May21

Mistakes Can Be Catalysts

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Mistakes Can Be Catalysts

Fear of making a mistake can be paralyzing, especially when a big decision looms. During my two-week visit to Portland in January-February, I promised my relatives I would buy a reliable car that could capable of the Siskiyou pass on I-5 between California and Oregon. My Volvo had been unsuccessful in the attempt.

After test driving a CyberTruck, a classic-looking VW Buzz electric bus, and an Ionique6, I realized that the tax rebates for electric cars were likely to evaporate without notice and decided to get the best car I could that qualified so I kept checking the websites for it to appear. On Wednesday 14 May, there it was and I put $500 down on a low-mileage 2022 Tesla Model 3. I download the required Tesla app, uploaded images of my driver’s license and car insurance, and made an appointment to pick up the car in Colma in two days. I began planning how to get myself to Colma.

The next day I went to the gym for my regular class and came home for a short nap, only to be awakened by a nightmare that the order had crashed.

I called Tesla customer service and was assured that all was well. A couple of hours later my app indicated that my appointment had evaporated. I called Tesla again, a little before 7 pm and was told that the order had been cancelled and the car was back on the market. Tesla had been texting with an unverified phone number ending in 2636 (not my phone number) and that person, instead of saying “wrong number” said “cancel the order.” Canceling forfeits the $500 order fee.

While still on the phone I checked the website and there it was! Hastily, I bought it again, even though the price was higher — too high to qualify for the tax rebate.

Oops… wrong car. I was switching screens to compare VIN numbers between what I had ordered and current availabilities. The first 8 digits were identical to the car I just bought, and of the first 12 digits, 11 were identical. It was late in the day and I was deep into this mistake so I found and re-bought the car from the day before. Now Tesla had deducted the $500 purchase fee three times from my bank account and it is close to 8 pm.

Friday, instead of going to Colma as planned, I went to the Tesla showroom in Santa Rosa to speak with a manager. He was in Corte Madera at the other dealership so I was ushered into the waiting room for his call. Rob Watkins listened patiently, told me that my car was $1 more than the qualifying price for the tax rebate, and asked me to wait. He called back saying a Used Car Sales Manager would call me by the end of the day to straighten things out.

The call came the next morning, Saturday, at 8:30 am from Christian Rodriguez who was calling from NYC. I told him of the odyssey that getting to Colma would require and he suggested the 3:40 ferry and Tesla providing an Uber to a 4:30 pickup time. The good news is that my car DID qualify for the tax rebate, the bad news was that the tax rebate has to be embedded in the purchase link to be activated. On Monday at 10:30, Chris was back in Fremont, the link was generated, I bought the car AGAIN (now four $500 purchase charges deducted from my bank) and set off for Colma. I had checked out regular taxis and realized that trying to get reimbursement from Tesla for an Uber was not something I wanted to go through.

SF lady sculpture

Walking from Ferry to BART

 

I drove my Fiat to the SmartTrain and took the 1pm train to Larkspur and walked to the ferry, arriving in SF at 3:40pm. This giant woman greeted me as I walked to the Embarcadero BART station. Thirty deafening minutes later I was in Colma and walked to the taxicab stand for a ride to the dealership. I was astounded to learn there are taxis available at many BART stops including Daly City and Millbrae.

When I picked up the car I was thrilled to learn they had deducted the tax rebate from the amount due. I drove home through SF rush hour traffic, getting home just in time to dash for the final #6 bus of the day back to Coddington Mall so I could retrieve my Fiat. I was almost as thrilled to have caught the bus as I was with everything else.

selfie with car

On my way to art class the next day

Buying a car online is hard and I made many errors. While Tesla requires the Email address to be input twice, the phone number goes in only once and I made a single-digit typo, putting in the incorrect 2636 number. It was improper for Tesla to cancel an order from an unverified text number. Tesla never notified me, either by Email which HAD been verified, or through the App into which I had uploaded my license and insurance information. I learned that making a mistake led to getting good help with something I was unskilled at. It helped me get the tax rebate attached at the time of sale.

thank. you bouquet

Flowers for Rob Watkins

 

Wednesday morning, I dropped off flowers for Rob Watkins, but he was on vacation for his birthday. On Friday, the credit for all the extra car purchases reached my bank account. Now I am working on how to play my CDs on a car that expects me to stream.

