I Was Hungry...And You Gave Me Something to Eat

What signifies, giving halfpence to beggars? they only lay it out in gin or tobacco.

'And why should they be denied such sweeteners of their existence? It is surely very savage to refuse them every possible avenue to pleasure, reckoned too coarse for our own acceptance. Life is a pill which none of us can bear to swallow without gilding; yet for the poor we delight in stripping it still barer, and are not ashamed to shew even visible displeasure, if ever the bitter taste is taken from their mouths.'

(Samuel Johnson, as recorded in Piozzi's Anecdotes)

Moral quandry time.

Downtown where I work, as in many large cities, the rising temperatures of spring and summer bring a proportional rise in panhandlers. When I'm sprinting down Nicollet Mall to catch my bus in the dead of winter, I pass no outstretched hands or tattered signs. But come springtime, the Down and Out return from wherever it is they shivered through the winter, and once again sit hunched over their cardboard tales of woe and supplication.

This is only my second summer in the Twin Cities, but it definitely seems as though there are more homeless people on the streets than last year. I don't know if it's the recession or what, but the requests have increased and the situations seem to be more dire.

There's all kinds. Some people seem to be really plucky. There's the man who sits in the skyway by Macy's, singing spirituals and praises to Jesus at the top of his lungs, slapping his knees to the beat and shouting out cheerful "Good Morning!"s to everyone who passes. There's the trumpet player who finds the best acoustics in the tunnel by the used bookstore and who plays the most beautiful Stardust. There's the artist who labours over his charcoal drawings, ensuring the smudges are just so before he lays them out in hopes of selling them.

Then there are the weary. The Vietnam Vets. The ones who have lost jobs. The wanderers. The ones whose minds have clearly turned on them. They don't even bother loooking up, but stare down at the cement, just putting in the time.

The worst are the ones with kids. There was a single mom out there every afternoon for months last year, reading stories and playing with her little daughter in between holding her sign detailing destitution in the face of domestic abuse. I would get so very, very angry at her for subjecting her child to a life on the street, but then berate myself for judging where I didn't know the situation.

I never know what to do when I pass someone who is down on their luck. (Aside: is there a politically correct term here? Beggar? Homeless person? Street person?)

If I avert my eyes to avoid staring, I worry that it looks like I'm trying to pretend they don't exist. But if I meet their eyes to demonstrate my belief in their dignity as a person, I feel as though I'm objectifying. I feel guilty walking past with a Target bag, as though I'm flaunting my possession of disposable income.

In the face of so many never-ending requests, it's so much easier to ignore than to be drawn in every time. When I am drawn in, I remember that I rarely carry cash, and if I do it's way in the bottom of my purse (God forbid I have to actually stop and dig for it and embarrass us both). Plus there's always memories of admonitions like "don't give them money - they'll only spend it on drink" or "don't think they're poor - beggars actually make hundreds of dollars a day - I read it in the Reader's Digest" competing with my more generous impulses.

I was discussing my quandry with a church acquaintance on Sunday. She pointed me to a book she'd read detailing one man's six-month experience as a homeless man.

(I haven't read it yet, so I'm going to categorize as preliminary my inital reaction that I can't imagine anything more objectifying than playing at homelessness for six months just to see what it's like. We shall see.)

She suggested I try something mentioned in the book: a soft granola bar and a bottle of water. There's decent nutrition there in a usable form (homelessness tends to come with a pretty paltry dental plan), it speaks to an immediate hunger while (hopefully) being representative of a different type of fulfillment. Plus, if you're the cynical type, it can't be spent on booze and if the person's only faking it (seriously: why would anyone pretend to be homeless?), you're only out a few cents.

So I tried it today.

(Aside: please don't think that I'm sititng here pleased as punch with myself, thinking I am all that and a barrel of monkeys. I've walked disdainfully past many fellow citizens of this world and I'm not proud of it. Simply relating that I've done this has ensured that I will receive no heavenly reward. But there's nevertheless a point here.)

