New Year's Goals

It looks like I haven't given up completely. It's 2010, finally, and I am hoping things will be looking up. 2009 was not kind to us. Bruce lost his job because his plant closed down. After over 30 years in the envelope industry he had to search for something new in a new industry.

He's finally found something. It's a big step back financially, and there are no benefits. But we're considering it an internship, and hoping that if he proves his worth by September, when our COBRA discount is about to run out, they might be willing to work something out so he can have decent benefits for the family and be able to continue on there.

So the first big goal for 2010 is to get back on our feet financially and at least get back to where we were before the plant closing and the layoff.

My personal goal is to find a full time job with benefits, or else to raise my consulting rates to the point where I can afford to pay for benefits for the family.

Another goal is to continue fighting for healthcare for all Americans. We need Medicare for everyone, and any spare time I have I'd like to devote to this cause.

Jason's goals for this year are a part time job, achieving his A.A. degree, and starting towards his B.A. in the fall.

We're ready to take on 2010, but I certainly hope it will be a kinder year for everyone. I'm sure glad to see the back of 2009.

Should Dreamscapes Retire?

I'm thinking about hanging this blog up and going for one that's more targeted. While I won't erase it, it's got some great memories recorded, I may grab some old posts and move them into a new, improved blog.

It's time to come up with a new title, a real focus, and a way to get some attention through social networking. Posting every six weeks or thereabouts is not going to get this blog noticed.

Some of my areas of expertise and/or interest are:

Frugal living (isn't everyone these days?)
Changing careers & job hunting
Grant writing
Causes: LGBT rights, especially youth
Health Care reform
I'm interested also in books and read a great deal, also in animal protection, human rights and other topics. What to choose??
That's going to be my question to ponder for the time being.

How to Conduct An Interview

Recruiters, take heed. There are millions of job seekers out there, and we’re comparing notes.

Sure, the economy is supposedly recovering, but meanwhile job losses continue and the official unemployment rate is climbing towards 10 percent. That means work for you is down too, and many recruiters have received pink slips. At one recruiting agency for nonprofit organizations, every time I call, I hear another staff person has left.

So for those of you who remain standing through all this chaos, it’s imperative that you do your job well. This includes treating potential recruits with respect.

We may be a dime a dozen, but we’ve got more than one avenue for job hunting. We’ve studied up on the job market and we know which fields are in demand. Some of us have taken courses on writing better resumes and cover letters. Because this is the worst period of unemployment and general economic shakiness since the Great Depression, we’ve prepared ourselves for the job market as never before.

So please, don’t give us unsolicited advice about fixing up our resumes. If we’re having trouble getting interviews, we’ll ask for help. Don’t take it on yourselves to reformat or rewrite our resumes. One recruiter insisted my resume had to fit onto one page, and left out important information about my most recent positions in order to make it fit. Others drop the font until you’d need a microscope to read it. It’s a resume, not a Procrustean bed, folks!

An interview should help the recruiter elicit a candidate’s experience and positive traits. Ask the right questions to get these answers. Nit-picking at the resume and asking why we left our last three positions may be relevant, but if you fail to balance these questions with questions such as, “Describe your greatest achievement,” “What do you like most about (occupation),” or “How would you deal with this situation…” you’re not letting us put our best feet forward. That’s a loss to you, and a loss to the organization on whose behalf you are interviewing candidates. By being too zealous about making the candidate justify her years as a stay-at-home Mom, or questioning every achievement as if you are conducting a cross-examination with a hostile witness, you’re letting the good ones slip away under your radar.

Please don’t tell an older candidate to drop his college graduation date off the resume. We’ve read the pros and cons, and the decision to leave it in and face possible ageism is not an oversight. You aren’t the expert on his job search: he is. His next prospective employer could interpret the lack of a graduation date as evasiveness about his age or even put his claim to a degree in doubt.

In short, the more respectful and friendly you are, the more you establish rapport with a candidate rather than creating a back-room interrogation atmosphere, the better you’ll be able to elicit the candidate’s best examples of her skills and experience. Try this approach and you’ll find more potential employees for your clients. The bottom line? That’s more money in your pocket.

And remember, what goes around comes around. Treat us with respect, and we’ll keep in touch. When that pink slip comes your way, one of your former recruits might just point you towards your next position.

A Song for Healthcare Reform

This is roughly to the tune of Meat Loaf's "Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth." Unfortunately my singing voice frightens the horses. I'm hoping someone who can play an instrument and sing might adopt this and use it at rallies.

