life | Bertram's Blog

Light Entertainment and Heavy Thoughts

October 19, 2019 — Pat Bertram

I went to lunch and the movies with friends today. Good food, good people, and a good movie — Downton Abbey. Although I thoroughly enjoyed the outing and admired the film as a period piece, I must confess I am a bit too much of an egalitarian to truly appreciate the nuances of the film.

I do realize the movie portrays the end days of an outdated class system, with everyone knowing their place, ingratiating themselves with those who rank above them and condescending to those below: the lowest servants giving way to the higher servants, the lowborn currying favor with the highborn, the highborn doing the bidding of the highest in the land.

There was no merit in any of the folk portrayed in the movie — the highborn were highborn for the simple reason they were highborn or married someone of the upper classes. They didn’t earn their exalted status. The lowborn, though perhaps good at their jobs, were actually no better — adopting, as well as they could considering their positions, the petty ways of those they served.

Admittedly, the movie is geared for lovers of the series, and I’d only seen a couple of episodes somewhere along the line. (Don’t know where because although I do have a television or two, I don’t prescribe to any television programming.) The plot was thin, a mere veneer, probably because the movie is more a showcase for the characters people had come to know and love.

Despite the hype of having to know who the characters are to understand the movie, it wasn’t difficult to figure out what was going on. Every character wanted something. Every character believed they are special. The idle rich believed they deserve their good fortune. The lowborn believed they are somehow enriched by serving these folks.

Even worse, for me, none of the characters were admirable or even charming. In fact, most were appalling. Well, except for Maggie Smith, whose appallingness was part of her charm

If I’m really honest, what we have in the USA today is rather a reflection of that same world, though we all believe we are as good as those who think they are better than we are, and that with a bit of luck, the riches will even out. (Which is why it is so hard to get people to vote for special taxes for the richest folk — most of us believe that one day we will be rich and so to tax the rich is to tax our future selves; the rest of us are afraid that one day we will be bag ladies.)

Still, such a world as depicted in the movie seems utterly wrong and phony to these eyes. Maybe it would even have seemed phony back in those days — it’s hard for me to believe that people entrenched in the system truly believed that the aristocracy was better than they were and so deserved their adulation and servility.

In the end, this is what makes Downton Abbey a good movie: a couple of hours of light entertainment, followed by a couple of hours of heavy thought.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Posted in culture, life. Tags: Downton Abbey, egalitarian, highborn vs lowborn, lunch with friends, outdated class system, period piece. 3 Comments »

Accolade!

October 18, 2019 — Pat Bertram

I got a wonderful compliment yesterday. One of my new friends just finished reading A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and last night when we met at a community event, she raved about the book, and me.

She told she had a hard time getting into the book, not because of a problem with my writing or the story, but she kept being amazed that she knew the person who’d written it. She said, several times, “I didn’t realize I knew someone so smart.” Eventually, she said, she was able to forget that she knew the writer and was able to become immersed in the story. And she loved it.

Admittedly, no one who calls themselves my friend is going to come up to me and tell me I am a rotten writer. (Smiling here — I wrote the word as wrotten. Sounds like it should be a medieval form of the past tense for written?)

At least one person has told me to my face that they weren’t impressed with my writing, and another complained about typos, but neither of these folks are people I have any sort of relationship with. Still, I could see the truth in my friend’s eyes — they lit up when she talked about the book, and even better, she immediately borrowed another. (Several people each bought one of my books, and they are passing them around.)

Her accolade certainly put a smile on my face, but lest you think I’m am letting the compliment go to my head, I should confess I was immediately brought down to earth by a little girl, about ten years old, who told me to get out of her way. (I did because I was too stunned by her impertinence to do otherwise. I was even more stunned by her mother who just stared at me.)

Still, it does my heart good to know that some people are reading — and liking — my books.

If you haven’t yet read A Spark of Heavenly Fire, you can read the first chapter online here: http://patbertram.com/A_Spark_of_Heavenly_Fire.html

Buy it on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0024FB5H6/

Download the first 30% free on Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1842

Happy reading!

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Posted in books, life, writing. Tags: A Spark of Heavenly Fire, friends reading my books, people like my books, rude little girl, wrotten. 2 Comments »

And the Streak Continues!

