Popeye Got it Right

Maybe you have heard it to many times, (or maybe you have said it to someone,) "You are too..."
The next word might be one of the following:

Manly, feminine, mental, dumb, intellectual, feminine, masculine, girly, butch, fat, thin, sensitive, insensitive, negative, optimistic, pessimistic, shy, withdrawn, happy, not happy...
Or, it may be something else.

The point is someone is trying to judge another based upon their own opinion of what they consider "normal." People often like to put labels and categorize others and say what is normal, like they are the keepers of the yardstick of normalcy. Maybe they have had it done to them and have had their own individuality repressed and feel threatened by people not afraid to express their own uniqueness.
In reality, we are all as different as snowflakes or zebra stripes or fingerprints. As long as we are not hurting or oppressing others we should cherish that which makes us unique. We are entitled to having and expressing our own feelings and lifestyles as long as we are not hurting others.
Yes, as individuals we have a right to choose whom to spend time with, our friends, our lovers, our life partners. But, we do not have a right to judge others and/or chastise them for being themselves.
I have a male friend who got emotional and started to cry and another male friend told him to "man up!"
That just rubbed me the wrong way. People have a right to be sensitive no matter their gender.
When I think of this I think of Amelia Earhart who said, "Women must try to do things as men have tried." Amelia Earhart was controversial in her time. (Even I remember when some folks believed it was improper and not "normal" for women to work in men's professions.)
Most enlightened people today know that particular sexist attitude is incorrect. Yet, I have heard men who think of themselves as enlightened (and even women working in male dominated fields) complain of men whom they judge as not being masculine enough. Hey folks, even though it's different, it's the same thing. It's sexism folks.
Popeye got it right! Let people be themselves.

Life and Loss

Marie being given Easter candy on Easter - April 15, 1979.

This day is an anniversary. It’s an anniversary of a loss, the loss of a best friend; my friend Marie had an unexpected heart attack and died on this day in 2009. She was 55.

I know I am not alone in suffering loss, it is one of the things we all experience. Suffering, after all, is the first of the noble truths. All forms of life are impermanent and constantly changing, we constantly have to let go of that which we love. Loss is suffering. People pass from our lives in many ways. As universal as loss is, I also think all looses are unique. Like fingerprints; we all have fingers, but each fingerprint is unique.

My parent’s died in my 20’s, my first wife in my 30’s, my sister in my 40’s and Marie in my 50’s. Yet, I know folks who have had a lot worse. I know folks who lost children or who had their families decimated in war and the holocaust.

As I write this the Grateful Dead song, Ripple is playing on the stereo:

There is a road, no simple highway,
Between the dawn and the dark of night,
And if you go no one may follow,
That path is for your steps alone.

Loss, experiencing and dealing with loss, is a part of life. We all are wounded and some wounds never heal. That reality is common even if each loss, like each love, is unique. We all die; but love endures. The love that is in our hearts is eternal.

Compromise and Marriage

Compromise is the way adversaries come to mutual terms of understanding. In my opinion it is an adversarial process. When I here people say, "marriage is about compromise" it rankles me. Compromise, to me, is about competition. When you compromise you agree to find a balance of winning and losing. To me marriage is about cooperation, being on the same team. One person's problem is both people's problem. You don't compromise in a marriage. You build and work together. You are the team. Your goal in a marriage should be to both win, not to find a balance of winning and losing.
This process may involve compromise; but it's a win-win process - it's not what marriage is about.

Maria

Maria and youngest son Nick at Nick and Kristina's wedding, Sept. 8, 2012

My wonderful, wonderful friend. Maria.

Maria was my neighbor in Patterson, CA, then population 8,000, in the early 1990s. She was then a single mom with three young sons of her own. My first wife Candy used to babysit Maria's sons. Maria and Candy had been friends. After Candy died, in April 1991, I was suddenly a single father with a 180 mile, four hour a day, commute from Patterson to San Jose and back.

Maria became a huge part of my life. She watched my sons, drove my cars, took the kids to school and came and went in my house right up until I moved to San Jose. We were best friends.

Maria would walk in the front door without knocking, that was normal for us. Sometimes she might just walk in and borrow my muffin pans and leave. Other times she would come over with her three boys and she and I would make dinner together with our combined six sons. Like a big family we would all hang out, talk and laugh until bed time for the boys.

She is a wonderful, lively woman. Everybody in Patterson, knew Maria. She has this amazing outgoing down to earth personality that makes folks want to get to know her. Plus, she has this infectious laugh that I could hear from my house, about 200 feet from hers, on warm summer nights when all our windows were open.