The doctor said you needed a new operation
Well the doctor said you needed a pill
The insurance man said, No, you can't have that
Stay healthy or just go to hell!

The doctor said, without this treatment you're dead
There was nothing else they could do
So we sold off our house and we sold off our stuff
Almost sold off our firstborn too
Then we lost our jobs, no more insurance
Everything we worked for was gone
The emergency doctor said, we'll take care of you
But you didn't get here fast enough
You died in the ER, you died in the ER,
The insurance man laughed and said, Tough!

We gotta break their power, we gotta take back our lives
We gotta make the US join the first world
We gotta have single payer
Before we're all dead
Pass the public plan today, single payer tomorrow
Fight on for the people, fight on for the people, win it, win it now for Ted!

I've posted this on Facebook and sent it to Moveon.org. I hope it will be useful, because protest songs can really get people going. That's my contribution to the movement!

Health Care Rally in Times Square

Bruce and I attended the rally for Healthcare Reform in Times Square this afternoon. I think there were more than the 1,000 people the media is reporting, but anyhow, we were a lively and spirited crowd. Bruce and I were right near the barricades, so we held our signs up facing the passing cars. Taxi drivers were especially happy to see us and honked their horns, even jumping out of their cabs at the red lights to take some of our flyers. Most of the tourists on the double decker buses seemed to support us also.

I'm convinced that more people support the public option and even single payer health care than the media is reporting. It's just that we may not be as vocal as we need to be. It's hard to get people to turn out to demonstrations, especially on a day where it rained in the morning. But I wore my poncho and went, rain or shine.

There was lots of positive energy at this rally and I hope we can continue to build on this energy and create a groundswell.

"Be Careful With My Heart," POP Arts at Hetrick-Martin

After our visit to the Zoo, we headed into Greenwich Village to see a POP Arts show at The Hetrick-Martin Institute. POP Arts stands for Peers Outreaching to Peers, and the program educates young people about safe sex, STI and HIV prevention, and facts about STI's and HIV/AIDS. They also learn acting techniques and scriptwriting, and together they write their own play to inform other youths about what they have learned.

This year's show was a stunner. Called, "Be Careful With My Heart," it portrayed just about every kind of relationship: straight, gay, lesbian, and bisexual. Kids of various orientations attended a party where couples went off to bedrooms together, and heavy consequences resulted. There were breakups, there was risky sex, heartbreak and betrayal. Yet there was also a lot of built-in comedy so that the show was anything but grim.

One young woman sang a beautiful song, and there was a hot and humorous dance number. This is a talented bunch of young people coming to terms with different sexuality and with the hormonal ups and downs of horny teenagers. After the show, the performers answered questions from the audience. Many people were so touched that happy tears were shed. It was truly a moving and educational performance.

I was particularly struck by the dilemma one young woman faces. She is Muslim, and their tolerance of gays and lesbians is slim to none. I had to admire her courage in coming to Hetrick-Martin and taking part in this show, and I hope it will not blow up in her face if her father ever finds out what the show was all about.

Hetrick-Martin accomplishes so much with kids who would otherwise fall by the wayside. I'm proud to be associated with this great organization.

Thursday at the Zoo

We visited the Bronx Zoo to celebrate Jason's 20th birthday. Thanks to his summer job, he was able to get all of us in for free and get us a 30% discount on lunch as well.

The animals were great. I enjoyed seeing many baby animals: a little lemur named "Cupid" because he was born on Valentine's Day, a baby giraffe, and a baby flamingo. Peacocks roam the Zoo grounds at will, and we got up close and personal with a peahen and her adorable chick. It's always fun to visit the zoo and learn some new facts about the animals there.

Don't Believe the Scare Stories

It amazes me that people are believing the Republicans and the big insurance companies who are bending over backwards to stop a public health care option. They're shaking in their shoes believing that the government is going to decide who lives and who dies.

Guess what, people, wake up! Right now that's exactly what the insurance companies are doing. Not to mention the people who don't have insurance coverage, either because they are out of work (realistically, close to 20% of us when you count the underemployed and those who have given up) or because their employers simply don't choose to provide it. They're skipping doctor visits and taking half doses of needed medication. And guess what else, our infant mortality rates are the highest and our life expectancy rates are the lowest, in the industrialized world.

