blog post no. 388 and another birthday

Here it is, May 30th, 2015…and another year has come and gone so quickly, I've hardly had time to catch my breath! I've been a slacker around the blogosphere for a while now, and it seems Buenos Burritos has taken a back seat to other pursuits. Plus, I've almost run out of things to say and stories to tell. (Those who know me well may find that hard to believe)

Anyway, May 30th is the anniversary of my very first blog post, as well as my dad's birthday. My first blog post was, fittingly, about him. You can read it here if you like. So, even though I'm a recovering blogaholic, I'll still hold onto tradition and write about him on his birthday.

Today would have been Dad's 100th birthday. During his time on the planet he saw a lot of changes, probably more drastic changes in the world than those of us alive today will see in our lifetimes.
Dad was an only child, born into a giant working class Irish family in Massachusetts:

When Dad was a kid, his chores consisted of emptying the tray under the icebox before it overflowed, and shoveling coal for the furnace. In 1915, radio was still in its infancy, electric lights were not commonplace, and whaling was still a big industry in New Bedford. People kept abreast of local and world affairs through letters and newspapers.

Dad was a big baseball fan, and his dual love of sports and writing led him to NYU and a degree in journalism, and set him off on a long career as an editor at some prestigious newspapers on the east coast.

He coached both my brothers in Little League, and turned all of his kids into lifelong baseball nuts.
As a kid, I remember sitting with him in Shea Stadium rooting for the Mets in the playoffs, and that year Nolan Ryan replaced Roy Rogers as my hero.

He attended as many of his grandson's Little League games as he could, occasionally wearing one of his favorite hats (In the team colors of course):

I don't think I could ever live up to his lofty standards, (if he were reading this post now, he'd take his editor's red pencil to it, I'm sure) 

but I'm also pretty sure he'd be pleased that I tried...

Happy 100th Birthday, Dad. I miss you.

You can read more about Dad here and here .

memorial day

(photo borrowed from here)

A couple of days ago I found myself wandering through an antiques marketplace and came upon an old Smith-Corona portable typewriter from the early 1960s, the same model my dad had when I was a kid.  I've been thinking about Dad and that typewriter ever since.

May 30th was the traditional date for Memorial Day, back before an Act of Congress decided that federal employees needed more 3-day weekends. It's also my Dad's birthday, as well as the anniversary of my very first blog post, which fittingly, was all about Dad.

So as I sit here effortlessly typing my 384th post on a sleek, modern keyboard that goes, "clickety-click", instead of the "clackety-clack" of the old Smith-Corona, I'm thinking about my father who, though he would have marveled at how efficient the new world of communication has become, he surely would have hated it.

Dad was a journalist who worked in the now almost obsolete world of print. A newspaperman to his core, he loved the smell of ink on paper, devouring the news of the world page by page every morning and evening. When I was growing up in Queens, Dad worked as a copy editor at The New York Times. Our local paper (The Long Island Star Journal, and later the Long Island Press) was morning reading. The Times came home with Dad after the swing shift.  On Sundays, we'd get The Times, The Press and the Daily News. It's safe to say there was a LOT of reading going on in the Russell house on Sundays.

Back before Facebook, Instagram, text messaging and Twitter, people wrote letters - most of which were not limited to 140 characters. My dad was one of those letter writers. He corresponded with friends around the world just about every day, and almost always they were pounded out on that trusty Smith-Corona.

While Twitter and text messaging allows us to do all that, I can't help but prefer opening a real paper envelope, addressed in a friend's familiar hand, and reading a message that comes imbued with their very spirit.

some of Dad's letters

In honor of what would have been Dad's 99th birthday, I plan on writing a few letters to friends this weekend, and I hope to pass on the spirit of his wit and humor.

And one last thing: If he were still around today, I'm pretty sure Dad would be writing some great tweets.

time flies whether you're having fun or not

Five years ago today I wrote my first blog post ever. It was a toast to my dad, on what would have been his 92nd birthday. My father was an amazingly strong influence in my life, much more than I realized five years ago, and I'm discovering more and more each year how that influence has shaped my life. He was a gifted writer, raconteur, self-taught artist and builder of things, and a piano player extraordinaire, who taught me to follow my dreams and to believe that those dreams would eventually take me somewhere worthwhile. 

Three hundred and thirty-seven blog posts later, I'm still following my bliss, and that meandering trail has taken me places I'd never have imagined.  Happy birthday, Dad.

"For me there is only the traveling 

on paths that have heart, 

on any path that may have heart.

There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge

is to traverse its full length.

And there I travel: looking, looking, breathlessly."

~ CARLOS CASTANEDA ~

and it seems like only yesterday his art was on my fridge...

Last week, Matt hung his work

 in a group photography show at

 Portland State University's Autzen Gallery.  

  

Instead of an opening, they had a closing reception.

Even though I had already seen all the works in progress,

 I was still impressed with how good they looked on those clean white walls.

Father and son shared a touching moment

(pay no attention to the body language - apparently, it's hereditary)

Here's a group portrait of all three talented artists.

We trooped upstairs to see an older installation 

of Matt's graffiti series in the stairwell gallery

Seeing his work hanging in public made
 us so proud and impressed

...and it's so much cooler than hanging on our refrigerator!

a morning full of memories

I started writing this on a warm and sunny September day. The sky was the color of a bright chunk of turquoise, the sweet sounds of singing birds in the back yard and the chaotic noise of construction coming from the house across the street, coupled with the distant wail of police sirens, reminded me of San Francisco, and of a time I flew down there a few years ago to hang out with my older brother Jim for a week or so before the cancer that was sapping his strength left him unable to savor the warm sun and a trip to a favorite bookstore.

He wanted to take me over to this bookstore in Bernal Heights, my old neighborhood, knowing I loved rummaging around the musty used books as much as he did. It took awhile for him to get up the strength to get dressed and out the door (as much a mental preparation as a physical one) which in part involved waiting for his morphine to kick in, and then for the inevitable nausea to pass. It was difficult to witness his pain and determination to rise to the occasion. I'm sure he felt he may not get another chance to spend time with me in this way.

When we finally got out the door of his apartment, he was bundled up snugly against the warm breeze, overkill at the moment, but in anticipation of the fog that would soon come tumbling over Twin Peaks into the warm valley of the Mission District. It struck me then that I'd never seen him in more than a denim jacket layered over a sweatshirt in all the years he'd lived there. Now his body was betraying him, his internal thermostat suddenly unreliable.

We climbed into his car, and as soon as he started it up and tried to put it into gear, it became apparent he was too weak to handle the shifting and the braking and the clutch. It was a difficult thing for him to admit, this man who had until recently driven a Yellow Cab for twenty years, who knew every neighborhood, street and blind alley in the whole 49 square miles that makes up the city of San Francisco. We switched places, and I got in the driver's seat, but professing that I had been away too long and the city had changed too much, I made him guide me over the familiar streets from his apartment to Bernal Heights. 

I did manage to parallel park his car, touchy clutch and all, in a tiny spot facing uphill on Cortland Street across from a coffee house where we had espressos and pastry to fortify us before attempting to browse the bookstore. When we finally made our way across the street and into the store, the books seemed to revive him a little, but I could tell he was already exhausted. I remember thinking later how grateful I was that we had that afternoon together.

Weeks later, he lay propped up with pillows in the living room on a rented hospital bed, his feet sticking out from under the  blanket, its light weight too oppressive for his fragile bones.  I remember he wore clean white socks, because the coolness of the slight breeze from the open window cut across his bare skin like a glacier carving a valley across the landscape.  His left arm, by now shrunken and bony, nevertheless still bore a deep tan: the badge of a longtime cabbie. It looked odd now, as if it belonged to someone else.

Now all we could do was to try and keep him comfortable. The whole family gathered in his little apartment, sleeping on the futon or the floor or in a chair at the old kitchen table, quietly waiting.

