My father, a German half-Jew, discussing similarities between Trump and Hitler (July, 2016)

 Look what I came upon as I reviewed video conversations I had with my father during the years before he died, when he was finally willing to talk about his experiences as a half-Jew (a "mischling") in WWII Germany. 

Dad wrote prolifically about his experiences, but he insisted that his books and stories be only for family, never for people he didn't know. I begged him to publish his memoir, stressing the importance of his first-person voice during a time when those voices were growing quieter and quieter, while another voice - that of Donald Trump - was becoming louder and louder," but he refused, saying only, "You can tell my story when I'm gone" - which is becoming my life's work.

This video conversation with Dad, shot at his house in Ashland, Oregon in July, 2016, four months before Trump was elected and seven months before he died (I swear, Trump's election killed him), is chilling, prescient, and terrifying. 

As much as I miss him, I'm glad he's not alive to witness what's happening in our country. He totally called it.

My father wrote this to his kids the day after Trump was elected. I had no idea…

“Hi, all of you. parents and descendants ---

NOW where are you going to emigrate to??
In 1938, ("Krystal Night", November 8) my (Jewish) father told us to keep the lights off, and windows closed, so nobody would bother us in the apparently empty  house.   The burning of the synagogue across the street, was officially the work of "Germans tired of the Jews.” It was done by "people disgusted with the Jews.”
The next day, a guy at school bragged that the night before, his big brother, an SS or SA man, was one of the people setting the synagogue on fire.  The burning of the synagogue was (to remain politically correct) “by the people people against the Jews.”  My dad told me to never ever tell anybody about what I had heard.
He wouldn't believe things could get worse. He knew he had done no wrong. He did not want to take us out of school or compromise promising careers in our future.  He would not leave his house or his language.
My entire life would have been different if he had made different decisions. 
But, of course, it IS a BIG decision, and my impression of our current situation might be totally different from how you or your kids feel.
I strongly hope I am wrong in my defensive attitude.  But I believe, now more than ever, that 2016 is now quite a bit like 1938 in Europe, when my Jewish uncles left their businesses in Berlin to go to America.
I personally could not survive moving any more – I’m getting very old now.  But I would feel bad if I failed to tell you about my own experiences and fears.  I MUST tell you, especially those of you who may have a Mexican-sounding name in their ancestry.

Now I'll shut up.
Love --   Dad”
Dad died less than four months after Trump was elected. Thank god he doesn’t have to see this. It would kill him.

If it was never my money to begin with, did it really slip from my grasp?

We’ve been paying college tuition for almost TEN solid years now – sometimes for as many as three kids at once.  The college accounts dried up long ago and now it’s a matter of fretting big time when Aleks’ and Kat’s tuition statements come in, just hoping that we can squeak by every three months with enough saved to pay that quarter’s tuition and room and board. 

I woke up yesterday in a bit of a panic, knowing that UW tuition for winter quarter (Aleks’ and Kat’s next-to-last quarter – and our next-to-last EVER college tuition payment!) is due in a few short weeks and wondering how tight the situation really was.

I sleepily walked across the hall from our bedroom to my office, fired up the computer, and checked the college account balance.  I was hoping that we had at least the coupla thousand necessary for January tuition, knowing that I’d already paid Aleks’ fraternity bill and Kat’s January rent had been paid.

Staring back at me was a number that made NO sense whatsoever in my pre-coffeed state: the account had well over $9,000 in it!  I refreshed my browser (my default first troubleshooting action), then exited and re-entered the bank’s site.

Yup.  Well over nine grand!

This made no sense whatsoever.  We certainly didn’t put those extra thousands of dollars into the account.  So where did all that money come from?  I had no idea.

For more than a split second, I pondered how nice it would be to OWN that money, to pay Aleks’ and Kat’s last two quarters of college expenses stress-free, to breathe.  To…

Oh, damn!  I can’t keep the money!  It’s not ours to keep.

