The shape of the table

I wasn't wild about Obama's choice of Rick Warren but I have to say that, after I had some time to reflect, I wasn't surprised.

Obama has always, always been driven more by the desire to bring everyone to the table - regardless of whether they share his ideology - than he's been to fill the seats with those who share his world view. What seems to matter most is the willingness and ability of opposites to work together at the table toward a pragmatic and realistic end.

When he was elected to head the Harvard Law Review many African-American students who had placed their hopes in him to bring more African-American students onto the editorial committee were disappointed when he instead put together a committee comprised of some of the most outspoken conservatives on campus. The thing he wanted to achieve, he said, was a Law Review of the highest caliber. (For more about this, watch Frontline's piece on Obama, aired before the election.)

He's done this before during his time as an elected official. Some of those who helped him in Chicago have felt left behind because he offered no quid pro quo. (The July 21st issue of the New Yorker discusses this at some length.)

Obama, to my view, is not the lefty many believe him to be. Instead, his core is pragmatism. The change he brings is that the seats at the table will filled by those who share pragmatism - but not necessarily ideology.

I think Obama made a miscalculation by elevating Warren at this time. I don't think Warren deserves the honor he was given. It really is like a bucket of tarnish was dumped over the glow of his election.

I also think that we will see, in the not too distant future, the repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' (a gift to us from the Clinton administration), and recognition of civil rights. That's because Obama has a track record of pragmatically moving toward inclusion to achieve outcomes that we support.

He has no track record of throwing us under the bus.

I'm willing to wait and see what his actual outcomes are before I make a decision about the weight and proportion that Warren leaves behind on January 21.

Insidious

It's like being a figure in an O'Henry story: Tiny, tiny particles of ice falling and falling. If you are out in it for a minute or two you hardly notice it. If the particles land on something warm, something that's alive, they melt immediately. But if they fall on something inert, like pavement or windshield or wood pile or porch it freezes and becomes another tiny, tiny particle in a layer that builds and builds and takes on weight and form. A sheen gathers on everything.

During the big ice storm of whatever year that was I was living in California in the Bay Area. The place that personified The Idea of California. Our storms, then, consisted of wind and rain that inspired me to wonder if my car could be randomly flung through the spaces between the Bay Bridge supports. To wonder if I and my 1965 VW Bug, which could be repaired with a screw driver, would land in the deadly waters of San Francisco Bay. Many scary commutes on that bridge that winter. But I had faith in the bridge. It had, after all, been put back together after our earthquake and had, somewhere on the structure, at least one protective gargoyle installed by the welders of 1989.

Anyway, The Ice Storm. My experience of it consisted of listening to NPR broadcasts from The Bluebird Restaurant in Machias - where they had a generator. And getting updates from my mother and her husband who kept their wood stove going and who urged the repair people, on the 9th day, to go help someone else because - after they got two hours of electricity - they were getting along fine. And second-hand reports of my father and his wife who were living off the grid and who were vaguely aware that the rest of Maine was having a really hard time.

This is no Ice Storm. (The Bluebird Restaurant now has a sandwich named after The Ice Storm. It's a comfort food classic: real turkey and lots of gravy on top of white bread plus cranberry sauce and a roll or two. It's a meal to warm the needy heart of any local Calvinist. I don't eat out much now but this sandwich is what I order when I'm at The Bluebird these days. It's predictable.)

But the way the particles fall and fall from the sky, slowly building up, while my lights are on and I'm listening to music and talking with my community on the internet...it's insidious.

The Gay Problem

During marriage discussions, of late, I remember that, for me, this and all discussion about The Gay Problem is rooted in equality.

Our equality is not something that should ever be decided by voting. It's something that's inherent because we breathe.

A proposition I have forwarded for years is this: Unless and until we have full legal and civil equality, gay people are living under conditions that suggest taxation without representation.

Just like every citizen of the United States, gay people are required to contribute to society in general by paying taxes, building up social security, and paying property and other taxes.

But unlike its contract with other citizens, society enacts legal and cultural prohibitions against gay people that effectively prevent us from serving in the military, enacting family structures, holding various kinds of employment, inheriting property, and naming certain beneficiaries.

In many jurisdictions we cannot expect to obtain mortgages or business loans.

In certain jurisdictions we must transact our lives behind filmy but absurdly convoluted layers of secrecy in order to avoid physical harm and even death.

Our youth have no guarantee of a safe learning environment; there are more of them homeless on the streets than any other demographic.

In short, we are hidden in plain sight.

If that's where civil society and its laws wishes to place us and, for whatever reasons they wish to continue to do so, I say OKAY. BRING IT ON.

My Final Solution to The Gay Problem is Cut Me Loose.

I would love to put the funds I now pay into my local, state, and federal governments in another pot that I could use for my self sufficiency. Lord knows my standard of living would immediately improve by magnitudes.

I could say more but I'll stop here. I have a lot to do between now and tomorrow morning when my work week starts.

( I was away from home most of Friday night and all of Saturday helping, as a member of a committee I'm part of in my small town, to get ready for a community Veterans Day Supper. We fed 260 people - 66 of whom were veterans. The vets and their spouses were our guests for the dinner. After we finished with the dinner and cleaned up I came home and stayed up too late - I slept in really late this morning. I still have to get out my check book and pay my monthly bills and then get ready for a meeting at work where we'll discuss how we can implement economic development projects that we hope will improve conditions here in one of the poorest counties in the United States.)

All this to say that, as a citizen, I show up. Most of us do.

I'd like the hobnailed boot off my neck now, please.

Or, if that's not on America's Legal and Cultural Agenda, cut me loose.

Two Words

At some point during last week's financial meltdown, when I began to feel as though we are living through times more apocalyptic than 9/11, two words started to pester my consciousness.

At first they were a suggestion.

Then they became a whisper.

Then they morphed into a concept as I read Sunday's NY Times articles about AIG's special units.

Now they're a full-fledged roar.

The two words?

Fiduciary Responsibility.

"Fiduciary responsibility" is a very, very serious legal and professional rule of law that is part of the bedrock of insurance/financial operations and professional behavior.

And that's not even considering the aspect moral responsibility which, in insurance and financial circles is called "moral hazard". Because, after all, we are talking about insurance/financial markets.

Fiduciary responsibility is so serious - or maybe I should say "was" - that violation is considered grounds for criminal prosecution.

I have not seen nor have I heard these two words in all the print and broadcast media I've consumed in the run-up and day-to-day coverage of the causes of our global condition.

These two words, it seems to me, are the most fundamental root of what we are now living through.

What does "Fiduciary Responsibility" mean? In summary it commits professionals to:

• Utmost Care - The agent is bound to the higher standard of a professional in the field which extends the standard of duty to investigate within the means of the profession, to ensure the maximum protection and information be provided the principal.

• Integrity - Defined as the soundness of moral principle and character. It means the agent must act with fidelity and honesty

• "Honesty and Duty of Full Disclosure" of all material facts, either known, within the knowledge of or reasonably discoverable by the agent which could influence in any way the principal's decisions, actions or willingness to enter into a transaction

• Loyalty - An obligation to refrain from acquiring any interest adverse to that of a principal without full and complete disclosure of all material facts and obtaining the principal's informed consent. This precludes the agent from personally benefiting from secret profits, competing with the principal, or obtaining an advantage from the agency for personal benefit of any kind.
  

• Duty of Good Faith - Includes total truthfulness, absolute integrity and total fidelity to the principal's interest. The duty of good faith prohibits any advantage over the principal obtained by the slightest misrepresentation, concealment, threat or adverse pressure of any kind.

None - and I mean NONE - of these characteristics existed in the basis of selling subprime mortgages.

None of these characteristics existed at AIG and other insurers and banking interests when professionals bet they would never have to pay off mortgage insurance claims or document their assets at actual value.

Logically (and I realize that greed, not logic, is the operator here) this means that there are a great many people who, because they violated their professional/legal fiduciary responsibility, should be criminally prosecuted.

Anyone else sharpening the little pointy ends of his/her pitchforks?

How Racism Works - by Kelvin LaFond in the Fort Worth Star Telegram

• What if John McCain were a former president of the Harvard Law Review?
• What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?
  
• What if McCain were still married to the first woman he said “I do” to?
  
• What if Obama were the candidate who left his first wife after she no longer measured up to his standards?
• What if Michelle Obama were a wife who not only became addicted to pain killers, but acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?
• What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?
  
• What if Obama were a member of the “Keating 5”?
• What if McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?

If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are?

This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in another when there is a color difference.

— Kelvin LaFond, Fort Worth

How Racism Works on Jack & Jill Politics at http://tinyurl.com/4yv4ts

Visit Pam's House Blend. Always steamin' at http://www.pamshouseblend.com/

Dressing Palin's Caribou

It's been interesting to observe the story elements the Red folks trot out to prop up the credibility of Their Sarah as The Genuine Article.

Like: They want everyone to know that she hunts and fishes and that she shot a caribou. This is to encourage the inference that, because she did these and other outdoorsy things (while simultaneously believing in Jesus a lot), she's "just like you and me, by golly. Praise God and pass the ammunition."

I lived in Alaska for 18 years. EVERYONE who has lived in Alaska for any length of time has several common stories.

We each have our "bear story": The one about how we had a terrifying run-in with a black bear / brown bear / Kodiak grizzly / sow bear with cubs. These have several common endings: You survived; you almost died; someone you know died; the bear survived; you shot the bear, bled the bear, gutted and dressed the bear, and now it's in your freezer.

We each have our "moose story": The one about how we had a terrifying run-in with a bull moose / yearling moose / momma moose with yearlings. These have several common endings: You survived; the moose (same word for singular or plural) survived; you hid in a safe place while you watched the moose demolish your car / garage / pick-up truck / 18-wheeler and afterward you watched the moose shake it off and lope away; you spent several days in the hospital; you shot the moose, bled the moose, gutted and dressed the moose, and now it's in your freezer.

We each have our "almost lost a (fill-in-the-blank) from frostbite when I got stranded for three hours because of (fill-in-the-blank) between (fill-in-the-name-of-the-town) and (fill-in-the-name-of-the-town) story". These have several common endings: You survived; you have a permanent numb spot on your (fill-in-the-blank); you don't have a (fill-in-the-blank) anymore; you'll never go outside again when it's 60 below wearing only a mad bomber hat, a flannel shirt, a wool sweater, a down jacket, mittens, long johns, pants, insulated socks, and mukluks.

We all know people who died in small plane accidents, who fell off mountains / glaciers / fishing boats / snowmobiles and were never seen alive again. Most of us know people who simply disappeared. We all know people who live so far out in the Bush that they can come into town only by walking miles through the woods to the nearest track and flagging down the train. Some of us know people living really far out in the Bush who never come into town.

We give a wry and knowing nod to secessionists who want Alaska to pile up all its oil money in its own sandbox and quit the rest of the United States and who have formed political action committees to make it happen.

Every one of us know wingnuts who have risen to places of responsibility beyond their aptitude simply because of the church they go to, the people they know, and the ear marks they channel. Alaska is just like anywhere else in that regard. Except that the population is so much smaller there that you tend to know these wingnuts personally.

The truth is that in Alaska, Palin's life experience and homespun yarns are entirely conventional. But people in the Lower 48 don't know that. And you can bet the Reds know that they don't know that. So they're playing it. And she's playing along. Sounds like she's "just like you and me" - only, due to the caribou she makes sure we know that she shot, bled, and gutted, they ask us to award her extra credit for displaying Classic American Rugged Individual Toughness about which most of us have only nostalgic reference.

Try this recipe at home: Start with with the Republican Party. Pound for eight years with George W. Bush til tender. (You'll know when it has reached the right consistency because it will appear wide but it won't be very deep.) Chop until dicey. Add one Sarah Palin. Add 6 oz of Miss Alaska and fluff carefully. To this mixture add a few jiggers of melting glacier water and several chunks of receding ice cap. Shake and pour. Sprinkle with nostalgia to taste. Serve immediately with an accompaniment of chilled barracuda ceviche, et viola! Whaddaya got? Fox news! And anecdotes instead of issues.

I could go on. That's probably apparent.

Suffice to say: I suspect the Reds want us all to bite down HARD on how much in common Palin appears to have with the hockey mom next door - and masticate long enough to really savor the flavors in the class and gender appetizers they've laid before us. And then they want us to start eating our young while we earnestly discuss amongst ourselves the exquisitely politically correct ways we must acknowledge Sarah Palin.

Don't be distracted by those tender nuggets!

Instead, ask yourself: "Who benefits?"