On my way to Target to make the totally unnecessary purchase of a second yoga mat (because I am so spoiled I don't want to have to lug mine back and forth for my class on Wednesdays), I passed a man whose sign said he was a single father of 6 kids and was out of work.

Now I can't imagine being homeless or hungry or having no support network. But I do know what it feels like to feel like I'm not doing well by my kids. Now multiply that times a million and maybe that's what it's like to not have food for your kids. To bring them to shelters at night. To pawn them off for the day so you can sit at the feet of the fortunate and wealty, enduring their scornful glances, to scrape together something for the evening's supper.

So along with my yoga mat, I bought granola bars. A whole box. Soft ones, just in case. And Kashi - the healthy ones, full of protein and real fruit.

My heart got all fluttery as I approached him. The most I've ever done is chucked some coins at someone in an attempt to assuage my guilty conscience. You can chuck coins and keep walking, pretending that it didn't happen. But you can't just chuck granola bars at someone. To give someone a granola bar is to acknowledge their hunger and acknowledge your own intention. It is to acknowledge connectedness and invite intimacy and mutual vulnerability, however brief or disguised.

And so I walked up to him, Kashi box in hand. I looked him in the eye, mumbled, "These are for you and your kids" and handed them to him. He said, "thank you," and immediately turned his attention toward the other woman who came up to him (at exactly the same time! my moment of not-so-spontaneous philanthropy ruined by someone else!) and gave him a cigarette.

I expected to feel humbled. I expected to feel exultant that I Had Helped. I expected a rush.

I didn't expect to feel normal. Like it was just part of a day's work. Or, later, when another guy came up to me and asked to show me a magic trick, that I would do my usual polite refusal and pretend my bus was imminent. (Although I did fish out a dollar when he came around the second time and caught me in my half-truth.)

But maybe it should be just part of my normal day. Maybe I'm going at this backwards. Maybe this isn't about me. Maybe this isn't about him. Maybe it was just God seeing someone who was hungry and then seeing a girl who was walking to Target and reminding her where the granola bar aisle is.

I don't know if anything's changed. They'll all still be there tomorrow. I'm sure I'll want to walk by, and even if I don't, I won't be able to stop for every person, every time. The sheer magnitude of the task is really, really daunting.

But maybe there'll be a Kashi bar or two in an easy-to-reach place in my purse. And maybe that'll be enough for now.

Read more...

Happy Belated ... Stuff!

Yep, still here. But, holy smokes, is it seriously July already? Could've sworn it was still June. Which is probably why I missed the following:

HAPPY CANADA DAY!!

Shouldn't've missed it - we had actual Canucks on the premises. My brother and fam were here all last week (hence the slacker blogging) and we had a rocking time showing them the sights and watching the cousins hang out. Given the downturn, I'm a bit reticent to broadcast that I'm a Canadian these days for fear of someone wondering and then failing to come up with a good reason why a local can't do my job, so we had a muted celebration. But my coworkers gave my kind wishes, and I was only slightly belligerent when I reminded them that we whupped their butts in 1812 after they made snarky comments about us signing ourselves politely into existence.

Also:

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!!

We actually got some 4th'in in this year and were invited to spend the day with some friends. You guys - those bandstands you see on TV? With flags? And bands? Playing songs from the American Songbook? They totally exist. There were pony rides. And races. Streamers and family picnics and neighbours loving on each other. I thought I was in a Norman Rockwell painting. We got rained out and came home early, so the kids were in bed before fireworks time. But wouldn't you know it, we could see the local display perfectly through a hole in the trees, so The Husband and I got a personal show on the driveway.

Aaaand:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!

I'm a leetle bit late, but if you knew how guilty I feel, you'd know that my blackened conscience is heavy out of love for you.