Sep25

Kristin Hannah – “The Women”

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Kristin Hannah – “The Women”

My sister Mary Rose recommended “The Women” and commented,”When I chat with women who have read it, they’ve each mentioned something different that struck them deeply — none of which was the thing that struck me. Veddy interesting. Rye was the horrid bad guy in the whole story, in my opinion.
“You could be a hero,” he says to an impressionable young Frankie. Grrr. Those stupid words provoked her bravado so that she could impress her dad and have a place on his office wall.
Well, that certainly backfired.”

I agree that Rye, the lying cheat, was the horrid bad guy in the story. And the book blames Rye for Frankie’s decision to try to be a hero and get on her father’s “Wall of Honor.” I think it is interesting that the writer chose to make the father Irish-born, and wrote the mother as someone struggling with alcohol for years.

I read many first-person nurse stories when I was preparing my China Beach spec script. This book was written by a younger woman who created a composite Frankie. From my point-of-view, Frankie was already a “hero child” growing up with an incapacitated mother whom she would rescue, and an emotionally-distant father who harbored contempt for females. Frankie’s love of feeling “competent and needed” prompted her decision to re-up as her first tour was coming to an end. She had finally started to feel skillful and valued.

Part of PTSD is the loss of ability to feel connected to people who love you, well-described in Frankie’s relationship with Dr. Acevedo when she returned to Coronado. Dr. Acevedo did not need her. Rye “needed” her. That was the hook he had, that kept her coming back even when it was contrary to her values. That was the slippery slope that sent her into self-destructive addiction. Giving up herself, in order to feel needed.

The writer had to paint some reason for Frankie to want to be a hero so she pinned it on Rye, the lying cheat. But in real life, there are children who learn to survive by becoming the hero in the family. The kid who does the work that the impaired parents can’t do, the kid who gets attention only for what she does. No love for simply being a kid. To be valued, she has to turn into a little adult. A “parentalized child.” A hero, who is safe only when she is competent and needed.

Sep13

Election Prep Books

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Election Prep Books


Preparing for Fall OLLI classes at SSU, I read these two books to try to understand why the polls failed so catastrophically to predict the election of The Orange One in 2016, and how the effects of that were felt in the government agencies in Washington, D.C.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz worked for one-and-a-half years as a data scientist at Google and his book explains the bias in polling why political polling is likely to become even more difficult to do well. He received his BA in philosophy, Phi Beta Kappa, from Stanford, and his PhD in economics from Harvard. Comparing what people search for, with what they tell another human they want, reveals that people try to hide their unacceptable desires which is why many told pollsters they were undecided in 2016 when in fact they gave in to their desire for entitlement and privilege. His examples range from sexual searches to baseball history and illustrate how “bias” creeps into sampling. Engrossing.

Michael Lewis writes so brilliantly about statistics. He recounts the effect of the failure of new Trump administration, in 2017, to fill the job openings at the top of many government agencies, most notably the Commerce Department. Lewis comments that the Commerce department isn’t really about business, it’s more the department of science and measurement, including NOAA, and managing nuclear waste. It reminded me of my trip to Morocco a year ago.