Pumped full of morphine, sometimes he was here and then he was there, and when he returned, he'd give us a report. His son Casey and daughter Lily kept a notebook to log those reports from wherever it was he went.  After returning from one such sojourn into the unknown, he told us we needed to clear some of the furniture from the room to make space for all the kayakers.

It's hard work, this business of dying. I wonder if that final moment when we move into the unknown is similar to the moment we enter this life --  but instead of crying noisily, the silence delivers us into the embrace of loved ones who have passed before us.

So when I started writing this it was a warm and sunny September day... as I finish, it's a cold and dark December morning, and the anniversary of my brother's passing. He was a man of extraordinary intelligence, wit and grace, and I sure do miss him.

You can read a bit more about my big brother here.  

another camp cactus tradition

Here at Camp Cactus, all kinds of random events become traditions at the drop of a cowboy hat...like Tostada Tuesdays for instance. Years ago, Matt and Caitie invited a few friends over for a tostada dinner on a Tuesday night, and before I knew it, our Tuesday nights were filled with cauldrons of refried beans, whole heads of shredded lettuce, and enough grated cheese to cause cholesterol levels to rise for blocks around. The smell of frying tortillas permeated the house for days afterwards. Also, I learned to never underestimate the appetites of teenage boys.

So this last Tuesday, when one of Matt's old buddies was in town, we revived the long dormant Tostada Tuesday Tradition...

Caitie fried up a bunch of chips...

Check out the elbow action...frying foods in cute but skimpy outfits requires a special stance.

Mmmm...crunchy goodness!

You gotta love Matt's knife skills.

Fresh guacamole - another tradition.

Greg supervised the preparations, then chipped in by grating a mountain of cheese.

The old gang gathered around the table, and we had ourselves a feast.

Mr. Chubbs is a connoisseur of home made tortilla chips.

Cheers!

the hole

When I was a kid growing up in Queens, I knew our neighborhood like the back of my hand. In those days, (let's mosey on back to the dark ages for a moment, shall we?) parents kicked their kids out of the house to "go play outside" whenever possible. In the summertime, after a breakfast of Cap'n Crunch or Cocoa Puffs, we'd be out on the street, high on sugar, and looking for someone to play with by about 9 am.

After my friend Jenny and her sister Lisa moved to California, my sister Kathy and I had to go around the block to play with the kids who lived on the next street. It's not like we were the only kids left, it's just that we didn't mingle much with the ones who lived at the other end of our own street, even though some of them went to the same Catholic school we did. Anyway, most of them were boys who were pretty obnoxious and always trying to start turf wars or they teased my sister, and then I'd have to beat them up just to prove I could.

(This is the way things worked in a nine year old girl's world back in the dark ages: You were either the cute little thing in pink who had a boyfriend right out of kindergarten, and went around kissing boys you liked until they stopped being afraid of "cooties" and kissed you back, or you were the tomboy who ran around and rode your bike and climbed trees with the boys, and beat them up when they deserved it. Needless to say, I still wouldn't be caught dead wearing pink, but then again, I also didn't have a boyfriend until I was about 14, either. But they did respect me.)

Sometimes we tried playing with the two Dimbat boys who lived next door but they were just too strange and wild. (More on those two another time.)

So that left mining the next block for eligible kids. The house directly behind us was populated by another Italian family with five kids, two of whom, Nicole and Jeanette, were the same ages as my sister and I. Our backyards were separated by a tall, dense privet hedge that my dad resisted trimming until he had to get out the stepladder to reach the top of it. It's not as if Dad didn't care, it's just that our house was in a constant state of renovation, and the hedges were probably not his highest priority. On top of that, Mr. Rosso tended to get rather pissy about it, since he always kept his side of the hedge neatly trimmed. Our rather unkempt half protruding over the top must have really messed with his perfectionist tendencies. He would occasionally get on a ladder himself, lean over and trim our side, and then toss the clippings into our yard. I heard my dad muttering more than once about what he'd like to do with those clippings.

