A moving week

Posted on June 12, 2011 by ruthek

With the date for my exit from my apartment rapidly approaching I'm feeling increasing pressure to find another place to live. I've spent most of the last week looking at apartments, without finding anything that makes me happy. My requirements are, first, size. I want two bedrooms. Second, location: I want some place interesting to walk to or about. Of course, affordability is very important, but there seem to be lots of places I could afford, or almost afford. Third is resale potential. This might not be the last place I will live.

I found a great condo I can almost afford in a building I don't want to live in. Location is OK, but not the greatest. I will have to get a mortgage, which I'm not sure I want to do.

A co-op building near Pitt and CMU has a number of empty apartments, several of which I like. The location would be great and the apartments are cheap reasonably priced. I kept wondering why they were so hard to move and finally got an answer. Co-op rules require you to pay cash for the asking price, have an additional $100,000 in the bank and have an income four times the monthly maintenance, about $4000/month. I can't meet the income requirement, and I suspect few people who might want one of those apartments have that kind of income.

I think a case could be made about discrimination against elders, however I think the rule was made to keep parents from buying their student children an apartment, another kind of discrimination.

I owned a co-op apartment in New Jersey and swore I would never do it again. This brings it all back to me. Too bad; one of those apartments would be ideal.

So I'm still looking. I won't be homeless: worst case, I put my stuff in storage and move in with Robin and Steve until I find something.

I have no excuse

Posted on May 15, 2011 by ruthek

I just didn't feel like writing.

My infection seems to have gone, although I won't be convinced for another week or so. My Osher classes began this week. I wasn't taking anything for the last month because I expected to be away; I'm glad the new term has begun. Tuesday morning I'm in a class called "Representing the Devil." Last week we looked at readings from both the old and new testaments. This week we are reading Christopher Marlowe's, "Dr. Faustus." We will also read "The Master and Margarita" and "No Country for Old Men." I started reading M & M and it's excellent. So is the professor; I'm very pleased.

Tuesday afternoon is a film class. We watched "Sunset Boulevard," which I saw back in 1950 or 51. I remembered absolutely nothing except the shooting scene. Amazing how completely these things disappear.

Wednesday afternoon is a journaling class. You're probably laughing. How can I keep a journal when I can't even keep up with the blog. We are supposed to write three pages a day. I wrote something yesterday, but not three pages. There are many things I don't want to put in the blog. Keeping a journal would be a good thing if I wasn't so lazy.

Thursday afternoon's class is called "Behind the scenes at the Carnegie Museum." I don't think this will be the best class. We only get behind the scenes once, the rest of the time we're in lectures. I've spent lots of time volunteering at the Field Museum in Chicago and often got behind the scenes. It was fascinating. I'm sure the Carnegie would be also. Maybe I'll look into volunteering there.

I got back to the health club. I've been walking (even did the 5k Race for the Cure last weekend) but avoided other exercise because of taking Cipro. I don't know if I'm happier with or without all the exercise. I'm certainly happier without the Cipro.

This week

Posted on May 1, 2011 by ruthek

Lots of things happened.

Still taking Cipro (until Tuesday). Slightly better each day, but still a problem.

I am going to move again. I didn't really plan to do this, but I've been unhappy with this apartment for some time now. After my fight with the landlord I think it's best if I get out. So I've been spending a lot of time looking, online and otherwise. There are lots of apartments for rent but not many I want or can afford.

Because of this, and because I should do it anyway, I'm trying to get rid of stuff. Last week I shredded or threw out tax returns from 1988 through 2002. I didn't even know I had them. They came with my divorce.

Last weekend I went to a benefit concert for Japan, actually the second one I've been to. This was at Pitt and included some Japanese cultural things as well as good music. This photo is from the tea ceremony.

I found it strange and interesting to have the camera man right in there with the participants while a ghostly image of the action was projected onto the screen behind. It reminded me of the Bunraku performance I saw in Osaka where the puppet masters stand directly next to the life-size puppets. All the camera man needed was a black hood around his head.

More beautiful trees from the 'burgh. These are in a somewhat run down park that was once the site of George Westinghouse's mansion.

Pittsburgh is Beautiful in Spring

Posted on April 25, 2011 by ruthek

Everywhere you look the trees are blooming and there are lots of spring flowers. Here is a tree bursting out from a tiny patch of dirt between two buildings on a street with blocks of nothing but buildings.