In Morocco, once a French colony, most of the road signs in Casablanca (the largest city) and in Rabat (where the French located the capital) were in both Arabic and French. As we got closer to the desert tribes in the East, French disappeared from the signs and they were in Arabic and Amazeigh, the recently-invented written Berber language which looks like a mashup of Greek and Korean letters. Until recently, these languages were unwritten. In public school, mandatory until 8th grade, only Arabic and Amazeigh are taught. French is not taught. The Roman alphabet is not taught. Only the wealthy, who go to private French schools, can read European books. The king of Morocco runs the public schools, and it is better for the monarchy if his subjects do not read European books.

This seems to be the underlying driver for dismantling the “deep state” bureaucracy which enforces the rules and standards across all administrations. The president can change every four years, but the Commerce Department rules are supposed to remain consistent for all citizens over time. These rules and those of the EPA grated against oil companies who wanted to roll back “the Chevron Rule” created by the Supreme Court which is the legal doctrine that the EPA knows more about environmental safety than congressional representatives do, so that when Congress empowers the EPA to regulate oil drilling, there is no need for Congress to pass a law over every single thing — the EPA can set standards. The “Chevron Rule” was rolled back this year by the Trump-packed Supreme Court.

Pete Buttigieg said that JD Vance, if elected, plans to march through government institutions looking for people with “woke” agendas and “de-bathify” the civil service. Fears are that this would enable corporations to maximize their profits as they ignore the safety of citizens. On the Jon Stewart Show, guest Mark Cuban pointed out that Trump’s father ran a family-owned real estate business which he bequeathed to his son. The son inherited the properties and Cuban asked Stewart, “how is running a family owned business different from running a kingdom?” Stewart’s eyes widened. “It’s not very different, is it?”

Aug10

Felt Sense Polyvagal Model Course

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Felt Sense Polyvagal Model Course

FSPM Certificate of Completion

It took six months and more than $1000 to earn the FSPM Completion Certificate (and an additional Focusing.org certification that I am professionally-trained in Focusing) and I learned a LOT. The course tuition was a gift from my brother Tim (thanks, Tim).

In 1985 I bought my first copy of “Focusing” by Gene Gendlin, Ph.D. on the recommendation of a Buddhist nun teaching a course at Point Reyes that was part of my shift from selling TV time to writing full time. I tried to focus by myself, and I read the book many times, but I never got real traction with focusing.

I ordered Jan Winhall’s book before it was even published and realized that it precisely targeted the kind of treatment I needed. I joined the third cohort of her FSPM class taught online through the Polyvagal Institute. Some of what I learned:

  • PTSD can be broken into two main categories. First: what happens to adults, such as on the battlefield or after an assault or car crash.
  • Second: what happens to children. Calling it by the same name as adult Shell Shock is not good medicine.
  • PTSD is usually thought of as physical threat, and this kind of trauma is associated with the fear of being killed.
  • Moral Injury is a different type of PTSD and also occurs in the context of war but requires different treatment. Here is the Veteran’s website on the issue.
  • Traumatic events can be public, like war; private, like the death of a parent or the loss of a platoon member; or secret, like child sexual abuse or being commanded to murder a bound prisoner.
  • Healing secret moral injury requires more than acknowledging it. Some events require an actual sense of being forgiven.

The FSPM class added several very powerful elements to the classic Gendlin model.

  • Actually focusing with another person revealed what Gendlin calls “the power of human presence” which seemed to create a kind of “force field” that kept me from wiggling out of looking at what was coming up to be seen.
  • The focusing practice required reciprocity with the focusing partner. Bessel Van der Kolk describes childhood PTSD as “a failure of interpersonal safety and reciprocity.” This practice consciously addresses both issues in the context of an ongoing, mutually-beneficial relationship.
  • The course trained us to create images using “bodycards” using non-verbal ways to express the sensations, feelings, memories and thoughts that came up during the focusing session. This non-verbal process was crucial in shifting me out of linear thinking. It drew me into somatic ways of connecting with my body.
  • We were required to complete at least 15 Process Recordings over the six months. To me, this is the Secret Sauce of the FSPM training. The Process Recording of the focusing session is only a few sentences, maybe a paragraph, and includes the image of the bodycard or other image from the session.
  • Actually, the Secret Sauce was that the Process Recordings went directly to Jan Winhall who personally replied to them, often within minutes. The felt sense of being witnessed by a therapist of Jan’s caliber gave me a tremendous sense of being seen, finally, by a kind adult who offered “unconditional positive regard” as Carl Rogers would say. This supplied the missing puzzle-piece that seemed to have been broken off my nervous system by the years of unrelenting punishment and degradation from which I could not escape.

