Naughty girl
I was not what you would call a "good little girl". I was frequently up to some devilment, and usually involved my brother in the plans whenever possible. On one occasion, the family had been out and apparently I had been sufficiently naughty to warrant a spanking "when I got home". I must have been about 4 years old at the time. We had a four door car, and always parked it in the garage. When we got into the garage, I lingered in the car until everyone else had gotten out and shut the doors. I then quickly clicked all four door locks, and since my Dad always left the keys in the ignition, was now unreachable and safe. My Mom fled up the stairs laughing as my Dad tried to get me to unlock the doors. She said she lingered by the upper door giggling as she heard him try "now Joanie, open the doors", "now Joanie, it's just going to be worse", to no avail. I don't know why he didn't just go upstairs and leave me in the car, I'm sure I would have come out sooner or later. But he didn't want to leave me there alone, so spent a long time patiently coaxing me into finally unlocking the car door.

Jim is a Daddy
Jim has always been a full time, caring Daddy for Kiva, but it always takes a while to learn many of the tricks of parenthood. When Kiva was a tiny infant, he was wondering if she needed a diaper change. He nonchalantly poked a finger into her diaper from the top, above her little butt to see if she was wet. Unfortunately she was "more than wet" and I would give a lot for a photo of Jim's face when his finger encountered more than he had expected.

The best Lisa story
When Lisa was little, she was very much like Kiva. After the three boisterous boys, it was amazing to have a quiet, easily directed child. However, Lisa was not without spirit, and when she was around five years old I did something (I wish I could remember what) that really really made her mad. Lisa was a tiny little thing, but she stood in front of me just trembling with rage, tears glistening in her eyes, glaring at me. She then announced "when I grow up, I'm going to get some big, big boots, and then I'm going to kick your ass". I was first speechless, then howling with laughter, which didn't help assuage her anger at all. It is no mystery where she got the language with three older brothers and attending kindergarten, but it was extremely unusual for Lisa to react this way. I can assure you I watched my step around her after that :-)

See's candy
See's chocolate candy has a long history in our family, and I can remember as a small child my mother having some occasionally. At some point, when Joy was about 4 or so, Mom had a one pound box of chocolates in the refrigerator (where I prefer to keep chocolates to this day). Joy asked if she could have some, and Mom said "yes, you can have one". Later, when Mom looked into the box, it was clear that far more than "one" had been removed. Reminding Joy that she had been told she could have only one, Joy looked at her solemnly and replied carefully "well, I only took one at a time". This became one of our favorite Joy family legends.

Jim's admirers
My first beautiful baby grew up to be a mighty handsome man, and when he was in Junior High School, the girls began to notice. Actually they did more than notice, they began to call, and call, and call, and call..... This was before cell phones, and before phones in every room. It's hard to believe, but we had one phone, in the living room. The phone calls rapidly became more numerous, until every time we wanted to make call, we had to nag Jim to get off the phone, and retrieve the phone from where the cord snaked under his bedroom door. We received no phone calls, since the line was always busy. In a stroke of genius (we thought) we got Jim his own phone to free up the family line. This worked for perhaps two days of blessed quiet on our line, until we began getting calls on "our" phone....."would you take a message for Jim" the plaintive young voice would say...."his line is busy". Finally we got completely hard hearted, and refused to even take messages on our phone, telling the sad, sweet girls "you will have to call him on his line" "But his line is always busy" "I know, but just keep trying" "Can't you tell him Jennifer (or Julie, or April, or Amber or...) is trying to reach him and give him my phone number". "No, I'm sorry, you will have to call him on his phone" "click"

Men are from Mars
Yeah I know, I have spent a lifetime pursuing the philosophy that women should have all the opportunities that men have, and that some women can do almost anything some men can. But, really, when women have contests, they do something sane, like compare whose hair is curlier, who got the better grades, who has the cutest kids ( I WIN!!!), or who is wearing the smaller jeans. Men on the other hand, have fart contests. Or, in the case of our immediate family one Easter, when it must have been a very slow weekend, Ken, and the kids began to experiment with who could fit a whole (peeled) hard boiled egg in their mouth. It wasn't long before it escalated (you know these weapons races go), and ultimately Ken was declared the overall winner. Now you have not seen anything, until you have seen your beloved husband with three (yes three!) peeled hard boiled eggs in his mouth at one time. Closed his lips and everything. One egg in each cheek and one between his teeth. I count myself extremely lucky that no one strangled to death on an egg that day.

