More mental clutter

So, I’ve been collecting an assortment of odd thoughts again. And, as usual, this blog is where I get to dump them and see if they mean anything … or are just to remain odd thoughts.

Ode to a hornet’s nest

I was strolling along, really enjoying the brisk air and afternoon light, when I spotted this in a backyard tree just off the bike path. Biologically, hornets belong to the genus Vespa, the same name as the scooter that sounds so much like a hornet. Scooters are probably more fun, though. These colonies can have hundreds of worker hornets. I'm guessing this yard was not a fun place to be last summer.

So this got me thinking: either the folks who live here couldn’t locate the nest (which would have been hidden in the summer foliage) … or, they found it but decided not to destroy it. It’s easy to see the hornets as the villains and us as the victims. I’m allergic to these guys, so that makes it especially easy to see them as pests. But in truth, they belong here. It’s we who are the intruders. This got me thinking about my coyote … and the Sound Circle concert … and I found myself appreciating the fact that these folks left the nest despite the unpleasant moments its residents must have caused.

On moving slowly

On a totally different (totally different!) theme: I’ve been especially struck of late by how much longer it takes to do everyday things as I age. For instance, getting ready for bed—what a former nun friend called “evening ablutions” and I refer to simply as ‘blutions—used to be a 5-minute task. You change clothes, brush your teeth and wash your face, make a last pit stop, and get in bed. 

These days, it takes me about half an hour. Cleaning my teeth and washing my face, which used to be simple tasks, now have multiple elements that seem to accumulate with time. Also, a few steps have been added to the routine over the years: swallowing the day’s final handful of pills, lubricating what a friend’s child used to call “nozzles” to avoid nose bleeds, a final mouthwash to give a boost to aging teeth, and eye drops to lubricate aging eyes. Dang! Besides being slower, it sounds like I’m falling apart piece by piece!

So, everything takes longer … and now I know why retirement was invented.

The scoop on Gertrude Stein

And another switch of topic and mood:  I recently learned (apparently I'm slow on this) that during WWII, Gertrude Stein was connected in a variety of ways with the collaborationist Vichy government in France—the government installed after the Nazis occupied France. In some of her writings, she was clearly sympathetic to the Nazi mission. I gather that Stein scholars have long speculated about how she and her "longtime companion," Alice B. Toklas, managed to live safely in southern France during WWII. They were very out Jewish lesbians at a time when both of these identities were explicit targets of the planned Nazi purge.

I must admit that I thought about this issue only slightly as I read a biography of the two, Two Lives by Janet Malcolm, several years ago. At the time, I guess I was more intrigued by their relationship and how it survived. Anyway, that book asked in passing and this more recent work explores more directly the glaring question: Might her collaboration with this government explain why they survived?

And then we are left with the question: Should this matter to our overall judgment of Stein’s life, her work, and her place in women’s and lesbian literature? 

Who knew?

Here’s an interesting tidbit. Actress Hedy Lamar, known in her day (circa 1940s) as the “most beautiful woman in the world,” was a brilliant inventor on the side. Or maybe her acting was what was on the side. In fact, in 1942, she came to be co-holder of a patent on “spread spectrum radio,” a key technology that later morphed into cell telephones, WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS. If you’re into under-appreciated women and or/early techie stuff, check it out!

Correction to an earlier post:

New research out of Johns Hopkins shows that babies don’t lose track of the existence of objects when they’re out of sight. They may not remember the details of an object that has disappeared, but they apparently hold on to the idea that the object still exists even though they can’t see it anymore.

Nonetheless, I did lose my keys, and they weren’t in that pocket. Although as a helpful reader pointed out, the coyote might have been.

And, the finale ...

I had a lovely day with my partner's 9-year-old grandson, a total treat ... more on that another time.