And So It Begins...

Four women have announced their candidacy for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.  Considering what happened to Hillary Clinton in 2016, I admire their courage.  I suspect, however, they are laboring under some delusions when it comes to how any woman who is not Hillary Clinton will be treated by American media, the traditional white male establishment, and the patriarchy-conditioned American public-at-large.

I think these women believe on some level that Mrs. Clinton was the object of unique misogyny, due to her personal history and having been married to a very public philanderer who also happened to be POTUS.  If Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Kirsten Gillibrand and Liz Warren truly believe that they will be somehow immune from attacks based upon their gender, they are in for a rude awakening.  In fact, the opening salvos have already been launched.

One particularly galling attack was directed toward Amy Klobuchar, the thrice-elected senior senator from Minnesota.  Now, I don’t know much about Klobuchar.  I can even say I might never have heard of her before she announced her candidacy.  But all I really need to know is that she is a woman, a woman who has been in one position of power or another for more than thirty years.  And I can know the tightrope she has been walking for that entire time.  Because I have walked that same thin line.  The line every woman who aspires to managing other people walks Every. Damn. Day.

Apparently, some ex-employees chose to share their harsh criticisms of Klobuchar’s management style with the press—anonymously, of course.  One can only wonder how much they were compensated, and by whom, to share their horror stories of the bitch boss from hell. 

I had some go-‘rounds on social media about this.  The consensus seems to have sorted out to, “NO ONE should treat employees like this.  Klobuchar shouldn’t get a pass just because she’s a woman.”  To which my reaction was, “Are you kidding?  Not only will she NOT get a pass, she’ll be called out by every person—male or female—who ever got anywhere near her and had their nose nudged out of joint by something she did or said.  Because she’s a woman."  And because she’s a woman, there will be legions more folks going public with tales of "abuse" than there would ever be hiding in the shadows of a male manager’s career.  Trust me.

Following is my soliloquy on the subject, first written as a FB comment on a friend’s posting about Klobuchar’s offenses. It was inspired by the comments of a gay male friend of this friend who went on a bender about how Klobuchar was a horrible person, and it wasn’t sexism to call her out on mistreating people who worked for her.  Made me see a little red…

“I read an article the other day about “whitesplaining” racism to black people.  The same dynamic occurs when men attempt to “mansplain” sexism to women.  There is too much tendency for people who are convicted by sensitive truths to change the narrative of a phenomenon that they themselves have never and will never experience.  In short, no man can or should EVER try to explain, defend, downplay or deny sexism to ME.  Sorry, gents…you have absolutely NO IDEA what you’re talking about.

“As a woman who found herself in positions of responsibility and/or authority several times during her working life, I can state without a doubt that expectations of the behavior of female bosses are markedly different—and markedly more ridiculous—than those of male bosses.  Women are expected to be soft, measured, empathetic, collaborative, and basically rule by committee.  Any female whose attitude is, “This is what needs to be done, and this is how we’re going to do it” is skewered as bitchy, bossy, “unlikable”…choose your negative adjective.  God forbid a woman, as a boss, just tell her staff what she wants them to do, rather than asking politely if someone would please like to take on this task.  Are men held to this same kind of standard?  I think not.  Being a woman in a position of authority is not for the faint of heart.  This contributes greatly to the scarcity of women in executive roles in our business world.  Many very capable women just don’t want to subject themselves to this ingrained double standard. 

“Another phenomenon I encountered late in my career was that employees became more and more demanding of “consideration” by authority figures.  By the time I closed my restaurant, I was at my wit’s end with new employees just wanting to show up on the job and do…whatever; who were deeply offended by anyone trying to actually tell them what to do, whether it was myself or my more experienced staff members who were assigned to train them.  Imagine being branded as an “abusive” boss just because you were attempting to train staff and give them direction.  My point is, often times (and this seems to be happening more and more lately) employees come into a job with very specific notions about how they think they should be treated…especially if the boss is female.  Women are expected to be kind and soft and…gullible is the word that comes to mind.  We should not have high standards or expectations, and we should accept any excuse if an employee can’t/chooses not to perform.  And if a non-performing employee does quit or get fired, that ex-employee doesn’t take the blame for not being able to deal with the culture of a workplace.  Their inability to succeed will be because it was a terrible job or the boss was a bitch.

