Both Sides of the Fence

Now that my world has shrunk to walking the dog and looking for jobs, things look a little different.

For awhile there, I was even dreaming about dogs, which is pleasant enough. Lots of running around and joy in being a dog. But dogs, if you've noticed, don't look up to the sky much. Someone who has hunting dogs will rush to say it ain't so, but for the most part, dogs have their eyes on the present and on the ground. They look straight ahead, sometimes. Not up.

But today, like yesterday, seems different. The sky is blue and clean-looking, and if you look up, your heart will lift, too.

Walking off the usual trail, Idgy and I stopped so she could investigate some deep smell of deer in the flattened grass. While she was cataloging all the scent components, I looked up. A hawk, no prey in sight yet, was wheeling higher and higher, her steady circles growing wider.

It was one of those aha moments. Time for a change. Not just a change: a transformation.

Job hunting has been dead flat, news of financial markets frightening, the increasing misfocused anger of campaign crowds heart-wrenching. It's hard to keep your spirits up where they need to be if you are a hunter. You have to believe in your quarry and in your skills to find it. But watching the hawk I realized that I've been going about it wrong. Head down, doggish, focusing narrower and narrower, looking for the scent where I am and where there is no scent but my own.

Here's what I read in the hawk spirals:

Look up. The sky is not falling. Leaves and the market are, but not the sky.

Go higher to look wider and farther. Look to what's ahead as well as what's behind. The two are connected but they are in different places. Be calm and steady and alert. Open your eyes and your heart in a new way.

Keep the loyalty and joy of dog-nature. But don't stay at the graveside broken-hearted when the familiar is lost. Grow a cooler, clearer side. Nose, heart, wings, mind, eyes.

Look up.

Sometimes people ask why we write blogs. I do it to try to figure things out for myself. And I hope sometimes, someone else is working on the same things I am.

Normal 0

Last night’s (October 7) presidential debate was a long and  ho-hum affair, wasn't it? No one stumbled much, but no one soared.

I wonder if part of that wasn't the weird rule that audience members couldn't react or show signs of favor or disapproval. Imagine talking about important things with people who just stare at you, giving you no cues about how you are doing, about whether you have hit a tender spot or lost them.

Plenty talk on both sides about mortgages and bailing out -- McCain said "rescuing" -- the industry. Almost as an afterthought, the Republican mentioned a plan to rescue some of the folks being foreclosed. Let the government buy the bad loans and be your mortgage holder.

Sounds like a bad business on both ends of the deal.

Almost as briefly, my man Obama  said you can't just save the mortgages, you have to create conditions under which people can pay them. And that would include having family supporting jobs.

Bingo. According to Barbara Erenreich:

In the last few years, America’s substitute for decent wages has been easy credit. Until about a year ago, we got almost daily messages, by telemarketer and by mail, urging us to consolidate our debts, refinance our homes, transfer our debts from credit card to another, and try tasty new mortgages that didn’t even require a down payment. All too often, we bit. It sounded so reasonable, for example, not to let our assets just “sit” in our houses but to start spending that money now.

So the crisis calls for bailing out people who face foreclosures, changing bankruptcy and usury laws, and paying a living wage to those workers who everyone says are the best and most productive in the world--us. Oh: and make sure we aren’t ruined by health care expenses if you want us to remain productive.

While Obama at least “got” that important point, both candidates danced around jobs creation. Oh, wait: green jobs. Jobs in the green. . . area. They did mention those in a vague kind of misty Brigadoonish way.  It'll be just like the computer boom. . .

If I had on my heels and my wink all polished up, I'd say that back here in the Midwest, we call that a pig-in-a-poke. That's a con game where you have a cat in a bag and you tell the hungry customer it's a suckling pig. Show us what’s inside, gents.

The Republicans can't admit they've lost good jobs and don't want to invest in anything but the businesses that created the mess -- with our collusion. The Democrats are afraid to talk much about how to pay for necessary recovery programs. If anyone had the courage to be honest, the words "tax" and "increase" would show up right next to each other.

This is America, and people want a chance to make it work. Those of us down here on Main Street will do the job—if it’s there for us to do.

Some of you may be surprised that I spent Thursday evening at the Wauwatosa Budget and Finance Committee meeting, when I could have been watching the season premiere of Gray’s Anatomy. I suspect I got the better entertainment value.

I went because I was curious about the Mayor’s move to pull the funding rug out from under the Wauwatosa Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) with no committee or public discussion, just budget line item adjustment fiat. There seems to be a lot of that going around in government circles these days. (In the interest of fairness, Mayor Didier says that she does not intend to eliminate the WEDC, just its funding. Its members say that will bring it to an end.)

I had no dog in the race, no opinions about whether the $95,000 in question would better serve Tosa in the WEDC, a public-private partnership to promote the city’s economic vitality,  or in the city Community Development department. This inquiring mind wanted to know why the Republican mayor is making government bigger and putting her faith there rather than in private enterprise.

And the guys at the dog park wanted to know “what do the business guys think?” What the business community wants would be the way to go, they suggested.

Fourteen audience members rose to speak. The business guys were the majority of the 13 articulate, thoughtful people on both sides of the political spectrum who spoke in favor of maintaining funding for the WEDC. They ranged from former mayor Maricolette Walsh to Mayfair manager Steve Smith.

Their message was pretty clear. Any decision to cripple or unravel an organization that was created to do what the city couldn’t do—go out and get businesses rather than “waiting for them to come in and ask for a permit” should be undertaken with thought, discussion, and a plan for replacing what has been 19 years in the building. There’s room for improvement and better cooperative effort, based on best development practices and finding out how the community wants to do development.

Then the fun began, hours of it.