I took this on the way to the oral surgeon. I am better, but not good. This is my sixth day of the antibiotic. My past experience has always been that two days brought great improvement. I had only a little after three days. He thinks he should remove the implant and that will clear up the infection. Then we'll try again. I hate to do it, but I'll probably go along with that. Nasty, nasty.

For some time now, I have thought about making portraits of trees. Here is my first one: in my backyard, the shadow cast by the tree in the next yard.

Past pollution meets present day corruption

Posted on April 15, 2011 by ruthek

I often speak to my ESL students about democracy. Most of them don't really understand what we are all about (I'm not sure I know lately, either), and most of them are unrealistic about the US, loving us, or hating us too much. I am always pleased when I have an opportunity to demonstrate some of our professed values in action.

Back in December, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette ran a series of articles about air pollution in Western Pennsylvania–how fine particulate in the air causes asthma, lung cancer, other lung diseases and heart disease. They told stories about the problems individuals and families living near our coal fired power plants have, and presented statistics showing a huge number of deaths above the national average from these causes. You can read the series here.

In order to keep the message alive a meeting was held at Chatham University, attended by me, my two students and several hundred others. The reporters gave an overview of the problem and several of the affected individuals told their horrifying stories—children suffering with asthma, proliferation of lung cancer deaths within their communities, well water polluted so that it was not only not drinkable, but caused skin rashes when they showered with it corroded pipes and faucets so badly they had to be replaced every two years.

I was hoping to show my ESL students that this is the way democracy should work. What did we learn? My Chinese student learned that the Chinese aren't the only ones with pollution problems. He was clearly impressed with that. My Russian student lived in Sweden for twenty years before coming here. I'm not sure what she learned. I learned, not for the first time, that our elected officials have no shame and don't care about what happens to their constituency, so long as the industry involved continues to support their tenure in office.

The lessons are clear: in the name of creating cheap power we allow the industry to be lax and shift the cost away from all of us and on to the backs of a few individuals who pay dearly. The most obvious lesson is the ineffectiveness of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, which seems to be protecting only the companies creating the environmental problems.

All of this has to do with rectifying past sins, but we have learned nothing. The day after the meeting, the head of the Pennsylvania DEP announced that all permits and enforcement actions for Marcellus shale drilling would be issued by his office. We know he isn't concerned about air or water quality. His only concern is to give the gas drilling industry the greatest freedom possible. Pennsylvania is not taxing or taking any kind of removal fee. The only authority looking out for the public interest is the DEP and they sold out. See the links below for more information.

We haven't learned our lessons from air pollution, now we will poison our water supply.

This is the story I told during my fifteen minutes of fame at the Waffle Shop. But I made one mistake. The interviewer asked me what she could do and I talked about contacting elected officials. That's obviously hopeless. These college kids should be out marching in the streets, just like they are doing in the middle east. It's their water and their air we are poisoning. Because of my age and the fact that I already have heart disease, it won't matter so much to me; it should matter hugely to them. We have allowed our democracy to be sold to the highest bidder. Our children will pay more dearly for this than they will for the debt the Republicans are screaming about.

Ronni Bennett, at Time Goes By, has a wonderful post about the choices we face for our democracy. If you haven't read it, go there now.

Links

Post-Gazette Air Pollution series

The sell-out

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11089/1135894-100.stm

http://blogs.sites.post-gazette.com/index.php/opinion/a-fine-point/26250

http://blogs.sites.post-gazette.com/index.php/opinion/a-fine-point/26250-shale-cops-now-state-enforcement-will-be-in-political-hands

http://www.timegoesby.net/weblog/2011/04/the-fight-of-our-lifetimes.html

Sunday stroll

Posted on April 3, 2011 by ruthek

The sun was shining when I left home, although they promised rain or snow for tonight. Even though I wasn't going to do it, I walked more than four miles today. I'm not as tired as last week, so we'll see what happens tonight. This time I walked to East Liberty and the Waffle Shop. They have a live feed broadcast where they interview people. I decided I wanted to be interviewed: never done that before. The live feed is only on until 2 pm, (they keep strange hours) but I was assured they would edit the video, eventually, and it will appear online. This is a student enterprise (CMU) so don't expect to see anything very quickly. I should be able to post it here after it appears.

This walk took me past the soon-to-be Target, and something that will replace the bus station. This area has been under construction for several years with no apparent change or improvement. Now they've made it almost impossible to walk.