A work memory
When I was working as an Engineering Geologist in the Bay Area, I had many occasions to do field work, which I thoroughly enjoyed. On one field trip, I was mapping in the east bay, along a new proposed highway realignment, so it was open land. The terrain was hilly, with the typical oak trees and grasses, and rock outcrops. I was hiking up a hill, which was covered with long golden grass, scattered oaks, and some rounded rock boulders the same color as the grass at the top of the hill. As I got closer and closer to the the rock boulders, I suddenly realized to my horror, that they were breathing! Yup, they were humongous bulls (taller than me before they got to their feet!), the same color as the grass, complete with wicked looking horns. The bulls were contentedly lying in the grass, and looking away from the steep side of the hill where I (wearing a brilliant orange vest) was approaching. I halted, holding my breath, and very very quietly and slowly, backed down the hill, my eyes riveted on the animals. When I got to the foot of the hill, I beat a very hasty retreat to and over the fence. Whew!

Howling at the moon
When we were living in Washington, we raised chickens for eggs. Since we were pretty far out in the woods, there were plenty of predators, so we were careful to keep the chickens locked up at night in the chicken house. Many evenings we had an outdoor fire going in the fire pit, and it was wonderful to sit outside, warm from the fire, and enjoying the spectacular star show. One evening, as we were relaxing by the fire, we heard coyotes starting to howl and yip off in the distance. Gradually they got closer, until they sounded like they were quite close to our chicken house. Ken decided rather than shooting at the noise, he would try to drive them off using animal psychology. So, he gradually started yipping like the coyotes, repeatedly working himself up to a full fledged howling crescendo. It worked like a charm, we heard no further noise from the coyotes, and the chickens remained safe in their house. Jim and Jonathon were very impressed with this display (as was I!), and from then on worked on perfecting their own howling at the moon.

CQ SPELLING CHECKED

By: SVV – Correspondent

-Cheney's replacement might go through your garbage

The Soap Gallery, a newly minted art space in San Francisco, plays host April 5 to three things that exemplify this city: bootstraps, activism and art.

River Soap Company – the scene behind the art gallery – has evolved after 17 years of business into a full-fledged retail/wholesale outlet of natural and organic toiletry products. But the soap itself, permeating the air in an amalgam of peppermint and spice at the Soap Gallery, started it all.

Lisa Mendelson, eclectic artist and co-owner of the company says, “We were broke and I bought my sister Eve a birthday gift, which included a bar of soap. That prompted us to say, ‘we need a new product like this.’ At the time, no one had money for anything and we thought, ‘Oh!, this is kind of a neat luxury item for under five bucks.’”

The sisters rendered some animal fat in the kitchen – it smelled “kinda porky,” Mendelson says – and bought some lye to start experimenting with recipes. But working with animal products and dangerous chemicals prompted Mendelson and her sister to break out the Thomas Register, an industry directory. It is found at the library or on the Internet and is something they consider essential for anyone that wants to find suppliers and start a business.

The concept of having an art gallery at the business headquarters was born three years ago in the SOMA District of San Francisco, River Soap Company’s previous location. The sisters, both lovers of art, decided to provide a cheap venue for local artists to display their craft. Unusual in the art gallery world, they only take 10 percent of the proceeds. (most galleries are in the 20-35 percent range)

“We don’t provide a lot other than clean walls, some lighting and 60 beers [for the artist reception],” Mendelson explains, “I mean, 10 percent!”

The Soap Gallery is debuting this Saturday at its new location with an exhibit by progressive activist Mark Gonzalez. The former San Francisco District 5 Supervisor is Ralph Nader’s running mate in the 2008 Presidential Election. They are running as independents and are currently on a blitz to challenge the conventional reality of a two-party political system – and to get on the ballot in time for Nov. 4, 2008.

A member of the Green party, Gonzalez, 42, ran for mayor and narrowly lost in 2003 to then-Supervisor Gavin Newsom by less than 15,000 votes.

As an artist he creates collages from “found art,” which can be anything. The waste and detritus of our consumer society is a rich playing field for artists such as him.

But progressive causes do not play a part in the creation of art for this vice-presidential challenger.

“For me it’s not, I mean, my program is to try to make something beautiful,” he muses.

Gonzalez’s works on display at 3180 Mission St. in the bustling and hip Mission District are a study in small abstract collages, with some no larger than a 3x5 card. Pointing to a blazing-red ensemble entitled, “Gushing Sun,” he touches a small scrap of wax paper. This piece, he says, came from working with Bay Area figurative painter William Theophilus Brown.

