Sock it to me! (I’m eccentric but non-problematic)

Posted on by gcottraux

My name is Genevieve and I am a sockaholic.

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Yes, I joke. I don’t take addiction lightly, believe me. I’ve witnessed many a struggle with substance abuse, saw my mother’s second husband die of cirrhosis after years of alcohol abuse, and experienced my own battle not so many years ago.

But I do have an issue with socks. Or chaussettes, in French. J’aime vraiment les chaussettes. Everything sounds better in French. Tout sonne mieux en français.

I’ve always had a thing for colorful legwear. As a youngster I loved colorful knee socks and tights, although the tights never lasted long as I also had a lot of skinned knees (still do; haven’t outgrown my clumsiness).

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Kindergarten, me on the right in the awesome red knee socks.

 

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Not just one skinned knee, but two! But rocking the ankle socks with my Easter dress.

 

My mother used to tell me that when I first got my own room, a tiny room but all mine (!), and I had my own dresser, I asked her for empty shoe boxes and put them in the drawers so I could organize my socks by color. This sounds completely like me, by the way, so I believe it’s true. In fact, I should start doing that again. I had an epic fail with the drawer dividers I bought. Although that’s because the drawer is so full it won’t shut anymore. I need a dedicated sock cabinet! Many women yearn for a shoe closet; I yearn for a sock cabinet.

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Epic organization fail.
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And this doesn’t include all the ones still in the laundry basket.
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Not going to fit in the bedroom…

 

There’s also my legging collection. Remember the words colorful legwear. That can cover a lot of ground.

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Yes, they take up a lot of space in my closet.

In one of my knitting phases, I decided knitting my own socks was the way to go, so I joined a “sock a month club” and started receiving sock-knitting kits. I realized quickly that I could never knit a pair of socks every month. Precisely because you have to knit two of them. The first one is fun and great and you take it off the needles feeling so proud, and then you realize, “Oh crap, I have to knit another one now.”

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I made it through two sock kits before canceling my membership.

 

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The unknitted socks I still have in my knitting stash.

I recently got the brilliant idea from my friend Debra of mixing up socks so I don’t have to worry about the concept of pairs. I wish I’d thought of that in my knitting frenzy. I could have kept going only knitting one sock of each pair and just mixed them up as the mood hit.

Reminds me of my favorite David Hockney photograph that I recently saw at the Getty Center in Los Angeles. It’s a subtle mismatching, but quite an elegant one. I never really liked David Hockney’s paintings that much, but I discovered his photography and now I am a fan.

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David Hockney, Self Portrait, Gerardmer, France, 1975 © David Hockney

Ironically, my photographic homage to Hockney is all images of my bare feet, not my socked feet, so maybe my obsession is with my feet and not socks per se?

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Genevieve Cottraux, Homage to David Hockney, 2017

 

Recently I discovered Blue Q socks, and that was the game changer that took me from a sock enthusiast to a sockaholic. I did already have a pair of Blue Q socks, a Christmas gift from Bob’s nephew Joe and his lovely wife Isabella.

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While not a Blue Q sock, the banned book socks I received from Joe’s parents another Christmas gave me the idea that one could speak their mind on the their socks, not just on t-shirts or bumper stickers.

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Banned book socks, not on my feet. My feets are smaller and cuter.

Then came the final piece of the puzzle–a trip to the wonderful store Nathan & Co. in Oakland. I’ve loved Nathan’s ever since Nathan himself adopted a dog from the East Bay SPCA when I was a volunteer there. The store is so cool; I can’t go in without buying something. There were the Blue Q socks, full of attitude and f-bombs. I don’t speak in f-bombs, but I love the idea of wearing them on my socks, hidden by my jeans, my little sassy secret.

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My first Blue Q purchases, from Nathan & Co.

A sock monster was born. In Iceland, I discovered a store in Reykjavik that was both a great coffee bar and a purveyor of all things Blue Q. Apparently, Icelanders share my  sense of humor.

And then there was the hosiery store that teased me with their window display of tights (hey, I said colorful legwear, not just socks) only to be closed. Foiled! I could have had puffin tights! Or Icelandic horses!

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Iceland other shop 2

I came home with a renewed obsession with Blue Q socks. They are far too easy to order online. I began to get in trouble.