6^th district Alderman Brian Ewerdt wins the It’s My Committee, I Can Blame Who I Want To award for rather goofily criticizing WEDC for not following up on the multi-million dollar then-we-saw-it-now-we-don't Icon Development deal, which was cut mainly by the city with little communication to anyone outside the deal—including Ewerdt (the development is, or would be, in his district) or the WEDC.

The Lack of Accountability award goes to 2^nd District Alder Jim Krol and Mayor Jill Didier, both of whom criticized the WEDC for not being accountable while apparently forgetting that they both sit on its board, in which position the Mayor has been able to wield her favorite vote of “present.”

District 3’s Jacqueline Jay wins the Why Can’t We Have a Sonics Here But Hey, No Spending Money award.

The Cities Don’t Do Economic Development Well But I’ll Vote to Have the City Do It Anyway award goes to 5^th District Alder Michael Walsh.

The I’m in The Drivers Seat and You Aren’t award goes to Mayor Jill Didier, who said that the goal of this budget shift is to “change the dynamics and get everyone going in the same course.” That course has yet to be determined, but it involves hiring a consultant or business to “provide consistency.” WEDC might get there first, wherever there is, though, on account of they will be so much more nimble without funding. If you are having trouble following this course of reasoning you are not alone.

The I’m Jill Too award goes to 4^th District Alder Jill Ogan, just because.

Tom (sorry: it was late) Peter Donegan, District 1, gets the At Least I Ask Good Questions Even If Where I Go From There Is Totally Bewildering award.

The next three awards aren’t tongue-in-cheek.

The Thank God for A Voice of Reason award goes to District 7 Alder Atis Purins, who pointed out that this discussion should have been started long ago; that the city’s “plan,” aka “the memo,” is not a plan; that the city should fund a study in cooperation with the WEDC to determine community development objectives and how to go about them; and that this should be about how to do economic development, not which side wins a power struggle.

Committee Chair and 8^th district alder Craig Maher gets The Elephant in the Room Is That We Need More FTEs, Not Consultants, in City Development to Get the Work Done award. Maher, who noted that accountability and the lack of accountability cut both ways, moved to keep the budget line for funding City Development as the Mayor requested and also add $75,000 of funding for WEDC. This excellent proposal was shot down, as was Purins’ to fund a joint study to base the plan on evidence. With all the talk of collaboration, they were the only ones who actually proposed ways to do it.

Finally, the These Are Really Smart People, Maybe They’d Do Better With More Support, Too award goes to the past and present WEDC members in the room.

I’m thinking if you put Lisa Mauer, WEDC board secretary and president of Tool Service Corp., Community Development Director Nancy Welch; Maher; and Purins in the back seat to hash out details while Didier drove the van, you’d have your plan by the time they hit LaCrosse.

During our morning constitutional, Idgy and I meet and greet people who are strangers. Whether they want to be met and greeted or not. We have decided to consider people not yet known to us as potential allies--or at least interesting fodder--and not lurking dangers.

• The more spandex and high tech gear, the less likely a bike rider is to acknowledge your existence.
• Men are more likely than women to respond if you insist on greeting them when they are pretending not to see you.
• Dead body parts disappear faster in Wauwatosa than in the wilds of Brookfield, though you will encounter more critters murdered by humans in Tosa. This does not lend much support to my belief that people are good until proven bad, but life is still better if you think that way. Most of the time.
  

Today we were delighted to encounter some rarer sorts among the more domestic species. A woman, rather beautiful, was walking through the woods wearing leopard print satin pajamas; a white satin robe, loosely tied; major wrist and ankle weights; and a huge white Three Musketeers hat with mirabou feathers all around the droopy brim. Accompanying her was a tiny older man, neatly and conventionally dressed. I'm not sure who was walking whom, but they may have wondered the same about Idgy and me.

And why, I thought, not? Why not celebrate the day being a character you have imagined instead of the one you've checked out of the costumes-for-fading-into-crowds or the costumes-to-show-you-are-serious,-not-playing, boxes?

Today I'm going to create a job description for the job I want and then try to make it happen. I'm already cheered by the prospect.

Why not enjoy this day with less thought about coloring inside the lines? Nature doesn't, and it's brilliant.

Excuse me for being a little cranky.

The job hunt is not going well. Every day I pore through lists of jobs, most of which want impossibly little or impossibly much.  I won't open the mail telling me how much my painfully saved little retirement fund has lost: who needs to know that now? What would you do with the information? Sometimes ignorance postpones grief over things you can't do much about anyway.

It's lonely without kids in the house or coworkers to toss around ideas and the little events that make up a life.

And now I can't even listen to the radio for that illusion of being in community. The smart guys of the day on National Public Radio are discussing the moral failure of greedy human beings and the financial crisis it has wrought. Only the commentators aren't talking about the greed of those who made huge profits by lending money they didn't have to people who couldn't pay them back: they are blaming, ever so gently, the little guys. The ones who steep in the warm oil of our consumer society and then have the temerity to. . . want things. Houses and cars to park in front of them, like that. Jobs with benefits and pensions, if they still have those.

I don't know about you, but I'm not taking the blame for the financial crisis. Or listening to some smarmy professorial type talk about how good it might be for my soul to have less and, being jobless, plenty of time to reflect on that.

More futile job searching on the Internet and then I stumble on the blog 37 Days. One title smacks me between the eyes like things do when you don't know you are looking for them:

Why have we made a silent, unspoken agreement to not do significant work in the world?

Author Patti Digh was talking about the failure to root out discrimination. But you could apply the question to most of the mess we stay in until the status quo stops working for us. Then it's time to remind ourselves that the people who made the systems that don't work are unlikely to be the ones who can fix them. But maybe we can.