“I don’t know what Amy Klobuchar is accused of doing/saying to her staff that is considered “abusive.”  What I do know is that my hackles are raised any time a woman’s management style is held under greater scrutiny and subjected to an entirely different set of standards than her male counterparts.  I suffered through that crap for decades, and I WILL give the woman the benefit of the doubt every time, because I have been there.” 

So, Mesdames Harris, Klobuchar, Gillibrand, and Warren…

Hitch up your big-girl panties and grab a really big umbrella. 

Because the shit is going to hit the fan, and it’s going to come at you at 100 miles per hour. 

We who have been there are right behind you. 

      

Humans Suck as Nature's Keepers

Here is a FB conversation I wanted to keep for posterity.  

I belong to a few "nature" pages, one of them being "Pacific Northwest Birders."

Like any other group that purports to be an association of people who "know" about something or "love" something, birders can be smug, bossy, superior and ruthless, and are not particularly reticent about putting these characteristics on public display.  

Over 100 years ago, some idiot got the bright idea that they wanted to have all the birds mentioned in Shakespeare's works released in Central Park.  Two of those European birds--starlings and English Sparrows--have flourished so well in the New World that they have spread in gigantic numbers across the continental US, to the chagrin of purist naturalists who are convinced that this has been an ecological disaster for native species that have been displaced or somehow negatively affected in the process.

So, these poor birds have been the object of a hatred and ire for decades.  I remember my grandfather showing 10-year-old me how he had built special birdhouses to attract house sparrows, in which he would trap them and then shake them to death, presumably for the pure and laudable motive of "protecting" native species.  I was appalled then, and am STILL appalled that there are supposedly educated, ecologically-minded adults who, 50 years later, subscribe to that cruel and violent solution to MAN'S ill-advised intervention with Nature.

I have had several debates about this question with the idiots, I mean, my fellow birders, on FB.  Following is the transcript of one of those debates:          

FB guy: I know that I wasn’t answering your question, just adding to KL’s information about House Sparrows effect on bluebirds. As for your comment, we as humans really screwed up and it is our fault, so we should be doing everything to get rid of House Sparrows. We should not be worrying about killing “innocent” birds or persecuting another creature. Whatever can be done to benefit bluebirds should be done no matter what.

Me: I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. IMO, human beings are entirely too willing to kill "innocent" anything, for whatever reasons we deem valid. I maintain that this is NOT our right. It is not up to us to make conscious choices of which species should live and which should die.

FB Guy: I think we should start viewing how things might end up in the long run. Will bluebirds ever be seen in the Willamette Valley ever again because of House Sparrows? If we don’t do anything, what will the impact on the Western Bluebird population be in the valley? I think it is questions like these that need to be addressed and pondered over. I am with you on that it is sad and maybe cruel to kill these innocent creatures, but benefitting the native species should be top priority when it comes to bringing bluebird populations up in the Portland area.

FB Gal: so while your rationale comes from an obviously larger scope of the world view, many of us who are conservationist or work in the environmental restoration field will tell you they are not just harmless creatures. They are not native here and we had Western Bluebirds in the outer areas of Portland metro area when I was growing up ...up until the late 70's depending on where you were. And things do change that does NOT mean always for the better. House Sparrows do not provide to the ecosystem the way that bluebirds do as they evolved in this area.

Also House Sparrows cause harm to other species who they out compete. They are aggressive birds and push many other species out of nesting spaces.and I think Weaver Finch is the correct distinction for these guys. Hopefully no one will post a picture of a starling lest the conservation get really ugly.

Me: All very well thought out, from the point of view of humans who have learned to be very scientific and convincing/convinced of their "duty" to act as if they are very naturally in charge of which creatures are "worthy" and which are not. There's nothing I could possibly say to convince you of your error. Let's just say I don't buy into your conviction that humans should be in charge of this sort of "environmental restoration", which I am perfectly free not to do.

FB Gal: Actually we are trying to rectify NOT doing what nature intended. We are trying to put back into place systems that were nature created. So no we are not dictating what is best more trying to throw ourselves on nature's mercy if we try to put back what she had in place. so although scientific based on natures blueprint. And you are right you will never convince many of us that we should not correct our errors and restore what nature intended.