The Process Recording could take an hour or more for me to prepare even though the report itself was just a few sentences. As I approached the fifth of the 15 required sessions, I began using my phone to record the last 10 minutes of what I said out loud, as well as making hand-written notes during the session, sometimes of things I did not say out loud. I would review the recording and sometimes I would transcribe the entire 10 minutes as a way to re-experience what came up. Some of the drawings I made were images of my relationship with my bad mother, or with parts of myself, or a visualization of a transformation.

Several times, I wrote out a script and recorded it on my phone for my own use, combining the revelations of the focusing session with other insights from the Paul Linden aikido-based Being-In-Movement classes, the John F. Barnes myofascial release practices and readings, and a Teal Swan Completion Process course. I would listen to my recordings when I couldn’t sleep at night. I became willing to be much more in contact with the information and messages from my body.

I am grateful for the course. I learned a lot and I feel hopeful about becoming fully present, 100% regulated, my true self.

Veterans Affairs site for Moral Injury.

May31

Rosie Trolley Tour Santa Rosa

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Rosie Trolley Tour Santa Rosa

Rosie Trolley Tour

I spent $25 on a history tour on the Rosie trolley on Friday — the money goes to the scholarship fund for summer camp for the local kids. I learned some things that were interesting to me: why St. Eugene’s is where it is. My guess is that, because it is adjacent to the Carillo adobe, and Carillo owned 40,000 acres, they contributed the land for the church. So Maria Carillo was considered a wealthy, well-connected land owner.

I wondered why St. Rose church was where it is, and why it is neither a Franciscan (Spanish) mission nor the seat of the Diocese of Santa Rosa.

Now I know that the Stonehouse on Hwy 12 was the boarding house for the Basalt quarry workers. The quarry was behind the Stonehouse. Basalt is a stone that is soft in the earth but becomes very hard when it dries out. The most profitable way to quarry it is with skilled workers who shape it when it is soft so that it is in ready-to-sell condition when it reaches the rail line. The quarry owner imported skilled Italian stonecutters to Santa Rosa.

He built a small rail line that went down what is now 4th St/9th St to connect the quarry to the main railroad line which ran parallel to Old Redwood Highway. St. Rose church is near the end of the quarry line and near the start of where the Italian neighborhood cropped up. The stone workers eventually bought property to build “shotgun-style” inexpensive houses on “the other side of the tracks.” The 9th St underpass is the start of the “Westside” neighborhood where the Italians lived. So I guess St. Rose was the Italian neighborhood church made of Basalt rock — not suitable for wealthy, landed Spanish people and new settlers from the East.

Other basalt rock buildings that survived the 1906 earthquake — which wiped out 3% of Santa Rosa’s population (and 1% of San Francisco’s population) — are the downtown train depot and the Hotel La Rose which was originally a 40-room boarding house, now a 25-room luxury hotel.

May20

Russian River May 2024

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Russian River May 2024

Justin led us on a paddle from Steelhead Beach to Guerneville on a beautiful spring day. CFS was close to 900 so I took my pink kiwi but the current was not strong where the river was wide so I did a lot of paddling and was very tired when we got off the river at 3 p.m. The trip started with a competition for launch space at the put-in.

Inflatable Party Boat – No Paddles

Laurie Light and Justin loading up after Lunch

Liam

Liam said, “I haven’t seen you in a while, Anet, what’s going on?”
“You saw me three weeks ago at my house, Liam. At the party.”
“Oh, yeah.”