Another piece of scrap, which he likens to paintings by Dutch artist Piet Mondrian, came from a Burger King sandwich container.

Gonzalez has a little box that he throws things in - rather like a painter’s palette he says - from which he works to create his art. Taking artistic practice seriously – he has played bass guitar in a punk band after all – he’s done roughly one collage per day since 2006.

“You have to do a lot of them to get ones that work,” he says.

“Right now with the political thing I’m only collaging like once every two or three days,” he says. “But I’ll sit down with it as a kind of daily exercise, a little meditation.”

“It’s really no different than a sketch pad,” he says. “It’s not some big, okay everybody, stop, I’m about to make a collage.”

With strict ballot qualifications and big hurdles in each of the 50 states to register the Nader/Gonzalez team for the election, this is not surprising. However, the answer to his artistic question does come as a small and immediate expression on a little square of white paper.

“Ultimately I’m looking for an aesthetic thing that works… and that has a beauty in it,” he says.

The Soap Gallery is open during normal business hours on weekdays and by appointment. Contact them at (415) 920-9199 or at http://206.130.104.2/soap-gallery/.

Childhood play continued:
Mom was game in a lot of ways. She taught us many of our street games, and I can remember her turning the rope for us and jumping herself out on the sidewalk! Our jump rope games used either one rope, or for a more challenging sport, two. Using two ropes was called "double dutch", and the one jumping as well as the rope turners would chant one of a huge number of playground ditties, which Mom also knew.

"I had a little puppy
His name was Tiny Tim
I put him in the bathtub, to see if he could swim
He drank all the water, he ate a bar of soap
The next thing you know he had a bubble in his throat.
In came the doctor, (person jumps in)
In came the nurse,( person jumps in)
In came the lady with the alligator purse (person jumps in)
Out went the doctor (person jumps out)
Out went the nurse (person jumps out)
Out went the lady with the alligator purse (person jumps out)"

"Oh Mary Mack, Mack, Mack,
All dressed in black, black, black,
With silver buttons, buttons, buttons,
All down her back, back, back.

She asked her mother, mother, mother,
For fifty cents, cents, cents,
To see the elephants, elephants, elephants,
Go over the fence, fence, fence.

They jumped so high, high, high,
They touched the sky, sky, sky,
And they never came back, back, back,
Until the fourth of July, lye, lye, lye."

As the game progressed, the rope turners would turn faster and faster, until ultimately of course you tripped.

"Not last night but the night before,
twenty-four robbers came knocking at my door
I asked them what they wanted, and this is what they said:
Spanish Dancer do the splits, the twist, the turnaround and touch the ground, and out the back door
Spanish Dancer please come back, back, sit on a tack, read a book and do not look",
(jump with eyes closed, everyone counting out loud: 1, 2, 3,
4, 5... until you miss)

Each of these Spanish Dancer moves were performed by the jumper.

I also remember Mom playing jacks with us on the kitchen floor, playing "fort" on rainy days with blankets draped over a card table, and the most fun of all, playing "war" with Larry. Cars had inner tubes in those days, and used ones were an endless source of creative fun. If you cut them across the tube, you had sturdy, large rubber bands. Then if you turned a dining room chair upside down, with the legs pointed at your opponent, you could stretch the rubber band quite a long ways, using the front chair leg for an anchor. Release the rubber band and it sailed a looooong way, or better yet, hit your opponent with a very satisfying "thwack!". We could, and did, get enough momentum to leave bruises, and loved this game. We had a long room which was a combined living room and dining room. It seemed huge, and was perfect for this sport. These inner tubes were also a perfect source for slingshot material. Jeeze, we were bloodthirsty little savages!

sharing bookmarks

http://hubblesite.org/ -- visual wavelength

http://chandra.harvard.edu/ -- x-ray

http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/-- thermal infrared

These are the last of the Great Observatories launched into space. All of them have some incredible and vibrant images of things that are real. Real shapes and forms that blow the back of your mind out with incomprehension.

How hot is a million degrees anyway? Does iron turn into platinum at that temperature?

Anyway, I’ll randomly pop into sites such as these and change the background on my desktop to an image. I like pretty images of chaos. It’s a nice juxtaposition.

Here is my current, Abell 520 :

“A complicated collision of galaxy clusters” is what they are calling it. At any rate, our taxpayer funds have been spent wisely on data management. The databases available through these sites are super-deep rabbit holes of galactic expansionism.