Me: Nature embraces her own. Were I Nature, I would have a hard time associating "mercy" with a plan to exterminate one species in favor of another, no matter how the species came to be where they are.

FB Guy #2: you may not know that these weaver finches were introduced to the US by a Shakespeare fan who decided that we should have all the birds mentioned in the Bard's plays here in America. 150 years later we have these European birds everywhere, displacing the natives

Me: I am aware of the history. I am also aware that the original "offense" took place over 100 years ago. I'm not arguing that the action was an ecological blunder. My beef is with the attitude so many humans have taken against the poor birds whose only sin has been to flourish in their new environment. Human beings are the only "sinners" here...but they seem to think that the damage done by the sin of humans will somehow be absolved by punishing the birds. In this case, as always, two wrongs do not make a right.

Hmmm.... Europeans displacing the natives.... If we want to follow the reasoning that this is an ecological wrong that must be made right, perhaps WE should all go back to Europe, or wherever we came from...?

FB Gal: while there are some that would applaud that thought going back to Europe as we did ruin things here, we are still righting the wrongs we committed towards the indigenous folks should we stop that since it occurred more than 100 years ago? I never suggested eradicating house sparrows and starlings as that is impossible at this point, but I will encourage ways to dissuade them from nesting, etc. I assume you have issues with all efforts to save animal species. Do you suggest we just quit trying and let whatever happens happen? What if that means allowing the web to collapse as we allowed critters to become extinct not knowing their tie to other critters, plants, etc?

Me: I do not have an issue with "all efforts to save animal species." But I do believe that it is NEVER ok to KILL animals in order to manipulate nature into some state of order that human beings have decreed is "proper." YOU might personally say that you don't believe in killing starlings and house sparrows, but you and I both know that there are those who have taken the "discouragement" philosophy as license to kill these birds whenever they encounter them. There is something sick and twisted about a species that will concoct "reasonable" and "scientific" excuses to kill off other creatures. Human beings are so prone to indulge in that behavior, that they habitually even come up with "reasonable" excuses to kill off "unacceptable" members of their own species. Humans have not historically demonstrated good judgment on questions of who/what should be allowed to live and who/what should not. They would be the LAST creatures to whom I would entrust that responsibility.

And a couple of days later, I discovered THIS article on the internet, put out by the Portland Audubon Society...which proves my point in spades:

Baker County Oregon Plans to Kill Ravens to Save Sage Grouse 

The geniuses in some stinky little backwater county in Oregon have decided that HUMAN-CAUSED raven overpopulation is threatening endangered sage grouse, so their plan to eliminate thousands of ravens in the next three years consists of putting out poisoned eggs for the ravens to eat, killing the ravens (and, I would expect, anything else that came upon the poison bait, plus anything that fed on sickened ravens or raven carcasses...)  

How to even begin commenting on such a stupid, irresponsible, needlessly murderous policy? 

Mankind.  Embraces any excuse...ANY EXCUSE...to assert dominance over other creatures through MURDER.

SMDH...

Ten (More or Less) Things: Leaving Home…Going “Home”

Back when “Coming to Terms” was a viable collection of writings, with actual readers, I used to do “Ten Things” lists when I had a bunch of little ideas for posts rolling around in my head, but I couldn’t flesh out any one of them enough to create an actual essay.  To say that I have lived in that paralyzing limbo for many months now—since ‘long about November of 2016, I’d guess—would be a gross understatement.

Still, I feel like this momentous change that’s going to occur in my life deserves some kind of record, if not analysis…or maybe a bit of both.  Much as I’d like to do a series of essays on the subject, I haven’t yet moved past that emotional roadblock that has kept me from investing any decent amount of energy into anything that ISN’T about the horrifying state of our national government. 

So I’ve decided to record some of my maddeningly incomplete and random thoughts on the coming move as a “# of Things” assortment.  Maybe sometime later I can take one of the ideas and turn it into some real writing.