I started digging around my online banking account and found this:

It was a deposit slip for $8,636.13 with our college account number handwritten clearly on the bottom.  It also contained the name and  phone number of the person who deposited it – presumably into her own account.

I had no choice but to dial the number on the slip.  I mean, there it was, staring me in the face!  And there was a name to go with it! 

Roslyn. 

Roslyn who was probably wondering where in the world her big deposit was.

Of course I wanted to do the right thing, and of course I wanted the good feeling that goes along with doing the right thing.  There was never any doubt that I’d remedy all this.  And there was never any doubt that if I didn’t the bank eventually would.

But damn -- eight thousand dollars sure would have been nice!

I called Roslyn and explained to her what had happened.  She sounded stunned.  As it turns out, she had made the deposit (in the bank branch, it turned out, where the teller mistakenly wrote my account number on the slip instead of hers, omitting just one digit) and she hadn’t given it another thought after she left the bank, confident that the money was in her account.  As we talked, she checked her account online and realized that the funds hadn’t made it to her account after all!

I assured her that I’d take care of it with the bank, then spent the next (grrrr!) 85 minutes on the phone and on hold with Bank of America.  Had I not already made a personal connection with Roslyn, I just might have hung up, furious that the bank was making it so hard to simply do the right thing!

Roslyn now has her money and our college bank account is back to “sleepless” levels.  But I feel better.  And I KNOW Roslyn feels better!

I think I’ll go buy a lottery ticket.

The difference that grass-fed organic beef makes

Quite simply, it makes a difference in our family because Kat will eat it.

Over the past five years, Kat has been a vegan and a vegetarian and although she now occasionally eats chicken, she hasn’t eaten beef in a very long time.

Until yesterday.

Yesterday Kat and I visited Bill the Butcher, where the meat contains no herbicides, pesticides, antibiotics, hormones or steroids, where there is no genetically modified feed, and where local cattle are pasture raised and harvested as humanely as possible.  What a difference that makes – no only philosophically, but to the taste of the meat as well!

It was a bit of a field trip – of the fun, educational variety.

The butchers were wonderful women (both also ex-vegetarians) who were extremely knowledgeable and helpful – and funny.  (They promised that if A-1 or barbeque sauce was put on this beef, sensors would activate and cause it to explode…)

Since we’d gotten a new Weber grill the previous evening, we wanted something that we could just grill.  The butcher (I forgot to ask her name, dang it) suggested this top sirloin…

 

Simplicity was the key.  We wanted the full “more earthy” flavor to be revealed.

And it was!

Kat was even the first one to finish her steak, enjoying and savoring every bite.

Perhaps she can add her own perspective in the comments (she was going to guest blog this entry, but had to head back to school before there was time) regarding why she feels that buying meat from butchers like Bill the Butcher is actually a more effective, impactful way than vegetarianism to support environmental and economic sustainability around beef farming.  It makes a lot of sense!

Here’s Kat’s comment, which I left in the comment section, but also want to include as an addendum within the post:

Where do I start? I decided to be a vegetarian first and foremost out of my love for all animals. Doing some research myself, I heard how much they suffer in industrialized mass-production CAFO's (confined animal feed operations). I could not bring myself to continue to support that through my food choices. So I cut them all out, naively thinking this would make some sort of a small, minute difference (if only I could convince EVERYONE to go vegetarian!) Through researching government-funded corn subsidies, my values toward the American food system shifted.

Here it is in a nutshell: The government pays corn farmers to over-produce (ps, this comes from our tax dollars). Counter-intuitive, yes, but this makes corn CHEAP and we like cheap stuff in America. So now we have a surplus of corn... what should we do with it? Let's make cheap sweetener (high fructose corn syrup...hello, obesity) and let's feed it to the cows and chickens (who are supposed to eat grass and grain) and see how they do. They don't do so well. So what do we do? Instead of fixing the problem by allowing them to feed naturally, we fix the problem through science and technology (again, the American way... we don't like the simple solutions, we like to make things complicated).

