Dormant

Sad to have to take a week off work to catch up on personal business, but so it goes.

Today's task was at long last closing my mom's estate account. There was money in it, but just waiting to pay myself back for a variety of expenses - my share of the funeral expenses, the lawyer's fees, some medical bills.

In looking over the papers before I went to the bank, I saw where I was supposed to have done all this about a year and a half ago. But how could I, when it took this long to make sure all the clerical errors being made by the insurance company and the nursing home got cleared up?

(Example - insurance company sent me a check. I deposited it in the estate account. Then, a few months later, the insurance company said it was a mistake, so send it back. Since I set up the account as a savings account rather than checking, I paid out of my own pocket. Another example - the nursing home mistakenly deposited a check in my mom's resident's account after I'd closed it. I told them to return it to Social Security, but a year later they sent me another update of the funds in the account and the interest earned. I did my best. I ignored them.)

Anyway, more than two years after she died, I'm closing business. But when I tried to have the bank transfer the closed estate account and into my open savings account, there was a problem.

My savings account was "dormant." I hadn't added to or withdrawn from it in a long time. Why should I? It doesn't earn any interest to speak of. Might as well just leave it all in my checking account.

It didn't take much effort for my banker to reactivate the account. But it made me think about all the things in my life that have been left dormant, de-activated by neglect. Example - I passed through my childbearing years without incident, which seemed to have brought menopause to a very early resolution. (Thank goodness, by the way!)

Another thing I've noticed during this "staycation" - my list of minor little "homework" tasks to attend to this week are just as easily interrupted as my work tasks are. Example: needing to go to the hardware store for a new vacuum cleaner and fluorescent tubes for the kitchen instead of doing the second of two banking businesses (having the credit union drop my dad's name from our joint account - he died almost three years ago).

It seems an inescapable truth... life is what happens while you're making other plans. And the rest of it lies dormant.

love, hosaa
dealing with dormancy

Louis and Wynton

Just back from seeing an extraordinary show at the Strathmore: Silent film LOUIS accompanied by Wynton Marsalis, Cecile Licad, and a smoking jazz ensemble.

The film is a fictionalized rendering of the childhood of Louis Armstrong in corrupt, decadent old New Orleans, but it is also an homage to the redemptive power of music. Aesthetically, think Francis Ford Coppola meets the Keystone Kops. The transformation of the turn-of-the-century villainous politician from Snidely Whiplash into Charlie Chaplin (City Lights, Modern Times, and Great Dictator references) was a fun touch. And the young boy who played Louis, Anthony Coleman, was a wide-eyed charmer, totally convincing as a young Satchmo.

The music had me smiling all night, melding 19th-century Gottschalk with 21st-century Marsalis. At first I didn't recognize Wynton sitting in the band - of course I know what he looks like, but I was pretty far back. He is an icon but didn't march on stage separately from the other musicians, no spotlight. Then he played: The music IS the light. Wow. It's been 25 years since I saw him perform at the Kennedy Center (oh please bring back the Jazz Festival!) and he still blows me away.

It was a sold-out show, according to the signs at the box office, but there were a few scattered empty seats. Three boisterous standing ovations filled in those gaps.

love, hosaa
wishing the gift show had been open

U.S. Immigration Policy

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

(from "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus)

...oh, and could you also make sure they have a PhD in engineering before they get here? You know, like these guys:

(Big Bang Theory, CBS.com)

Oh, never mind. The key is under the mat.

Love, hosaa

not huddling, a little tempest-tost, breathing free

Bethesda's Shame

Just minutes from now, the beautiful, historic, Art Deco treasure, the Bethesda Theatre, goes on the auction block. Rumors suggest it could be converted to a retail space.

Shame, shame, shame on so many levels.








First of all, look at this building, a living monument to a culture, an age, when design mattered. Art Deco wasn't just about architecture, it was a style that crossed into fashion, home furnishings, film making











Second, there is no need for additional retail space in downtown Bethesda. Look around at the shuttered windows.