Whew - all caught up! Now I can get back to normal - moaning about how time is going too fast, herding my children, procrastinating tasks that I end up doing hurriedly and poorly at the last minute, and worrying about Sarah Palin. The usual.

Read more...

Voices from the Past (Or: Doing it Old School)

Just look at what I found at an estate sale down the street this weekend for only one dollar:

From the Introduction:

This is the book on the physical problems of marriage we have all been waiting for. It had to be written; and written exactly in this way--soberly, scientifically, completely, without a scintilla of eroticism, and yet with a sustained note of high idealism. [...] In this book, then, will be found all the data bearing on the physiology and technique of sexual congress, clearly stated, without pruriency or mock modesty--in other words, scientifically. (J. Johnston Abraham, 1926.)

Ohhhhhh yes. The Joy of Sex, twenties-style. It is indeed sober and scientific, with chapter titles like "Inadequacy and Egotism of most Husbands, and Apparent Coldness of their Wives" or "Intelligent Use of Perfumes - To Stimulate Emotion and for Auto-suggestion" or "The Prostate - Influence on Spermatozoa."

It also has charts and diagrams. (Seven of which are in colour.) In other words, one of the most awesome things I have ever found at an estate sale.

Actually, I've never been to an estate sale. I'm used to garage sales, where people collect their junk, slap some masking tape price tags on it, set it out, and wait for other people to come make treasure out of their trash.

This was something entirely different.

This was a 50s-house with original owners, its entire contents up for sale due to (one can only assume) its occupant's death. A team of price-taggers had gone through, pricing items wherever they lay, and hordes of buyers simply walked through the entire house, jostling one another as they sorted through the stuff.

And stuff there was. Oh my. These people were packrats like I've never seen (this includes my dad's garage). There were poodle-shaped knitted covers for bourbon bottles. A baby grand piano. A 1940s hostess game called Sugar and Spice ("perfect for bridal showers!") where players were invited to identify 20 different spices in vials on sight alone. 8-tracks. LPs. 78s.

I, of course, was there for the books. I love used books. They've got this musty, fusty smell to them. I imagine the previous owners and wonder why they bought this particular book.

Best of all are the bookmarks.

Bookmarks tend to be the detritus of people's lives. Mine are usually Target receipts or old grocery lists. Or candy wrappers or church bulletins. They're whatever's lying around at the time.

Yesterday's gold mine also included a 1957 Amy Vanderbilt's Complete Guide to Etiquette. And, tucked in the front, ready to be used as a bookmark, was the following note:

Dearest Edna & Fulton,

Our anniversary would not seem complete without the thoughtful card you always send. Thank you again for remembering Bob and "little old me" and for the sentiments, which we know came from the heart. The pewter spoon is simply truly magnificent. The spoon will be the "piece de resistance" at every dinner we give. Bob is as delighted with it as I am. Again, thanks for the lovely gift and thoughtfulness that inspired it. God love you both - Always, Kay and Bob ******

As it was discovered in a book of etiquette, I assume that its owner would never have left a thank you note go unsent and was thus Dearest Edna and Fulton.

And I wonder about this Edna and Fulton. When did they meet Kay and Bob? Former school chums? Wartime comrades-in-arms and their brides?

Who was Edna? Obviously thoughtful - I don't send out pewter spoons, much less anniversary cards. Was she the knitter of the poodle bourbon bottle covers? Was she apparently cold, and the reason for the purchase of The Ideal Marriage? By the clothes in the closets, she had lovely taste. She was a bit smaller than I, based on the sleeve lengths. She loved parties, given the many sets of china - especially Christmas, considering the decorations for sale.

And all of this - Edna's life - her kindness, her creativity, her sexual prowess (or lack thereof?), her love of coordinated dresses and coats sets - all of this trampled on, remarked upon, pawed through, and sold (50% off on the second day of the sale).

