Monday, June 14, 2021

Unsolicited Mail

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I received this in my email today. I've pasted the message that accompanied it below. But I wonder how I get on some of the group emails I receive.

In a few days I'll write to the person who sent it and ask that I not be mailed such garbage again. Especially not with a prefatory note attached that said: "This is great! Please share it with your friends!!!!!" So, I'm sharing it. Even though it didn't say "Pretty please."

I know I've enjoyed White Privilege since birth. I have never been hassled walking toward my front doors in Maryland, Washington State or even California, simply because of the color of my skin. 
 
I have never been pulled over by the police and questioned because of the color of my skin.

I have never been stopped and searched when I lived in Arkansas, just because I was eating an ice cream cone outside a grocery store. But a lot of the Black adults and adolescents I worked with were.

I have never had graffiti sprayed on my house, with messages that said for me to go back where I came from, either. But the people who opened the first Mexican restaurant in Colville, WA, were when they moved to that little town.

After Pearl Harbor, nobody rounded up my family and sent them to Manzanar or another "relocation" camp.

I remember those who bought homes on the G.I. Bill all those decades ago post-WW II, when new housing communities built to accommodate those upwardly mobile families. And I remember those neighborhoods had CC&Rs that prohibited selling them to Jews and people of color who were veterans.

None of my ancestors were rounded up and sold as slaves. I've never been discriminated against as have friends of mine in South Africa who were not admitted to medical school because they had black skin.

White privilege? Yep. My card has saved me from enduring many of the indignities that others who hold these alleged valuable "Race Cards" face. 

  FOR SALE:

I'm selling my white privilege card. It's over 70 years old but is in mint condition. It has never been used, not even one time. Reason for selling is that it hasn't done a damn thing for me! No free college, no free food, no free housing, no free anything, I actually had to go to work every day of my life while paying a boatload of taxes to carry those who chose not to work!  If you are interested, I prefer cash but would be willing to do and even trade for a Race Card which seems much more widely accepted and comes with countless benefits if you fit the profile!

Interested?

Contact me on my Non-Obama, Non-Biden cell phone that I pay for every month..Serious buyers only.


Saturday, April 17, 2021

Springing into Spring: Can I Go There NOW?


 Life slowly returns to semi-normality after our long hiatus. My AAUW (Anerican Association of University Women) Branch met this morning to discuss "Here, There and Everywhere," places we're looking forward to visiting. 

The Travel Discussion Group took the lead, addressing nearby places in Orange and Los Angeles County, then up and down the coast and finally...the whole wide world.

These are the useful websites we found to share with others:

Can I Go There NOW?

https://travel.state.go/content/travel/en/international-travel.html

International Air Transport Association

Passport, Visa and Health Info

https://www.iatatravelcentre.com/world.php

 Centers for Disease Control

International and Domestic Info

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/travelers/map-and-travel-notices.html

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/travelers/travel-during-covid19.html

Cruise Planning

https://www.cruiseplanners.com/about-us/coronavirus-travel-information

Me? I'd like to drive down the coast to Sherman Gardens in nearby Corona Del Mar before trying anything more adventurous.


 https://thesherman.org/cafe-jardin/



Monday, April 5, 2021

I Must Admit It's Getting Better

 

I'm not sure what got you through this pandemic, but for me it's been Skype, Zoom, and Emails from friends all over the world. Though I hunkered inside most of the past year, I've been able to keep in contact with so many old friends. I didn't have to give up my book discussion groups or my Orange County Peace Corps connections. I even was able to reconnect with friends in my Colville, WA, branch of American Association of University Women and Colville library group and see their faces again, if only on my laptop screen.

But my heart still tells me I want to be in the real world, not the virtual world of this computer. It rang true again last night with I watched the Screen Actors Guild awards show, Facebook messaging with my actor friend in Miami, FL. We've been enjoying our ritual for years, during all the movie and television awards shows together. 

To see all our favorite actors sitting in their homes alone, no matter how elegantly some of them dressed, especially the women in their Easter-egg-colored gowns and of course, Dan Levy, changing his gorgeous outfits for every snippet, wasn't the same as seeing them all together at the Kodak Theater or other venue where awards ordinarily are distributed. It's not the same. Just as this field of wildflowers that I have on my Skype background isn't the same as being in the California desert and seeing them in person. 

One of my closest companions confided to me this morning that the venerable Dr. Fauci predicts that by next year we'll actually be able to go unmasked to movie theater again. Some museums have actually reopened to limited masked patrons. 

Though I've been dining with that companion and others at outdoor restaurants for months now, this coming weekend I'm even going to sit inside a steakhouse with my son and daughter-in=law.

I'm beginning to appreciate more and more the convenience of where I live, close to friends, to supermarkets, to the post office to mail packages, without having to drive on icy winter roads. Had I not been here in my tiny shoebox senior living apartment, the isolation and my increasing unsteadiness because of balance issues connected with spinal stenosis would have made life unbearable.

I've been managing, instead. Maybe not thriving, but managing. I've learned how to change the background on my Skype and Zoom, which showcases me in settings more exotic than my bedroom. It's been a diversion to find ones that represent places I wish I were or places I once loved. The photo on the left I took from a window at the Orangerie in Paris in November, 2019, the last overseas trip I took.

I haven't written anything new for a while, but I've been involved as a reviewer on several Federal grant funding opportunities for Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and other Health and Human Services brances, getting paid to sit in front of my computer and update my LCSW knowledge about best practices.

The Rose Center Theater outdoor concerts, Uncle Pete's patio dining just a mile from me, my library system that's supplied me with DVDs and books via curbside or "grab and go" have made it better. Looking ahead to brighter days makes it better. Sitting in my old glider rocker in the evening, reading or streaming another episode of whatever old series I missed the first time around, makes it better.

Being fully vaccinataed now and able to hug a few friends who also have been, gives me hope. As has escaping coming down ill with the Covid-19 virus. At my advanced age, I may have had a very low possibility of surviving that. 

The increasing availability of vaccines, no constant election campaigning, not planning my day around how to find toilet paper or hand sanitizer? Yep. It's getting better!

Here's how the Sargeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band first told us all those years ago that it's getting better:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGlo9LzmOME