Maybe it's time to be more greedy about doing significant work, work that matters, work that makes a difference. Maybe that's our real moral failure: being too content to settle for things the way "They" tell us things should be. Maybe it's time, as Digh suggests, to be greedy about our own desires for the way things could or should be. And then to "fund our own revolutions." 

You have probably surmised that I am not talking about desires that have to do with increasing your own personal wealth above all other things.

If you had just 37 days to do something you love, make a change that needs to be made, fix the banking system or other government problems, or even to live, the premise of Digh's blog and book Life is a Verb, what would you do? What good thing would you be greedy enough to act on?

If you haven't looked for a job in a while, trust me when I tell you it's some of the hardest work you'll do. Even harder than looking for a mate: the consequences of that hunt are serious, too, but at least you might get some good meals and good stories to tell out of the quest.

But the upside is that on a day like today, you can do the most important thing there is to do: be in it.

In case you haven't noticed, the natural world is particularly splendid these days. Goldenrod and asters and tall grasses are glowing in the light, dancing with the breeze.

Judging by the five mile hike Idgy and I just took through some of Tosa's breathtaking places, you probably haven't noticed. Along the Oak Leaf Trail, then along Underwood Parkway and through the County gardens near Willoway, we were nearly alone. Three bike riders passed us. A handful of gardeners worked on viney crops. I introduced Idgy to a half dozen folks from Willoway who were excited to meet her and speculate about why dogs sometimes seem scared of men. Coming home, a dozen three-year olds with golden hair and red cheeks were listening to water sounds at the creek, their tenders close at hand making sure they didn't wander off to follow butterflies or sudden slithery things in the grass. A few men worked quietly, building retaining walls. A neighbor watched them.

Where were you? If you can get away from your desk for lunch or swap your hours around, do. I can search, fill out forms, rewrite resumes and letters after the sun has gone down. Maybe you can do what you do then, too. Though even late, the moon is full and the sky alive with insect sounds, so there's good cause to shut down the computer, the radio and television, the houselights, and just be still.

Life is short, regret long, work unending, and all the big problems need fresh air and fresh thinking.

And now, back to work. Can anyone tell me why a technical writer needs a Six Sigma blackbelt--or what that even is?

When I started my BlackBerry® riff the other day, I had no idea that Senator John McCain created the device.

That's a little surprising, as he doesn't know how to use computers or  e-mail, but I guess when you've been a prisoner of war there's nothing you can't do. 

Actually, it was McCain advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin who made the claim. Eager to tout McCain's work in supporting the telecommunications industry as evidence that the senator has what it takes to fix the "Wall Street meltdown," Holtz-Eakin held up his own BlackBerry® personal communications device yesterday and told reporters, "You're looking at the miracle that John McCain helped create. . . .He can and has the judgment to put people in place with technical expertise, with the history of experience in the areas necessary, that we're going to get reforms."

To Luddite McCain's credit, he apparently laughed when he heard the story.

Still, the choice of staffer Holtz Eakin makes you wonder about that judgment to put the right people in the right place at the right time. As for the BlackBerry® whatchamacallit, it's an addictive little device, judging by the new levels to which it's taken distractedness. It changes the way we talk to, and ignore, each other. But it doesn't think new ideas for us.

An unusually careful reader of my previous blog entry wrote, "Shouldn't that be BlackBerrys, not BlackBerries?"

Like so many of us during times of major turmoil, his eye is on what really matters: spelling. Or better, the proper use of trademarks, which I neglected to use because I didn't know how to make the little "R" in a circle mark in this program -- until it occurred to me to cut and paste it in. Like this: ®

It turns out that he's half right, which is probably good enough most of the time but maybe not if you are running a huge investment bank. That's just a hunch, so there's a 50% chance that I'm right.

You may not have known that this question of usage (it's not grammar but standards, the difference between which I'll be glad to explain if you really want to know) is the subject of hot, ongoing debate. But a Google search on "What's the plural of BlackBerry?" churns up a quarter of a million hits.

Here's the scoop. The computer geek community prefers BlackBerrys®. But RIM (Research in Motion Limited, the company that owns the product registration), forbids any use of plural forms. It also forbids the use of BlackBerry® as a noun.  There's much more, including:

1. Use of variations, abbreviations or takeoffs
   You are not permitted to use the BlackBerry® or other RIM Trademarks as meta tags for your webpages.It is not permissible to use a variation, abbreviation or takeoff of a RIM Trademark. For example, “BlackBerries”, “BB” and “Crackberry” are not acceptable uses with reference to any products or services of RIM.

So you can call it BlackBerry® smartphone or BlackBerry® Enterprise System, which sounds like Star Trek meets Green Acres to me. Or you can do what I do: take a busman's holiday and ignore the rules until you get called on it.

“Are they going to take my BlackBerry?” one "shocked and angry" Lehman Brothers employee asked at a bar this weekend. “Come on, come get it!” 

Oh, the indignity of pending BlackBerry loss. One is tempted to say "go out and buy your own like the rest of us do!"

As a recently unemployed person, I'm usually sympathetic about the plight of those joining the ranks. But I remember the old melodramas where people sobbed because the evil villain was going to foreclose on the mortgage unless the beautiful daughter sacrificed her honor for the good of the family. Somehow, righteous indignation about the loss of a communications toy seems less compelling.

The reporter who witnessed the BlackBerry defiance quoted another employee: “This was the place to work four years ago when I came out of school. How could it go from THE place to work to this?”

Well, I don't know. But it has something to do with mortgages, and greed, with the interconnectedness of things, and with too much attention to BlackBerries and not enough attention to what else was going on under their own noses. At some point, employees are responsible, too.

Not as responsible as the leaders, of course.

Speaking of which, where are ours during this major financial crisis? They seem to be missing in action. Mr. Bush? Yoo hoo. There's another big storm out there. A really big one. If you have a Blackberry, you can read about it there.