So, now we're making our confined cattle eat corn, which gives them a nasty disease called Acidosis (not to mention they stand in their poop all day instead of a pasture... hello E.coli!). To treat the Acidosis and keep the cattle alive who can get so many diseases by standing in each other's poop, we pump them full of antibiotics to keep them alive until slaughter and hormones to make them grow fast so we can slaughter them sooner. Yum! Sometimes though, the cattle get so sick from the Acidosis that it kills them. Farmers hope that the sick cattle can stay just alive enough until slaughter. Yum.. sick beef...
What does it all boil down to? Corn subsidies.

 
I realize that if I really want to be a part of the conversation surrounding American production of food, it needs to start with supporting the small-scale, local, natural farmers that are being squeezed out by the big, profit-driven companies.
Here is an amazing article I suggest. It depicts the shift in conscience I experienced surrounding my food choices: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/06/meat-production-veganism-deforestation

Easter, for me

I like Easter for the colors and bunnies and new life.  I like colorful Easter baskets filled with phony green grass, squishy yellow Peeps, and plastic eggs filled with candy.  I like happy toddlers searching for pastel Easter eggs left by the big bunny who laid them.  (What?!) 

Not normally one for kitsch of any kind, I tolerate Easter kitsch because… well, that’s Easter. 

When the kids were little, we colored eggs, they woke up to Easter baskets filled with goodies, and they hunted for Easter eggs, followed by a delicious Easter brunch.  It was all fun and joyous.  But in spite of the fact that Tom grew up Catholic, we never connected these festivities with any religious story.  Instead, Easter was just a fun, colorful, delicious holiday.

I understand that many people feel differently about this, but this is my blog, so I’ll tell you what I think (what a novel idea!). 

As a kid, the idea of someone having been nailed by his hands and feet to a wooden cross, bleeding, suffering, and ridiculed… and when he finally died, his body being sealed in a stone crypt -- and then this guy somehow coming back to life and "escaping" absolutely TERRIFIED me. 

Even as a kid I knew that after what he’d gone through, he wouldn’t stand there, three days later, in starched white robes, all handsome and washed, no blood to be found, ready to greet the day.

Not so much now, because I know the whole story is a parable, but as a kid the story of Jesus coming back from the dead brought about the same imagery as that of another holiday.

And it scared the living daylights out of me.

Then, seven years ago on Easter morning my mom died.  That didn’t exactly help the whole Easter and death thing.

I’ll stick with Easter bunny kitsch and new life, thankyouverymuch. 

Maybe that’s why I’ve been doing so much of this lately:

A thought to ponder on 9/11

If the people of our country truly held by the important American principle of of freedom of religion for all (not just for the religion with which one identifies), it shouldn’t matter whether the building being considered two blocks from Ground Zero were a church, a synagogue, a mosque, or a “thought center” for atheists.

IMBY!

A few weeks ago, on a quiet Sunday afternoon much like this one, a neighbor came to our door wanting to discuss the plans for King County’s Tent City #4 to move into the parking lot of the “church at the corner,” just a few houses away from ours. 

“I really have no problem with them coming to our neighborhood,” this man said, “except that the church’s septic system simply won’t accommodate them.” 

Really? 

I suggested that if the church – a new one built just a few years ago – accommodates large church functions like weddings and carnivals, I’d think they’d be able to accommodate some homeless people as well.  “But that’s long-term,” the man insisted.  “Three whole months!”

“And plus,” he added, “our garage was broken into just last week and my iPod was stolen from my car!”

“Well wait a minute,” I reasoned.  “They’re not even here yet, so how can you blame them for a crime in our neighborhood last week?”

I kid you not, this was his answer:

“Well, I’m just sayin’…”

Yes, you are.  You’re just sayin’ that you’re an ignorant, bigoted, intolerant man.

So this man took hours out of his day on a beautiful Sunday afternoon to protest homeless people moving into our neighborhood, screaming “NIMBY!  NIMBY!” (not in my backyard), and they came anyway.

