Friday, March 28, 2008

Sunrise in Galveston

We made our way to Galveston Island for a short vacation over Easter. Our balcony looked right out on the gulf and the steady sounds of the surf were soothing to my stressed out ears. We watched the moon rise over the water on the first night, a beautiful sight difficult to capture with a camera, and we saw a sunrise the next morning that was just as beautiful, with the great orange sun lifting liquidly off the surface of the water before rising in a shimmer to light the new day. We soaked luxuriously in the condo hot tub several times, and declared that this might be something we’d enjoy having in our own home.

Galveston Island is an interesting place – culturally diverse with a history. There was a Battle of Galveston during the Civil War because of the importance of port access, and indeed we were able to wander across the island and see the port and the two cruise ships docked there on Sunday – a reminder of a previous trip we’d taken when we cruised down the Mississippi from New Orleans the very last year before Hurricane Katrina nearly destroyed it.

There are nuances of New Orleans in Galveston as well; old mansions, palms and elaborately branched live oak trees, an exotic feel that whispers of Bourbon Street but only the faintest of whispers. In March, the streets were relatively empty and seemed deserted – there was a chill off the ocean and it was not yet time for the crowds and the sunbathers. We walked along the famous Seawall, built after a terrible hurricane in 1900 took the lives of at least 6,000 island people who had no warning and in any case no quick way to escape the big waves—the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States. Three quarters of the buildings in Galveston were destroyed in this hurricane, and the town began building the seawall that now stretches for more than 17 miles along the Galveston coast. One edge of the seawall was a short walk from our condo. In inimitable Texas style, there were no guardrails to protect a heedless tourist from walking or biking right off the edge of the wall with quite a drop to the rocks below. No nanny state here in Texas; just keep your eyes peeled. I pondered the glaring contrasts of a state that could have produced both George W. Bush and Molly Ivins (who had the wit to first call GWB “Shrub” and “Dubya” and who I miss dearly during this election year).

We drove across a causeway to Pelican Island and talked to fishermen on the pier who showed us several whiting they had already caught that morning (too early for speckled trout, they said). Along the road on Pelican Island we encountered a strange sight – a huge burst of flame, emanating significant heat as it shot from its tower, and burning endlessly orange against the blue sky. Quite beautiful in its own way, but also alarming, some kind of burn off of natural gas from an oil derrick we were guessing. A telltale sign across the road proclaimed: Halliburton Corporation. Galveston is unapologetic about the “oil bidness;” a helicopter flew across the ocean and over our condo each day at about the same time, a courier for the offshore oil operations just barely visible by the red lights across the ocean.

We walked both ways along our beach several times during our stay and got a sense for the western, and less crowded, end of the island in an area called Jamaica Beach. We also explored the east end and the town, having Easter breakfast in the elegant Hotel Galvez. Restaurants were scarce on the west end of the island, but on the last night we visited a place called Woody’s with a weatherworn balcony that looked out over wetlands, water birds and the ocean. Woody’s served liquor only, no food, and was probably one of the grungiest dives I have visited in recent memory with a strong biker theme, a quarter pool table with decent cues, and smoking allowed anywhere you damn please. But the people were friendly and the young woman tending bar assured us that we could get food across the street in one of three restaurants, all good. One of these was closed altogether but we managed to make our way to The Captain’s Table where we indulged in fried seafood that neither of our waistlines needed, but why not? We were on vacation.

On our last day we visited Moody Gardens with its pyramids housing an aquarium and a rainforest with parrots. We turned pure tourist at that point and I took several pictures of fauna and flora including quite beautiful tropical birds and orchids. We lunched in the Moody Hotel and Resort where posters proclaimed that, should one wish, one could attend a program called Gospel by the Sea.

We were ready to come home after a few days, appreciative of the change of scene but glad to be back in our little house that now seemed spacious after the condo, and able to dine on food we cook ourselves which, we do say so ourselves, is 99% of the time far superior to anything we find in any restaurant regardless of how much we are willing to pay.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Bitches Get Stuff Done

Are you wondering what exactly Tina Fey said on Saturday Night Live the other night that made so many women shout, "right on!"? She was doing a commentary on the "News Update" segment and she said this:

Maybe what bothers me most if that people say that Hillary is a bitch...yeah, she is. So am I...You know what, bitches get stuff done...bitch is the new black!


So many times at work and elsewhere I've observed a core group of people working on various projects who communicate proactively, retain a sense of humor, collaborate on fresh approaches to long-standing problems, include other people and keep them informed, help each other accomplish things, find common ground, facilitate and resolve conflict, and think ahead, warning each other of upcoming potholes in the road. And the members of this core group, with very few exceptions, are women.

Many of these women are not shy about being assertive and striving to persuade others to their viewpoints. They sometimes even raise their voices a tad; they have high standards, and sometimes they interrupt to get a word in edgewise.

Some people call them (us) bitches. If that's what a bitch is I'm fine with being one, and voting for one as well.

Bitches get stuff done.

Saturday, March 1, 2008

Avalanche

I heard a song on the radio the other day by Shawn Colvin called “Shotgun Down the Avalanche” from her album “Steady On,” Columbia Records 1989. And now it is a bit of an earworm for me so I am writing about it to see if it cures the earworm. It starts out:

I’m riding shotgun down the avalanche,
Tumbling and falling down the avalanche.
So be quiet tonight, the stars shine bright
On this mountain of new fallen snow.
But I will raise up my voice into the void
You have left me nowhere to go.

This seems like a song about inevitability, in ability to control events. As far as I know, an avalanche can’t usually be controlled, other than perhaps the practice in Colorado and other states of using a shotgun to trigger one at safer and more alert moments. The song goes on:

Sometimes you make me lose my will to live
And just become a beacon for your soul.
The past is stronger than my will to forgive,
Forgive you or myself, I don’t know.

I’m riding shotgun down the avalanche,
Tumblin’ and fallin’ down the avalanche….
Words to songs have always been meaningful to me, and I probably have the lyrics to hundreds of songs lodged in my brain. Somehow this song reminds me of certain lessons that life keeps trying to teach me with mixed success:

  • I only have control over my own reactions.
  • Sometimes helping is robbery.
  • You can’t fix everything, no matter how good you are, and sometimes inaction is the best choice. But sometimes not. How do you know? Reach down into your heart and do what it tells you.
The avalanche is an apt metaphor. Stevie Nicks wrote a much-loved and much-covered song in her early twenties called “Landslide.” She wrote the song in Aspen, Colorado on the night before her dad's operation at the Mayo Clinic, at a time that for many reasons was a turning point for her career and her life. She had a lot going on--and it all converged at once in this song that questioned whether she could really make it to the next stage in the career and the future she had envisioned. She ended up deciding to stay with her music – and three months later on New Year’s Eve Fleetwood Mac called her.

She says about the song: “I realized then that everything could tumble, and when you’re in Colorado…you think avalanche. It means the whole world could tumble around us, and the landslide would bring you down…when you’re in that kind of snow-covered surrounding place, you don’t just go out and yell, because the whole mountain could come down on you.”


Landslide
by Stevie Nicks

I took my love, I took it down.
Climbed a mountain and I turned around.
And I saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills
‘Til the landslide brought me down.

Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons in my life?

Well, I’ve been afraid of changing
‘Cause I’ve built my life around you.
But times make you bolder, even children get older,
And I’m getting older too.

Oh, take my love, take it down.
Aha, climb a mountain and turn around.
And if you see my reflection in the snow covered hills
Well, the landslide will bring it down.
And if you see my reflection in the snow covered hills
Well, the landslide will bring it down.