It makes me wonder about my stuff and what will happen to it. Will someone pick through my closet someday and snicker about how many black shirts I have? Will someone discover all my unfinished craft projects and like-new sewing machine and laugh at the obvious lack of dedication? Or nod in understanding of the heady rush of beginning something new so swiftly followed by boredom and distraction?

Will a thirty-something young woman someday buy my Collected Works of Jane Austen for a dollar, discover a Target receipt - vegetarian bacon, Old Dutch chips, shampoo for colour-treated hair, kids toothpaste, coffee - and smile knowingly in recognition of a kindred spirit?

Or will she pick up The Ideal Marriage and think...

...alllll sorts of things.

Read more...

Vendredi V - Everything I Needed to Know Edition

(Alright, so it's not really Friday. This last week sort of ratcheted up right at the end - you can pretend it's Friday, m'kay?)

Summer life gets a little loose around the edges, a little soft around the schedule. The kids are lovin' their summer Kids Club program where they go on cool field trips, swim, and hang out with their buds. They get extremely irate if I try to pick them up at the usual time, so I either take long lunches and work a bit later or go home first and get some PM time in before I go and sign them out from the day's festivities.

The sun shines long and late, and The Husband is biking to work, so we only sit down to supper around 6:30 or 7:00. By the time that's done, it's technically get ready for bedtime, but the kids want to play and it's too bright to sleep anyway, so bedtime is later, which makes wake-up time later, so each day starts off on a sliding scale, too.

When there's time to stop and smell the roses like this, I'm much more perceptive. I'm able to see past the immediate logistical conundrum or the petty annoyance seemingly sent specifically to drive me over the edge to the larger life lesson. And so, from this past week:

Top 5 Things I've Learned This Week:

1. The Girl is a diva. We had it out on Monday. She was overtired and overstimulated from a sleepover last weekend and it took until Monday night for the full brunt to hit her. She was wailing and inconsolable, desperate for my company but only so that I would bear the onslaught of her drama. It reminded me (forcefully) of when she was three and no day passed without a barrage of intensity. Unfortunately, it also reminded me that I, too, can be somewhat intense and emotional and (even more unfortunately) that her brand of crazy stokes the fires of mine.

Life Lesson Learned: Enjoy whatever sweetness you can now; the teen years will be buh-rutal.

2. CBC Radio Two execs are Mennonites. Or, if they are not, they have latched onto that quintessential Mennonite virtue of doing More with Less. The last time they changed things up, I was pretty upset. Having listened for almost a year now, I will admit that Tom's show isn't that bad. The music mix is actually pretty good, although the transition to Julie Nesrellah's classical show is still pretty jarring. As is she, so I don't bother sticking around.

Now, in all their wisdom, they've decided to shake things up again and add a "new" radio program between the classical and more modern drive home shows. This one's called Shift, to be hosted by poor Tom Allen, who no longer gets to home after his morning show for a nice mettaschloppe but instead has to do it once more, with feeling. Hmm. A transitional program with eclectic music, bridging the gap between the classical and the funky. Where have I heard that before? Oh yeah - it was called Studio Sparks, hosted by Eric Friesen. Until they canned him and his show last year. Ah well, at least this time around they don't have to pay for an extra host.

Life lesson learned: Just because you're a radio show host doesn't mean you won't end up working twice as hard to make up for laid-off coworkers.

3. I am getting old. Ed McMahon. Farrah Fawcett. Michael Jackson. I totally remember them. Everything that I loved as a kid is getting a reboot and being marketed to a new generation (and their parents who invariably end up shelling out big bucks for Burger King crap). And Office Space is ten years old. How is that even possible that I've been filling out TPS reports for an entire decade?

Life lesson learned: "Inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened." (Terry Pratchett)

4. Life is not a twelve-step program. Or five. Or three. I realized this week that I get totally hijacked by those internet articles like "How to Organize Your House in Three Easy Steps" or "Fifteen Minutes to a Flatter Stomach." I click on "Save Thousands From Your Monthly Budget By Following These Four Rules," only to discover that apparently other people spend hundreds of dollars on satellite and eat out three times a week. It's tough to cut back when you're on the Netflix/Hmm, what can I find in the freezer? program already. And those fifteen minutes? Are actually per day. So that was a bit deceptive.

