End Times

The time has come for us to say goodbye to another year and hello to the next, which will most surely pass even faster than the last. The folks at Detroit Dilettante (that's just me!) would like to wish my past, present (none!), and future (maybe!) readers a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year! For me and Husband, formerly Fiance, it has been a year of extreme ups and downs. In January Husband lost an uncle much earlier than one should ever have to say goodbye to such a youthful and life-affirming person, then in April his father got sick (somewhat back to normal), and then, if that wasn't enough, Husband ended up in the ER with chest pain in May, which we honestly now think was extreme anxiety from the previous 5 months of family trauma.

The upside of this year came when Husband received a clean bill of health and then in October...married me! It was a perfect ceremony and a nearly perfect reception (what am I bitchin' and moanin' about? well, lame and insignificant stuff...weather suddenly turned very cold for day-of, band was a bit clueless about wedding pacing and etiquette though great at what they are actually paid to do, bartender was a bit of a dud). The food was great, location beautiful, the company the greatest, and everyone travelled to and from northern Michigan safely, thankfully!

The best thing was having all our friends and family together in one spectacularly beautiful place! There were a few key people missing, but they were there in spirit, I felt the love!

And now, a few months later, the best thing of all is to look at the pictures and marvel over how great my friends and family are (new and pre-existing), how wonderful that everyone is in good health and still flourishing despite the grueling journey to northern Michigan in autumn, and to realize how the silly little "problems" with the wedding fade as time passes and only the good stays lodged in this heart and mind. I cannot imagine a life better than the one I have, with its problems shared amongst an incredibly supportive cast of family and friends, and solutions coming from the grace of God/Buddha/the good earth! My only wish that I cannot accomplish alone this year (through my own grit and determination, to differentiate from other wishes/resolutions which require only my efforts) is that my circle of friends and family should expand to include usually silent neighbors, people who Husband and I should meet for reasons of fate (??), and those in need of whatever help I can offer, who I hope can make themselves known to a sometimes-blogger who thinks she understands much of what goes on in the world, but is probably more often than not guilty of living in a cloud of dreams...though with beautiful clouds come beautiful rainbows. Happy 2011!

The Optimists Club that Imploded

I went to my business networking meeting this morning, usually an upbeat experience despite trekking across southeast Michigan to what feels like the farthest outpost to still qualify as "Ann Arbor." Today was really no different, though that darn elevator speech of mine still needs work! One of my co-networkers talked about some event with a club where he holds the presidency, The Optimists Club, and someone asked him about the club's branch in Manchester. "The Manchester club broke up a few years ago...politics...lots of fighting..." I thought this was really funny, the inability of a bunch of optimists to get along.

What the heck is the Optimists Club anyway? It seems like it would be a club full of happy, nice, positive people, so how did an entire branch implode? Are they like the rest of us after all, or worse, like the people who shop at Whole Foods...I used to operate under the impression that the people who shop at Whole Foods are (a) happy because they get to eat super-healthy super-vitamin super-foods devoid of the toxins us Kroger people regularly ingest, and (b) happy because they have enough money to shop at Whole Foods! I found out quickly that both (a) and (b) were just textbook examples of me being misguidedly optimistic about the qualities possessed by others, a fault I must admit as an incurable Pisces. After several trips to Whole Foods (usually only to get Redwood Hills Farms Goats Milk Yogurt - worth the trip! See http://www.redwoodhill.com/). I realized that Whole Foods shoppers are just like everyone else, but worse...a little more self-absorbed at the helm of the cart, a little more pushy in the parking lot (We have yoga and meditation classes to get to, people!). Okay, so maybe my own lower-middle-class jealousy-tinged bias colors my judgment, but the point is, I will never join a club with a name that forces me to call attention to the fact that at times I have little reason to be optimistic about my fellow human beings. Better to join a group with Network in the name, populated by the surly, the tardy, the sleepy, the average, and be pleasantly surprised when the same demonstrate their kindness, their generosity, their humor, and their greatness. Let's not call out these qualities with a label demanding an attitude that a human being cannot possibly always maintain, but quietly work toward the good...to me, that is truly optmistic.

