cups began in Protestant churches in the late 1890s, at the urging of health and sanitation reformers. The idea spread rapidly, overturning almost two millennia of tradition about this most central of Christian rituals. And I like it. I even like the introduction of disposable plastic cups, because I worry about improper washing of the glass cups. (Interesting side note: when they were first introduced, some church members objected to the individual cups because they look a lot like little shot glasses.)

In churches where people drink from a common chalice (actually, usually they use several common chalices, in which case the word common has undergone a bit of a modification, if you want to get technical about it; using four or five chalices does not seem to me all that different from using one hundred), the server often holds a napkin with which he or she wipes the rim after each person drinks.

I'm sure this is intended to remove saliva, lipstick, etc. - but it actually emphasizes the ick factor for me. I suspect this might be a reason so few Catholics drink from the chalice; at every Catholic service I've attended fewer than half the members take a complete communion - many skip the cup. (This is okay according to the Church, but a partial, choose-the-part-you-like  communion seems more than a little odd to many other Christians.)

Also, after each service in a Catholic church the priest is required to eat all the remaining communion wafers and drink all the remaining wine; Neil mentioned once that he had assisted at a few big services, and that it sometimes seemed to him that what was left in the bottom was about 50% saliva and 50% wine, which really, really ups the ick factor.

So - not the most spiritually uplifting reflections this morning. Not the fault of the church or the pastor, but I'm not inclined to feel very guilty myself, either. It happens. I'm sorry to spend the first Sunday of Advent thinking about spit and germs, but perhaps that is because I am so very . . . . incarnational.

Nah - I'm just being human. Let's see what the second Sunday of Advent brings.

Happy birthday

to my favorite 14-year-old!