Life lesson learned: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And you just wasted the time you could have used to actually DO some sit-ups by reading about them, thinking it would be a good idea, and then abandoning the idea because it sounded hard.

5. There's always time for music. Now that it's summer, I like to take an extended lunch hour and head outside to a local plaza where there's live music at lunchtime. On Tuesday, I was just finding a comfy spot on a bench when a line of cutey-patootie daycare kids, resplendent (and highly identifiable) in neon orange vests joined the audience. The musician started his act, and suddenly about 20 4-year-olds were swarming the stage. Some did the "wave your arms in the air like you just don't care" dance, some grooved with some modified disco, some did the "running around like an airplane," and others just jumped in place. You knew that before the day was through, half of these kids would skin their knees, half would have their feelings terribly hurt because Michaela Mae took away their toy, and all would end up in tears at some point. But it totally didn't matter. The sun was shining, and there was music, and they went for it. It was fabulous.

Life lesson: You gotta dance while the dancin's good.

Read more...

In Which Peitricia Mae Out-Geeks a Librarian

Dramatis Personae:
- Peitricia Mae - studious-looking young woman, not terribly stylish (although rocking her Pic'n'Pay sandals), somewhat flushed because it's a bazillion degrees outside
- Librarian - male, older, 40s-ish, possessor of a figure suggesting lots of lovely evenings relaxing with books and snacks

Scene:
- Information desk, central library, first floor

PM: [approaches timidly with a book in hand]

Lib: [looks up guardedly] Yes?

PM: Hi. Um, I know that this is really anal...

Lib: [narrows eyes]

PM: ...but, um, I was over in the M section and I noticed that this was filed there. [puts book down on the desk] It's Jack Maggs, which is why it was in the M section I guess.

Lib: [stone-faced]

PM: But it's by Peter Carey. Jack Maggs is the title, so it was shelved incorrectly.

Lib: [thinks seriously?!]

PM: [protests feebly] If someone was looking for it, they would never find it.

Lib: [...] Okay.

PM: [leaves quickly, grateful that she is able to somehow stop herself from trying to redeem the situation by pointing out that Peter Carey is a really well-known writer and that it's perfectly likely that someone might be looking for this book and that she's really only three degrees of separation from him because she totally transcribed an interview with him once although she was only able to do half of it because she went into labour with her first child five weeks early...]

Exeunt

Read more...

Go Ahead, Make My Day

Every time I see someone around here driving a motorcycle without a helmet on, I shake my head. You see it all the time - some big, burly guy on his hog, hair streaming behind him in the wind.

Back where I come from, motorcyclists are constantly under fire for merely existing and thus apparently driving up insurance rates - if they ever started to eschew helmets and risk a lifetime of head injury recovery paid for by other motorists, howls of derision would rise and Manitobans would take to the streets clutching their MPI bills in protest.

(Actually, being polite Canadians, at most we'd get a few strongly-worded letters to the newspaper. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.)

Of course, no Manitoban motorcyclist would ever drive without a helmet, anyway, since going without is illegal. As in, there is a law dictating that helmets must be worn, and law enforcement officials are charged with, well, enforcing that law.

No such law exists down here. And why, you might ask, since this is clearly an issue where a societal concern for personal and corporate safety overrides individual comfort. Surely all of Minnesota would benefit from motorcyclists wearing helmets (not least the riders themselves).

Except that they see things differently here.

One of the most difficult things for me to wrap my head around about living in America has been the favouring of the individual over the many. The rights of the individual trump those of the community every time.