I'd like to make calendars with some of the best. Since the data is public we can profit from the sale. I called the public relations office once. It's cool, we can copy with attribution.

Childhood play
The neighborhood where we grew up (1224 Athens Street) was a different world from today in San Francisco. The door to our house was unlocked all day, even if everyone had left home for school, work and shopping. At night, Daddy locked the door. All the homes had a one car garage, and each home owner had a maximum of one car if any. If we were going on short errands, the car was not taken out of the garage, we walked. For many excursions we used public transportation. There was a bus stop at the end of our block. The cars were kept in the garages so there were very few vehicles parked on the street. This left the street wide open for children to play, and we used it! There was a decent size group of kids in our immediate vicinity, and after school and on the weekends we were out on the sidewalk or in the street to play. "One foot off the gutter" and "dodge ball" were two of the games we played in the street. On the sidewalks we played jump rope, hop scotch or jacks (girls), rode our clamp on roller skates or one speed bicycles (boys and girls). Of course there were always the reliable "cops and robbers", or "cowboys and indians" group endeavors as well.


Play guns, gun belts, soldier gear and cowboy and cowgirl outfits were common toys. Flexies (factory made four wheeled coasters) and home made coasters were always a source of fun. The home made coasters were made from pieces of clamp on roller skates and whatever wood could be found. The steering mechanism involved a rope, and brakes were supplied by our feet.
We wore a specific set of clothes to school, and for girls that meant dresses. After school we changed into our "play clothes" and roared out the door. Girls were allowed to wear pants for play. It's hard to imagine now, but children were expected (go outside and play!) to play outside in public areas, without constant adult supervision. Parents did not worry much about the safety of their kids as long as they were within "the neighborhood", and what constituted the neighborhood grew progressively larger as we grew older.
The childhood girl playmates I remember were: Linda Genai, Janie Kaiser (famous for having her three year old younger brother dance naked in the living room window in front of all the kids), Dolly and Conny from around the corner, and Evelyn McCloud. Yes I'm the bratty looking one in the first row right, sitting next to Evelyn. The third boy from the right in the back row is Larry Castelli. He and I had the misfortune to be school mates our entire public school career, and endured endless teasing of "Abbott and Costello, Abbott and Castellli". We both heartily wished the other one would move, die or something to end the torment.


There was a series of four blocks of hill near us and we would laboriously skate or pedal up the four blocks, then go at top speed down each steep block, across the level cross street, down the next hill, and so on until we careened around the corner to our own block. If we were riding a coaster, we were out in the street for this stunt. When riding our skates, we used the sidewalk, and it took good coordination to jump off the curb at the bottom of the block, fly across the street, then jump the curb onto the next block successfully. It speaks of how little traffic there was, and how much adults watched out for reckless kids that none of us were hit.
During the summer we were allowed to play outside after dinner, and when the street lights came on, that was curfew for all of the kids.
We had a neighbor three houses away, Mr. Winkler, who was a policeman on parking enforcement patrol. He drove one of those motorcycle with two back wheels, and the great event of each afternoon was being allowed to ride on the back as he drove down his driveway into the garage. On Halloween, Mr. Winkler would thoughtfully bring home bags of illegal fireworks that the police had confiscated, and distribute them to the neighborhood children. We had a high old time with fire crackers, cherry bombs, and other more deadly explosives. We lit the fireworks with a "punk", which was a short piece of clothesline. We got the end of the clothes line burning, then kept it smoldering by blowing on it so we always had a live spark.

Truly it is amazing what we were allowed to do, and that we suffered no serious injuries. It is true however, that I had constant wounds and scabs on both knees (those damn dresses!) for most of my childhood years, and there are many family photos where I am carefully holding my dress down over each knee to hide the ugly marks of knee meeting concrete. See the photos and my kindegarten photo above.

We had a trapeze (a pipe hung from ropes) in our basement, and played on it regularly, swinging from our knees. After a few too many falls onto the concrete floor (!), Daddy put a mattress under it.

Note the ripped and patched knees on the pedal pushers.

