Another night at the convention

I realize I have no hard judgment. I can't respond objectively to the democratic convention. Here's where I'm left after 8 years of the Clintons and 8 years of the Bush Republicans.

Bullets follow, the signal of random thought:

• I was sick of the Clintons, their approach, the nasty heat that followed. That led me to Obama as much as anything else.


• I'm sick of Bush and the Republicans being in charge. Just plain nasty (do you see my mindless mantra here). I've hear too much of that. The nasty liberals, the nasty elitists, those bad folks who aren't really Americans like us. I've had my fill of that too. And too sure of what "right" belief is. I'm a skeptic on folks who know what is right. And that's a long story for me, but a deeply felt one.


• So where can we possibly go from here. Obama is obviously young, inexperienced, someone not quite with what we expect as the one who might be president . But to a certain extent I'm okay with that, though worried. I suspect that the transformational figures were mostly there when they popped onto the national scene. (Lincoln, T Roosevelt, Kennedy, Clinton, for better or worse.) I see good signs with him (smart, pragmatic, decent). But I worry about some things--especially global economy. But I tell myself he's smart, pragmatic, decent. And what are my choices. I think I'll go with smart, pragmatic, decent, open. I do think he's open, not dogmatic.


• I'm starting to get old. Not hugely old but 5 weeks older than Hillary Clinton. That makes me think that McCain really is pretty damn old for someone we're thinking about electing President. And that worries me. Because I spend a good deal of time these days thinking about what it means to get old. There are other things about McCain that worry me.

Hope? How?

I've been watching the Democratic convention over the past few evenings. This sort of thing does leave me interested and discouraged:

• Why are the Clintons so damned good, talented, smart, moving, when I can't trust them?


• Things will be nasty again. I especially hate the way it will be nasty against the Obamas. Why is this part of American politics?


• I don't see how we can be against global economics. This is a fact and mostly good. Our politics needs to find a functional way to deal with this.


• Obama. I basically like him and his wife. What a weird combination of black and too educated (read elistist), who could have imagined his combination.


• I'm not against educated (even graduate school educated folks). Why is this unAmerican. It should be that person is impressive, or annoying, scary. Just like everyone else.


• I seem to be in the gut a Democrat. Not always easy with a son who interviewed to work for Clarence Thomas and a husband who listens daily to Rush Limbaugh, et al. . .


• I do listen nightly to PBS, CNBC, CNN, Fox in an attempt to have a spectrum. I also read the Economist.

When yes may mean no

My hunch for some time now in working with my colleagues in India is that folks always want to be accommodating and positive. This means that pretty much no matter what I say, my colleague in India--I'm thinking in particular of the editorial manager most parallel to me in the food chain--will agree with me. And then he starts talking. Rapid-fire, India English. A very specialized dialect, discourse. It's hard to track in detail. But invariably I come away with the deep hunch that this yes was a yes, but. . . . . . A qualified yes. Perhaps very close to a no.

Communicating with a team in India is a challenge. Some things to know about India. All of India is in one time zone. At a general level this means two time zones have been combined and halved. This accounts for why meetings with India or either 12.5 or 13.5 hours off times in Pacific Standard Time--Seattle or San Jose or San Francisco ( the main crowed I'm dealing with right now). The .5 is accounted for by the fact that India decided they wanted the country on one time zone, took the two main ones and cut them in half: that's the .5. And then the 12.5 or 13.5 hours--that's because India has no daylight savings times. At the equator this makes sense. There really isn't time to "save" with the seasons.

So communicating. It means that in meetings with India you can meet 7:00 a.m. PST (which is night time in India) or 9:00 p.m. PST (which is morning in India). I found that my colleagues, as a rule, arrive at the office between 9:00 and 10:00 a.m. (India time) and leave between 6:00 and 7:30 p.m. (India time). My colleagues in India want to be home by 9:00 p.m. or so--when the evening meal generally occurs in homes in India, so I'm told.