It's kind of like the Wild Wild West down here. Every man for himself in a lawless one-horse town where there's baddies in black hats all around and no sheriff in sight. Or, if a new sheriff shows up, the locals take bets as to how long before the outsider who has no clue How Things Work gets strung up and they get back to the real business of taking The Law into their own hands.

Which is why there is so much opposition when the Government tries to usurp (or seems to try) the autonomy of the individual. Like recalcitrant teenagers, some Americans declare belligerently "you can't tell ME what to do!" and raise the alarm whenever they feel that Government is overstepping its bounds.

This suspicion of The Man seems to have been handed down since America's beginning. The country's very birth originates in a defiant stand against being told what to do. The "taxation" part itself was bad enough, but it was the "taxation without representation" - that is, the dictation of behaviour without the opportunity to have a say in it - that tipped the balance.

This is in part what makes many of the current right-wing objections - including the oh-so-inappropriately-but-hilariously named "tea-bagging" protests - against the Obama administration so laughable. You might not like the outcome of the election, but your ancestors fought a war of independence so that they could govern themselves - in short, for democracy. And democracy only works if all parties involved agree beforehand that they will accept the proverbial will of the people. It's not really democracy if you agree to accept the results only if your candidate wins.

The other day I followed a truck with a sign on the back: IMPEACH OBAMA - YES WE CAN! And I thought, for what? What exactly has he done in six months that is so contrary to either this country's constitution or what he said he would do before y'all went and elected him?

Their problem with Obama, it seems, is that he's not content to leave the West so wild. He's riding in with his big white hat and, unlike his predecessors, he's not going to capitulate, return home in defeat, or simply join the black hats. And it's driving some of the locals crazy.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the increasingly ramped-up rhetoric around this country's healthcare.

The other day I was chatting with one of the kids' daycare workers. When she found out we were from Canada, she moved in about two inches from my face and demanded, "so what do you think about healthcare?"

I replied, "Actually, I'm a huge fan of universal healthcare."

She was shocked. "But I heard that in Canada if you need an MRI it takes three months to get one."

Well, yes, I allowed. There are issues with waiting lists.

"But my mother-in-law in Ontario was waiting for surgery, and they stuck her in this room with ten beds (men and women together in one room!) and she didn't even know when her surgery was - this was just the waiting area and she was there for three months!"

Well, yes, I acknowledged, Canadian healthcare definitely has its problems and you certainly do hear stories about people stuck in frustrating and unenviable situations while dealing with an often-antiquated or seemingly inadequate system.

"The Canadian system certainly isn't perfect," I said. "Down here, my husband and I have great jobs and great health plans. But I have never been so worried about healthcare before. And what about people who don't have great plans? Or can't afford them? Or have to deal with the one-two punch of cancer plus the resultant bankruptcy?"

She was quite dissatisfied by my response. As are many Americans. Because their greatest fear is that, while they pay ridiculously high insurance premiums and are one pink slip away from having no healthcare at all, the Government is going to take away their choice in the matter. That they will be forced to exchange a bloated, unfair, inadequate, expensive system that works really, really well for a few people and really, really poorly for most people for a bloated, unfair, inadequate, expensive system that makes everyone experience the same mediocrity and (worse) that they would have to shell out their hard-earned taxpayer dollars to fund.

In short, that some individuals might have to give up something in order to better the overall lives of all Americans.

Now, I'm not sure that this needs to be either/or. I don't think Americans need to (or should) throw the baby out with the bathwater and move to an exact replica of the Canadian healthcare system. Or that Canadian healthcare wouldn't benefit a lot from exploring the advantages of some privatization.

I do think that this elected administration is absolutely right that something needs to be done and that a move towards a universal system (even if it means some additional hardship for some of its citizens) is necessary for the well-being of all. I also think that the link between employment and healthcare is insane and it's not universal if "everyone gets access to good healthcare" means "everyone who has a job."

But this ain't my town, and this ain't my fight. All I know is that high noon's getting close and there's a showdown a'comin'. We'll see who draws the quickest.

Read more...