They’ve been here for about a month now and I want to personally report that they have been nothing but courteous, quiet, clean, and responsible.  There has not been one single “incident” involving any of them and, if anything, our neighborhood is even cleaner than normal because some of them even regularly make the rounds cleaning up any trash on the streets of the neighborhood! 

I decided this morning to introduce myself at Tent City #4 and to welcome them to the neighborhood.  I parked in front of their “front office” and mentioned to them that I’m a blogger and that I was hoping to blog my impressions.

They couldn’t have been more friendly and accommodating, and they even offered to give me a tour – which I will pass on to you.  (Oh, Mr. Neighbor, are you there?)

The first thing I noticed was the total and complete organization of all aspects of the camp. 

The rules are strict, consisting of a ONE-strike-and-you’re-out policy regarding drugs and violence, as well as very strict rules around noise and respect for the neighborhood. 

Everything was neat and tidy, from loaner bikes…

…to clean donated clothes…

…to the kitchen…

…to the neat rows of tents -- where it must have been miserable during last week’s heat wave… and where it’s wet, cold, and drizzly today.

That septic system that my neighbor insisted was insufficient turns out to be more than sufficient, although the health department and the county do stipulate that only about half the residents can take a (military-style) shower on any given day.

I asked whether any of the residents have jobs and was told that MOST of them do, but they simply can’t make ends meet since many also pay child support or other obligatory expenses and they just can’t meet the demands of first and last months rent and other expenses involved in finding and maintaining a place to live.. 

This is the working poor, folks, not a bunch of drugged out derelicts.  For any of us who live paycheck to paycheck, this could be us next week or next month. 

I think this video says it best:

Those old bananas in my kitchen just found themselves a new home in the form of a few loaves of banana bread.  I’ll bring it to the residents of Tent City #4 while it’s still warm because on a drizzly day like this a little warm sweetness would feel good in anyone’s belly!

“The reddest house finch I ever saw…”

Here’s a Skype conversation I just had with my beloved co-worker, who is a bird enthusiast:

So here’s a red house finch from Google images:

And here’s “my” red house finch:

Ain’t life (and death…) amazing?! 

I know, I know – it’s just a random bird who happened to hang around incessantly outside my office window and initiate a few stare-downs with me on the day Toby died. 

I know. 

No, I don’t think the finch’s presence is the “voice of God” or anything like that, because, well, I don’t happen to believe in a personal god with a voice directly to me.  I just don’t.

But I do believe that Nature is an amazing and powerful force and I do believe (prompted by observing the process of my mother’s death) that there are dimensions that we can’t even begin to understand and that death is probably the biggest mystery we face.

I guess perhaps dogwood flowers and bright red finches are as close as I get to believing in God. And I’m perfectly OK with that.

Rachel Maddow for President!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

(I am so proud to share an alma mater with this woman... I just wish I has one iota of her intelligence. Yes, I am in awe!)

Lessons learned about marriage – on the weekend of my 27th wedding anniversary

After 20-some intensely busy years raising four children who were born within five short years, Tom and I are now empty nesters -- and while many weekends include a visit from at least one of our kids, we are more and more often on our own for a week or two (or more)at a time.

We realized about a week ago that, with Aleks in school in the Czech Republic, Peter away at summer school at WSU, Kat heading to a friend’s cabin for the long weekend, and Elisabeth with plans of her own, we’d be spending the three-day holiday weekend, the weekend of our 27th wedding anniversary, alone… together.

On Saturday morning, we packed our suitcases and the only “child” left at home – Shasta -- and headed to Portland for a quick, impromptu 24-hour trip. 

We toured Portland’s breweries, spending an afternoon drinking beer and meeting great people…

That’s Shawn, our waiter at the Rogue Brewery and, with his keen anticipatory ESP and genuinely nice personality, quite possibly one of the best waiters we’ve ever had anywhere.

This pretzel at Deschutes Brewery was incredible! That dipping sauce is cheese sauce and sweet-spicy Dijon mustard – fabulous!

That’s authentic Polish kielbasa and perogi – delicious!

Our anniversary dinner – or rather, the lava cake dessert, at The Chart House. 