In order to get off the pavement you have to cross that fairly high block of concrete or else walk in the street, a scary business. I was able to haul myself up on the pavement by hanging on to the fence. I was actually afraid I would knock it down. My legs don't want to do this kind of climbing anymore.

There is a new sculpture in Mellon Park. It's pretty nice.

They don't tell you anything about it, who did it, or why it was placed there, but just in case you want to get a concrete slab, there is an informative label.

I also thought the placement of this bench was interesting. It was there before they placed the sculpture, but they could have turned it around. There's nothing very interesting looking the other way.

I'll tell you about the subject of my interview soon. The host started to ask me about my favorite song, or my favorite artist; she wouldn't know who I was talking about if I told her. I stopped her and took over the conversation: serious, but she got into it. More to come. Here she is with her previous guest.

Groundhog

Posted on February 13, 2011 by ruthek

The groundhog did not see his shadow this year, meaning we would have an early spring. I've never understood what any of this had anything to do with weather, or why having no sunshine on Feb 2 could be a good thing. My friend Ivetta has been taking this seriously and I keep kidding her. If the groundhog sees his shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter. If not, there will be a month and a half of winter. So, maybe I'm wrong. The forecast is for 60 degrees by the end of the week. Of course, I don't think much of those long range forecasts, either. But today was a beautiful day; I didn't need my winter jacket, and I went out and took a long walk. Maybe we'll get lucky and I'll be able to keep taking those long walks.

Andy and me

Posted on February 10, 2011 by ruthek

We went to the Warhol Museum over the weekend with our visitors from New Jersey. It's not my favorite place, only rarely have I found things that interest me, but every visitor seems to want to see it. I was having a hard time explaining silk screens to one of our guests, so we all went downstairs to what they call the "weekend factory" where you can make a print from a silk screen. I also found that I could have my picture taken with Andy for only $2, a fantastic bargain considering he charged $25,000 to make your portait.

They stand you in front of a piece of green felt and you can see what the picture will look like on a monitor. The lights were in the wrong position for me, so I stood on a small stool, making me taller than Andy, but not as terrible as with the lights straight down at me. Here's the picture:

I think it looks like some of those 19th C. photos of ghosts, or astral projections. Of course, Andy is the ghost, but he looks more solid than I do. I would pay $5 to have Andy wearing one of those wild hairpieces and both of us in focus. Well, maybe the focus is too much to ask for.

Freezing rain and beautiful music

Posted on February 1, 2011 by ruthek

The rain is my excuse for staying home this morning, although I'm not sure it's even raining–just dark and dreary. Each year I'm finding it a little harder to deal with winter. It doesn't mean I'm off for warmer climes. Just more suffering. I think we are lucky here in Pittsburgh. This storm seems to be all over the country but we are seeing very little of it.

On to better things: the music. Yesterday was my first Osher class for this year, and it was fantastic. The teacher is Jim Cunningham, a host of our classical music station, WQED, who brought three members of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra to introduce us to the music of Erwin Schulhoff, a Czech composer and pianist. Schulhoff worked between the first and second world wars, was classified as "degenerate" by the Nazis and died in a concentration camp in 1942. Along with many other composers and musicians of the time, his work was essentially lost and only now is slowly being brought to light. Among other works we heard his concertina for flute, viola and double bass. The music was beautiful and there is something very special about listening when you are within 30 feet of the performer.

More snow

Posted on January 21, 2011 by ruthek

I can't say I'm sorry about the snow this morning. My morning lecture was cancelled giving me the opportunity to stay in bed for another hour. I love eight hours of sleep, but somehow can't get in bed early enough to get it most mornings. I suppose the little nap at 8:30, sitting up, had something to do with it.

The mailman left a package for me this morning. When I stepped out to get it, sans coat, it didn't feel nearly as bad as they make you think. Scare tactics are the way to go, no matter the subject. I want to go out to Club One to exercise. Hope I can get out of the driveway. The snow shoveler hasn't arrived yet.

I got the paper back from my professor with lots of suggestions for improvements. I asked and was very pleased to get them. So, I guess I'll spend another large block of time rewriting the paper. I've also been spending time planning my trip. I think I will go directly down to Kagoshima, in Kyushu, where it is supposed to be warm, then work my way back north and east. Or, perhaps, I will go to Mito first, to see the plum blossoms in the number three famous garden. Right now, I'm going to work out.

100 Books Before I Die

Ruthe Karlin

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