Lots of details here. But realize that the bottom line means that there is basically an hour at about 7:00 in the morning and another hour at about 9:00 at night that a person on the west coast of the USA can communicate in real time (meetings, back and forth with e-mail) with colleagues in e-mail. Other than that you send an e-mail--get an answer 24 hours later.

So here's the trick. Communication is very indirect. Yes probably means no. You need to negotiate. Figure out where you are. Be positive and supportive. (Not particularly direct.) And you have an hour a day to do this. Not particularly quick.

And so my trip to India Amazingly useful. 7 working days, face to face, 8+ hours a day. What an useful, productive run of hours, discussions questions, answers, concerns. I think my company probably got it's money worth.

And I had this amazing encounter with this weird, scary, wonderful country.

A missed opportunity

I feel bad that I didn't have enough energy, enough character, to write while we spent our almost two weeks in India. That was the most intense experience I've had visiting a place that is "other." This experience had such highs--and such challenges. I didn't capture the moment. I will do what I can to recover what still lives in my body, my memory, my waking and sleeping dreams, about that amazing, sad, wonderful, overwhelming country.

In Noida

We arrived in Delhi last night--which was really yesterday morning Seattle time. A pretty uneventful flight. We flew from Seattle to Newark. Transferred to another flight and flew from Newark to New Delhi.

I have definitely learned the benefits of flying business class on a long flight. Courtesy of Adobe. Don flew passenger. And was very miserable. The business class was like some sort of bizarre game. Lots of room (my own overhead bin) to spread out and relax. Good food. Lots of drinks, snacks, etc.

Very warm when we got to the airport. We had arranged with the hotel to send a car, but we couldn’t find it at first. So we changed some money and got ready to hire another taxi. But finally I found our driver. Very busy and chaotic roads. We made it to the hotel shortly before midnight.

We were both tired enough that we didn’t find it that hard to go to sleep. We are staying in a Radisson which is very nice and air conditioned. This morning we got up and had a breakfast at the hotel--an interesting mix of American, Indian, and British breadkfast (with beans, roasted tomatos, etc.). Then we walked around the area. Some very run down shops and streets. And two huge, modern malls.

We are off this afternoon with Pawan from work to Agra. We will stay over night and tomorrow see the Taj Mahal and the old fort. Then back to Noida. It is about a 5-hours drive I’m told. Pawan has hired a driver and car. That seems to be the way that folks travel. And he has arranged for a hotel in Agra. I’m glad that we have someone to arrange things for us and show us around.

At one point Pawan had talked about bringing his wife and son. But I think at this point he is travelling alone with us. We’ll see. Either way I’m okay. But Don was concerned about too many people. We’ll see.

On my way to India

We’re leaving tomorrow. Don is coming too. It’s for work. Noida, the Delhi area. I’m checking out whether this posing works on my new computer. I want to write about what I’m seeing.

A follow up

Since I have no readers--and pride myself in some ways on nurturing this. I now enter into a somewhat weird task. Oh well.


I posted to a friend's blog, and here was the deal. I posted a memory about her, and in return I ask you (oh you gazillions of readers) to post a memory about me. Here are the rules from her blog. I posted my memory of her here:
http://www.hightouchmegastore.net/2008/07/memory-meme.html

My friend's rules:
1. As a comment on my blog, leave a memory that you and I shared. It doesn't matter if you know me a little or a lot, anything you remember! If we're only blogging friends, write about a post that is most memorable. If you don't have a blog and don't know how to sign in, please comment as anonymous.

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your own blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's a lot of fun to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I promise to write one about you... either on your blog, in my comment box, or I will email you back!

and . . .

3. If you can't say something nice, don't say nothin' at all.

India

I'm getting ready to spend two weeks in India for work. So I guess I am involved in "outsourcing." From what I can tell that's an evil activity. Especially for someone who on occasion thinks of herself as "progressive," "forward thinking." I try to recycle, I have a hybrid car (mostly because driving is a hobby and I feel guilty), I'm not real thrilled about Iraq or Guantanamo.