1.)It’s no secret that I am NOT sad to be leaving Scappoose.  It’s hard to believe we’ve been here for almost 18 years, and, despite even having run a damn restaurant in the town for 5 of those years (possibly the most exhausting five years of my life) we have NO friends and NO social connection to this place.  I realize that, with the advance of the internet and social media, communities and neighborhoods aren’t what they once were.  And I also realize that, being the introvert I am, my social isolation is as much my own fault as anything.  But that hasn’t really changed the age-old small town dynamic:  at its core, it’s a tightly closed group of folks who were born and raised here, as their parents and grandparents were.  They all know each other and they pretty much shun “outsiders.”  And no number of years living in their space absolves you of being an “outsider.

 We had lived here 5 years when we bought the restaurant.  We'd made some attempts at fitting into the place in that time...I'd frequented the community swimming pool, I volunteered at the county fairgrounds, we tried to join local community organizations...but we were still hanging on the fringes of the place after 5 years.  Then we bought the restaurant, where we were loudly and aggressively NOT accepted as part of the community for 5 of the hardest years of my life.  After that, I really had no more interest in assimilating into this insular, mean-spirited little burg.  

As I was driving AWAY the other day, toward my new house and new future back “home” in Eugene, I thought of how I would describe this community in one sentence.  And this is what came to me:

Columbia County…land of unimaginative, uninspired quasi rural types whose vision forthe future is “let’s keep things the way they’ve always been for as long as we possibly can.” 

Even at MY “advanced” age, I can’t see myself allowing my life to be ruled by that moldy old philosophy for the days I have left on this planet.  Can’t shake the dust of this backward little town off my feet fast enough.

2.) Even as I complain that I won’t miss this little town, I am struck by how much I will miss this place—the geographic location.  It’s a lovely area, hemmed in as it is by the hills to the west and the channel to the east, with major components of the “ring of fire” visible beyond the channel, on clear days. I have grown to love the outdoor spaces of this place, to which I have so often fled for solace in the sadness, exhaustion and confusion so ever-present over the past two decades of my life. I know I can and will establish a connection to Mother Earth in my new home.  But I will miss the breadth and depth of the one I have here.

3.) And then, there’s the house.  I have never been one to become too attached to stuff. I do tend to acquire more than I need, mostly because of my philosophy of “retail therapy”—I just like to shop.  And when one’s next living space will be roughly half the size of one’s present living space, one learns to cut the cord on much of the stuff pretty quickly.  The concept of purging my life of things that “no longer serve” has never been more relevant.  I’m not surprised, really, at just how much of what I own no longer serves, or at least will not serve in a vastly reduced living space. And I’m okay with that. 

But as I wander the rooms of the house that has been my home for so many years, "staging" it to be attractive to prospective buyers, I can’t help but look a little wistfully at the spaces that have held some of my favorite objects—my mantels, my bookshelves, even my dressers…and feel somewhat sad that I will no longer be able to indulge my penchant for (over)decorating.  Gone will be the elaborate Christmas mantels and much of the kitschy wall art I’ve acquired over the years (because there were so many walls to decorate…)  The tiny rooms into which we’ll be installing ourselves will not lend themselves to the large collections of tchotchkes  I’ve compiled.  If I don’t learn how to decorate in a minimalist, massively edited fashion, our home will look like an overstocked curiosity shop.  I’m pretty sure I don’t want to live in such surroundings, and I know the husband doesn’t.

This post has been sitting on my desktop for a couple of weeks already.  If I try to come up with my traditional “Ten things,” it might never make it to the blog.  So I’m going to publish this now, and add more “things” as they come to me, in short enough bursts to get onto “paper” and over to the blog. 

That seems to be the best I can do, right now.  Cheers!

Little House Is...

...starting to feel a little more like home every day.  

New Year...A Few Weeks Late

Last year’s blogging effort sort of petered out ignominiously, didn’t it? 

I honestly don’t know why I’m having such a hard time writing.  I suspect it has something to do with the all-pervasive political pall that has fallen over our world.  I have been overwhelmed…buried by the endless stream of catastrophic bullshit emanating from the bullshitter-in-chief, his cult following and his sycophants in Congress.  It seems like there is nothing good or pure or innocently exciting under the sun. 

And in this heavy, poisonous atmosphere, I am preparing to embark upon a shiny new chapter of life.  Doesn’t bode too well, does it?

Yet…here I am, clickety-clacking away in my new home, ink barely dry on the official documents, and house #1 in Scappoose still having not quite yet made its debut on the affordable-housing-hungry market in greater PDX. 