Then get back to work on the boring stuff: Economic parity, energy sufficiency, poverty, health care, education, infrastructure, the environment. Put out your yard sign. Volunteer at the phone bank. Knock on some doors. Donate it if you got it. Let's win this thing.

I Accept

So I opened my email this a.m. while waiting for a conference call (lil' ol' multi-tasker me) and found a message (subject line "I Accept") from "John" aka John McCain Himself. I was somewhat affronted because we don't know each other well enough to be on a first name basis but what really raised the alarm was that it started out with "My Friends..."

Well, I was apoplectic. What have I ever done to get on an RNC mailing list?

I have not lately used The Lord's name in vain. (Although I did change the channel last night a quarter of the way through The Passion of the Christ which I was watching simultaneously with that show that has that Brit chef that says fuck all the time going to save restaurants with his advice and gustatory ethics.)

Perhaps it was that email I sent to WVOM containing a PSA for a class I'm teaching - but THAT was for WORK!

Perhaps it was those letters I've sent the white house that sometimes get replies like "Vice President Cheney thanks you for your thoughts {yeah like I'm going to believe THAT} but, unfortunately, he can't respond to all letters..." Yeah, like I'm sure. He's only my employee after all.

But to return to my apoplexy: I clicked, of course, on that little link they put in there so that you can unsubscribe which, of course, I wanted to do I mean, like, NOW. So it takes me to this page where they have four reasons to choose from:
- I am a supporter but don't wish to be contacted until closer to the election
- I am a supporter but prefer to get updates in the mail
- I am a supporter but do not wish to receive email any longer
- I am no longer a supporter and want to be taken off the email list.

I didn't check any of their boxes because none of it applied to me.

But, thankfully, there is also a comments box. Which I filled right up telling them that I was not now and never have been a supporter of their campaign, that I couldn't imagine how they got my email address, and that I demanded to be removed NOW.

Well.

Turns out that, in order to unsubscribe, one MUST choose from one of the choices they give. How fucking Republican. This I REFUSE TO DO as I'm sure they take stats, like the Mormons, to inflate their total numbers to the press.

So four emails later to several addresses I really had to dig for...we'll see if I get off their night train to the land of the zombies.

I'll keep you posted.

The Continuing Chronicles of a Lesbian and Her Dog

Last night the Lady of the House came home with her dog, Lucy, who had spent the previous several hours running at top speed with her sister, Peggy, in and out of semi-dry clay puddles left in the yard on family land, about 15 miles from where I live, by the well drillers working to put in running water there.

When I got home I checked my email, as I always do I hate to admit, and, as always, Lucy flung herself down at the foot of my chair while I was at the keyboard.

It having been near dark when I corralled her into the back seat of my car I hadn't seen the extent nor the density of the clay which was clinging to nearly every inch of Lucy's body and I continued to be oblivious until she got up from near my chair and left a measurable oval of clay dust and grit in the spot she had been dozing. Then she shook herself. A veritable cloud came off of her six feet in every direction. Nothing to do but give her a bath.

So into the tub we both go, one of us more instinctually than the other. I turn on the water which, if I was a dog, might sound like Niagara Falls what with the sound bouncing off the closed bath stall doors. Lucy's shaking like a leaf and panting up a storm and I'm telling her that she's going to be just fine and the grit is pouring off of her and she's trying to keep her feet dry which, given the circumstances, is of course impossible and anyway why the hell didn't she think of keeping her feet dry when she was barreling through those puddles earlier?

If only I had had some Poop-freeze I might have sprayed the puddles of mud and hair, waited a moment for the liquid to turn to solid slab, simply lifted the chunks into a dustpan, tossed, and wiped my hands on my apron.

Alas. Life is more complex now than it was when Ladies Of The House wore aprons. This is true even in the speck of a town where I live, never mind the mere nanosecond of a place where the well drillers were working. Nothing is simple anymore. This is lavishly illustrated by the fact that when someone sends you a joke email about Poop-freeze, and you Google the product, you get 22,300 returns.

Lucy lost about 70% of the grit in the tub. Another 10% came off on the three white towels I used in my feeble attempt to dry her off. (I only own white towels which, in most circumstances, fulfill my every need.) An additional 5%, + or - 2%, is on the bathroom floor, the dining room floor, the kitchen floor, the rug in the living room, and the two spots on the carpet where she slept in my bedroom. The rest is still on her and will need to be gotten off by, perhaps, a swim in a lake. Or perhaps, if there was such a thing, the rinse and spin cycles of a doggie washing machine. Now THERE'S an invention that's waiting for American ingenuity.