Going around the block to play was complicated. If we took the shortest route, we had to walk along a very busy boulevard, which my grandmother insisted was populated by unsavory characters. Going the long way around was just...long. We soon realized that there was a thin spot in the hedge between our yard and the Rosso's that would allow us to cut through to the next block with ease. It became known as The Hole, and all the kids soon got in the habit of going through that way, until Nicole's father found out. It just didn't sit right with him somehow.

the hole

He complained to our parents that we were going to ruin the hedge. (I'm pretty sure we weren't the first kids to figure out the shortcut, since the hedge already had a very well-worn path through it.) My parents pretty much dismissed him as a bit of a crackpot took his side and urged us to take the long way around, rather than get into trouble.

Of course to us kids, the sensible thing to do was to just get more stealthy about it. It became a challenge to cut through The Hole without being seen by Nicole's parents, and we sometimes had to post lookouts to make sure the coast was clear. We concocted elaborate schemes to divert attention away from the back yard so her parents didn't spot us. We even built a periscope once out of paper towel tubes to see around corners. It was relatively easy to avoid getting caught until the fateful day Mr. Rosso put up The Fence.

the fence

(photo borrowed from these guys)

The Fence was of the type you usually see at pioneer forts, at least six feet tall, with sharp pointy tops designed to keep the marauding hoards at bay. I think he assumed that once the yard was enclosed, the kids would give up using The Hole and take the long way around. The only exit from the yard was now a gate situated under the kitchen window, where Mrs. Rosso, who always seemed to be standing at the sink washing dishes, became the de facto gatekeeper.

Far from being a deterrent, The Fence became a challenge, forcing us to step up our game. Now, not only did we have to make it through The Hole without being seen, but we also had to open the gate, slip through and make it all the way down the driveway without getting yelled at.

The Hole never lost its appeal for us, and in fact it proved useful many times when we were being chased by bullies who didn't know the territory as well as we did. Once, our friend Zanny, who was about 12 or 13 at the time, was going home from our house one night, and was dutifully walking around the long way when he encountered a drunk guy peeing on the sidewalk and exposing himself. (my grandmother turned out to be right about the unsavory characters) When Zanny turned around and started running back to our house for safety, the guy followed him. He stayed under our protection for awhile and then decided to cut through The Hole to his house on the next block, unobserved and safe. (and if you're wondering why my parents didn't get involved, it was probably because our dad was still at work, and we were home under the supervision of our older brother.)

I know it sounds like we lived in a rough inner city 'hood, but it was really just your average middle class residential neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens. I'm sure our parents had no idea we were ever chased by bullies, or hung around the tracks of the Long Island Railroad for that matter, either.

Basically, we just figured what they didn't know couldn't hurt us.

Protecting your parents from your childhood: it's a time honored tradition.

the hole (west)

in my neighborhood in Portland

And whatever happened to Mr. Rosso? I heard a rumor he moved to Texas and lobbied to build another fence...

is the universe trying to tell me something?

Some random historical facts about January 12th:

* 1528, BI *

Gustav I crowned king of Sweden

(BI= Before Ikea)

* 1915 *

The U.S. House of Representatives rejects a proposal to give women the right to vote.

(Even way back then they were idiots)

* 1966 *

Batman premiered on ABC

(Biff! Pow! Holy Crap, Batman!)

* 1971 *

All in the Family premiered on CBS

(the show that made Meathead famous)

* 1981 *

Dynasty premiered on ABC

(it was the 80s...what can I say?)

* 1991 *

Beginning of the first Gulf War

(will we never learn?)

* 2010 *

The Christmas tree is still up at Camp Cactus

(it's a tradition, if not a fire hazard)

January 12th Birthdays:

Howard Stern

(photo borrowed from these guys)

Rush Limbaugh

(photo borrowed from these guys)

Kirstie Alley

(photo borrowed from this site)

...and yours truly.

