A beginning, an end, and new directions.

It wasn’t until late in 2003 that I joined some of my old San Jose State University journalism cohorts and others in writing columns for this website.  Ron Miller and the “founding fathers” (yes, they were all male to begin with) created TheColumnists.com four years earlier.  I’ve known Ron for many years (in fact he married one of my college roommates!).  I also went to school with Jerry Nachman, another ‘founder,’ and a couple of the other writers.

It took me awhile to find my ‘niche’ in this writing collective.  Because I was traveling a lot at that time and had sold a couple of travel articles to newspapers, I thought that would become my specialty.  But I soon realized that just writing about travel was too restrictive.  Besides, other writers also wrote columns about their own travel experiences.

So, after trying out a few styles, I found that what I liked to write about most was…..me!  No surprise considering that my daughters have always considered me a diva.  But one of my favorite columnists is Jon Carroll of the San Francisco Chronicle.  He, like his cohort before him, Adele Lara, wrote what I’d call personal essays.  Jon never seems to know when an idea will strike him for a column, but when it does, he says he jots down a quick note on a sticky or something and files it away for the future.  I do the same thing, except that when I get an idea, I type a couple of words in an email and then file it in a computer folder labeled “Columnists.com.”

What I love about the personal essay, other than that it mostly allows me to write about me, is that – unlike my former occupation as a newspaper reporter — the usual rules of writing can be broken.  Fragments of sentences, for instance, are OK.  Exclamation marks, long considered something to be used only in dire circumstances, can be sprinkled liberally throughout a personal story! (Like that!)

In the past decade I’ve written about such diverse topics as tea, my wild-and-crazy dreams, country music stations way out in the boondocks, baseball players and their quirks, timeshares, RVs, stamps, the demise of newspapers, the joys of reading, what old folks talk about (the weather and everybody’s health), some of the unique cars I’ve owned, appreciating aerobics, toilets, Siskel & Ebert, “Jeopardy” (yes, the TV game show), sunshine, Zimbabwe, lots of stories about acting and the theater, and many more about the joys and pitfalls of aging.  I even wrote one column about what I wanted to have happen after I kicked the bucket!  Re-reading it now, I’m thinking that I still feel the same way about most of what I wrote, but I think I want to go back and tweak it a bit.

I’ve written some very personal things as well: My childhood remembrances of my stepfather Wes, the sorrow of losing my husband, Ray, the immense excitement and happiness at (finally!) having a grandson, and my good fortune in finding a late-life love to share my life.

Most people probably wouldn’t feel comfortable writing about such private matters, but that’s what a personal essay is: It’s personal.  And although it’s only about me, the writer hopes that readers will be able to identify with some of it in their own lives.

All told, I’ve written slightly more than 70 columns.  Not a very prodigious amount for 10 years.  By comparison, some writers (especially editor Ron) wrote several each edition so my total looks mighty minuscule.

It’s been a rewarding experience in many ways.  I’ve enjoyed the interactions with most of the other columnists, took pleasure in reading many of their columns and felt the kinship of other writers for the first time since I was a news reporter in the city room of a daily paper.  Even more important, this vehicle provided me with an outlet for the thoughts, opinions and causes I believe in.

So now it’s time to move on.  But it’s with a lot of fondness that I say adieu to TheColumnists.com.  Its ilk won’t come this way again anytime soon.

As with a number of the other columnists, I’ll continue to write, whether or not it’s for pay, in a newspaper or digital or a hybrid of both.  When someone loves and lives to write, you just can’t stop. Most of the other columnists also will find new ways to be creatively industrious.

As for me, I’ll continue to give my professional opinions via theater reviews and work on some longer pieces for the writing collective of which I’m a member.

Is there the makings of an entire book churning somewhere inside me?  Well, if so, it will have to be my memoirs!

Oh, yeah.  Once a diva, always a diva.

It’s not just my thumb that’s green.

Everyone tells me this is the “best” tomato season, but since I didn’t plant any, I figured I’d never know.  All I bought were three small zucchini plants at our local farmer’s market.  Right away the raccoons ripped them apart, but somehow I managed to salvage two of them, put them in clay pots and hide them away from where the raccoons go till they were big enough to fend for themselves.