Since Lucy wouldn't have any of my ideas about using a blow-dryer, she went to bed damp. The well drillers, on the other hand, were successful. So, eventually, one will be able to turn a lever and have water come out from a faucet, automatically, where now one applies muscle power at an ancient hand pump. Miracles.

Terrorists and Angels

I bought the Weekly World News today for $1.89 just so I could own the picture.

Plus I get to learn how blowing your nose makes you stupid (page 21) and whether the Vatican will make the three stooges saints (page 47).

Rome better work fast because on page 10 there's a story - dateline Washington - about how angels have been declared an endangered species - so it sounds like they have vacancies to fill.

The feds arrested Ted Sargo, a duck hunter who allegedly lives in Jackson County Alabama, for shooting an angel - one of the over 200 cases reported to authorities so far this year.

They think that another 1000 such accidents have gone unreported because people keep mistaking angels for ducks, deer, and wild pigs. Some angels have even been killed by lawnmowers and trash compactors.

An insider has been quoted as stating, "You better believe President George W. Bush is going to get personally involved."

I sure hope so. Or better still, maybe they could add him to that saints list, too.

Haying

You stand in a field where there's been hay mowed and bailed and tied with a machine that has not had to be improved upon since it was invented during the Industrial Revolution. Most people have shown up to the field at about 4:00 p.m. not because it's a job or anything but because they're just helping the hay provider because he's helped them in the past or they know him or some reason like that.

Hopefully you have gloves. (I had forgotten mine but no one else was wearing them either so even if I'da had them I wouldn'ta worn them. This is just a point of toughness on my part - seeing as I'm a city kid returned to the village I feel like I should take every opportunity to show that I still can take the pain just like all the folks who live there all the time. In that neck of the proverbial woods, for example, no one wears sunglasses. They just squint. It's like umbrellas - they're a sure sign you're a tourist - people who have lived here for generation just get wet and figure the weather will change in a while....)

So you're in the field. Some guy drives a big flat bed up and you throw the bales (which weigh about 30 pounds each when you start but by the time you're done they weigh at least 50) head-high onto the bed where some other guy stacks them according to a method only he knows about. The point is to do it in such a way as to prevent to hay from falling off the truck when it's on the road in traffic and there's about a mile of cars behind it and everyone in each car in hoping that the truck will pull off into the next driveway.

After the flat bed is loaded you stand around for about 45 minutes telling
stories about each other and horses and the weather and other fields you've hayed and fishing until finally, on some invisible signal, everyone just stops talking and heads to the assorted cars and trucks and you pull off onto the highway behind the flat bed and head to the destination barn.

Once you're at the destination barn some guys set up the conveyor belt from the ground near the flatbed to the loft in the barn while more stories are told. Then you throw the bales down from the flat bed and up waist-high onto the conveyor which takes the bales up to the loft where four or five people stack them according to a plan only they know which allows as many bales as possible to get tucked in there while still leaving room for the owner to get at them throughout the winter efficiently. This is done simultaneously with still more stories offered about each other interspersed with discussions about the design of the barn loft and praise or derision for the guy who built it.

When the loft is about as full as it can get some guy who's been keeping track of the total number of bales supplied (on this night it was 748 - a rather small load) calls out to stop, the number of bales is yelled down to the provider who strolls over to the livestock owner and works out payment.

Now the job is considered done and the only thing to do is to break down the conveyor and while offering some guesses about what tomorrow's weather may be so that everyone can gauge about showing up if it's going to be a dry day. No one is asked directly whether they'll show and no one makes any commitments but since no one says they won't be there, it's assumed that everyone will be.

By now it's about 11:00 or midnight or 2:00 a.m. so everyone's out of stories and besides, most of these people also have their own jobs to go to in the morning so everyone calls it quits and piles into the various cars and trucks and leaves down the road home.

I got a huge blister on my right ring finger, chaff cuts all up and down my arms, and hay dust in my nose, hair, and clothing but l loved every minute of it.

When I Lived in The City

It's summer in Chicago.