I have to admit to being envious of Sarah Palin about one thing: her success in the hunt.

I'm referring here to the job hunt. While I have nothing against hunting certain critters for food, I have no taste for it. Venison, yes. An occasional pheasant. But not the hunt. Once, my friend Lynda and I stole her bother's bows and arrows and were messing around with them, and I shot a Siberian crow. That was a shock, and more than enough of that kind of thrill for me.

Some of you know that the job I loved disappeared August 1, as the organization I worked for needed to pull back and regroup.  No matter what comforting generalizations you might be hearing, the economy's rough, and it's affecting businesses and people you know. Right now, there are so many unemployed people in Milwaukee that I lost at least a week's unemployment compensation: I couldn't get through to a resource person to resolve a small problem. As those of you who scorn the government know, the systems don't always have flexibility to correct mistakes. So you'd better not make any.

Enough about that. If you listen to all the discouraging words, you'd just crawl back in bed and pull the covers up over your head. This rainy morning, watching the edge of Hurricane Ike greening up the yard and hearing the comforting hum of the sump pump now and then, I'm engaging in a more pleasant fantasy.

Somewhere, in a dark room littered with last night's pizza cartons and dried crusts, a small group of the real deciders are exhausted with disagreement. They've gone through the short list again and again. The long list, too. One of them says, "This isn't working." The others respond, some using rude words, to this effect: "You got that right." One of them, inspired, says, "Hey. What about Christine? She's smart, creative, works hard."

"I dunno: she's kind of a bulldog, isn't she?"

"What's your point?"

"I see what you mean. We need someone who sticks with it until it's done. But does she have the experience?"

"Not exactly in this. But in other things that transfer to this, hell yes. Besides, she has maturity and judgment. And she's fun to work with. Isn't that what really matters?"

At the door, destiny knocks. Dum dum dum DUM. .. Idgy barks. I answer, still wearing my blue jammies with sock monkey designs but with fashionable purple eyeglasses.

"Can I help you?" 

"Not only us, but the rest of the country, and also the entire free world. The universe as we know it may be involved, too."

"Well, of course. I'm ready!"

I put on my green Crocs: there is no time for fashionable footgear. Besides, you can't run well in heels.

Normal 0 Like many Americans, I’ve been pondering lately which breed of dog is best suited to be our next Vice President. Such a relief that we’ve gotten over the sex thing and established that traits in the breeding and character, not gender, suit one to be the President’s first loyal companion.

You may agree with the Republicans that it’s the Pit Bull. But I’m not so sure that’s the best breed for the job. One of our first visits to the libertarian dog park on the County Grounds, a pair of Irish Setter-colored half-Pits took my dog down viciously while their owners ignored them, so I’m prejudiced. I guess I should be prejudiced against the handlers, but it's the dogs that did the damage.

By the way, the real name for the Pit Bull is American Staffordshire Terrier. But that sounds sort of delicate and China dog, not at all the image Pit Bull owners claim. Which is sort of confusing, when you think about it. Do you want us to think your dog is dangerous or not? Make up your minds!

Pit Bull fanciers will tell you we’ve been fed a lot of hockey puck-y about the breed and we shouldn’t believe their reputation. And that is really good advice: don’t believe everything you believe. I went right to the American Kennel Club to get the facts:

The APBT (American Pit Bull Terrier, another name for the breed) is a strong-willed, sturdy companion. It is a breed that is loyal to friends and family, and friendly to strangers. With guidance from its handlers, APBTs are obedient and show a high desire to please. However, when left without direction they can become stubborn and may become aggressive.

In fact, the breed has a better dependability temperament rating than Golden Retrievers: knock me over with a rolling tackle behind the knees (a technique known to both breeds).  Still, you have to be careful.

(They ) have a lot of energy and high prey drive; they need exercise and stimulation in order to channel their energy properly and not become frustrated, bored, and destructive and often display dog aggression, especially towards unfamiliar dogs of the same sex or level of assertiveness.

That’s what I’m talking about: that is one high maintenance kind of dog.

Personally, I think the perfect breed for Vice President is a yellow- or even a blue-dog, American-bred Mutt, like my dog. Idgy, Australian Shepherd-Blue Heeler-Something with a Big Nose that Points, has all the qualities Americans seem to want in a Vice President, without the tendency to get bored and chew off the cupboard doors or someone's hand that feeds it.

She’s very pretty, a great hunter who can field dress her quarry without  knives, helicopters, or high-powered artillery. Even better, she eschews exotic and endangered species, focusing on the common garden pest chipmunk or bunny and doing a community service in the process. She has some hobbies you and I might find unattractive, but what dog doesn’t? And as to her personal life, she said you should mind your own business but there’s not a hint of scandal. I happen to know that’s a lie, and I know where the bones are buried.

What matters is that she’s a diplomat. Every pack is her pack, and she gets things done. She’s calm and loyal, unless there is food to be had or a goose to chase, and then she’s only fickle for a moment. She stands her ground but doesn’t attack first.. And she always tells the truth, except that one time. . .

When it comes to being vice president, all I can say about your Pit Bull is, that dog don’t hunt. But mine do.

If you’re still debating the virtues of the Pit Bull as Vice President, though, a little information to guide your thinking from the Missouri Pit Bull Rescue:

 PIT BULLS NEED STRUCTURE
Pit Bulls are strong willed dogs, bred for their determination and tenacity. They need confident and positive leadership, as well as a structured environment. Without it they might soon be running the show in your home and become more problems than fun.

PIT BULLS CAN BE POOR GUARD DOGS
Don't count on a Pit Bull to guard your house or property or you might be disappointed. Pit Bulls were not bred for protection. While your Pit Bull may defend you if your life is in danger, chances are a normal Pit Bull would welcome just about anyone in your home like a long lost friend...