But what about the global economy? Outsourcing? First I don't see my company Adobe as "shipping American jobs abroad." The jobs that go abroad are the jobs that would end otherwise. And ultimately folks back home benefit because the company thrives and makes money where otherwise they wouldn't have (we get stock options; more folks don't lose jobs; we get profit sharing, etc.). So India definitely benefits--a growing group. But back home we benefit as well. A profitable company. And with the American dollar and economy sputtering a bit, tech companies have managed to keep on a more even keel than some companies because of how much our products are sold abroad. In other words, the global economy can keep a company afloat even when America falters on some fronts. Lots of folks buying software in Europe, South America, Eastern Europe, India, China. . . . And helping to create software too.

And then there is just the delight of working with a whole group of talented, interesting folks in India. I'm enjoying my work of helping to create a strong group there. And I get to go spend two weeks in hot, sultry, rainy, miserable summer Noida. What could be better!

So long since

I've written. That isn't good. It does provide an indicator of how much I am in control of what really matters to me--at least what I tell myself matters.

The summer has been tricky. I broke my wrist about six weeks ago. That means I couldn't type, and so on. Couldn't even cut my own meat. Or take a shower. I have the cast off now. And I found a keyboard today that makes it possible for me to type. So I can't use that as an excuse any more.

I broke my wrist gardening--running up and down the steps on my deck. Sad. Because now my yard has been taken over by the morning glory. I should just declare defeat, and find someone to work on the yard.

Whisperers: dog and otherwise

Don and I spent a good part of our evenings over the holidays watching a Dog Whisperer marathon. Not much else thanks to the writers strikes--except for old movies (we watched lots of those too, another story).

I had never watched this show. But I had heard of Caesar from my daughter-in-law and son, who have been rehabilitating an enthusiastic (and adopted, because previously rejected) black lab for a year or so now. I met Maggie a year ago, she is now a much more charming pet (based on the evidence of two consecutive Thanksgivings spent in Williamsburg).

I previously posted about how what Heather (the daughter in law, aka DIL) introduced me to the Dog Whisperer and helped me to make sense in my quest to live with Bev, my darling idiot girl (Bevin Whisperer). I have now met Caesar, and I’m impressed. I am now considering whether Caesar may be the key to life. Certainl I’m considering whether Caesar may be the key to life with my husband. An entity to be dealt with. Unique. Can be charming. Can be not charming. Perhaps I need to become the calm, above-it-all, alpha. Quiet, patient, watching, determined (oh so not me, at least the quiet, patient part). A 2008 resolution.

Mixing up the world

Bevin has a way of making me realize that the world as I live it is not self evident. Some moments from my weekend with Bev:
        •        When she greets me at the weekend her first word is pretty much always “poppie” (as in soda pop), not Mommy (though that does generally sneak in). Puts you in your place.
        •        Her only goal oriented behavior of the weekend: go to the neighborhood store and buy poppie (she pretty much always pull diet Dr. Pepper from the cooler, how does she know?)
        •        Her main point of conversation for the weekend (when it’s not “poppie”): Sarah. In other words, when do I get to dump you and hang out with my sister.
        •        At 10:30 on Saturday night, she decides that her next step is not to climb into bed. Doesn’t seem to have a plan B. I WAS ready for bed, and I won (another story).
        •        Sunday morning she more than ready to get up at 5:30. (And who was it I thought won?)
        •        It snowed this weekend and poured buckets. As we walked outside, she didn’t notice. (I have my feet propped up on the table in the basement tonight because the floor is definitely noticing the rain.)

And yet, the more time I spend with Bevin, the more I wonder whether I should defer to her sense of the world.

Webkins

Who knew this exists? I learned from my 5-year-old grandson. You buy a webkins. You get a “code.” And voila, you have gain entrance to a secret, magical world.

