Jacquie Phelan's Weblog

Just got word last week that a very cherished part of the biking community had a crash that killed him. Dan Hennessey grew up 12 miles away in Mill Valley, and stayed friends with his neighbors there, as well as developing a very tight cohort of biking friends here in Fairfax.

I’d see the gang heading out of a Wednesday afternoon, packing a nice picnic for merriment on the mountain.
“One of these days, I’ll ride with them” I promised myself.

Alert: “One of these days” is the curse. One must never utter it.

I never did ride with him.

But he was always hosting, at his corner of Fairfax, the annual middle-of-the-street New Years Eve ritual with chairs ringing a tiny ember glowing in an iron pot.

Overhead, twinkling blue lights from one of those window-laser gadgets that gave the impression of hundreds of fairy lights strung 40-50 feet in the canopy of a valley oak.

As I’m wont to do, I’ll be sending up little prayr balloons for Lori his young wife and his two doting daughters….Wishing I could do a thing. Just one thing.

I’m afraid this is the puny little One Thing.

Remembrance, and love.

You can see it bridging the creek, his name and the word LOVE alternating in pastel street chalk….We’ll remember, remember remember.

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13 July 2019

Hello Gus,

It is with a heavy heart that I tell you that your magnificent Dobie is no longer on my friends list.

For the second time, I was on my bike when s/he (I forget!) came after me. The first time, an older woman my age had her on a lead, and held tight, and I squeaked past, stopped, looked back, and realized that yes, this was the not-quite-new neighbor Gus’s animal.

This evening around 8:30 I rolled by in daylight, and as I passed the duplex I heard a feminine voice yell “hey! Stop! No!” or something like it. I braced myself, and as sure as can be, yr black bullet shot past me, wheeled around and began to snap at my front wheel, then backed off barking madly.

I tried to be a good human, hopped off the machine (thank god I didn ‘t have my helmet on; dogs are TERRIFIED of people wearing them, I’ve found. Going without is an extreme rarity, owing to the TBI history my husband Charlie suffers from), and began to talk soothingly to her/m, and she approached me warily, but allowed me to pet her on the head, and scratch her ears, while I remained in my Coward Crouch, holding the handlebar.

Then yr mom (as I found out) came up with her phone in her hand, apologizing, and I said it was time to deal with the issue.

“Now?” she was surprised.
“When else?” I said. “Get on the bike and ride up the street.”
“?ME? I haven’t been on a bike in…” something something.
But she handed me her phonething and I watched with some horror as the dog attached the front wheel of the bike, biting it(!) and at that point, upon turning around the bike, with the dog barking madly and jumping up on her, she said “She’s going to knock me over”…and so, walked the bike back to me.

By this time we had two bemused walkers (neighbors?) who were looking on, while I asked if there was anything wrong with saying “NO!” or “Bad dog” or hinting that this behaviour is unacceptable to “the boss”.

Who is the boss?

Will the boss consider a muzzle?
I realize that this might disturb the wearer.
But I have already experienced riding into a parked car, avoiding a dog, and ruining my face temporarily.

I also sport a fine set of five holes in my leg from the pit bull in 2009.

So I tell people: “I just have this irrational fear of dogs…. Could you just hold him for a second while I get by?”
On the other hand what about just waiting awhile, she’ll grow out of it? It’s just a phase.
Children have been known to ride up and down Wood lane, so I ‘m sure there will be more tumult. Every year people are bitten by dogs, but mostly these events go unreported.

I had so looked forward to um… getting to know you. Now I’m getting to know your dog, and your mom.

Care to talk? Or take yr dog out for a bike ride with me along? There’s got to be a reasonable friendly solution. But I don’t want to have to stop, dig out a can of mace, and then ride carefully past your place, since I use a bike daily, 2x daily, 3xdaily, for errands.

Yrs for as long as you live on our street,

Jacquie Phelan Former vet tech, former race champion, current old lady

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Lies, etc. Jack & Jackie

Lies, fibs, exaggerations, embroidery, weaving, elaborations, embellishments. Tangled webs. What you call it shows what you believe about it. One’s own exposed lies can put you in prison, a liar can put you in prison, fibs are for kids, exaggerations make a good story and embroidering/weaving imply beautification and functionality.

Phelans are by nature liars. Dad and Mom were accomplished, unapologetic liars. Dad lied about who he was when he set eyes on mom. He encountered her at a Montreal hospital where she was recovering from a ski accident. She broke her leg on her very first attempt at skiing. He wanted to impress her by saying he was the ‘chief resident’. She fell for it. He brought her books to read.
Forty years after this, when I was trying to dig up a solid fact about who my mom really was, I called one of the doctor’s wives that knew her. Mrs. Carraway recounted a story about Jack ‘foresaking the cloth’ . Mom implying he gave up the priesthood in a passionate rejection of celibacy and a religious life.
Clearly, my mother had a few cards up her sleeve. I wonder how she kept track of them…

They were the rule makers. From birth, the six offspring were bathed, powdered and diapered in the fabric of deceit.

It was up to each of us to make sense of what was being said and what seemed to be actually happening.
Dad could hug Mom in the kitchen and announce to us that they loved each other very much.

I would try to reconcile that with the fracas the previous night: her piercing shrieks punctuated by his barely audible deep voice behind the master bedroom door.

How easily they come, the steady stream of stretched “truths” . They carve their own course, and at least in my case, led to places I had no intention of going. It may need to be explained that these were nearly always my reaction to some form of punishing inquisition.

Part of the reason I keep a journal is to have my own truth down in writing in case I get confused later on in life.
It was on the playground at Crestview Elementary in Topeka Kansas when I heard the news about President Kennedy being shot. I had no clue what it meant, since I didn’t know what a “president” was, but the anguished tone of our teachers and general playground pall said enough.

I retorted “Hahahahahaha! So?”

Grown ups with some childhood development might have recognized something amiss, in this brutally open expression of glee at someone else’s expense. No one took notice of it in the hubbub, but once home, I was terrified by the sight of my father holding his face in his hands and sobbing as the tiny television transmitted the tragic news. I’d go straight to hell for that mocking tone.

Having been fully steeped in the Catholic Guilt Trip, I knew I was guilty of sin from the moment of my birth. This episode would just add another sin (Venial? Mortal?) to my account.

Topeka was the center of a particular school of psychiatry run by a pair of amiable brothers, the Menningers, who attracted people from both coasts that wanted to pursue a psychoanalytic way of treating the mentally ill.

As I watched the Mrs Kennedy who had ‘my’ name, crawl across the car’s trunk to retrieve her husband’s skull fragments, my dad (who shared the president’s name) assured me that Mrs. Kennedy would never remember this moment.
“Why not?”

“Because she’s in shock, and there is a mechanism that protects people from remembering horrible events” he said evenly.

“You mean, if something horrible happened to me, I wouldn’t be able to remember it like her?”

A surprised look crossed his face.

“Probably”.

And thus began my writing career.

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It’s a wet, sluggish Saturday, but on the radio, what joy. A Grateful Dead Marathon hosted by David Gans, our local Dead expert…Ever since my youth in Los Angeles hideously bucolic suburb (Tarzana) I’ve had fun listening, and writing down the names of the songs and the groups. I’d end up with long lists in .005 rapidograph scribble, as if getting them down was going to serve me someday. As with everyone else, ‘band name inventing’ is a sideline of mine.
I only rarely get the time to do anything like that now, though I do find myself running for a pen while repeating in my head: “Mance Liscomb, Mance Liscomb” til i could get it written down.

In the middle of the music marathon, a hilarious comedy skit began with a pseudo old-man calling to pigeons: “Here pidgy pidgy pidgy…” and another ‘old’ man comes up to the bench, and fogey merriment ensues. It turned out to be a group called Congress of Wonders. Missed them completely in my youth, but am making up for it. Pigeon Park is the name of the five minute gag, full of fogey-defamation so thrilling to post P.C. ears. In a different sketch I hear a doorbell ding-dong followed by a cheery “A-bomb calling!”.

Wahhh…
My plan: make you have to learn some of it, to make up for  your own misspent youth.

The other killer performer was Ken Nordine, creator of the music genre now known as Word Jazz. His bit was entitled: “How Are Things in YOUR Town?”. Turns out this poet/voice-over millionaire had a very long, fruitful career, being sought out by Jerry Garcia, Tom Waits, David Bowie and hosts of others in need of a golden voice. Further research reveals that he died a mere two or three weeks ago in February 2019. He had an amazing 70 or more year career.

Last night I chanced upon “My Beautiful Broken Brain”, a Netflix documentary about a 35 yr old filmmaker/ad agency creative  named Lotje Sodderland, who had a stroke. Charlie and I watched it until it grew too late to continue. This TBI survivor  revived a couple of days after the stroke and immediately began documenting her experience on her iphone–which led to meeting another filmmaker, and ultimately getting help from David Lynch, and becoming a reality.

No one at Schurig Center (formerly Marin Brain Injury Network) had heard of it.
I consider it required viewing,  owing to the fine editing and startling creativity it used to get the watcher to experience a bit of Lotje’s brain activity.

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As I washed out the zip-loc baggie that held the barely-used sponge I pulled from the trash at Schurig Center for Brain Injury Recovery, where I take Charlie twice a week to learn to read, I smiled.
Bag rewashing behavior must seem pretty obsessive to a visitor. I thought back to the first time I’d seen a baggie hanging above someone’s kitchen sink. It was at my friend Lynne Gurnee’s house. She is an artist, biker, and general great human.
I’d decided to overcome my loathing for driving at least for one weekend, and head north toward Eureka (six hours by car).  I so missed her company down here in the Gray Area.  She is the kind of person that writes real letters on real paper (or torn out sheets from New York Times fashion magazine).  For wakefulness insurance (my problem with driving is remaining alert, and not becoming a yellow-line zombie within forty five minutes of turning the key)I brought my sick rat, “Gnogden Gnash” with me, wrapped in a flannel cloth and tucked into my blouse. This way, each time he shifted position in his ‘sleeping bag’, I’d feel it on my stomach and be a better non-drowsy driver, thinking about how little time rat people have to love their pet, before they expire.
Very short shelf-life. Three years, max, unless you have a miracle rat.I’ve heard of five year rodents, but never met one.
ANYWAY, the baggie, dripping over her sink, held at one corner by a clothespin, caught my eye.
When I asked about it she told me she puts a drop of liquid soap in, with some water, squishes it about with the bag firmly cinched, and then rinses, hangs, and re-uses.
WELLLLLLL.
Not one to shirk from a (nunspoken) challenge, I carried this new eco-behavior home, where it is put into practice as a routine.
I never buy these bags. I just use them till the heat-seal on the perimeter gives out.
Like any good (ex)Catholic, I take my original sin quite seriously, and I’d like to think that throwing away a perfectly cleanable baggie is a pretty original way of disturbing the heavenly peace.

I realize one must pick one’s battles.
Since I’m despairing of the political situation, I burrow into weird micro-moves
that dispel my sense of powerlessness.

As far as I know, no one has adopted bag re-washing after visiting Offhand Manor, let alone rifling through trash to find barely-used kitchen sponges.
I remain hopeful that we can clean house in a political sense, by having all those women in the House of Representatives, none of them old bags.
I am your always hopeful, even while despairing correspondent
Alice B.

Stop the press! no, wait, rev it up again! No, wait, it’s not a mechanical Chandler & Price letterpress, it’s Wurdpress! ANYWHEY, I struck gold in the tip (that’s Brit for dumpster) today en route home from my　日本語のクラス at College of Marin. It was a heavy cardboard box amid a pile of soon-to-be-composted potted garden plants (they hurl EVERYTHING away here in the Shire of Consumption)…44 lbs to be precise-ish. I didn’t need to look hard at the label. It was a block of cheese. Once I’d ascertained it wasn’t American cheese food (which is not technically cheese but you know that) I wrestled it onto my bike (careful not to let the front wheel fly up as I plopped it on the rear rack (no! no! not the rack!  Wait!  The rack, the rack!!) and care.f.u.l.l.y steered home. Up the hill at Fforest Ave, i noticed a distinct wobble as I tried to make a straight line (by now it was dark and dreich) when a car came past.  Got home, put away bike, and proudly hefted this thing ( didn’t pick it up correctly, Grant Petersen, I bent straight over and destroyed my lumbar vertebrae except I didn’t) into my arms and into the door and onto the table and..it was….an impressive find. AGED ENGLISH CHEDDAR!!  Judging from the web, it was worth about $900 (if sold by a reputable dealer) . In my case it’s going to be given out (and I hope to hell consumed!)  The box that the cheese block came in had a date on it, something like ‘sell by May 2018’…well, since the company proudly shares the fact that their VINTAGE West Country Farmhouse Cheddar is aged 24 months, I can trumpet (should I even USE that word? those first five letters…ugh) that mine is aged 36 months!! EVEN BETTER.
There, now I’ve told you.

Think of the plastic I’m trying not to buy, and the cheese I’ve saved from certain death. Can I have my halo now?

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I just met, or rather re-met a woman whose last name is Hersey.

“As in John?” I asked. It’s my reflex to help me memorize names.

“Well, yes and no. My ex’s name’s John, too, but no relation…”

We were seated at a convivial table at Sorella, the reputed center of the universe according to some. It’s become the center of my week, Saturday night over pasta and fat sausage. Live music makes it extra memorable (if difficult to hear conversation).

I told her that I’d remember her name better if we talked about a Meaningful topic. I chose the topic: why I’m not going to even try to watch any more “The Fall” (scary British crime serial, starring a horny woman detective and a very sick psycho-killer).

I realzied that even though I survived “Homeland” intact (psychically), it would be harder with the other show, recommended by a different friend.

To  watch repeated murder and rape washes the brain (at least MY brain) in frightening images and actions that are probably indistiguishable with actual events. In other words, my tired old brain would treat those things as if they’d happened to me, and this has no redeeming social value (remember that term?).

And the idea that tens of thousands are glued to such content is a little unsettling, too. It’s probably like porn, and you become inured.
ANYWAY THIS ISN”T WHAT I WANTED TO WRITE ABOUT!

I wanted to share what I read as soon as I tipsily pedaled home last night:

The story that ran in the New Yorker in 1946 by the other John Hersey. That epic piece filled the magazine. The editors kept its identity under wraps: only 3 peple at the magazien knew what they were going to print that summery week. The cover featured a bird’s eye view of a park full of people enjoying a fine day.

I have had time to reflect on something I gave nearly no thought to: why I decided to learn Japanese.
It wasn’t for the manga, the culture, the style. As they say in Japan, “ううん” (huh-uh, as in NO).

It was… to honor the people themselves, despite the near-impossibility of communication with them someday.

I’d truly planned on getting over there, and ‘converting’ a few dozen women to wombatinesss.

To the freedom, silliness, healthiness of pure joy riding, away from cars. I still believe personal transpo via automobile is an incalculable harm to the planet and its inhabitants. This blog was and is my “Phelantine” to two wheel self propulsion.

But I thought I’d tack on some Social Redemption as well.

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Listening to Liege and Lief, a favorite Fairport Convention LP, and remembering about Tam Lin, a folktale about a woman whose mate has been cursed, and she must hold on to him regardless of what shape he takes, to defeat the spell.
(http://www.metrolyrics.com/tam-lin-lyrics-fairport-convention.html)
It brought to mind the two months Charlie spent in hospital, the first in Marin General Intensive Care, reachable easily on a bike, then a couple weeks in Kaiser ICU, then the last month farrrrr away, and people often gave me a ride to Vallejo across the bay-ho.
The road is narrow, two-lane, and guaranteed gridlock much of the time. No public transit connects Vallejo to Marin.
I’d overnight, and crawl into the hydraulic bed with him, activating the hissing of self-inflating pressure bags which spare the nurses much work, flipping patients every couple of hours.
While encircling his frail form with food tube through the nose and sometimes even wrist restraints on, I’d try to envision some form of existence in the future. It was not as bad as it might seem at this telling. I just poured out Hope vibes, and kept up my monthly spirituality subscription, cancellable at any time….
and now…he walks, he talks, we get alone time (right now he’s on a walk between rain storms), he has fun hearing me read about the difference between the oil of the Right whale (burns dirty) and the Sperm whale (clear, bright burning). We’re plowing through Moby Dick, since he loves being read do, and I love finally reading a book I know I ‘ought’ to read. I’m convinced that the elaborate, fine language is better nourishment for his language brain than the nauseatingly profane dialogue in Homeland (TV show, very vile, but seemingly addictive).
We hope that nevermore will whales have to fuel lamps.
Then I went into the internet to tell him about ambergris…
Hope your 2018 is fragrant, natural, and less worried.

If you’ve wondered where I’ve been, I’ve been typing up a storm at Charlie’s Gofundme site. I have about 150 postings, following his slow crawl back into functionality. Not interesting to folks looking for top-notch writing. Just spur-of-the-moment jive.

Wish me luck on MeMoir, eh?

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`Our beloved friend Charlie Kelly, impresario and general fat tire friend recently back from globetrotting to England, invited us (or was it responded to my unsubtle hint?) to join him and Mary his wife…Last Friday we got together and it was clear Mary’d spent the week carefully planning a meal around my Charlie’s gluten intolerance…We had short ribs from CK’s productive backyard ‘cue, Greek Salad and cornbread, and piping hot roasted corn on the cob.
Faces covered with grease, we caught up on each other’s news, eventually tapering into a sort of stupor, which signalled Mary to run to the stove and pull out a massive peach crumble. Maybe 4 lbs of fruit in it–it bubbled merrily over in the oven, portending a clean-up hangover , heaven bless these two.

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