IF YOU NEED PROTECTION, GET AN ALARM SYSTEM
We don't think dogs should have the responsibility of judging a situation and making a decision based on our human concepts of right and wrong. In fact, we believe that as the "leader" of the pack, it is our responsibility to protect our dogs, not the other way around.

Yesterday was last minute get-ready-for-college shopping day with Liz. After breakfast among Harley riders and fashionable east siders at the Cafe Hollander, we headed to Greenfields to look for posters. In case you haven't been there, it's the kind of store where I'd have bought flowing skirts, incense, and posters for whatever Madison apartment I had in 1970.

 Liz is a big Salvador Dali fan. This is very cool, but there is Dali, and there is Dali. This is the sort of Dali that appeals to Liz.

And there are roommates, and there are roommates.

"Liz. Don't you think you might want to get to know your roommate a little before you put up a poster that might be, you know. . ."

"SCARY?" she completed my sentence. "You think this would be better?" unscrolling a bold red-and-black floor-to-ceiling Che Guevara banner and looking at me with feigned innocence.

"Erm, well, it's very. . . arresting. But the colors might be a little off-putting. Besides, it might not go with her stuff, and she might care about that." This is, by decree of the big dorm room furnishings purveyors, a brown and pink and green year with lots of orange, purple, and teal thrown in. A very un-revolutionary colors year. I don't even have to go where the politics might lead this discussion.

 "How about this," I ask, finding an unusually sweet Dali with butterflies and no naked bodies or Blessed Virgins or melting clocks. A lifted eyebrow is reply enough, but my daughter is trying to keep me calm and so she says, kindly and gently, "it's just not me, Mom." 

She finds something that's imaginative, thought-provoking, and unlikely to make her roommate call for an exorcism. I am relieved. I buy her two beautiful scarves and we head to the car. There, Liz is captive, and I can waterboard her with 18 years worth of pent-up advice, praise, and Mom-neurosis. 

"I'm channeling Sally Field again, right?" I ask, coming up for air myself.  In case you haven't seen Brothers and Sisters, Field's character, Nora Walker, is so much like me that even I can see it when my kids point and hoot during a familiar scene of excessive, sure-to-be-thwarted, mother love.

Time to shut up and turn on the radio. Strains of the Dixie Chicks:

I took my love and took it down, climbed a mountain and turned around, and I saw my reflection in a snow covered hill, well the landslide brought it down

. . . can I sail through the changing ocean tides, can I handle the changing seasons of my life?

. . .Well, I've been afraid of changing cause I built my life around you, but time makes you bolder; children get older, I'm getting older too. .

I'm about to launch into my usual exegesis on why the original Stevie Nicks version  of Landslide is superior when the song hits me and the tears start. "This is about us, isn't it?"

Liz, always much wiser than I am, nods. Later, she will let me hug her longer than she has ever let me hug her. 

This morning, she packed her dad's truck. I handed off a plate of zucchini bars with caramel frosting for the trip, and they were off to Steven's Point.

Take this love and take it down, children. Climb a mountain.  But now and then, turn around.

With the trip meter on, it's easy to pretend I haven't just rolled the odometer over 100,000 miles on the dinged but reliable Nissan. But even the lower mileage meter's in the thousands, what with trips to campuses, family visits, and job interviews. Sometimes, you just can't get away with driving less. And even if you do, chances are your life isn't staying in the same place.

Last weekend the kids and I went to Oshkosh to see my sister's family before Liz and Geo head off for school. Geo goes to Madison this weekend, Liz goes to Stevens Point the following one.  The dual departures are just days away, and I'm still in denial.

We hit the road early--or what passes for early with 18-year-olds. There was a little crankiness during the rousting/dog walking/breakfasting period: "hurry up" is no one's favorite phrase. But we finally got into the car.

I'd imagined a charming 80 mile conversation, the kids talking about their lives and aspirations, a joke now and then, maybe a song here and there, me imparting a piece of life wisdom so wonderful that the kids nod with affectionate gratitude, and finally the excited recognition of the "almost there" marker, the buffaloes at Glacial Ridge Farms.

As the kids might say "Mom, what were you smoking?!"

Instead, Geo said "I'm tired. You drive, okay?" Liz claimed the stretch-out territory in the back seat, and Geo reclined his passenger side seat as far as it could go. Head sets were on, and before we hit Menomomee Falls, both kids were out. 

It took a few miles of mostly rural roadside before I lost the old "this isn't how I'd planned it" resentment. The sky was clear, the fields green with short corn and gold with tall grain, and I was driving with my babies on board. Little soft snorey sounds escaped as they slept to the car's hum and vibrations, just as they always had. How many contented miles have I driven, luxuriating in the presence of my children near me, safely strapped in, and, for as long as the car was in motion, not yowling? For this hour and a half, I had them all back.

Yesterday was another fine day for a trip of the same length. I had a job interview in Madison, the second one. It was both fun and intense. I'd forgotten to eat lunch, so I wandered down the construction zone that's Madison's State Street and grabbed some pud thai to eat at the wayside on the way home.

I sat at the picnic table in my job interview dress, trying to manage the noodles with the spoon the restaurant had packed and wishing I'd picked up chopsticks on my way out. For 50 some years I've been eating at wayside picnic tables with family and friends, and those memories joined me. Then, the peanuts usually came in the form of peanut butter and jelly.  But other things haven't changed: the farm on one side, highway on the other, the cleanness of Wisconsin's facilities, the sense of being somewhere safe on the way home.

If you are still long enough, something wonderful will present itself. A young buck stepped out of the woods to eat his field corn, and we shared our dinners in companionable silence.

Then it was back in the car, back to Wauwatosa, back home, where everything is the same and everything has changed.