A little scary…yes, indeed.  But things have been moving forward inexorably; while not as rapidly as my impatient heart would desire, certainly as quickly as this old girl and her old guy are able to assimilate the changes.  Our first goal was to reduce our inventory of vehicles to one each (plus the bus), all paid for and titles in hand. That was a process!  But eventually we were able to declare “Mission Accomplished” and had put ourselves on better financial footing to begin our house hunt.

So…I am going to attempt to re-invigorate my blog with tales of the ups and downs of setting ourselves up for retirement.  If I’m too overwhelmed by the sheer volume of heavy political crap to formulate decent essays on that subject, I can, at the very least, maintain the “historical record of my life” aspect of the blog. 

Stay tuned, if you’re interested…

Bloom

I'll Drink To That

My mother drank.

She was—or tried to be—a secret drunk. 

At least, she kept the DRINKING secret.  The drunkenness, not so much.  She must have known that we understood how she got the way she got, every night when she came home from work.  But she just could not be frank or honest that she drank, about how much she drank, or about how and/or why she NEEDED to drink. 

She was ashamed of it.  But she didn’t stop.  She couldn’t stop. 

And Dad, who could have helped her stop, helped her drink instead.  Made sure that there was booze in the house so she wouldn’t have to go out in the car to get it.  He thought he had it under control.  As if making sure she didn’t kill herself or anyone else out on the streets after having power-chugged two or three canned cocktails in the parking lot at the liquor store was the only and most important aspect of having her drinking “under control.’

So, my mother spent much of my formative years in the bag.  And I spent much of that time praying that the few friends or acquaintances I had would never see her in that condition. 

I suppose I have made peace with that aspect of my childhood.  I don’t hate my mother for ruining my teenage years.  I was a pretty fucked up kid, independent of any of that (I think…) She did the best she could with what she had, and so did Dad.  Do I wish that they had made different choices?  Yes…sometimes I do.  But it was what it was, and there were happy times in spite of and in between all that. 

So why am I thinking about this today?

Because, now I’m over sixty myself, and it takes a half-hour for me to iron out all the kinks and get fully mobile every morning.  And, with the seasonality of my “career,” I spend many of the darkest, coldest, gloomiest days of the year alone with my thoughts…and that is NEVER good.  So lately I have got to thinking about Mom’s drinking.  It was self-medication, of course.  She had severe arthritis in her neck, and it fucked with every aspect of her body.  AND—and this is her legacy to me, my sisters, my nieces—she had severe anxiety.  Anxiety that she could never share with anyone, because she didn’t want anyone to throw a net over her head and clap her in the loony bin.  The very same kind of anxiety that I grapple with.  Every. Single. Day.

So….I understand, more clearly than I ever have in my entire life, why my mother drank.

At those times when I just want to bash my own head in with a hammer, just to stop the ever-churning circle of anxious thoughts from speeding around and around and around in my head, I fully understand being willing to do anything you can to SHUT THEM UP.         

And that being drunk most of the time was probably one of the more innocuous ways to deal with the issue.

Unfortunately, I cannot drink like that.  My stomach just won’t let me.  My mother’s insides must have been made out of cast iron.  She got loaded every night, but I don’t think she ever got sick from it.  I never saw her with a hangover.  I can drink a couple of glasses of wine, and that’s it.  Any more than that and it just goes down like battery acid.  And if I do manage to choke down enough to cop a good buzz, I feel like crap most of the next day.  Who needs that on top of the crippling anxiety you’re drinking to get rid of?

This isn’t exactly a heart-warming holiday reminiscence, is it?  The fact is, holidays were the times when my mother’s drinking was the worst.  She just couldn’t handle the “stress” of cleaning up the house and having people over…not without a good snort or two under her belt.  So it is, like it or not, one of the memories that comes to mind (haunt?) when the holidays roll around.

Memories….  They’re not ALL good and happy, are they?  But they are what they are.  They don’t keep me from thinking fondly of the Christmases when we were all together, before the really SERIOUS losses of life had begun to whittle away at our numbers around the table.  Mom’s slightly altered condition just became part of the fabric of our lives.

I’d take those days, now, over sitting here at my lonely keyboard, typing out a journal entry, trying to give my brain a productive distraction…