I also used some kind of MiracleGro blue granules to feed them about once a week.  Probably I overdid it, because I’m one of those types of people who just throws in a dash of this and a splash of that when I’m cooking.  So I just poured what I thought looked like the right amount of MiracleGro into my gallon-container gardening can, filled it up with water and fed my plants and flowers.

Strangely, my tiny zucchinis started to go crazy, producing zuc after zuc, all with the loveliest yellow blossoms.  (In fact, I’ve now become quite an expert at making fried squash blossoms that are killer!)

But even that isn’t the really weird part.  I noticed a small plant growing near the one zucchini plant that was in the ground.  At times I thought it was a weed and had been tempted to pull it, but I decided to let it grow a bit until I could tell what it was.  What it was – and is – is a tomato plant.  Not just any tomato plant, but a “Little Shop of Horrors” ‘Feed me, Seymour’-kind of tomato plant. You DO remember the Audrey 2, don’t you?

Well, my Audrey 2 hasn’t just grown.  It has engulfed our backyard – overshadowing the zucchini plant and anything else in its way.  When I showed it to some friends a few weeks ago, one of them asked me if I was feeding it.  “Yes,” I said. “I feed it about once a week.”

“Well, stop,” he said.

I suppose that would have been smart, but I didn’t.

So good ol’ Audrey 2 has been rapidly growing and growing – and producing a whole lot of little teeny, tiny green tomatoes.  I’ve been ecstatic….for weeks now.  But the beach weather in good ol’ Aptos where I live hasn’t exactly been cooperating.  It’s been dreary, overcast, with an occasional burst of sunshine.  So my tomats are still…..green.

I could have been more patient but for the fact that we’ve had a month-long trip planned for the past year.  It wasn’t changeable.  And while we’re gone, our landscape guy is going to drag in a whole bunch of dirt and get our yard ready for a whole new look which we’ll start planting as soon as we get home.

So today I had the very unhappy experience of ripping out Audrey 2, pulling off the puny little green tomatoes, and hacking the rest of the plant to death.  It wasn’t a pretty sight, to say the least.

Yet…..I have hope.  As fate would have it, a gardening article a week ago said that if your tomatoes are still green and you have to pick them, here’s what you do:  Wrap each one separately in a sheet or two of newspaper, put them in a box or bin of some kind, cover them, put them under your bed and leave them there until Christmas!

I kid you not.

So that’s what I did.  The box is already stashed away, we’ll be heading out on our trip soon, and I’m not going to worry about my little ‘volunteer’ Audreys anymore.  I’ll be envy of everyone around when I bring out delicious-looking salads with red-red tomatoes that actually TASTE like tomatoes!

Either than, or I’ll have a smelly bin of rotten ones.

I’m going with the first alternative.  🙂

The worst, WORST day ever!

Have you ever had one of those days that you wish had never happened?  I’m talking like the Bill Murray “Groundhog Day” movie (except in reverse).  So, instead of having the same day happen over and over again, the really terrible day you had NEVER happened!  Well, that’s what last Wednesday was like for me.

It started off pretty well.  The drive over Highway 17 between Santa Cruz and San Jose was relatively benign.  It rarely is.  I mean: This is nearly the only road between those two cities and it is fraught with lots of twisty-turny roads, commute drivers intent on killing anyone and anything in their path that isn’t driving 70 MPH like they are – and there’s no end to tree trimming and roadwork crews who make life miserable for those of us who consider Highway 17 our lifeline to the rest of the world.

Anyway….I digress.  I met my daughter and grandson Thomas at a great park in Cupertino that had a rock-climbing wall, an area where water squirts up out of sprinklers in the cement at unsuspecting times, and the usual assortment of playground equipment.  It was a fun day, and even after my daughter left, Thomas and I stayed for a few more hours before heading back to his house.

That’s when all Hell broke loose (pardon the vernacular).

So, I’ve got the boy in the car seat, trying to figure out which way to go to get back on a freeway that will take us toward San Jose.  Sounds simple, but sometimes what seems like south is actually north and what I’m sure is dead east is labeled on the freeway sign as “west.”  Sigh.

Aha!  Apple headquarters is dead ahead, so now I kinda know where I am.  I have to make a U-turn at the light and then get on the freeway that says “280 south.”  Simple enough.  It’s now about 4:15 p.m. and I’m second in a line to make a right onto the onramp.  The white car in front of me stops, then turns right.  I do the same.