And look at the humanity left behind by the neglect of our less-humane interests:













Photographs by C. G. Wagner


Shame. Damn shame.

Save the building, and save the culture and the community it honored. Turn it into an educational and cultural center, a gallery, a ballroom, a bandstand, theater, cinema, reception hall.

Or turn it into a homeless shelter until our town gets back on its feet again.


Love, hosaa
Lifelong Bethesda resident, ashamed

ETA, later that same day... Bought by the lender for $2 million. Apparently only the bank itself wanted to buy the debt. I'm assured that "they know" Bethesda Theatre is a treasure, but it will be some time before it will glow again. It's the economy. Still.

Little karma's Delicate Balance

Once upon a time I found a $20 bill on the sidewalk. That's not something that normally happens to me. I was suspicious of my good fortune. I called out to a lady up the street and asked her if she dropped some money. She said no. Honest lady!

I kept the money but put it aside, in an unused pocket in my pocketbook. Why throw away good fortune? To keep from feeling all entitled and what-not, I sent a check for $20 to a charity, for fortune should always be shared with the less fortunate.

I figured I was $20 up in karma, or good luck, or grace of whatever mysterious forces I choose not to name.

A few months (or even years) later, I had a $10 bill in my pocket, the same pocket in which I was carrying a few letters (bills to pay, probably) to drop off at the post office on my way to work. You guessed it, the mailbox accepted the money without question. Stupid mailbox. A letter to my postmaster requesting the money back probably gave the staff a good laugh.

But I figured I was still a good $10 up in karma. Yay, me. I think about the profits and loss whenever I see money on the ground. Yes, I stoop for pennies (but never if they're tails. That's just bad luck, forget about it).

So it should not surprise me that a bit of good luck Monday would turn into bad luck Tuesday. Monday, for some reason, the IRS sent me a check and a letter explaining that they thought I overpaid. Had to do with some retirement money (which was actually my late mother's retirement money, since I'm not retired). Yay me, I'm up $400!

Then, on Tuesday, my credit card was declined at the grocery store and I came home to a message on my answering machine from the credit card company's fraud squad. When I called back they indicated that someone had been trying to use my credit card to buy $600+ of groceries at stores in Chile and Italy.

WHAT??

The good news is that they declined those purchases, but the bad news is that they declined mine too. I'll be getting a new number, a new start. For a few days, though, I'll have to dig into that unused pocket and retrieve my lucky $20 bill.

love, hosaa
respectful, if not reverent, of mysterious karmic/cosmic forces

Only the Best

Edward Duke
(June 17, 1953 - January 8, 1994)

Happy Birthday, Edward, who would have been 57.

You inspire me. Still.

Love, hosaa,
looking for the silver lining

Signs

Is it really a "sign" if you don't know what it means?

When you see something unusual, something you've never seen before, and it makes you feel sad (or happy, or curious, or anything), it's supposed to mean something, isn't it?

As I walk to work in the morning, I notice the birds - not that I'm an ornithologist, or even an experienced bird watcher. There was a new voice in the neighborhood this morning, a recognizable call I hadn't heard around here in a while.

Then a few steps away, I saw a trio of birds scuffling on the sidewalk at the foot of a tall building. One bird flew off, up onto the ledge overhead; it ducked into what evidently was "home."

The other two birds continued scuffling - or at least one was. As I drew closer, I realized that one was dead. It apparently had either flown into the building or fallen from the ledge. The other bird - father? mother? mate? medic? - was picking delicately at the fallen bird's neck and head, trying to revive it. The saver tried to pull the fallen off the path, closer to home. The struggle was overwhelming. The saver paused in its effort, nuzzled closer to the fallen, and seemed to try to catch its breath.

I did not expect to wake up this morning and share another creature's frustration, despair, and grief.

If it's a sign of anything, maybe it's that the world is always capable of showing me something I'd never seen before, and make me feel something I hadn't felt in just that way before.

love, hosaa
in sorrow