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I was doing better after a spate of purchases, happily living with the sock collection I had accumulated, when along came the SockPop, a pop up sock shop in Berkeley in the Elmwood neighborhood, on College Avenue. I was at Timeless Coffee Roaster, an amazing vegan coffee place, to see a friend before going to work, and was heading back to my car figuring I’d just make it to work on time.

Timeless

And there it was. But my sock-clad feet (appropriately coffee-themed) walked right in.

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I was in trouble. Socks everywhere. Cute animal socks. Snarky socks. Socks with cat ninjas!

sock pop assortment

I succumbed. I was 20 minutes late for work. Was my sock addiction becoming a problem? I posted for advice. My colleague and friend Stewart responded: “According to clinical guidelines, no intervention required until you get to the point where there are ‘repeated significant negative consequences (e.g, financial problems, neglecting other responsibilities, etc.)’ Not there yet? Then you’re still in the ‘eccentric but non-problematic’ category, so….enjoy it while you can. The dues aren’t high enough yet!”

Was being late for work because I was sock shopping considered neglecting my responsibilities? I focused on the word repeated. I’d been late to work before, of course, but only once for the crime of pop-up sock shopping. I decided to go with eccentric but non-problematic, a phrase I want on a pair of socks…

 

Peace and hugs. I could get that on a pair of socks too…

I’ll stick to the high road (call me a doormat if you want)

Posted on by gcottraux

The other day, I was in one of my favorite local markets, Piedmont Grocery, paying way too much for groceries. I realize that in itself is a privilege, a luxury, a splurge, whatever you want to call it. I could have saved money at a big supermarket but I hate big supermarkets generally. Living in a city plagued by food deserts, I know what a privilege it is that I can choose where to shop. If you don’t know what a food desert is, you might not be paying attention to issues of social justice and access to basic resources.

 

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But that’s beside the point.

As the checker was scanning my items and politely not saying anything about the amount of chocolate in my cart, the courtesy clerk, aka bagger, was pondering how to get my purchases into my tote bags and back into the cart in the best way. He seemed to be putting an inordinate amount of thought into it, and asking me my opinion. As I’ve gotten older, I am much more prone to chatting with the people helping me in stores. I used to shy away from it, but I actually find those conversations easier sometimes than ones with family and friends.

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Many of the stores in this area hire those with intellectual disabilities, which is pretty cool. When I was growing up, baggers were called bag boys and were usually teenage boys working for tips, and they always pushed your cart to your car and loaded them in the trunk. My mother had a terrible time when tips were no longer accepted for this job. For years she kept trying to tip the baggers, and when one finally politely told her he’d get fired if he took the tip, she finally got the point and quit trying to give them money.

Anyway, the gentleman bagging my purchases compared packing the bags to playing Tetris.

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I used to play Tetris back in the day on my old black and white Mac, usually when I should have been writing my master’s thesis back in the early 1990s.

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You can buy one on eBay if you really want one!

 

I said something about me not being that good at Tetris, and that he was probably a lot better at it than me, when he said something to the effect that he could do Tetris with the groceries really well but if he took too long he’d have angry customers. To which I said, without thinking, “I don’t get angry.” He looked at me in astonishment and asked me if I really never get angry. In the moment and in that situation, I honestly replied that I don’t get angry.

Maybe because it was my day off, or maybe because I started the day having coffee with a dear friend, or maybe because I went to get my flu shot prepared to wait for hours and I only waited about 5 minutes, but waiting to have my groceries nicely packed seemed like a no stress situation in which I could wait a few seconds here and there so as not to the tomatoes smashed.

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Yes, I get angry. Angry at the world situation, angry at particular people in power, angry at injustice, angry at animal cruelty. But angry in my day to day life? Not so much. That wasn’t always true. I’ve fumed and sworn at the silliest things.

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I got it in my head at one point that I needed to learn to stand up for myself, which was true. But my first foray into that was to send my food back to the kitchen at a restaurant because my veggie enchiladas were in red sauce, and not the green sauce I ordered. I thought I would be being a doormat if I just accepted it and ate it. That’s what one of my companions did; he’d ordered the red sauce and gotten the green on his chicken enchiladas. A simple mistake in our orders. He took it in stride and graciously ate his enchiladas. I like red sauce. I had a hankering for green sauce that day, but I could have eaten the red. I’ve briefly (thank goodness, only briefly) worked in food service, and I know how hard it is, and how picky customers can ruin the day. I also hate to waste food. For about a minute I was proud of myself for sending the plate back, but ever since I’ve felt like a jerk.