Driving out of the neighborhood where I'm staying and where I never see another white person (other than my house mates - urban 'pioneers' - and the occasional bevy of parents in Dockers and cargo shorts, and their peewee softball kids in their uniforms, carrying picnic baskets behind the fence at the high school), I see a guy and his two friends hanging on the corner outside of the liquor and grocery. He's shimmying to something I can't hear but the python around his shoulders doesn't seem to mind. It's an affordable model that's only about four and a half feet long and he has to shift it around several times while I wait for the light. Maybe he's new at owning a snake. His friends are all looking directly into his face as they talk, way too cool to acknowledge about the python or even look at it.

Traffic starts to move again and I continue down to this cafe to work and be on the WIFI and on the way I spy a woman and this guy who's pushing her against a car, his forearm at her throat, and she's crying so I drive around the block and by the time I get back to where they were she's there by herself still crying. I pull over: her former boyfriend...she called him lots of times today so he stomped his phone, tried to strangle her, took money from her to get a new phone, and took her car. She's worried about her dog. I tell her to get some phone numbers from the police when they arrive for some battered women's hotlines. She acts like it's the first time anyone's suggested "battered woman" to her. She says, "I'm a graduate student and I work hard for my money."

It's the driest summer here since the Dust Bowl - really. Lawns are burning up and probably the Lakes are thirsty but the humidity is lower than usual. The Saturday NY Times says that Sunday's NY Times will have an article in the Travel section about how the glaciers are melting in Alaska and tourists are flocking there in huge numbers to see them because maybe this is the last time. Bet only a few of them took public transit to the airports. This is what it's come to.

Went out to my car on Monday morning to find that I'd been hit-and-runned. Driver's door wouldn't open. There was a note on my windshield: "License plate that hit your car .... grey mercury villager." Called my ins company, the police, and Enterprise. The cop arrived and within fifteen minutes had determined that the plate number belonged to someone up the street - who left the van with paint from my car still on it parked outside their house. The tow truck didn't arrive until 3:00. Enterprise didn't arrive until 4:30 but in the end they did pick me up. At first it sounded like these geniuses weren't insured but now they've come up with they are insured with Allstate. Not for long, though, because when Allstate gets done with them - shunting them off to their high risk secondary market - they'll be paying so much for car insurance they'll have to get three jobs just to handle it. And when Allstate found out that I work at home office - well.... not so much push back on reimbursing for lost wages. So it'll be about $2K in insurance money to repair my car which I will have back, I hope, sometime next week.

Drove in the red Dodge Neon rental car to see a doc on Tuesday - a referral from my physical therapist. The doc, after about a half hour, says she's thinking that I'll need a right hip replacement and is referring me to another doc in her practice. I see him on Wednesday. Perhaps I don't need to indicate that this wasn't in The Plan. I'm practicing saying it just in case it really happens.

But let's look on the sunny side: (1) Chicago is the best place to have these things done; (2) the technology is such that perhaps I can have minimally invasive surgery; (3) my friend Rob says that all the defective hip replacement parts have already been removed from the market per this malpractice suit he's working on - so the parts are off the market re new surgeries but are already in 6 million people. (4) The chances of septic infection are only 1:100 - perhaps not a ratio that one could call part of the sunny side. (5) I'm likely too young and mentally active to have major side effects from general anesthesia that have been found in Alzheimer patients.

Opera

I am an untutored listener to opera. I enjoy it very loud.

Two opera memories:

(1) Splitting wood on a cool autumn day, before Ipods, the CD playing on my car stereo next to where I was set up with the ax and the woodpile.

(2) The day after Thanksgiving years ago, driving through flurries, leftovers on the back seat, with a close friend who lived in a log house on the lake to my village by the ocean where we'd met years before, We planned to have lunch overlooking a spot where my friend and I had spent, years earlier, memorable summer days and evenings. She was in her mid-60's then and evidencing early onset Alzheimer's Disease. No one but she knew that I was in the area for Thanksgiving week to see her. Three Tenors playing over the tape deck as I drove. My first exposure to opera. I'd known her all those years and had not been aware that she loved this music. It was still flurrying when we got to the village but the weather cleared a little while we ate our turkey and stuffing sandwiches. Suddenly my younger brother walked up the dirt road. We gave him a sandwich and a ride to where he was keeping his motorcycle. Music again on the drive back to the lake. Within ten years the Alzheimer's would ravage her and my brother would be dead.

That's opera.