Even if you have insurance coverage, a layoff will do away with it. And even if you have insurance coverage, your necessary treatment could well be denied, even though it could save your life. So who is deciding whether you live or die? Not your doctor, that's for sure.

Back in the sixties, a cousin of mine was having a terrible struggle to have a healthy child. She had one miscarriage after another. Nobody's fault, right?

Wrong. She and her husband moved to the Netherlands so he could take a job there and complete a Ph.D. The Netherlands happen to have -- gasp -- socialized medicine. My cousin was placed on complete hospital bedrest for months of her pregnancies, and gave birth to three healthy children who are now young adults. Not one of them would have been born in the US where months of hospitalization would have been prohibitively expensive. I don't even think anyone suggested it to her as an option, here in the good old USA, best damn country in the world...except when it comes to taking care of our people.

Sure, there will have to be cuts, so how about if we cut down on unnecessary tests and on unnecessary procedures? Why does the U.S. have a disproportionately high number of caesarian section births? How about cutting back on that and having more natural childbirths? We can certainly trim expenses without harming anybody.

It's time to stop listening to the lies of greedy people who would rather snap up your money and let you die in a ditch, than see you cared for at the government's expense. It's time to insist that we catch up to the civilized world and take care of all our people...rich, poor or middle class, from the cradle to the grave, no exceptions.

Leaving a Bad Situation

Consulting has a glamorous ring to it, but there's a down side as well. It's not steady work, and you sometimes have to be very aggressive in collecting your fees. Then there are the situations that should never arise.

I made the mistake of accepting a consulting position with an organization that had very little money. I knew they had almost nothing in advance, because I looked up their 990. But they promised me 15 to 20 hours of work a week, and I gave them a discount because they are a small organization.

That won't happen again. From now on, I will insist on being paid what I am worth; otherwise they can take their business elsewhere.

I also agreed to give them 15 hours of pro bono time to "get acclimated." If I had known that they were not going to stick with their original agreement, this also would never have happened. I certainly will not ever do it again.

All along, I was having constant conflict with the Executive Director, Z. Every time I asked a question she would throw some papers at me and tell me I had all that I needed, she needed to get her work done and I had to be a "big girl" and become independent. This is not the way to get a new consultant off to a good start. She also wanted to throw a number of proposals out the door, on the advice of a consultant with many years of experience.

When I investigated the targeted foundations, I found that almost all of them were a waste of time (and money). Most did not actually give to their cause. Some did but gave only out of state. Others had suspended grants because they were suffering as a result of the economic downturn. In fact, only one or two were viable choices, out of twelve. However, I continued to receive pressure to "tweak" the template proposal, a general operating support proposal that was requesting a huge amount of money to completely staff this tiny little volunteer organization, and shove it out the door.

Knowing this would not bring them any money, I was reluctant to follow through. I also received continual comments on just about everything, even whether I walked fast enough for Z., who claimed she had become a "real New Yorker" because she zips down the street at top speed.

Finally, I saw that the first week I was "on the clock," I actually was given only 8 hours of work, and when I asked where my 15-20 hours were, Z. told me that she could not afford to pay me for more than 5 hours a week because they "have no money."

Didn't they know that when they hired me?

I told her she really can't afford me, and should hire a student intern to do the work. A student would not be able to do the same quality of work, but since the organization seemed focused on quantity rather than quality, that shouldn't matter. Z. countered by asking if I were willing to take a reduction in my hourly rate so that she could give me more hours.

Wrong!

On Thursday I gave her my invoice for the 8 hours of work and quit. We had some harsh words; she is volatile and makes personal attacks. However, when she calmed down I suggested that she close down the organization and turn it into a program within some other, better funded nonprofit.

In any case, next time, I will not accept an assignment from an organization that has a tiny budget, especially one that has been incorporated for 8 years and is still not solvent. I'll know, next time, that there's a reason they have not been successful, and that I'm not going to be the one to pull them out of the morass they have made for themselves.

Salute to Pregnancy

The New York Metro published a photo of pregnant women walking the bases at Keyspan Park, home of the Brooklyn Cyclones. This was a "Salute to Pregnancy." Apparently any woman who names her baby "Brooklyn" or "Cy" will receive season tickets for free.

Gee, that seems like a wonderful reason to saddle a helpless baby with a name that will embarrass him for the rest of his life. Cy isn't too bad, but Brooklyn? I thought the 60's were over and we weren't giving our kids stupid names like "Moon Unit," "God," or "Freedom" anymore.

And maybe I'm being a curmudgeon, but why are we celebrating pregnancy at a time when money is so tight? Is this really a great time to be bringing more kids into the world, when families are already struggling to feed the mouths that are already here? I don't get it. Anyone who is pregnant right now got pregnant, at the earliest, last November when the economy was already tanking. It surely wouldn't have been my choice; I'd wait until there was a better economic picture. But, I guess I have always been too sensible.

Maybe it's just a function of more people being out of work and attending the "poor man's opera" because they are home all day anyhow. After all, 9 months after the Buffalo Blizzard of 1977, there was a bumper crop of babies and one hospital in Buffalo gave the newborns tiny tee shirts that said, "Blizzard Baby."

Or maybe I shouldn't be so critical. Maybe having a baby is a way of expressing hope, that the recession will pass and prosperity will return. I sure hope it does so all these babies (and I've seen more pregnant women this year than I have in a long time) will have the food, clothing and shelter they need to grow and thrive.

Big Bucks

Today, AM NY reported that a man who bought a pack of cigarettes received a whomping $23.1 quadrillion charge on his credit card bill.

Sure, it's ridiculous, and he doesn't have to pay, along with the others who suffered a similar glitch. But maybe it was a sign to him, that smoking cigarettes is much, much more expensive than the price of the pack. It might well cost him something worth more than quadrillions of dollars: his life.

The Bay News had a charming photo of Duke, one of the Aquarium's sea lions, giving a "sea lion kiss" to a young lady. The caption read that sea lion kisses are being sold as fundraisers for the New York Aquarium, at $200 a pop. $200? Wait a second! I happen to know that the real cost is $20. What a big blooper for the Bay News, whose proofreaders didn't catch that extra zero.

Then again, if some rich folks decide to buy $200 kisses, maybe the Bay News has done the Aquarium a big favor. It happened to me in my early days as a fundraiser: I tacked on an extra zero to a renewal request of a man who'd sent an unsolicited gift of $100 the year before. My boss chewed me out and told me to be more attentive to details, but the letter asking him to renew his gift of "$1000" had already been mailed. He sent the $1,000, and the next year he sent $10,000. So, we can only hope that this typo will turn into a windfall for the Aquarium.

Duke should only know that his kisses are 24-carat.

David's Dad

Last Thursday, the day Bruce was laid off after 23 years at National Envelope Corporation, we had a phone call we missed until early Friday morning. My childhood friend, David, called to say his father passed away.

Max was a quiet man. I remember him well but I never felt I knew him all that well. David's mother was the one involved with the children the most, so I remember her personality much more clearly.

What I do remember about Max is that he was a sheet metal worker who changed careers, becoming an elementary school teacher instead. At that time, the mid-sixties, this was just about unheard of. I knew people who had one job their whole working lives. Certainly, my Dad had the one job at Regal Emblem Company, polishing and electroplating costume jewelry and emblems. He was offered the chance to get a government job and turned it down, afraid of change.

But Max wasn't afraid. He had a dream and he followed his dream. Sometimes the kids gave him aggravation, but he must have been very happy that he made that change. In any case, his bold move stayed with me. When I changed careers, jumping out of legal publishing into fundraising, it was his example I followed. If he could do it at a time when it just wasn't done, how much easier would it be for me?

Max and Muriel raised three good human beings, and that's the highest achievement a parent can reach. So long, Max, I'll remember you.

Hot Dog!

Yesterday Bruce and I went to Coney Island to check out the Nathan's Hot Dog eating contest. I never realized that this famous July 4th tradition originated in 1916, the year my mother was born. We could hardly see the stage, but we could watch the proceedings on the ESPN screen.

Unfortunately the contest was supposed to start at noon but did not begin until about 12:50 PM and we just had other things to do. So we left before the contest started and got home while it was in progress. I got a laugh out of some of the contest rules, especially the one that said a contestant would be disqualified for "Reversal of Fortune." The contestants were called "Gurgitators," another one of those nonexistent words, sort of like "sheveled." Chucking up recycled hot dogs is a no no! One of the ESPN newscasters put hot dogs, mustard and ketchup into a blender and then took a swig of liquified frankfurter! Hilarious and yucky.

The crowd was taking sides; some rooting for Chestnut (who became a 3 time champ by scarfing down 68 hot dogs this year) while others rooted for Kobiyashi and held up signs saying "Kobiyashi eats chestnuts for breakfast!"