 

So is accepting delays and small mistakes taking the high road or being a doormat? I’ve also fallen into the doormat category. Not as much anymore. In a weird way I’ve achieved a balance between accepting life as it comes and standing up for myself.

doormat

 

There are lots of refrigerator magnets and other stuff that reflect what I am trying to say. Numerous people have written self-help books that may or may not have helped anyone but probably made the author some money.

 

You want to pass me on the highway to get where you are going a few seconds ahead of me? Fine, go ahead. Training a new cashier at the coffee bar and it might take a little longer? Great, and congratulations and good luck with the new job. I’m not in such a hurry that I have to glare at you and mutter at you under my breath while you are trying to learn on the job. At the end of the day, I have to live with myself, and I don’t want to be the angry customer, the a–hole driver, the person who causes a scene or holds up everyone else while counting my change or arguing with courtesy clerks. And I do live a life of privilege, a fact that I try not to take for granted.

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I have more important things to worry about. Like saving the world. Or at least making my little part of it a better place.

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My doctoral dissertation, distilled to a memo pad.

Peace and hugs.

Hiding from the horrors of life

Posted on by gcottraux

California is on fire, and I am hiding in my guest bathroom.

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Not from the fire, but from the despair I feel about the world right now. I’m not just sitting in the dark on the floor in the bathroom. I have the current foster cat family in with me. Or they are letting me hang out with them. It gives me comfort. But still, I consider it as hiding.

 

I want to help, but I don’t know how. My anxiety keeps me from making a move. I can easily donate money (not much, but some), but I want to DO something. Yet here I sit, playing with kittens, feeling defeated. The most I’ve done is obsessively share Facebook posts about resources for help. Cooking also gives me comfort. But instead of volunteering my services to help feed evacuees, I cook for the 2 of us, and we eat in front of television.

The things I “should” be doing today seem so unimportant. Folding laundry, who cares? I could be writing scholarly papers for school; my PhD is important to me of course, but I can’t focus on anything. It seems trivial when people are losing everything, some even losing their lives.

People do come forward to help in emergencies. Volunteers are helping at evacuation centers. Animal rescuers are helping find shelter and foster homes for displaced animals. Others are organizing donations of supplies for the evacuation centers and animal shelters. I want to be one of those people.

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Evacuation center at the Napa County Fairgrounds in Calistoga.

The world seems like it’s falling apart. The hurricanes and the continuing devastation left behind, especially in Puerto Rico. The Las Vegas shooter. The never ending issue of racism and inequity in this supposedly civilized country that treats its own people like garbage. A “president” who couldn’t care less about anyone but himself.

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Trump throws paper towels at the victims of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.

It’s like the modern-day Fall of the Roman Empire, or how I imagine it.

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I was already feeling it. Whenever I drive around Oakland and Berkeley, I see more and more homeless encampments. Oakland is turning into Tent City. I despair for my own city and its people.

 

We’ve been watching the Ken Burns series on Vietnam, which I am finding so painful to watch. I am ashamed of how ignorant I am about the times in which I was born and raised. It hurts me to see the the death and destruction, not just of the American youth sent to fight a senseless war, but the countless civilian deaths of the Vietnamese on both sides of the fight. Children killing children. Hate mongering. Old white American men thinking of lives in terms of numbers and “kill ratios”, and continuing a war for their own egos.

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Vietnam PBS

And now a place I hold dear to my heart is being destroyed by fires. (Why can’t the idiots in power face up to climate change? It’s for real and the effects are being felt right now.) I lived and worked in the Napa and Sonoma areas not so long ago. I didn’t want to leave to live in Oakland, but life doesn’t always work out the way we think it will. I still have friends in the area, some of whom I know are safe as I write this. Others I haven’t heard anything about, and it scares me.

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The backyard of my former house in Napa, circa 2005.

And lest I get complacent thinking I’m safe, the fires continue to spread. I never think it couldn’t happen here. It did happen here. There was a fire not so long ago that destroyed a large swath of the area where I live now–the Oakland Hills Fire in 1991. It’s only about 40 miles from Oakland to Napa, and the fires are now approaching the rural area around Fairfield, among other places.