Who do you share your birthday with?

invisible horses

Way back in the dark ages when I was little, kids used to play outside after school. My little sister Kathy and I were no exception. We had a TV, but we weren't allowed to watch it if the weather was good enough for our mom or grandmother to shove us out the door to get some "exercise" and "fresh air." (We lived in NYC...there was no fresh air) In fact, it didn't even matter if the weather was good, we often found ourselves roller skating in the garage on rainy afternoons with our friends, going around and around in tight circles until we were dizzy and giggling and falling down.

In the winter, when the snowdrifts blocked the garage door or Mom didn't feel like cleaning up wet muddy clothing, I'd sit in the breakfast room for hours, wearing down crayon after crayon drawing pictures of horses.

Horses! I was crazy about 'em. I fell head over heels the first time I was put on the back of a little pinto in the pony ring at Kissena Park in Queens. I planned and schemed and measured the garage to see if we could build a stall big enough for a small horse. I was a realist. I knew how big thoroughbreds were, having seen them at Belmont racetrack, but I was pretty sure a feisty little mustang would be quite cozy in there. I lobbied for most of my childhood, I think, but my pleas fell on deaf ears. The parents were not gonna budge.

My best friend Jenny, who lived two doors down from us, had a wild imagination. We made up new games almost every day. Some were based on television shows, but most came straight out of our crazy little eight year old heads.

One day, we were sitting on my stoop discussing our love of horses and lamenting our parents' shortsightedness. (They just didn't seem to get how useful horses could be: they were easy to park, and I would be happy to run any sort of errand on my trusty steed, Dad wouldn't have to pay for train fare on the Long Island RR to Times Square, we'd never have to mow the lawn again, I could ride for help in an emergency, etc.)

Anyway, Jenny and I decided right then and there, that if we couldn't have visible horses, we'd just have to get some invisible ones that our parents couldn't see.

I decided my horse would be named Chocolate Pudding. He was a dark brown bay mustang with a long, flowing mane and tail the color of whipped cream. I think Jenny's may have been a pinto. The stables we kept them in (Cloud Nine Stables) were located (yep, you guessed it) on Cloud Nine.

Over the next couple of years, Jenny and I, her sister Lisa, and my sister Kathy formed the Invisible Horse Club of America, and held shows in our backyards. We held jumping events, steeplechases, and races, and endlessly debated the differences between a trot, a gallop and a canter. We set up viewing stands, and led stuffed animal parades down the block on our trusty steeds.

It was a great time to be a kid. No video games, or internet. TV was in black and white (ours was, anyway) and there wasn't much on in the afternoons except soap operas. Our parents expected us to amuse ourselves, so that's what we did.

I miss Chocolate Pudding. I just might have to get myself another invisible horse...this time, I think maybe it'll be a Palomino named Butterscotch. She won't be any trouble at all, really!

I'll just go measure the garage.

happy birthday, roscoe

Easter, 1960.

This photo was taken was just a few months before our youngest sister, Kathy was born. My brother Jim (the tallest one in the back) was almost 17, my sister Patty (on the right) was almost 12, I was 3, and my brother John (on the left) was 13. 


Today would have been John's 62nd birthday. He was an amazing artist and musician who taught himself to play flamenco guitar as a teenager by listening to Jose Feliciano and Carlos Montoya records.  He'd often lock himself in the upstairs bathroom for hours to practice, because he said the tiled walls created great acoustics. I remember thinking he was cool because he painted the fingernails on his right hand with Sally Hansen's Hard as Nails to strengthen them. 


He taught me to play a few tunes on the guitar, and inspired me to take lessons from the guy around the corner at the music store for a little while.


He put up with my sister Kathy and I, (she adored him, and he was a softie for her, too) but he also took every opportunity to tease us unmercifully. He used to shut us in the basement and turn out the light while we crouched by the door at the top of the basement stairs, wailing "JOHNNNY! Let us out!!!!" 