Directly in front of us, a group of young people were wearing bright yellow tee shirts advertising "Thatsnotcool.com," a website educating kids about the dangers of cyberbullying and how to fight back against online harassment, stalking, etc. I enjoyed speaking with them.

While I was annoyed that we didn't get to see the actual contest, at least we did get to see the build up to it. There was quite a crowd and some of them probably had been there for hours. It was amusing and finally I can say we attended a world class sports event!

Mermaid Parade, 2009

Coney Island's "denizens of the deep" came out to play again this year at the start of summer. This year's Mermaid Parade began in the rain, but that didn't matter: mermaids don't melt!

They did, however, carry umbrellas and walk a lot faster than in previous years.

Before the parade began, I headed into a bar to use the facilities. There was a long line and I got talking with a gentleman wearing his hair in two pigtails, complete with teal streaks. He also wore a skirt fashioned from a transparent plastic tablecloth adorned with flowers. This was a clever way of keeping his legs dry in the rain, which was coming down pretty hard at that time. In the bar, I spotted Jennifer Miller, the bearded woman who runs Circus Amok (another one of my favorite entertainments).

We met Ferdinand on the bus heading over to the parade, but he was so intent on finding a good spot to stand that he got too far ahead of us. So we didn't stand together this year. However we met him again at the end of the parade.

I recognized a lot of the same faces from last year's parade. We saw the Elvis impersonator, the Parrot Man, the painted ladies, and of course Marty Markowitz, the Borough President, telling us we are all "meshugah" (crazy) and that this was the most undressed parade in town. (I've seen a lot of seminudity at the Pride parades too, though). The Polar Bear Club was there, along with the Rude Mechanical Orchestra, the Brooklyn Bombshells, and so on. There was the usual contingent of pirates, men in kilts, and mermaids with seashell or sea star pasties on their breasts. The costumes were up to their usual standard of wild, wacky, imaginative and sexy.

This year, Barnum and Bailey was there, but I wasn't so thrilled about that. The ASPCA has a lawsuit against them for violating the Endangered Species Act, and the circus's job application asked whether the applicant "is or has ever been" a member of PETA, The Humane Society, the ASPCA and other animal protection organizations. It smacked of the McCarthy Era and when I brought Jason's attention to it, he decided not to apply. Therefore I wasn't so happy to see the circus in the parade, even though the clown noses so many people wore were pretty cute. (Clown mermaids?)

The rain stopped after a while so that made it easier to take photos, but we had competition from the photographers who seemed to stop right in front of me every time a parader stopped and posed. There were so many photos I could have taken if they hadn't blocked my view. Still, I managed to take 930 photos and ruthlessly (!) chopped them down to a mere 291. Onward to the parade in 2010!

Star Trek: The New Movie

This time, it really is the next generation. All of the old actors from the original show have been phased out, except that Leonard Nimoy as the elderly Spock still had a part.

I thoroughly enjoyed this romp through space and time. It was pretty easy to tell who the bad guys were: they had pointy ears, deathly pale faces, and wore ugly, sharp-edged facial tattoos. Clear signs of villainy.

It was amazing witnessing the "birth" of James T. Kirk and then seeing him briefly as an adventurous and rowdy twelve year old rocketing around in an antique car (retooled from the 20th century!). I don't know cars so I would not attempt to describe the model but it clearly dated back to the early 1960's or even before. Most of the new actors fit perfectly into their roles as "baby" Kirk, Spock, Bones, etc. Uhura seemed a little older than the rest whereas on the original show she was either the same age as the captain or younger. Chekhov bore no resemblance to the original actor, but that didn't particularly bother me.

It was a fun movie, despite the destruction of Vulcan and the loss of Amanda, Spock's mother. I wonder if they will be able to go back in time and prevent these tragedies in a future episode. If so, or whatever they decide to do next, I'm up for it.

The last moments of the movie, light playing over the "brand new" original Enterprise, with the words, "Space...the final frontier..." as a voiceover, put a chill right down my baby boomer spine. And Generation Y'er Jason loved it as well. So did Bruce. All three of us recommend it highly.

Crisis: Danger and Opportunity

I've always heard that the Chinese character for "crisis" contains the characters for "danger" and "opportunity." Well, our family is in a crisis. On the Monday before Memorial Day, Bruce arrived at work to learn that the division he has worked at for 23 years is shutting down operations, and almost everyone except for a few family members and high ranking managers is being laid off.