My grandson, Jacob, is particularly keen 0n “going for” ALL of the beach accouterments. You can get a “job” to earn dollars for purchasing your dreams. Or you can go the arcade and gamble for webkins dollars (it takes, for example, $750 webkins to get a set of surfboards for the beach theme room Jacob has named “Ocean Waves"). Jacob tried to teach me the Dicekins game (but I just didn’t get it). His parents secretly gamble for dollars for their son. And Jacob is keen on getting yet another webkins (which comes with some $2000 webkins for wheeling and dealing in the webkins world). For that, he mopped the kitchen floor for a dollar. And has plans to rake leaves and wash window. All in search of yet another webkins (which costs $15 in the real world; Jacob has now saved $7 towards his next webkins).

What do I think about this?
• Jacob mopping the floor. Pretty thorough and impressive for a five year old. Clean floor. Cheerful worker. Goal oriented. Good? Bad?
• Jacob using the computer mouse. Pretty impressive small motor skills. Menus. Game moves. Better than me--though how easy is that?
• Jacob’s goal oriented behavior. With webkins world, he learns that things cost, you can’t get around that, you have to earn the money. If you make bad choices, you deal. (He is selling back earlier purchases, shifting around what he did a few weeks back and now seems to regret.)
• Parents. I saw both dad and mom playing the webkins games to earn Jacob dollars. Now those games aren’t easy. I certainly couldn’t have earned him any money even though he tutored me in dicekins (or whatever). But what does this teach? Under the table? Family solidarity?
• Web world? Real world? Where does this lead? Not entirely sure. I brought computers to my kids. I live from software. My husband spends his life at the computer. Not entirely sure. . . . . .

Smart, funny, amusing kid. Where does webkins lead? Not entirely sure. This kid doesn’t watch TV. He does watch videos. (And he could perform all the songs from “High School Musical.) He’s also playing chess online. He’s also playing outside an writing his own book of "scriptures." I’m working in this world of software and online communities. Where does it lead?

Not entirely comfortable. Would oh so happily get back to books, walks, writing (though mostly on a computer). Still there is this romance of ink and paper, and I haven't entirely abandoned that mode.

I was born too early and too late. Such a life lived in between. It’s hard to know what to make of this all.

Getting home

Not so easy. A lesson I have learned. Do not fly in or out of the airport in Newport News Virginia. Flying in for Thanksgiving, my flight from Atlanta was cancelled--with an offer to fly in 8 hours later. Flying out, my flight is now 2 hours late, and I get to spend the night in Atlanta (my cost not the airlines because this is an act of God, weather, not Delta). And fly home tomorrow.

A convoluted trip. I voted thumbs down on the eight-hour wait in Atlanta and flew into Richmond, rented a car there, picked my suitcase up in Newport News (60 miles apart--both some 30-40 miles from my son’s home on the outskirts of Williamsburg, near Jamestown). And so tonight I drove to Richmond, dropped off my rental, my son drove to Richmone, picked me up and drove me to Newport News. I’ll wait here 4 hours and spend a very short night at a (too expensive) hotel in Atlanta.

All in all, I won’t be that much in the hole. I had planned to arrive home between 2:00 and 3:00 a.m., go to bed and sleep. Get up at 10:00 or 11:00 and prepare for the descent into work on Tuesday. The plan now. Sleep in a somewhat expensive bed in Atlanta, fly out in the morning. Get home by 1:00 or so. Still part of the day to recover. Not that much difference all around. Though a whole lot of hassle and some money. I did check on a flight tomorrow--$333 to make the change. A good night in an Atlanta bed at that rate (and more of my day in Seattle) seemed like a better plan.

Isn’t modern life just too complicated? I had thought of driving to Williamsburg with Bevin--but decided that would take two weeks, not three. That may have been easier. Still a possibility for my sabbatical--I have never driven cross country. And Bev is such a good traveling companion.

(By the way new granddaughter is so cute, and son, daughter-in-law, and grandson so good to be with. Webkins. That’s what I learned about from grandson Jacob. A whole new world. But for another day--assuming I do eventually get back to Seattle.)

Thinking about Romney and abortion

I’m a bit of a political junky, so I have been following presidential primary politics for a while now. With my Mormon background, it’s hard not to pay just a little extra attention to what the talking heads have to say about Romney. Recently on hearing yet again about Romney’s flip flop on abortion, I started thinking about the Mormon position on abortion (or at least the position as I knew it back in the eighties). Mormons are definitely anti-abortion, but not in quite the way most conservative Christians are. I think the wobbly nature of Romney’s discourse on abortion may well have roots in the Mormon position.

The Mormon position allows for abortion in the case of rape and grave danger to the health of the mother. For conservative Christians abortion is murder of an innocent child. The child dies without baptism, without faith. Thus the abortion means the loss of both the mother, who murders, and the child, who dies without the benefits of Christ’s saving grace.

I suspect the ambiguity of the Mormon position--with its allowance for justified abortion--begins in the Mormon notion of the soul. For Mormons, the soul is eternal. It has a life before its mortal existence, comes to earth to take a body, and lives on after mortal death. For traditional Christians, the soul begins with life. So the child aborted in the womb has only that brief existence. For Mormons an eternal soul enters an earthly body. When is not exactly clear. But no tragedy for the aborted child in the Mormon version of the story. If the child’s soul has not yet entered the body, then that soul will be allotted another body. If the child’s soul has entered, then that child has obtained its necessary body and will be exalted in the highest Mormon heaven with all of the innocent children who die before eight, the age of accountability and baptism.

In other words, the abortion is no tragedy for the child in the Mormon version of the story. It forecloses little in the eternal view of what matters. In the traditional Christian version, it is a tragedy, in many versions foreclosing salvation for that child. In the Mormon story, it is the woman who suffers and is judged, not the child. She is the one who must justify her decision before her God. Abortion is a terrible event, but the official position of her church signals a measured and merciful view to the horror and pain women may face.

So on this matter I am inclined to allow Romney’s wavering views on the extent of a woman’s right to choose--he is finding his way along a spectrum that is part of the larger conversation about abortion among Mormons. The dominant note in that conversation is definitely pro-life--most Mormons in the twenty-first century are proud conservatives. But the Mormon God through his church’s leaders has allowed for a terrible choice.

An Idaho Halloween

Yes, I realize that Halloween was last week. But I’ve been thinking about my childhood experience of Halloween all week (as each day brings more rejected candy dumped out in the kitchen area at work).

I grew up in a small village (350 people on the sign at the outskirts of town) in southeastern Idaho, where my dad was the “sheriff.” Which says nothing about his job description. He was in fact the town employee. He plowed the snow, graded the roads, kept the city ball diamond groomed, the grade school playgrounds and parks watered and mowed, the weeds along the road down. He sent the water from the city well to be tested. He was the town dog catcher (known to take a gun and a dog to the town dump).

I loved Halloween--one of the most festive days of the year in our little town. Each year a Halloween “carnival” was held at the grade school. Costume parade, cakewalk, bobbing for apples, haunted house. Everyone gathered after kids had trick or treated around town. My misbehaving peaked at writing on windows with soap (never with wax which was pure evil to my dad).

My dad hated the night--the one night of the year he was most the sheriff, trying to bring a little peace, a little law and order.

Naughty boys (always boys as far as I ever knew) had a yearly ritual. Tip over outdoor toilets or put them on the roofs of sheds and barns in town. (No one really used outdoor toilets by the time I was a kid but many of them still existed on local property.) A canal flowed around the town. Bridges over the canal were made of wood. The second ritual of bad boys was to pile bales of straw on the bridges and set them on fire.

So my dad spent Halloween chasing kids away from the toilets and the bridges, pulling the toilets off sheds, covering up the nasty holes, putting out the fires on the bridges and scattering the straw along the graveled road.

My memories of Halloween then: the excitement of the carnival (after the excitement of the candy and being just a little bit bad) and one very pissed off Dad!

Why no posts?

I ask myself from time to time why I managed to post as much as I did while I was off with Bev. Now an easy answer would be that I had more time. But that wouldn’t be true. I don’t really have all that much easy, computer time when I’m with Bev. She certainly doesn’t get computers. And if I’m just sitting there and it is daytime, then from her view I’m being really annoying. We aren’t walking, we aren’t driving, we aren’t drinking soda, we aren’t shopping. These are activities she gets. Sitting with a small thing on my lap, ignoring her. This she doesn’t get.