Everyone's decided that the newspaper as we know it--big sheets of thin paper you can use to polish windows or wrap your trash -- is about to be extinguished. But apparently that hasn't been happening fast enough, so the newspapers themselves have decided to speed along the process of self-destruction.

First they convinced the advertisers that they weren't a good place to advertise, and the advertisers obliged by stopping advertising there.

Now they're getting rid of their most seasoned employees. And when they go, the paper gets thinner, and not just in terms of size.

Last month the Journal Sentinel announced that it was jettisoning 10% of its employees, the second major shrinkage in six months. President Elizabeth Brenner told USA Today that the layoffs/buyouts would be done by the end of the year -- another five months away. If they're like most businesses, the next batch of lost jobs should be just in time for Christmas.
You can't find a list of who's gone yet, but the news is oozing out. First Mike Nichols said farewell. I never especially liked Nichols, but he made me think, sometimes with some heat under the collar. That leaves Patrick McIlheran to be annoyed by. But he's not half the writer Nichols is, and he'll never make anyone rethink a comfortable thought the way Nichols occasionally did.

Yesterday, we learned that Joanne Weintraub and cartoonist Stuart Carlson were among those who'd accepted buyouts. They're some of the best.

I wonder if the paper's management has noted the irony in their most recent big story by veteran reporters Dave Umhoefer and Alan Borsuk. It seems that Milwaukee Public Schools built lots of fancy additions while cutting back on staff, hoping to lure folks back to the neighborhood schools. It didn't work, at least partly because it's who's inside the schools, not the buildings, that determines loyalty.

When my bill arrived, I put it aside. Why should I keep subscribing to "the paper"? There's less of it, and what's in it is not necessarily the best of the lot. Advertisers, journalists. . .add readers to  the list of missing elements.

You can get information anywhere, but knowing what it's worth is another matter altogether. Good reporters and editors, like good teachers (or even just more teachers) can make a lot of difference when it comes to making sense of things.

If sense is what you want, that is. 

If you're a Wauwatosa high school grad about my age, chances are you'd have felt right at home at my Nicolet class reunion Saturday night.

Or uncomfortably not at home; that seems to be the way these things hit people. Being reunited for an evening with the people who gave you your first kiss, deep friendships and deep enmities, a massive case of insecurity, the joys and perils of youth spent ill or well, is a wonderful lark or a brief descent into hell. Maybe a little of both.

Nicolet has always been a breeding ground for over-achievers, so it helps to have a strong sense of self at these events. When you have ex-classmates who perform in operas with their entire families for recreation, it's a little daunting to admit your hobby is walking the dog and yelling at the kids to do the laundry.

I've attended parts of all of my reunions. The first was from curiosity. The second, revenge. Since then, it's always been about gratitude for spending time in shared history and fellowship. It's wonderful to see Tommy, who made butter and applesauce with me in four-year-old kindergarten (yes, we had those way back when). And as long as Wendy and Warren, high school sweethearts who married after college, are still together, there's hope for living happily ever after. Every old acquaintance renewed is a pleasure, every new connection a gift.

This decade I went with my dear old friend Vicki, whose husband received special dispensation to stay home in Tennessee. Her big brother Jack flew in from New Jersey to be the escort du jour. He can still pick us up and swing us around the dance floor. We'd met and gone to the pre-event event, the Friday night bar scene. So far, so good. The next night would be at Tripoli Country Club.

But I'd forgotten my teensy tiny country club handicap: I suck at small talk. And there is something about the whole country club atmosphere that chokes any other kind of conversation.

If you haven't been to one of these things, here's the formula. Thirty three percent of conversation is devoted to how great the women look--and they do look fabulous--and trying to figure out who the men are. Another 33% is jobs-kids-accomplishments-grandkids and other predictable life circumstances. That leaves the final brutal third to talk about whatever it is people talk about that requires paying no attention and giving no offense.

I was doing fine until I wandered over to an old boyfriend. A madly successful Chicago ad guy, he was deep in conversation with another classmate, this one a madly successful gastroenterology guy. They were probably having a soulful and charming conversation before I showed up. But the interruption shifted them into set-speech mode. Gastroguy begins reciting the physician litany: medicine's no fun anymore. Too much paperwork. The insurance companies. Medicare. Yaddayadda.

The conversation shifted again, this time to catered medical care. This newer arrangement assures the already well-served faster access to their doctors. Like medieval patrons, they present the doctor with a stiff yearly fee on top of insurance payments and out of pocket expenses. In return, the physician takes fewer patients and makes office calls--at your office, not theirs.

"Um, isn't that sort of. . . REPUGNANT?!" I suggested, perhaps a little short on tact.

"What do you mean? Oh. The poor," says Gastroguy.

"Yeah. The poor. And the ordinary. You know: like. . . sick people."

"Well, they come to my emergency room," Gastroguy says, "and I treat them for free. The hospital gets paid, but I don't. . ."

"The poor, they get screwed," says Adguy. "They always get screwed."

I am wearing the look people would have given Marie Antoinette had she ever actually said "Let them eat cake," which she didn't. Adguy takes a little pity on me. "Maybe someday we'll have national health insurance, and then they won't be screwed so much," he said.

I smile and flee, or as close to fleeing as I can, limping along in heels as I am. It's time to go home, put on my Wellingtons, and walk the dog under the heavy half moon. The air is crisp and cool, and it's easier to think kindly on my old friends at a little distance. The problem, I see, is not in them but in me. I'll have to get a small talk intervention before trying this again.

Next time, though, I might try to infiltrate the reunion planning committee. Anyone else think it might be more fun to pile into canoes and do a river clean up project, barbecue, and drink around a campfire?

The line in the business section stopped me:  "Manitowoc builds ships, cranes, and ice machines. . ." 