So, we are all looking for work. I am hoping to become more visible as a freelance writer, even as I am seeking part time and full time employment. Bruce is looking for work in inventory control and purchasing, and Jason has many options either in animal care, clerical, or bookkeeping work.

Still, it's a scary proposition because so many well-qualified people have already lost their jobs. I hear unemployment has been extended out to 72 weeks now, but unemployment would not pay all our bills. So, we'd have to deplete savings until someone is back at work and able to support the family.

There's been a psychological toll, of course. We've all had interrupted sleep, and I managed to come down with some sort of bad cold or garden variety flu (not swine, thank goodness). The only up side to this is that I have not left my house since Monday, and therefore haven't spent any money.

This is going to be the real test of whether we can be frugal enough to get through a period of unemployment without sacrificing some fun and games.

What a week!

This has been an exciting week for me. The grant proposal I was writing for The Hetrick-Martin Institute has finally gone out and the initial feedback is good.

I've finally overcome a mild case of writer 's block, and wrote a piece yesterday on the Buffalo Blizzard of 1977, which I experienced as a 22 year-old law student. Do the math, and I've just given away my age! I'm saving that for December as a friend in Franklinville assures me that the Blizzard of '77 is still memorialized each January in the Buffalo newspapers. Maybe they'll be interested in my personal experiences as an out-of-towner who had never experienced anything quite so devastating as a blizzard that shut down a city for two weeks.

Yesterday I submitted two stories to various magazines, and I submitted a third on Monday.

Also yesterday, while I indulged in lunch at Burger King, I received a call from Youth at Risk, inviting me to work for them on a short term prospect research project next week. This is not the first time I've been offered contract work as a result of sending out a resume for a part time job, and it proves that organizations do in fact keep promising resumes on file.

So I am revved and optimistic about what's to come. The weekend should be fun; we are planning to visit the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition's "Color of Hope" art show in Red Hook on Saturday afternoon, and I have the Brooklyn Humanist Community Book Club on Sunday. I wish all my readers a wonderful weekend and week to come.

"The Mermaid Chair"

After reading The Secret Life of Bees I got Sue Monk Kidd's The Mermaid Chair and read that also. I enjoyed this book just as much.

It had elements of The Bridges of Madison County. Jessie's been married for twenty years and has a grown daughter in college. She's facing a mid-life crisis with her marriage gone stale, and is seeking something she's not sure of. At the same time, her mother, who has been steeped in excessive religiosity since Jessie's father died, has erupted into madness, cutting off her own finger.

Jessie goes to her mother without her husband Hugh, a psychiatrist and a bit of a know it all. The island she grew up on, Egret Island off the coast of South Carolina, has a peculiar custom. There's a monastery there to a St. Senara. Legend has it that this saint was a mermaid who converted to Catholicism, and became a saint. There's a carved "mermaid chair" kept at the church that is carried to the docks and used to bless the fleet on St. Senara's Day.

While she's trying to help her mother and to unravel the puzzle of her mother's self-destructive act, Jessie falls in love with one of the Benedictine monks, Brother Thomas, who has not yet taken his final vows. Jessie and Brother Thomas (Whit) find they have tragedy in common. Jessie's father died at sea when she was nine years old, supposedly blown to bits by a spark from the pipe she gave him. Jessie has lived with a terrible sense of guilt for all these years. Brother Thomas, a former attorney, has joined the monastery to escape from the pain of losing his wife and unborn daughter in a car crash.

The story is permeated by mermaid and siren symbolism and imagery, just as bees permeate the story of The Secret Life of Bees. Jessie, away from her husband and having instigated a separation, begins to find herself, to expand and be the artist she has always longed to be. She realizes that she has pushed herself into too small a space, always putting Hugh and their daughter first and her own amibitions and desires second. She's very similar to Francesca in Bridges in this respect.

The lovers are both "saved and damned" by their connection. Their brief affair forces them both to look at what they really want in life and what they have been hiding from. The mystery of Jessie's father's death is revealed, too, and brings a healing both to her and her mother.

I'm quickly becoming an avid Sue Monk Kidd fan, and I look forward to her future novels.

Bronx Zoo Photos

On April 26th we braved the 92 degree record-breaking temperature and visited the Bronx Zoo. While it was "too darn hot" to see all the attractions, we did manage to see a number of fascinating animals. Here are a few of them.