Oh, oh.  Two policemen are now motioning for both the white car and me to drive over on the shoulder and stop.  I’m flummoxed.  I have no idea why we are being pulled over, but of course I’m a law-abiding citizen (and I have my 5-year-old grandson in the back seat).  “Di….did I do something wrong, officer?” I ask with as much concern and girlish charm as I could muster in three seconds.  “There’s a sign that says you can’t turn on the red light after 3 p.m., ma’m ,” he says.  (God, how I hate to be called any derivative of the word ‘madam.’)

“Well, I’ve never been here before, you see officer, and I took my grandson to the park all day, and then I got turned around, and well….the white car turned right and I thought I could, too.”

All totally irrelevant reasons, I knew, but what’s a person to do on short notice?

So I got out the requisite driver’s license, proof of insurance, registration – all ship-shape because, well, I am a law-abiding citizen, ya know (and I hoped he’d notice!).

But, no.  He just took them and went back to his car hood, upon which he wrote out my ticket.  Still waiting to find out the damages for my little right turn.

But….that isn’t all.  After leaving my daughter’s house, I drove home and realized my gas gauge was getting close to empty.  I also had to pick up a few things at the store, so I did that and then waited in line at the gas station.  When it was my turn, I swiped my ATM card, selected “regular,” took the gas hose to put in my tank – and suddenly all the gas station pumps went dark.  I ran in to ask someone what’s wrong and they nonchalantly explained that there was nothing they could do about it – the station would be closed for 25 minutes or so, and I could come back afterward.

Fuming, I drove home, ate a quick bite, then angrily went back to the station to get my gas.  I was so upset (apparently) that after pumping my gas, I left my wallet sitting on top of my car and drove home!

Fast forward to 11 a.m. the next day.  A woman called from a nearby business to tell me that one of their truck drivers found a wallet “and a bunch of credit cards and things” scattered on a major thoroughfare.  He risked life and limb (practically) to pick up as many as he could.  Wow – until that phone call, I didn’t even know my wallet and cards were missing.  I dashed over to pick them up, thanking everyone there profusely and then started to try to figure out which cards were there and which were missing.  The driver did an amazing job – yes, a lot of minor cards were gone, but only one credit card.  It was American Express, so I called them and they told me not to worry – I have fraud protection automatically anyway.  They sent out a new card in three days!

In the meantime, I went to the road where the truck driver told me he had found my things.  I scoured the area several times – and even found a couple more things like my CVS card (big deal) and my healthcare card.  It was kinda smashed, but I have a duplicate anyway.

So….all’s well that ends well, I guess.  There could still be something that I lost that I don’t remember was in my wallet, but I’m guessing it can’t be too important or I’d remember by now.

In the meantime, I’d say it was a very obvious sign that maybe I’m stressing out too much about little things and not paying attention to what I’m doing.  Others might see it as a natural sign of aging.  Sigh…..

Solemnity doesn’t suit me, so why not do it my way?

I’ve been thinking a lot about death lately, and not because I think I think I’m about to kick the bucket.

But a lot of our friends are, unfortunately. For the last two Mondays my husband and I attended services either celebrating the life of…. or memorializing the death of… In his usual, irreverent style, hubby said that maybe we should just start reserving all our Mondays for these events.

There was a big difference between the two services we attended, although both were in churches. The one that should have been the most solemn was actually quite a gay affair. Perhaps it was because the deceased, who suffered a massive heart attack and died at the all-too-early age of 53, was an actor…..a man who discovered only five years ago that he loved being on stage–the adrenaline rush of having to say the right words at the right time, all the while nonchalantly wandering around a set, picking up a water glass here, sweeping a broom there, or looking crestfallen when the script called for it. He didn’t look the part of an actor, but then who among us does other than Nicole Kidman and Jude Law? Ward stood about five feet tall and was about the same circumference as Humpty Dumpty. You couldn’t look at Ward without breaking into a grin.

Ward’s service was punctuated with lots of juicy stories of antics both onstage and behind the scenes from his fellow actors. The result was that we all walked out of that church with a tear or two, but a very warm feeling.

By contrast, the Catholic mass that was said for a wonderful history teacher who had suffered much from cancer seemed too solemn and formal. If it hadn’t been for the fond remembrances of one friend, very little would have been said about the Pat we all knew. Pat was the kind of a teacher whose students returned years later to say they learned their appreciation of history from her. She was also one of the most astute bridge players I’ve ever known.