So why did I write then, and I don’t write now. I used to write in the evenings, mostly when Bev was sleeping. So now I come home from work, but I don’t write.

Some random thoughts on this mystery. During that time my brain was able to slow down enough to daydream, muse, contemplate, think. It wasn’t assaulted with external assaults and requirements. At work, I spend my time “thinking”--but it’s quick, short, tactical, high pressure. When I come home at night my brain is swimming. Nothing settles out that is working spending more time on. In fact I spend my time holding these quick, intense thoughts at bay.

So I guess my evenings are mostly spent trying to send my brain into a loop that doesn’t assault me, hassle me. That’s the mode my work brings upon me. So what do I do? Read e-mail. Read the blogs of kids and friends. Watch TV. (Watching movies usually seems like too much of a commitment.) Download audiobooks. Wash dishes. Listen to audiobooks as I fall to sleep. Keep my brain, my thoughts at bay.

This is not good. I’ve always thought of my brain as my friend, not my hassler (torment is way too dramatic here). So this means that I need to find a way out of the return of my current life patterns. Life tires my brain. This not helping.

Bev and the Fabulous Four

Last night I had a first-time event: a sleepover with Bevin plus ALL of my daughter Sarah’s kids: Anna (8), Clara (6), Sam (4), Isaac (4). I had done halvsies--Bevin plus 1 girl and 1 boy.

It was a great night and pretty much a success. But I learned a few things. About my grandkids. And about Bev.

The grandkids. They are pretty self-contained, interesting little people. I have a few routines that always succeed: legos, On Demand (Tom and Jerry are the biggest hit, with Angelina Balerina a close second), pancake breakfast, chocolate chip cooky dough, Diggedy Dog, Green Lake. Diggedy Dog is half a block up the street: menu headlines hot dogs (actually the little diggedy and the big diggedy), chips, drinks, little tables, lots of toys, photos of dogs on the wallks, pictures of dogs on the wall drawn by children (including Clara and Anna). Green Lake is a wonderous park a block from my house (three miles around the edge of a lake, with docks, playgrounds, cool little eddies along the way); today Sam and I watched an elderly Asian man catch a little fish. Let the kids watch TV long enough and they will fall asleep. Everything else is easy.

Bevin. She was actually most challenged by the weekends. She loves hanging out with the little kids. But she is a person unmoored by folks, events that show up in the wrong place. She spends a night every weekend with these kids (Sunday and primary in the middle). But this weekend she discovered the kids in the middle of her weekend with Mommy. And she wasn’t always quite sure how to manage.

First. Watching TV in the evenings. Mom and Bev settle down on the couch, Bev’s head on Mom’s lap and a blanket over her head. On Saturday: the couch was full, the blankets were taken, and no place for both Mom and Bev to veg (and they were cackling over Tom and Jerry, who had heard of such a thing).

Next. Sleeping. She sleeps in her bed in the basement, wakes up in the middle of the night, goes to the bathroom, and climbs into bed for a cuddle with Mommy. Well on Saturday: she couldn’t go to bed in the basement. She was suppoed to go to bed in Mommy’s bed.

(I finally got her to sleep by giving her a soda, turning on Barney on the couch upstairs once the others had gone to bed. She sipped her soda, watched Barney. And very soon, she was ready to get into bed with Mommy.)

The morning: (By the way, we had a fine, long, cuddly, night. She didn’t get up in the middle of the night, and she got up late. . . .) it was fine at first, we got up, she bathed, I fixed her breakfast, and she asked me to turn on Barney, her favorite. But before you knew it, the couch was full with girls watching Barney. Bevin always sits on the couch, at the right as she watches Barney. Girls were sitting there. And that was just TOO much.

The secret to finding the calm, happy Bevin. She and I went on a short walk, to the little market up the street, she chose herself from the coller a Dr. Pepper. We walked home. She took up her familiar hanging out on the front parking strip. And all was pretty much well.