The Secret Life of Bees

In May our Book Club will discuss Sue Monk Kidd's "The Secret Life of Bees." This was a book that surprised me. Some of the works we have read have been way too depressing. This book is a book of hope.

It begins in the summer of 1964, at a critical juncture in the Civil Rights movement. Lily, fourteen years old, has bees living in the walls of her room. Her father, T. Ray, is neglectful and contemptuous of her. Lily's mother is dead, and her death is a source of Lily's shame and guilt, because she remembers just enough to believe she is the one who accidentally shot her mother to death at the age of four.

Their maid, Rosaleen, decides she is going to go and register to vote. That's controversialin the south where they live, and Lily foresees danger. She accompanies Rosaleen and it goes badly. Rosaleen is accosted by three very bigoted men and she retaliates by pouring snuff juice on their shoes. For this insult both she and Lily are hauled off to jail, and T. Ray bails Lily out but punishes her by making her kneel on raw grits. He calls them the "white Marthas" and I don't know what the origin of that expression might be, unless it's a contrast with the black Mary we meet later on in the story.

Lily has two mementos of her mother, a photograph and a portrait of a black Madonna. On the back is written, "Tiburon, SC." Coincidentally (not), her mother's name was Deborah, which means "bee."

Lily helps Rosaleen escape from the hospital where she is recovering from a savage beating by the three men who accosted her. They head to Tiburon just because Lily believes her mother must have once been there. In a grocery store, Lily sees a jar of honey with the same black Madonna on the label, and realizes the connection. She's led by this synchronicity to the home of the Calendar sisters, May, June and August.

August is the beekeeper who manufactures the Black Madonna honey. When Lily and Rosaleen arrive August welcomes them and allows them to stay with the family. She teaches Lily how to help with harvesting the honey and making the beeswax candles August sells to retailers across the country.

June, however, is not so welcoming. Her attitude to Lily is harsh at first. She makes Lily feel like an outsider in a black home when Lily is the one white person. Later, though, her attitude softens.

May, on the other hand, is so sensitive as to be dysfunctional. Anything that upsets her starts her singing,"Oh, Susanna," and running out to her "wall," a homemade "Wailing Wall" where she writes her sorrows and prayers, and puts them between the stones she has piled up there. There was a twin to May, named April, but April could not stand the restrictions and humiliations of racism, and she committed suicide as a teenager.

In this home, Lily begins to flourish as a young woman should. She learns beekeeping and she takes part in religious ceremonies where the sisters and their friends worship the black Mary, a ship's masthead that has become their holy icon. It's a blend of Catholicism and their own, woman-identified worship, that gives them all a feeling of strength and solidarity. One or two men take part in these ceremonies as well.

Lily meets Zach, the student who has been helping August since he started high school, and a tenuous, forbidden love starts to grow between them. In that era, in the deep south, there is no "place or time" for a black boy and a white girl. Yet they do have a few stolen moments, apparently condoned by the other women. Zach is determined to become a lawyer and fight for civil rights, a determination that is only strengthened when he is jailed unfairly for supposedly throwing a bottle or rock at the police.

The bees, their honey, and their secret lives, as they work for and tend the queen,become a metaphor for the family that Lily has discovered. She has found her hive, with the sweetness of love. The black Mary has become her loving mother, the one she has yearned for, the one whose love she has missed out on all her life.

The symbolism of honey, bees, and the black Mary permeate the book. Synchronicities abound, and Lily discovers that her mother did indeed stay at the sisters' home when she ran away from T. Ray. Even Lily's name has a symbolic meaning.

T. Ray tracks her down and tries to force her to come back to the peach farm with him. Legally he has that right, but it turns out that August and the other women are able to convince him to let Lily stay. She's lived through May's suicide, June's marriage, and she's learned the full story about her mother. She's found her hive and her queen bee, and she's ready to become a woman.

I enjoyed this book immensely with its spiritual overtones, with the majesty of the downtrodden, "like royalty among us," as Lily says. Even with Zach, there is a bit of hope because they walk together in the halls of the white high school where he has boldly enrolled, and ignore the taunts and crumpled paper students throw at them.

Honey is a healing agent: that's recently been "discovered" though people closer to the earth have probably known it for centuries. Synchronicity and following her heart leads Lily to Tiburon where she finds her heart's desire.

Read this book!It's not brand new, and I missed it when it was, but if you missed it the first time around now is the time to read and savor it. This seems to be a book designed to be read during the summer heat, set as it is in the sweltering Carolina summertime.