So, soapboxing aside, a name is just a name, and I have no idea what the Optimists do or what their mission statement is. And after hours on the Internet today, I have no desire to search out the answer that is no doubt at the tip of my fingers. Rather, I choose to speculate about this poor club who never did anything to me...aaahh, the power of the Internet.

This topic really derives from my own inability to be optimistic right now. I never like the night of the State of the Union address, but especially dislike this year...please hold the applause...and please don't give standing ovations (never mind a Nobel Peace Prize) until I have health insurance, a steady stream of income, a decent home value, and the assurance that the Great Lakes fishing industry won't be destroyed within a year for a certain somebody's hometown politics! (See http://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines/Media-Center/News-by-Topic/Wildlife/2010/01-06-10-Obama-Administration-Miscalculates-Risk-Asian-Carp-Pose-to-Great-Lakes-Economy.aspx). And if I can't have any of these things right now, then I'm going to skip the speech, watch something on Netflix, and wait for the sunshine.

Ode to The Line, a Debriefing of The American, and a dash of Tomato Porn

Before I get to tonight's topics: today, my first paying client...paid me! And now, stuff that is not as exciting.

Tonight I stood with about five others in a slow-moving Line at the library, impatiently waiting my turn while reminding myself that I really hadn't been waiting that long. All of sudden a rogue stepped up to the counter just vacated by another patron. The problem with his sudden appearance at the counter: he skipped the Line! He had simply ignored the sign that read "Please form one line here" and blithely sallied up to the counter at the end farthest from the hanging directive. Others in Line grumbled a bit, while I pondered the lack of character, to be so unaware of one's surroundings, much like bad drivers on cellphones or those merely daydreaming. Or perhaps he was from Europe or some such place, where people congregate around a desired purpose in a frightening absence of longitudinal order. Well if so, he had been in the U.S. long enough to get a library card, and probably long enough to wait in Line at the DMV (ha! he could not have survived skipping that Line without some bite marks or bullet holes, right L.L.?). Regardless, we said nothing as the man readied his books and library card, though this faux pas is one of the few remaining that inspire patriotic ferver in fellow Lineholders....but wait! A man, clearly a regular geek/patron of the library (takes one to know one) said politely, with a slight tremor, "Sir, the line forms over here." Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah! The man grabbed his things from the counter, turned, and made his way to the back of the line in an agreeable manner, no scowl to be detected! And the last semblance of American public civility lives to fight another day.

Speaking of American/European clashes (real or imagined), I finally finished Henry James' The American. I must say, I almost gave up about halfway through, when it appeared that absolutely nothing would happen. So our hero Newman travels to Paris to hunt down a bride after having accumulated massive wealth as a "commercial man" in the U.S. circa when steamership was the way to go. He makes some friends and proposes to Claire de Cintre, a titled young widow. Her family begrudgingly allows the engagement, and the story plods on with nary a hint of coming drama (okay, there were hints, just wanted to say nary, and the hints were few and far between). Newman is irritatingly happy and good-natured. I suppose he is the Everyman (the New-Man) American travelling abroad, risking language and etiquette gaffs along the way. Well, his Parisian acquaintances prove disloyal, snooty, and wrapped up in stupid things like gentry, which I think is the point James is trying to make. The good guys in the story get the short end of the stick, except for Newman, who ends up good-natured and relatively happy, until the very last line of the book (don't bother trying to impress your friends with your book knowledge by reading the first and last lines of the novel, it doesn't work with this one, you will have no idea what is going on). Was this review helpful? I think not. Did reading The American make me a better, more enlightened guest at cocktail parties? I think not. Do I wonder why there are people who devote their careers to studying Henry James? I think so, and I welcome their venom (maybe someday I will learn to appreciate James, possibly by reading another of his novels...but that day has not come, especially when my reading time is occupied by such fantastic modern work like The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie!).

Last but not least, some saucy Tomato Porn. Well, it is a fetish of all in-season vegetables, but Tomoto Porn is much more sonically enticing than Vegetable Porn, and tomatoes are far and away my favorite. Don't worry folks, what you are about to see is not obscenity, which we know is illegal, but simply some tasteful photos of recent footage from behind the garage and at the farmers market. Feast your eyes on this from the Ann Arbor Farmers Market:

And this behind my own garage: