Good company

A warm breeze comes through my window. It’s January in southern California, a continuation of the warm, dry fall. Might we have a heat wave, like the record-breaking temps at the end January, 1995? I remember spending days at the beach, evenings preparing Mai-Tais and buffalo wings, and letting myself believe the weather would last until fall. Two weeks later, it was cold, gray, and raining, and I was in bed with a sinus infection. February and March are southern California’s cold, rainy months. But, for now, it’s warm and clear, like a beautiful Provencal evening.

I’ve rediscovered opera. The tragedies, strangely, satisfy some spot that otherwise preoccupies me, having suffered a recent sting at work (as well as the family blowup, which hasn’t changed). Misery perhaps does love company, and I am trying to use time wisely; La Boheme and La Traviata seem to be hitting the spot. (And oh, how I love Nabucco!) So, for the moment, I’m spending time with Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazon. And a whiskey.

- PJ

Time spent wisely

Last Sunday I spent time wisely; I visited my uncle and Carlin. He’s turned another page, not a chapter, but definitely a page. Carlin wavers between reality and the world of Carlin which tells me she’s just fine because that’s the way my beloved cousin has always been. Many years ago, friends of my uncle deduced: “She speaks a whole different language, called ‘Carlin’.” I adore her, and always have. Both my uncle and Carlin care. They always have and they always will. Anyone who reads Half Italian will know.

- PJ

Dark. Light.

I’ve been putting off writing this post. My year has started mixed.

Defend the offender, not the victim. The fearful perceive power in those who are offensive.

Christmas day was magic: mid-eighties, beautiful skies, late-morning service made even better by having attended candlelight service the evening before, at a friend’s request. Standing in the sunshine after, one woman considered an afternoon hike with her family, in Fryman Canyon.

Two people, opposites in nearly every way, impose hostility. They don’t know each other, never will. Strict adherence to fundamentalist religion is their only relation. I go to church, so I’m “right,” they say. They’d like to take me down, kill a part of me they don’t like. Religion at its worst can unify even these two, from different denominations.

The holidays were warm, but nights cool, so how welcome was that fireplace on New Years’ Eve, spent with new friends. January 1st was a repeat of the summer-like Christmas, just a week earlier. Next day, I walked to a movie, “The Artist,” in shorts and t-shirt.

Search not for truth, just win the game – money is worth more than people.

What a double-edge sword human behavior is; we can both create and corrupt.

Dark days, but don’t lose track of the good. Use time wisely. Spend it with those who care.

- PJ

Use Time Wisely

This will be the year I make progress with Half Italian, or stop, including this blog. All depends on my Travelers’ Tales submissions and anything that may come up before I learn their outcome.

Last week, one of the principals from Half Italian, my uncle, spent a few days in the hospital. A post-publication whimsy for me is to introduce some of my Italian family from the book to an interested reader or two. For now, my uncle is fine and staying with Carlin but his hospital stay is a reminder that time is always limited.

I think of a beloved Monsignor, the only Catholic priest I ever met with a combination of true class, practical sensibilities, business and people skills. He’s retired, but probably saying Mass as I write this. My only contact with the troubled Roman Catholic church is limited to this fine man, who used to say, “Use time wisely.” He left the rest to us.

Of this I remind myself, as 2012 begins. Use time wisely.

- PJ

Eve

The tree is up.

The table is set.

Oh, how I wish I took better pictures.

A co-worker work was fired, just days ago. I had my own threat this week. What’s my co-worker feeling, tonight?

I think of a benevolent woman I knew, deceased now. What a view of life she had. Her husband, upon learning his long career as a college professor would end with termination, took his own life. Some years later, her son ended an unimaginably cruel and unfair time in his life by shooting several people. His favor was quickly returned by local law enforcement.

In a Christmas card, this lady, my friend, wrote of seeing lights appear in neighborhood windows, of smelling cookies baking, about hanging her late-husband’s hand-made angel decorations, to the joy of her grandson. Naturally, she missed her husband and son, she wrote; yet, there IS joy in the air, and there IS hope, she concluded. Every Christmas, I put that note on my refrigerator.

I look out my window. In the dark, my little Tuscany isn’t visible, but a brightly-lit tree is, atop the same hill.

-PJ

Hello Russia!

I’ve been seeing regular viewing of this blog from Russia.

Welcome! Feel free to comment and say hello.

But know that my total vocabulary in Russian is limited to:

• Stuck


• Red light


• Nurse, let go!

- PJ

Feedback

One of my oldest friends in town, stuck in the elevator with me last Saturday, is the person to whom I handed a copy of Half Italian, mentioned at the end of my 11/21 post.

He found the book quite entertaining. “But I know you,” he reflected. “I can’t speak for a general public that doesn’t know you.”

True. I need the feedback of strangers.

Nothing, yet, from the contact of my 11/24 post.

- PJ