(I’m beginning to realize that our trip centered largely around food!)

On Sunday we headed back to Seattle in the typical drizzly Pacific Northwest weather, arriving home early in the evening, with another whole day of the holiday weekend ahead of us.  We decided to watch a movie together and settled on Valentine’s Day, a romantic comedy.  I’m sure Tom would have rather watched a movie with explosions, car chases, and boobs, but he was happy to oblige when I suggested something a bit less testosterone-laden.

True to form and completely and totally beyond my control, I fell asleep at least 23 times during the two hour movie, waking up enough to apologize for insisting on a movie and then sleeping through it – to which Tom just nodded knowingly. 

At one point, I woke up to hear someone (Ashton Kutcher?) say to someone else (Jennifer Gardner) something about “marrying your best friend.” 

‘Yup,’ I remember thinking before nodding off again, ‘marrying your best friend really is the secret.’

Marry your best friend… marry your best friend.  As I half-dozed, the phrase danced in my head, and I mulled it around and pondered it – half awake and half dreaming.

As the credits rolled, I apologized again for sleeping through the movie, then kissed Tom goodnight, saying I had to go to bed, that I couldn’t stay up one second longer.  He jokingly commented that he knows me well enough after all these years to expect nothing different. 

Marry your best friend. 

As I sleepily headed upstairs I realized that this is the secret to our very busy, family-oriented first 27 years together – and that this is what will see us through the much calmer, much quieter next 27 years of marriage (should we be so lucky). 

I married my best friend – someone who shares almost all of my core values and philosophies, from child rearing to home decor to politics.  In this regard, we are of one mind.  Interestingly, though, Tom’s basic personality, as well as his hobbies and interests, are totally different from mine.  In that regard, we are yin and yang.

Being best friends who are looking at another 27 (relatively quiet, childless) years together, we decided to go look at one of these today:

So if my kids (or anyone else) should ask me the secret to a good marriage and the secret to actually wanting to spend days or weeks on end with someone in 86 square feet of space, I’d tell them what I’ve learned, not only in the past 30-some years of knowing Tom, but in the past 3 or so months of working at The Gottman Relationship Institute.  I’d tell them the same thing that my “boss,” Dr. John Gottman has learned in his 30-some years of doing research on relationships: friendship is paramount.  All the other stuff – passion and dreams and goals – are really, really important, but a foundation in true friendship and really enjoying your partner’s company most of the time is what everything else in a relationship is built on, and if you don’t have that, it’s much more challenging to move together smoothly among the stages of life, from courtship to marriage to family to empty nesting and beyond.

We’re approaching the “beyond” stage now.  Twenty-seven years ago, I thought of people at this stage of life, and in this stage of a relationship, as OLD and boring.  Now I know that, although we might be approaching (gasp!) old (but please, NOT boring!), we’re still married and still best friends and nothing can be better than that.

Asking Mom for money while in Europe: 1980 vs 2010

When I was alone in Germany in 1980, asking my mom for money went something like this:

Day 1: Ask my hosts if I could call home.  Knowing it was very expensive (like many dollars per minute!), I’d feel very guilty.  Alternately, I could send Mom a telegram which was also expensive and required my hosts to make a trip to the Western Union office in town.  (The telegram would be delivered within hours or possibly the next day.)  There was no faster option.  If my request was warranted, Mom would ask my hosts for their bank account number so she could wire me money.

Day 2: Hoping that the money was actually wired, my hosts would drive to their bank and pay another fee to retrieve the wired money.

Thirty years later, a kid in Europe asking his mom for money looks something like this:

That IM lasted maybe 5 minutes and once I began the funds transfer process it took about… oh, 5 seconds!  No charge, no mess!

Things have changed so incredibly much in the past 30 years!  I don’t think our kids can even begin to fathom the immense difference in the speed of communication from when their parents were their age.  I wrote about it previously here… and I think I’ll need to write about it again soon. 

With details.  Because really, I think some 20-something jaws will drop!