I have to say I don’t think I’ve ever been to a funeral service that I felt came anywhere near close to what the absent honoree was all about. The closest was when our friend, Bob, died. He was a true American original who couldn’t be pigeonholed into any category. Also a teacher, Bob’s church service was chock-full of so many stories of his wild and crazy life that the minister almost let the whole thing get away from her.

I wish she had. What most of us wanted, really, was to be sitting around a big bonfire up on Bob’s undeveloped ranch outside of Yreka in Northern California. trading stories all night long about Bob’s loveably eccentric ways.

That ranch was the site of one of our most outlandish Bob memories. After discovering that he had built his barn a foot onto the property of his neighbor (who wanted it off his property or he’d sue), Bob invited us all to the ranch for a barn-moving party. He actually believed that if he could cut off the beams at the foundation and get a lot of trucks to pull it, the barn could be moved. No one thought it would turn out that way. We all just assumed the two-story barn would collapse when it was yanked.

Bob dumbfounded us all because the barn…moved! But the most extraordinary part of this whole adventure was when Bob decided to climb atop his barn roof, cowboy hat in hand, and yelp and scream ala Dr. Strangelove as the massive barn moving was attempted. Fortunately the cooler head of his wife prevailed, and he reluctantly got down before the barn moving began.

The upshot of all these death and dying thoughts is that I have compiled “Joanne’s 10 Cardinal Rules to be Followed After her Death.” I already have an Advance Health Care Directive, and a Living Trust–that’s not what this is. These Rules are for what happens “after”:

Rule No. 1: Nothing happens for awhile so that family and friends can get over the weepies and plan a great party.

Rule No. 2: Under no circumstances whatsoever is there to be any kind of ceremony involving a church, a minister or the singing of “Amazing Grace.”

Rule No. 3: Another “under no circumstances”–No one who doesn’t know me, has never met me or TALKED to me will be allowed to say a word ABOUT me.
I mean….really….why would you want that?

Rule No. 4: Whatever is planned (and I’m sure my daughters, hubby and stepdaughters will come up with a fine plan), it’s gotta be at a really cool location. Maybe outdoors depending on the time of year. If indoors, there can’t be chairs lined up in rows. We need chairs, yes, because people get tired of standing up all the time, but chairs and tables need to be scattered here, there and all around the square. If I think up a suitable location, guys, I’ll let you know before I go.

Rule No. 5: Since I always choose Broadway musicals whenever I want to listen to music, just put on a big stack of Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Sondheim (sorry, Ray!), Gershwin, Lerner and Lowe, and Streisand CDs–loud enough to hear but not so loud the music drowns out conversation.

Rule No. 6: I’m expecting a lot of you to tell funny stories about me. I think I’m a pretty funny person (my daughters will attest to all my peccadilloes), so I’d like you to share some strange, weird, cute or just plain zany thing I did or said that you remember (fondly I hope).

Rule No. 7: Absolutely NO floral wreaths, huge bouquets, etc. etc. It has always made me feel terrible that all those funeral flowers will die in a few days–what’s the sense in that? For goodness sake, people! Use your heads and make a donation to some really good cause–like maybe eradicating whatever is going to kill me. (Maybe if you had done that sooner…..no, I won’t go there.)

Rule No. 8: But……..I do love yellow, apricot and white roses, so I’m commanding that my family buy buckets and buckets of long-stem roses, and everyone who comes to my “event” (whatever it is) gets to take one as they leave. Oh, yes. And they have to smell really rosy!

Rule No. 9: Burial? Fagedabouddit! No way. I sure don’t cotton to the idea of people standing around a piece of dirt thinking I’m there–and I don’t like the notion of being put six feet under anyway. Nope….gonna do this my way. I want little boxes of my ashes offered to those in my family (friends, too) who want a part of me. I’d prefer they scatter me in their rose beds (so I’d always be coming up roses, sort of) or atop a high vista somewhere that’s warm, sunny, and has a great view of land and sea.

Rule No. 10: Never mind a No. 10. Nine’s enough.

I can just hear hubby Ray now. “Isn’t that just like Joanne?” he’ll chuckle. “She liked to control everything in her–and my–life. Now she even wants to control her after life!”

Well…..you can’t fault a girl for trying, can you?