GANG LETTER FALL ? 2003 FILL IN THE BLANK Now that summer is over, most of my time in the ?world of work? is spent Preparing for fall meetings, trying to decide priorities, answering complaints and queries and putting data on the web. Recently some work has been done trying to get a promotion from Trained Monkey II to Trained Monkey III. Hard to take it seriously: solicit outside letters, write statements of career objectives, etc. What a crock. A trained monkey is still a trained monkey. Good thing I really like being a trained monkey. Recently I've learned a great deal about Antarctic Seal Biology, the conversion of Watts to microEinsteins and the way seaice is reported. Where else in the world can you indulge yourself this way? For fun, I have been doing ICE HOCKEY!!! I joined the Cape Cod Women's Ice Hockey League not knowing how to play the game or how to skate very well. My gosh I have a good time. I'm padded like a pillow, so that when I fall down or people plow into me going warp speed, it feels like a tiny distant 'thump'. I'm not very good, but the rest of the team is patient and I play as much as they do, since everyone needs a breather sometime and actually fairly often. It's such a huge part of NE culture also, that it's like belonging to a gigantic family you didn't even know existed. I've borrowed a ton of equipment and bought a bit new (helmet - can't take a chance with that one). More singing than ever before. Too much really. Four days a week. Too much. One group was featured on the local public radio station because we have a 16-yr-old director and we sing Renaissance sacred music, something currently not being done much. No one said she was a horrible choral director inspite of her true musical genius. At the last minute they declined to interview me due to space limitations in the booth. I'm really really glad. I am having a pretty phenomenal time with the choir at church. I just rejoined after a 13-year absence. I haven't had this much fun and internal satisfaction since leaving St. John's Cathedral in Denver. Takes a lot of time, tho and is 100% worth it. Time spent with family and friends has included Well, Caleb. My life-changing event. How do I write about Caleb? With fear and trepidation thinking if I blink, he'll disappear. He was a great friend during my Cape Cod Academy years. He was the Athletic Director and one of the coaches and started the cross country ski program and the rowing program. He convinced me to do the Canadian Cross Country Ski Marathon 5 years in a row, even after I'd moved to Seattle! He taught me to build a canoe in 7 days. (He says 6.) We have been great and platonic friends for 17 years. Well, he was divorced in September and now we're together. Or as together as we can be with him living and working in NH and me here. So we see each other on weekends when we can and we don't tell anyone we're together. Just because. Well, maybe because it's my bubble for awhile and I want it to stay my bubble. We're not a couple. We're just two people who have found each other again at exactly the right time in both our lives and right now plan to be together forever. But we're not a couple. Not yet. If you consider that I've been alone for 51 years, you can imagine the obstacles that might have to be overcome to consider couplehood. Perhaps I will be forever alone in my mind, no matter what my heart and body are doing...Maybe everyone is. He makes canoe paddles and teaches flatwater paddling when he's not tutoring troubled boys in boarding school in NH. And he's magic. There is other stuff going on. I will go to South Lake Tahoe in another week or so to see Jenny get married. My sister's daughter. My little brother became a grandfather for the second time on September 22 and I'm a Great Aunt again. My older brother's been sober since July. Lots and lots of joy abounding. Movies I have really enjoyed have been Lordy, I haven't seen many. I really enjoyed Pirates of the Caribbean. The only other movie I've seen is 'Lost in Translation' with Bill Murray. I hope everyone sees that so we can talk about Japan and see if it's like that really. Two people I asked said 'yes'. I hope Joanna can see it. The movie doesn't have much story or plot, and isn't really a comedy although I cried I laughed so hard at parts of it. Bill Murray unlike anything you've ever seen. I can't wait for Master and Commander with Russell Crowe because Patrick O'Brien is the writer (was. I guess he's dead) to replace C.S.Forester and his Hornblower books. Master and Commander is the name of the first book in a 15+ book series , but the movie is really a sort of amalgamation of the first 5 books, maybe? Good books I have read are I read Holes 'cause Beth told me to and it was wonderful. I read The Lovely Bones for the same reason (wasn't that you, Beth?) and it was great. I read Bel Canto 'cause someone else told me to. The first one was quirky. The next two were deeply affecting and rivetting. Read them. On a different plane I'm addicted to Alex Cross police procedurals by James Patterson. Full of horror and violence and a perspective I am extremely attracted to. Gritty, painful, Black experience, Washington, D.C. James Patterson also wrote a book called Suzanne's Letters to Nicholas which I devoured because of who wrote it. I wanted to see if James Patterson had any softness in him that wasn't tempered by violence and death. Highly recommended. My reaction to current events is How are we ever going to get ourselves out of this mess? We practically had a gang fight during town meeting in our quiet, never-change-a-thing, little town. There is a move afoot to formally pass a resolution NOT to adhere to the Patriot Act or lend any support whatsoever to it. Other towns on the Cape have passed such non-binding resolutions. We had two Selectmen who practically started frothing at the mouth and calling dissenters traitors. McCarthyism at its worst. The invective was racial, if that term can be applied in a non-racial context. You could substitute 'niggers for 'those people', the phrase actually used. Applied to those in support of the resolution. Pretty awful. We can't let Shrub have 4 more years. We can't. My best memory of our trip to Virginia is There is no best memory. A hundred images flash before my eyes: Sleeping, laughing, peeing, laughing, eating, laughing, walking, laughing, watching, driving, shopping, laughing. Have I left anything out? The hotel: Bodies and stuff all over the place. Panoramic view. Subway. The city: National Gallery of Art, Hawk and Dove, Bakery whose name I forget, Holocaust Museum, Vietnam Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, MLK steps, Capitol Building, Folger Museum. Mollie's houses: Logs(beautiful wood), beds(drawing straws for beds), lights(where are they?), food(yum). Outhouses? wowee. Taking elimination to new heights.(sorry. couldn't help it.) Lexington: A place where Nestles didn't win. Tour via horse led by Animator. Stonewall Jackson's house. I can see the walls and the floor but am having a hard time remembering the furniture. Boring mini-series. Ice cream as often as possible. Boxerwood Gardens, a passion and a lifework. 8. That's it for now ? signing off - Buckets 'o love. Dicky