Torturing your baby sisters was a big brother's perogative, after all...but he was also our protector of sorts. If we got in trouble with neighborhood bullies, we'd run home and John would come shambling out with his pigeon-toed gait and by then, shoulder length black hair and full beard, and whoever was chasing us would turn right around and high tail it home. He looked a little like Rasputin in those days, and we used to tell our friends that he kept pigeons in that beard.   

John went on to play flamenco guitar professionally using the stage name Juan Roscoe (there was already an actor named John Russell), landing a job with the road company of Man of La Mancha. We saw him in the play in Los Angeles in the summer of 1967 while on vacation. My ten year old self was so proud of him, I thought my heart would burst!

Like a lot of incredibly talented people, my brother was emotionally troubled, and had a tough time managing to live in the real world. He died in 1977 at the age of 30, a bright spark for the short time he was here. 

Happy Birthday, John.

baby dumplin'

I woke up this morning just a little after 6am. I think it was some kind of strange body-memory thing, a bit of a subconscious nudge to remind me of that other early morning 25 years ago when this little dumpling came into our lives:

Her brother's delighted reaction after holding her for the first time and gazing into those big brown baby eyes? "Her look like Yoda!" (He was, after all, a big Star Wars fan like his Dad)

As she grew into a toddler, she became for a time the spitting image of her big brother.

And almost instantly (because it seems to me it was only yesterday that she entered our lives) she grew up and became the graceful, creative, funny and exotically beautiful young woman she is today.

Happy birthday, Caitie!
Love, Yo Mama

yessir, that's my baby

Twenty-eight years ago tonight our lives changed forever when our hearts were stolen by a tiny little 7lb.,2oz. bundle of joy. And even after all this time I'm still astounded every day by how lucky we are.

Happy Birthday, Matt!
Love,
Yo Mama

here's the last may birthday, I promise!

Whew! Month O' Birthdays is finally over! Not that I actually go for organizing big time shindigs for all those Geminis and Taureans (Taurusites?), but I seem to spend a lot of mental energy on them. Especially the ones who are no longer around to celebrate. A long time ago, when we lived in San Francisco, we'd have big Gemini gatherings at our house, and they'd all get together and party. We're not so much into partying these days. Maybe it's old age, or maybe the passage of yet another year doesn't seem like such a fun thing to commemorate.

With those lovely sentiments in mind, Caitie and Matt and I took Dave out to the ballgame to kick off the start of his (gulp!) sixth decade.


There were hot dogs to be had, beer to be drunk, and cheering and jeering to be done. I'm always amazed at how LOUD Caitie (a mere slip of a girl) can yell at ball games.

I love minor league baseball, mostly because it seems much less about high-end sponsors, and more about accessibility and small-town values. Although there is still plenty of advertising and practically a promotion-a-minute in an effort to keep the fans coming, it's definitely not the slick Jumbotron replays and gourmet foods in the concession stands of the big leagues. Nope. Round here, the only gourmet items on the menu are the local microbrews.

The entertainment between innings (because we MUST be entertained AT ALL TIMES) consists of fans being taken on a crazy wild ride across the field by our very own manic mascot, Lucky Beaver, or making fans circle around a bat till they're falling-down dizzy, then running the bases. My favorite, though, is when Lucky gets up on the dugout and dances to MC Hammer.
And of course, it goes without saying, that aside from watching the game itself, Triple A baseball is a fabulous People Watching Venue.
Like the guy right in front of us who kept asking every vendor how much the peanuts cost, maybe hoping one of them would give him a bag at below wholesale? His girlfriend got up at one point to get a beer and asked him if he wanted anything, "can I get you some peanuts, Hon?" I thought Caitie was gonna spray beer all over the back of his neck when she heard that.
Personally, I love to watch the little kids running down to the nearly empty box seats above the dugout at the end of each inning, hoping to catch a ball tossed their way. The players at this level don't often disappoint the fans. Except, maybe when they lose by 7 runs.



I'm pretty sure the birthday game was a hit.