Deb

Beauty of the Russian River Highlights Canoe

That was the entire discussion of the party. When I posted these photos on the chat thread, I got only one response, from Liam, “Fun day on the r&r.”

Why did I bother to take the photos, Photoshop them and post them? Do I matter?

Apr28

Deb Turns 70

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Deb Turns 70

I worked for weeks to spruce up the house and the garden to host a Saturday lunchtime party to celebrate Deb’s 70th birthday, which also marked her retirement announcement. We invited all the boating regulars and several of Deb’s friends from the YMCA and her neighborhood. I hung the Market Canopy from India for a festive touch. Dahlias graced the wooden flower bins front and back. I polished up the front garden and planted kale and marigolds in the raised beds on the side. Potted some bright calendula. Put a red serape on a folding table.


I was pleased that everyone brought something to share. Lots of sweets from Deb’s girlfriends. One brought a fabulous salad with homemade vinaigrette that was gobbled up in a jiffy. Brent brought a beautiful veggie platter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The big thrill was the chocolate cake that Wayne made, and the chicken Parmesan that Justin (background) made. I cooked up some Trader Joe’s Lasagna that was popular.

 

Lori, Brent and Liam join Deb’s Friends

What I learned: No one sat in the living room, or at the kitchen table, or at the dining room table (which was unexpectedly covered with gift food), or on the teak settee in the back yard. The men sat at the little table covered with the serape. The plastic tablecloth clashed visually with the red Market Canopy. Justin’s dish required a knife and fork which was tricky on paper plates with plastic cutlery — chicken cut into bite-sized squares would have been easier. I should have used real plates because I had 11 guests. I used real forks for the cake.

No one asked for coffee. No one drank my beverages, they all brought their own, as requested. No one ate my sliced porcini or Mt. Tam cheese or sopresatta. It went 12 noon to 3pm.

Dec26

Christmas 2023 Whalefall

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Christmas 2023 Whalefall

Hiking Sole Sisters Spring Lake Christmas 2023

Hiked Spring Lake with the Sole Sisters, see me in the Santa Hat above. Afterwards, when the main hike was over, I led four of the ladies to see the warm sulfur spring that feeds Spring Lake.

Came home and finished Whalefall by Daniel Kraus, a very fast read because it was so absorbing. I hated Finnegan’s Wake because it was word salad, but as the main character, Jay, dissolves into nitrogen narcosis inside the diving whale, the jumbled words make sense. Whether he survives, how he survives is the “McGuffin” that drives the book. On the framework of the McGuffin that keeps us turning the pages, author Daniel Kraus hangs the story of a teen boy bedeviled by his attentive but abusive father and his loving but powerless mother and two older sisters. Jay is flashing back to when he was 15 and the pressure from his father became unbearable in the aftermath of the loss of the boat after poor-maintenance caused two paying passengers to fall overboard. The father’s descent, and his mistreatment of Jay, drive the boy to risky behavior that leads to his becoming entangled in a giant squid which is the prey of a large sperm whale hunting in the Monterey Canyon. As you can see from the Google Earth image below, Monastery Beach features ditches that slide into the depths. My PADI Open Water diving certification took place in the water off Monastery Beach. I had to enter the surf (backwards) in full wetsuit and tank gear, swim out past the surf line, sit on the bottom with my regulator in my mouth, take off my mask and my air tank and put them back on, underwater with my eyes closed. I passed and went on to dive the Great Barrier Reef off Australia.

Monterey Canyon and Monastery Beach

I went back to the area to dive several times including Monterey Bay itself, and have paddled the nearby Elkhorn Slough. The writing really captures the thrill and fear of diving and being on the water on that part of the coast. The marine biology in the book was a treat making it a trifecta of science-fiction, skillful writing and engrossing information. A delicious Christmas overall.