Until I met Sue, Maria was the lady of my house. When I met Sue, and Maria met Mike, the family expanded to include our partners and Mike's son Gene.

Leaving all that behind was the hardest part of moving from Patterson to San Jose for me. But, we still remained close friends. Maria did Susie's hair at both our wedding and my middle son Jeff's wedding. I photographed Maria and Mike's wedding.

The funny thing is; I always thought I got the better end of the deal and felt sad that I was not able to give back to her and her kids anywhere near as much as she gave to me and mine. Now, 20 years later, all the boys are grown men. My older sons are now the age I was then.

It was not until September of 2012, when Sue and I went to Maria's youngest son Nick's wedding, that her sons expressed how happy they were to see me and how much I had helped them and how much my sons and our big crazy patched together family we had then still meant to them now. My heart melted and I was in tears.

I could not have made it back then, as a single dad, without my female friends; especially Maria. I love her and always will.

Halfway to my goal

Some of my friends do not know this, but I used to be 325 pounds. That was around 25 years ago. I started loosing weight as a life choice, literally. The key to me for loosing weight was not just going on a diet and exercising, it was looking inside and coming to grips with the issues that led me to gain the weight in the first place. I had to ask, "why had I chosen to gain the weight?"
That is why most diets fail I think. I think many people, such as me, choose unconsciously to put a layer of insulation as a shield between themselves and the outside world. I remember after I lost the weight feeling terribly exposed and vulnerable; even physically cold.
I remember back in the early 90's, even before the death of my first wife in a car accident, feeling like I was transported to a strange planet. The easy thing to do would have been to go home, to food. Frankly, it was very hard not to. For awhile, especially after the car accident, I was a loose cannon.
Now, here and today: This time my goals are smaller. I am halfway to shedding 34 pounds. But, the process is similar. Because, you see, it is not about how many pounds you have or about eating less and exercising more. That is the process, the tool. In my opinion what you are really doing is changing your life, becoming a different person, recreating your identity and sense of self.
Lacking that, I believe most diets are doomed to fail. Because, I think, they miss the point. It's easier to change your diet than to change yourself.

Old People's Music

Recently I spent a couple of days chasing trains and doing photography with my 12-year-old grandson Cazden. We were driving home from Sacramento in the evening and we were both kind of zoned out. I asked Cazden if he would mind if I put on some music. He said, "gramps, what kind of music do you listen to?" I answered, "old people's music."

He accepted that as a very logical answer. So, I started playing the Grateful Dead on my iPod plugged into the car stereo. I guess I was waiting for him to say, "Gramps, that's not old people's music!" But, he never did.

I guess looking at it from his perspective, The Grateful Dead IS old people's music.

Steve's Vegitarian Tofu Chili

Sauce

• 12 ounce beer (amber or dark ale preferred)
• 1 14-18 oz can of tomato sauce
• Veggie broth to thin if needed
• One 28 ounce canned whole, crushed or diced tomatoes, with liquid.

Spices

• 3 tablespoons of chili powder (good chili powder makes all the difference in the world)
• Salt and pepper to taste (less is more, none may be best)
• 1/2 teaspoon of ground cumin
• Bay leaf
• optional: 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (if you like it hot, I prefer to leave this out)

Content

• 14 to 20 ounces (like a pound) of firm tofu cut into small cubes, like 1/4 inch sized.
• One cup of fresh sliced mushrooms (canned or reconstituted dried if you must)
• One green or red or red bell pepper
• Two 14-18 ounce cans of beans. one of kidney beans, one (cooks choice) drained and rinsed (for your partner's sake).
• One yellow onion diced

Misc

• 3 or so tbsp Olive oil
• 3 cloves, or a generous tablespoon, of minced garlic (more is more)

Procedure:
In about a five quart pot, like a dutch oven, pour your sauce ingredients, except the broth, and let them start heating up. Add your spices your dutch oven (or other pot) and let it come to a simmer. Meanwhile prepare your content items by slicing, mincing, dicing and doing all the needed cutting. In a frying pan, over high heat, saute your tofu in the olive oil and the garlic for about three minutes. Then, add it to your dutch oven (or other pot) where your sauce is simmering. Repeat this procedure with your onion, you may want to reduce the heat, and saute in more olive oil until onion is just translucent and add it to your sauce. Repeat this procedure with your pepper, you may want to reduce the heat, and saute in more olive oil until pepper just gets some black marks and is softer. Again, add it to your sauce. Now add in your beans. If it's too thick add veggie broth to thin to desired consistency. Simmer for an hour, with occasional stirring, scraping the bottom and turning things over.