You can sort of see the ship-crane connection. Once upon a time, the company was building a really beasty boat, and they couldn't get a crane big enough to top it off with whatever you'd plunk atop such a vessel. So they built the crane themselves, or so I imagine. But the ice machines? So much for the "narrative arc," the storyline with a beginning, middle, and end that makes some kind of sense.

One of those things doesn't belong, and the Manitowoc Company has decided it's the ships. I'd have guessed the ice makers, even knowing that the marine business had become the smallest chunk of the pie. After all, people who work in a business identify with the things they create. We're all the heroes of our own lives, and even if it's the same sweaty work, "My daddy builds combat ships and luxury yachts" trumps "well, mine builds honking big stock pots for restaurants."

But when your company's mission is "to continuously improve economic value for our shareholders," I guess it doesn't matter what you do.

It's hard for me to get my head around that. Whatever you spend your time doing is full of meaning, and most businesses start out of a combination of passion and opportunity. So selling off the marine division to an Italian company, Fincantieri, seems an act of kindness. Let the ships sail across the ocean to someone who loves them.

Fincantieri knows what its business is. They've diversified into submarines and ferries, but it's all ships all the time. "With 120 years heritage, 400 vessels and 100 submarines built, Muggiano yard has the reputation for excellence in high-tech, high-quality and high-performance vessels including warships and 'Destriero', holder of the 'Blue Riband' for an Atlantic crossing at over 53 knots average speed." In this, Fincantieri claims it helps to be Italian, with a tradition of mastering sexy design.

In looking only at the bottom line, it's easy not to think much about what choosing ice makers means for the shipyard workers in Manitowoc, Marinette, and Sturgeon Bay. Maybe they'll get to build restaurant equipment and be glad they have any kind of a job. The odds don't seem good, though, when your business has slipped out of a mythic identity that connects it with people and place,

And all things being equal, I bet most employess would rather work for a company like Fincantieri that builds speed, beauty, and excitement for all to see, not just "economic value for shareholders."
 

The few critics who admit to liking Mamma Mia! the movie—despite their better judgment-- usually try to protect their snark cred. You know the slap-stroke routine:   “Clever and well done - in a cringey, cheesey, bizarre way. Now, where did I put my HRT?” (HRT, for those of you who don’t know, is hormone replacement therapy, the bane or blessing of middle aged women.)

Don’t let snobbery keep you away, especially if you’re someone who’s old enough to have a little bit of dancing queen inside you. Or if you’re a man who’s old enough to have had a Stevie Nicks fantasy or two back in the day (okay: or one with a bit of the dancing queen himself).

This movie lifted my spirits, which is the point of most musicals. And I don’t like Abba or musicals. As one Australian critic who "got" Mamma said, “It’s Beach Blanket Bingo meets Zorba The Greek, music by Ulvaeus and Andersson. Nothing more.” In other words, it’s a MUSICAL. It’s not supposed to be Henrik Ibsen’s Dollhouse, and for that we can rejoice.

I’ll go further. There were times the film connected with the audience in a deep way. There were tears and laughter and maybe even a dollop of that classical measure of drama: catharsis. For that, the music is largely responsible.

One critic who "gets" it is Melanie Reid of the  UK's Times Online. Of Abba’s music, so mocked by people like me who prefer Tom Waits, Reid pointed out “But the music endured, and its rhythms and combination of sad lyrics and uplifting tunes - what the lyricist Tim Rice calls true genius - has proved us all wrong. This is not dumbing down. This is remembering that the true purpose of art should be to entertain, not to prop up some kind of exclusive club. One is not stupid or compromised if one is uplifted by popular music or drama; nor should one be cowardly in admitting it."

I “got” Abba for the first time hearing the divine Meryl Streep (Donna, the woman who loved and lost--or did she?) singing The Winner Takes It All.

This number alone is worth the price of the movie. It’s campy and at the same time deeply true. And Streep and her most excellent posse (Christine Baranski and Julie Walters) are the rest of us out here, fortyish and fiftyish and more--and still alive, loving, and dancing, if only in our hearts. Or as15-year-old Houston teen critic Leigh Jensen, who also “got” it, said: “They were sassy and funny in a way only middle-aged women can be.”

While the old gals--all the old gals on the island--carry the story, ingénue Amanda Seyfried is luminous and adorable, and so are the other young folks.

Over the top: yes. It's a MUSICAL. The story doesn’t really hold. Who cares: it’s a MUSICAL. The accents are improbable: who cares: it’s a MUSICAL. The continuity is off: Donna’s summer of love child would be 40, not 20. Who cares: it’s a MUSICAL. This is Brigadoon territory, people.

Some would like more music. I’d like more of the delicious men, Donna’s old suitors (one of whom is her daughter’s father), played by  Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgard. And no, Brosnan can’t sing, but you know: WHO CARES? 

I think the audience at the Majestic Saturday night liked the movie, but this is Wisconsin, after all. We’re private and reserved. I’m with Leigh: “The rest of the moviegoers seemed pretty unexcited. They did not dance once, which shocked and dismayed me. If you're dorky enough to stay up half the night waiting for the release of Mamma Mia! chances are you're not too cool to dance in the aisles. "

I'll willingly suspend disbelief over all of it to be reminded to take some chances.

And any dancing queens willing to take to the aisles with me next time, let me know!

I've been thinking about my mom a lot lately. It's been almost four months since she died, but I find myself thinking about her more, not less.

If I hadn't been thinking about her, I'd have started when her nursing school graduation picture thudded to the floor from its resting place in the closet. It was night time, and I ran to see what had fallen in my room. And there was Mom, in her white cap, youthful beauty, and steady gaze, looking up at me from the floor outside the closet.