Grandmother comes to visit
In the early 1950's our Kansas Grandmother and Aunt Vivian came for a three week visit. Grandmother is second from the left in the photo, and Aunt Vivian is on the far right. They were lovely women, who wrote us weekly letters to keep in touch in those days before email, when long distance phone calls were reserved for death notices. Grandmother had been a farm wife all her life, and did not know how to live the life of idle visitor. We woke up every morning to the smell of yeast rolls baking for breakfast (yuuuuuuum) and after a day or so of doing "nothing" she finally asked my mom in desperation if she didn't have any rags. We had a large rag bag, so for the remainder of her visit Grandmother was happily occupied in turning those rags into rugs. These oval rugs were crocheted from our cast offs, and were used for many many years around the house, in the bathrooms and in front of the kitchen sink.
Aunt Vivian, just as industrious, occupied her time in doing needlework. It was on this visit that she taught me how to tat. Now tatting is a fairly obscure form of needlework, being a very fiddley and tedious way to make lace. Over the course of their visit, she very patiently taught me this old art form, and when they left I had my own tatting shuttle and a new skill. Aunt Vivian made a tatted bedspread, and was also skilled in quilting as was Grandmother. Joy and I have some quilts and quilt tops that were made by them. I also remember doing embroidery with Grandmother and Aunt Vivian, but this was a skill that had been taught to me by my mother.
Aunt Vivian was a maiden lady who never left home. She had a college degree from Pasadena Nazarene College, then returned home and worked in an office until her retirement. She supported her Mother after her Dad died in 1945. I don't know if Aunt Vivian had any male "admirers", and both she and Grandmother were much involved in their family and church circles. Aunt Vivian was a very shy, sweet and gentle lady who always took an interest in Larry, Joy and I. She wrote us frequent letters, and I can remember being reminded by Mom to write to Grandmother and Aunt Vivian each Saturday. When Aunt Vivian died in 1965, we found that she had a life insurance policy with us children as beneficiaries. It doesn't sound like much, but each of us inherited $1000.00 from Aunt Vivian, and it was enough for George and I to buy a house in Pacifica. The $1000.00 covered the down payment and closing costs on a $13,500.00 house in Sharp Park.

Museum education.
When Scott and Lisa were around 11-12 years old, a special exhibit of French impressionists came to the De Young Museum. It was a wonderful show, and heavily attended. We took the kids to see this probably once in a lifetime chance to see these masterpieces. It was the kind of event where we dressed up a little to attend. We were looking at the Van Gough's in a very crowded room and Scott was reading the explanatory tags posted by the photos. Again during one of those eerie silences that fall upon a crowd now and then, his young voice rang through the room...."Mom, what is a broothel?" (Van Gough "The Brothel") The silence in the crowd became a hushed expectancy, as every ear in the room waited for the next move, and every person held their breath. Since Scott was old enough to have had "the talk" with his parents, and I do believe in honesty with children, I bent down close to his ear and whispered "it's a place where not very nice women let not very nice men have sex with them for money". An explosive and loud, "Oh Yuck" came from Scott and the whole room exhaled in a burst of laughter.

Jail Break
Joy was a very quiet little girl, having much in common with Kiva today. However, she was not without her moments of enterprise. We were privileged to have separate bedrooms in our big house in San Francisco, and Joy's had a balcony. There were windows looking out on the balcony and these were open enough for a sliding metal slatted screen for ventilation (oh that wonderful San Francisco air!!!) The house had a full basement, then two living space levels, and the bedrooms were on the top floor.
One day, when Joy was near three years old, she was taking a nap in her room when my mother heard her voice....outside. Thinking quickly, my mom realized there was only one way she could be outside without having passed through the first floor and my mom seeing her. Mom bolted up the stairs, saw the ventilator removed from the window, and my sister sitting on the balcony rail enjoying the view down three stories to a concrete patio. Mom lunged through the window and grabbed Joy, dragging her to safety.
Those windows were no longer left open, but other ones on the top floor still were. So, move on to another day, not too long after the balcony episode. Most of the homes on our block were one story, and being city houses they were very close together, but did commonly have a narrow gap between each one, say a foot wide or so. This gap wasn't visible from the street since the fronts of the houses connected, but it must have been to allow utilities access.
Once again, Joy was supposed to be taking a nap....and her voice was heard outside. Mom again took the stairs two at a time to find the bathroom window open, and Joy three houses away on the roof. Another athletic squirm out the window, leap over the gaps and grab the child stunt for poor mother. That night, all the windows in the house were securely nailed shut by my Dad, preventing any further escape attempts by Joy. The windows weren't nailed completely shut, he made it so they all opened about 4 inches, so we could still get that fabulous breeze, but certainly not open enough to allow a small child to wiggle through.