15 Years

It’s hard to believe that it was fifteen years ago this week that we moved into our house.

We had been renting in Mountain View, it was the height of the dot-com boom, and our landlord wanted to raise our rent by (note: “by” not “to”) $650 a month. He did us a big favor and made us get serious. Gilroy offered us a new house that was both nice and affordable.

The neighborhood has changed since 1997. Across the street from us two houses are still occupied by the families that bought them originally, though one has been split by divorce. A lot of the other homes have seen turnover. What was once in large part a Silicon Valley bedroom community is no longer that. There are more working class residents, and more multi-family or multi-generation homes, as has become common due to the economy and the housing market. Two doors down, the original buyer had moved back a while ago after being away for some time, running what amounts to a boarding house with a variety of unsavory characters, having sadly been forced into that predicament by her husband’s chronic alcoholism.

In general, though, it is still a good neighborhood and we like being here. While in an ideal world we would prefer to be up on the Peninsula around Mountain View or Palo Alto, the chances of that are not great. And we really do love our house. We have our landscaped back yard, we re-did our bathroom counters some time back, and of course there is our kitchen remodel of five years ago, which we still look at with appreciation and considerable enjoyment.

But 15 years, it really is hard to believe.

Come, yet again, come, come

I first saw this a very long time ago when reading Rumi. I hadn’t thought about it in ages, but was brought back to it when I found it in a booklet of Easter season meditations from the church where my spiritual director serves as rector. Thank you for that.

Come, come, whoever you are.
Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.
It doesn’t matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken your vow
a thousand times.
Come, yet again, come, come.

—Jalal al-Din Rumi

Angela Davis 2012 Pitzer College Commencement Address

I graduated from Pitzer College in 1975 and hung around Claremont for the next two years (a Claremont Cockroach, as I’ve said). Angela Davis was a visiting faculty member of the Claremont Colleges Black Studies program in 1975, which I did not know until seeing this video. I was rather surprised, since I thought I was somewhat in touch with what was going on there that year. But apparently the who thing was kept very secret. In any case, this is a great address and very much in alignment with the values of Pitzer.

Sacred Music Friday: I was Glad

St. Paul’s Cathedral Choir, on the occasion of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee

wondering

One of the great things about both Terry and I being able to work from home is that we get to have lunch together frequently. Our rotation is limited, so the staff at most of the places we go knows us well.

Our favorite on Mondays is our local Asian fusion place. Monday because it is hot and sour soup day. The waitress there is a young woman who decided she liked and trusted us. She told us about her impending marriage and honeymoon and her classes at the local community college.

We were surprised when she was gone for a few weeks and happy to see her back. We got no explanation from her other than “I was off for a while.” From a human perspective we worry a little, but it’s not our place to ask and there’s nothing we can do to do to help.

Still, I do hope everything’s OK.

how do you find it?

Natalie, in the video below, complains about how people express surprise that she has not seen a given movie or read a certain book. Natalie is Australian and her friends ask her “How have you not…” read the book or seen the movie.

It occurred to me that such a phrase would not come naturally to any of us who grew up speaking American English. We would ask, “You really haven’t seen that?” Or, closer to the spirit of “How have you not?” we might turn the question into a statement and say, “I can’t believe you haven’t read it.”

It made me think of a conversation I had with a British co-worker in the mid-1990’s. That was obviously before we were ordering things online, so if you wanted something you had to go into a store or perhaps place a phone or mail order. We were talking about a new version of software I had just installed, and he asked me, “How do you find it ?” Uncouth American that I was (am), I responded, “I got mine at Fry’s Electronics.”

What he meant, of course, was, “How do you like it?”

Even between native English speakers meaning isn’t always obvious.

Note: This video may contain mildly offensive language and content to those with certain sensibilities. To those of other sensibilities, some of the attempts at humor may seem lame. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

community is what you make it

I remember my Unitarian minister in Oklahoma City once saying, “There are two kinds of people in the world: those who divide the world into two kinds of people and those who don’t.” I always thought that was a good perspective to take. Nonetheless, I think I can safely say that I have two kinds of friends on Facebook: those who discuss political and social matters on Facebook and those who don’t.

In the wake of President Obama’s surprise endorsement of gay marriage last week it did not surprise me that my friends in the latter category were 100% positive and supportive. I’m fully aware, of course, that plenty of people were not happy with that statement.

It reinforces my perspective that your experience on Facebook is exactly what you make it.