There were other “challenges” to Bev’s day. But you get the drift. The world should be predictable. Many of us probably hope for that as Bevin does. But she is unforgiving. She does expect her world to resolve itself into familiar happy routines. . . . . . My job. Her bliss.

Weekend mornings

Bevin doesn’t seem to understand that people sleep in on weekends. She tends to get up early in the morning (3:00 to 5:00), come upstairs and go to the bathroom, then climb in bed with me. All to the good. We go back to sleep. . . . for a while. . . . .

I can tell when her night is over. She sits up in bed. I have my back to her. She stares at me, and stares at me. I ignore her. I pull the blanket back around me, maybe over my head. She watches for a while. I can feel the staring eyes. And then she moves to the next step. Pulls the blanket back, more staring. And then she finally makes her move.

She reaches over and pinches my nose.

At that point, I know it’s all over. If she decides to get up on her own--that’s not good. She may start cleaning surfaces, trashing things. So I take notice. I reward the nose pinching (I do know that). I look at her.

She’s still sitting there cross legged. Watching me. And she smiles. She knows she has me. I smile too. With luck, it’s 8:00 (rare), once it was 9:00 (miraculous). Usually it’s more like 7:00. Alas, at times it’s 6:00.

But the day begins, with a smiling companion. Which goes a long way. . . . .

Gangster endings. . . . . . . . . . . . .

So I don’t think I’ve ever watched a complete episode of the Sopranos. Couldn’t tell you whether I’ve ever watched any of the Sopranos. But of course it’s been in the background noise of popular culture for years. So right now I’m watching the final episode of the Sopranos. Why? Who could resist. The coverage. And I saw a replay of the ending. You see, that’s something I have spent time thinking about over the past two decades: endings. From what I could tell watching news accounts of this final episode, this was a protypical version of the protypical modern/postmodern ending. Don’t give them an ending. Give them play, ambiguity. Let the reader write the ending. I’m still waiting to watch this ending, but I suspect that from what I’ve heard about this ending, the “appropriate” response is laughter. This is in your face, a parody, an exaggeration, the kind of stereotype that makes you take notice. I’m told, from the news tonight, that many readers are outraged, others feel that they know the secret,, others like me are laughing. Can’t say I’m an expert on the Soprano--remember I’ve never watched them--so who knows whether I’m scratching the surface or outing my ignorance.

So why does this even intrigue me? Make me pause? Okay, I didn’t finish a doctoral dissertation on endings. But more importantly, I have spent the background reading of my past few months on a very big book. I can’t take it on planes. I can’t take it in my purse. It’s often difficult to cart into situations where I might read. So in the short run, I listen to audiobooks and read (page by page) shorter, more compact books. The big, heavy book:(916 hardback pages): Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra. A book by an Anglo-Indian writer. A book about a ganster and a cop.

I’m still watching this final episode of Sopranos. But I can see that this series and my book have themes, narratives in common. Family, religion, ethnicity, women, children, the banality of crime. . . . . . . I don’t know how my Indian book ends. Why do I care? And why do I think this has anything to do with the Sopranos.

At my work (at a software company where I do documentation), I work with our documentation team in India. I read (and listen via audio books which are wonderful because of the accents) quite a bit of Anglo-Indian literature. I spent two very painful weeks with our new “manager” in India--aspiring to success in an American company, he’s against Ghandi (our American hero), he celebrates Valentines day, he’ll eat anything (no vegetarian he), and he drove me cracy. In other words, I’m invested in endings, in reading, in India.

So the Sopranos is not yet over, playing in the background. Does any of this mean anything. Can’t say. Stay tuned. Sopranos? Indian policeman and ganster. Stay tuned. . . .

Elizabeth Rose Oman

I’m a proud grandma (again, how lovely). This baby is a miracle.

You can learn about what Mom went through for Elizabeth Rose at her blogs:
Mormon Mommy Wars
Living with PKD


On her birth:
Her mom at Mormon Mommy Wars

Her dad at Times and Seasons

Heather's sister at Mommy Mormon Wars