If she'd been able to speak, I know how her sentence would have started: "Tine, you really should. . ."

I had been in the kitchen thinking about avoiding cleaning, just as I am doing at the computer now. Mom disapproved of my preference for reading over doing. And one of her favorite "you really shoulds" had to do with getting California Closets(tm)  to organize my chaos. I suggested that I'd probably prefer to manage the part of the house people actually see first. But she always knew that you have to get to the bottom of the problem if you want to fix it.

But I digress. I'm really here to give you cleaning tips. Or one cleaning tip to get to the bottom of bathtub stains:

ZUD.

When we cleaned out Mom's apartment, I took the under-sink stuff, spray cleaners and an antique power box of ZUD, the Heavy Duty Cleanser. We'd always had it around the house, but I'd never adopted the habit.

So when I thought I'd better clean the tub in preparation for a nice soak after a long and sweaty walk, I decided to give it a try. None of the Scrubbing Bubbles or bleachy things had worked, and even when clean, the tub looked sad.

No longer. ZUD, an old-fashioned mix of oxalic acid, pumice, and quartz, did the job. I think it also polished my nails, as I didn't bother to wear gloves, figuring that any substance found in rhubarb, lambs' quarter, and chocolate (the oxalic acid) couldn't be too harsh.

Of course, I would be wrong about that: ZUD, the "800 lb gorilla of cleansers" is rated environmentally unfriendly. It kills too much bacteria, so you don't want to use it if you have a septic tank. And never mix it with other cleaners, especially those with chlorine.

But if you have an old, stained, porcelain tub, and you just need to feel like you've really accomplished something. . .listen to Mom.

When you get bad news and the shoulder shrug, well, sure, it’s “the economy.” It's also something more. Barring natural disasters, flood and drought and the like, “just the economy” is often an excuse that lets someone—an individual or a corporate body—off the hook.

The excuse hides the big uglies: greed and deceit. But even more often, it hides the commonplace ones. "Really bad decision-making,” including when it comes to voting, is one we can all  own now and then.

If defrocked McCain advisor Phil Gramm really meant the “the leaders” when he said we’ve “sort of become a nation of whiners,” then I’m with him. Don’t hear anyone taking responsibility for bad policy or no policy, neglecting to get the right information, bad judgment and all the other failures of leadership, do you?

Two more failures really matter: lack of courage and imagination.

Take Midwest Airlines. Go ahead: no one else wants to right now. When things got bad, did it set out to distinguish itself from other airlines that were serving up deteriorating service?

Nope. It jumped right in to join the race to the bottom, or what’s more generously called “adopting a survival strategy.” After all, almost everybody else is doing it, according to Stealing Share, a marketing firm, in their study of American, Continental, Delta, Northwest, Southwest, and United airlines.

The key word is “almost.” The airlines that are bucking the trend to advertise relentlessly what they all do equally badly (checking bags, being on time) are doing better. Southwest, the #1 airline, posted its 68^th straight profitable quarter in the beginning of 2008. They did it on actually costing less, not just claiming to, and selling freedom, not just transportation.

The others, you can’t tell apart even with a scorecard. “Worse than before, same as the other guys, and a lot less of it!” Welcome aboard the bandwagon, Midwest!

The marketers say that especially when the economy’s rough, you have to change the game. Think outside the box. Or maybe back in, if the box holds cookies and the best care in the air. People's lives and the community are at stake.

The economy, like Pogo's enemy, is us.

I stopped at Stone Creek on Bluemound for a sinful cup of indulgence, at least in this economy. But sometimes you just have to blow a couple bucks, not only for the sacramental beverage of my people, but for the sense of connection.

Sometimes I run into my neighbors the sudoku-mad-pharmacists bent over the paper or absorbed in conversation with each other.  I like them very much. We only exchange occasional small talk, but Sheila fills my prescriptions: she knows a lot about me.

I see people I never talk to, but it's reassuring to see them there day after day, with laptops or horoscopes. I wonder what laptop man is writing. The guy with the horoscopes is old but he won't flirt with me: he likes the young barristas, and who can blame him. Me, I'll flirt with anyone.

I asked for the usual: "Large dark coffee, please."

"Shall I leave room for cream?"

"Um, no, that's okay. Yeah." I wish I didn't talk like that, but I do, and this day in particular I noticed it. Maybe it was because I was dressed like a superannuated Annie Hall in black pants, white shirt, and an ex-husband's glen plaid vest, and I recognized that too.

"I didn't think so. You don't look like the type."

"You can tell right away what people will order?"

"Usually. I knew you wouldn't want anything extra."

"Yeah. That's me. I'm a plain old kinda gal." I wish it weren't so obvious, though. I wish I looked like someone who would order a double espresso frozen soy caramel machiato--and who would know if something was wrong with it. Really tall heels would be involved, and a severe expression. People would fear and lust after me. They would not, however, want to work for me or be my friend.

It has been a hard couple of weeks. The economic vortex has started tugging on my household in a big way.

And the news: oil, Iran, Afghanistan, the economy, the economy, the economy. It's enough to make you throw yourself into the center. If you're going down, you might as well do it fast.

Time again to turn off the radio. Right and left, the media pour on the fear. Your head can't hold all there is to be afraid of.

Remember: the worst seldom comes to pass. And much of the economy is a figment of imagination, anyway. You might as well be optimistic. Don't go overboard and become conservative, though.

Turn off the radio. Take a walk. The air is cool and if you move fast enough, you'll leave the mosquitoes behind. Fireflys are everywhere, hundreds of them, thickest near the dense green edges of things and the new red mulch.

Look right and left. There, up the driveway, another neighbor is pressing his wife of 30 years against the car, kissing her urgently. In the dark, she looks like a young girl. 

You remember what matters, and what makes life good. Two out of three; not bad.