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The Oakland Hills Fire of 1991.

I don’t have an emergency plan. We’ve never prepared any kind of earthquake kit (the usual recommendation in California) or thought through how we’d get all of the animals and ourselves safely out of here.

My heart is breaking for the world, but I bury my head in the sand. I care, and caring is a good first step, but sometimes we have to do something with that caring. It’s is too close to home this time.

Stay safe.

He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother (okay, he’s heavy, but still, he’s my brother)

Posted on by gcottraux

I never understood what the song that goes “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother” really was about. It just sounded kind of cool back in the day (1969). You know, he ain’t heavy, but he’s groovy, man.

The phrase originates, as far as I can tell, from a story about Boys Town, in Omaha, Nebraska, founded in 1917 by Father Edward Flanagan as a community for homeless and troubled boys. One boy wore leg braces, and the other boys would take turn carrying him on their backs. One of these boys is reputed to have said, when asked, “He ain’t heavy, Father, he’s my brother.” A lovely story. True? I don’t know. But there are several statues titled Two Brothers at Boys Town, and the line made it into the movies in which Spencer Tracy portrays Father Flanagan.

 

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Photo that is said to have inspired the stories.
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Two Brothers, Boys Town, in Omaha, Nebraska.
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Spencer Tracy as Father Flanagan in Boys Town.

This isn’t about my brother. I wrote about my own brother not so long ago. This is about 2 brothers, Ringo and Tiger, and their special relationship and what they’ve been through together. Ringo and Tiger are, of course cats, not humans.

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No, not these goofballs.
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Yes, these goofballs.

Ringo and Tiger are very special cats, and I feel privileged to be a part of their human fan club. To put it bluntly, these cats would likely have been euthanized in many other shelters. They are 9 years old, which is considered “senior” in the world of cats, although it is the equivalent of only 52 in human years. So at almost 56, if I were a cat (oh, what a thought!) I would be a senior, even though I don’t think of myself as one at all as a human.

if i were a cat

Ringo is termed “morbidly obese” at 18 pounds. Tiger has cancer, and is not exactly a petite guy himself at 12 pounds. They’ve been together all of their lives. They were surrendered by their guardian to the Humane Society of Broward County in Florida, from where they were evacuated in advance of Hurricane Irma.

Florida

Wings of Rescue (a wonderful organization) flew them out with about 160 other cats and dogs on September 7, 2017. When they landed in Hayward, California, volunteers from Tony La Russa’s Animal Rescue Foundation (ARF) were there waiting to transport them to the shelter in Walnut Creek, California.

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Tony La Russa’s Animal Rescue Foundation in Walnut Creek, California.

 

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Ringo and Tiger arrive at ARF from Florida.

Two very lucky cats indeed. According to the ASPCA, every year 5 to 7 million pets enter the shelter system. More than half of these are cats, of which approximately 70% (yes, 70) are euthanized. And who are most likely to be euthanized? Guess. Older cats and cats with medical issues. Ringo and Tiger are defying the odds.

 

 

 

Ringo is a laid-back cat, loves to sleep on the bed with his people and follow them around, and gets along with everyone! Tiger is sweet, sociable, and loves to cuddle. Those are pretty good dating, I mean adoption, profiles.

Because they have been together all of their lives and are attached to each other as one would imagine they would be, they are a bonded pair, meaning they have to be adopted together. Another factor that means it will be just a little harder to find a home for them.

 

bonded pair

 

Ringo obviously doesn’t carry Tiger on his back. But Ringo could live a long and healthy life if his adopter works with a veterinarian on a careful weight loss plan. Tiger’s potential life span is not known, but his adopter would basically be taking him in for hospice care. It will be a special person or family with big hearts who will take these brothers into their lives. It will be worth it. And I know that person or family is out there.

 

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Best of all, at ARF Ringo and Tiger have a great room to stay in together, they get love and attention from the staff and volunteers, and they have all the time they need to find their human family. I take great pride in working in a system that allows for cats like Ringo and Tiger a chance to start a new life. Please support in whatever way you can your local shelter so they can help more animals in need. And do consider a senior and/or special needs pet. They need love too, and will add so much to your life.

You can help support the work of Wings of Rescue as well.

 

Peace and hugs. And meows and purrs from Ringo and Tiger.

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