October 17, 2019 — Pat Bertram

It’s so nice of WordPress to let me know how many days in a row I’ve been blogging so I don’t have to keep looking it up. Though, to be honest, being able to post a tally of my blog streak only matters on a day like today when I have nothing new to say. (With today’s post, the streak will be 24 days. Yay! Well, yay for me. You might not think it’s something to “yay” about.)

As for the work on my house: the two thick layers of concrete that comprised my garage floor are gone, and the poor neighbors are no longer being subjected to the sound of a jackhammer. We found a few more bones scattered beneath the garage, but nothing earthshaking.

The workers are at another job today, and oddly, I feel a bit lost without them here — the day seems so uneventful without holes being dug, fences being erected, concrete being broken up. But that uneventfulness is an illusion, a matter of all that energy not being expended around here.

I went to the historical museum this morning for a last meeting about the murder mystery, and in a little while, I will meet people at the monthly community dinner. So see? I’m keeping busy.

I am enjoying this last especially warm day of the season. 87 degrees! Next week it will be mostly in the sixties, cool enough to start planting all the bulbs I’ve ordered — so it will be me digging holes — three hundred of them! — creating (or destroying) my own energy.

I’ll let you know how that goes.

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Posted in house, life. Tags: 23 day blogging streak, concrete, concrete floor, finding bones, last warm day of the season, postaday2019. 3 Comments »

Social Calendar

October 16, 2019 — Pat Bertram

It seems odd to have a social calendar. For many years, the only social activities I participated in were my dance classes, and from week to week, those classes were generally at the same time and on the same days. If I went to lunch with anyone, it was usually after class. Any other activity was easy to remember because it was such a rarity.

But now? After only seven months, I’m so entrenched in the community that without my calendar, I’d be lost. There’s always something coming up, such as a movie (Downton Abbey) and lunch with friends this Saturday, a meeting at the museum tomorrow to set out clues for the Murder at the Museum Night that will take place next week, porcelain painting classes, and a special note to remind me about Blogging for Peace next month.

It bewilders me, all of this. But then, much of my life bewilders me.

Was I really that woman? That woman who watched a man slowly die, who wanted the suffering to end, yet whose love was so ineffectual she couldn’t make him well or take away a single moment of his pain? That woman so connected to another human being she felt broken — and lost — years after his death? That woman who screamed the pain of her loss to the winds?

And am I really this woman? A homeowner? A part of a community? A person with a social calendar?

Apparently so, because there I was and now here I am.

It’s possible life will always bewilder me. I might never know the truth of any of it — life, death, purpose . . . me.

But that’s the beauty of a having social calendar. At least on those particular days, there are no questions or bewilderment. I know what I am supposed to do, where I am supposed to be. I even know who I am supposed to be — a pleasant companion, a kind friend, a generous volunteer.

The rest of the time? Well, if it’s not on the calendar, perhaps it’s not important.

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Posted in being me, culture, life. Tags: bewildered, community, Downton Abbey, first-time homeowner, homeowner, Murder at the Museum, social calendar. 3 Comments »

Bone Deep

October 15, 2019 — Pat Bertram

As I’ve been updating my house, I’ve been updating this blog with all the weird (or potentially weird) things we’ve found, thinking these bits will eventually find themselves in a book.

First, there was The Dark Underbelly of Home Ownership, a post about my creepy basement, an all too trite scene for a murder mystery. Next, when the floor of the enclosed porch was taken up in preparation for putting in a new foundation, we found an old cistern that seemed to be perfect counterpart to the basement. Then, there was Something Nasty in the Wooden Shed, which turned out to be not that nasty, but it could have been.

About that same time, I found a bit of fabric in the dirt, but it wouldn’t give when I tried to pick it up. So I got out my shovel and dug. And dug. And dug. Finally, I got the thing out of the ground. It turned out to be a red-stained shirt. Although the stain wasn’t blood, and perhaps it wasn’t even a stain but part of the design of the shirt, it still seemed mysterious to me that someone would bury the shirt.

The oddities stopped for a while, though when the contractor was trying to figure out why the garage floor had a huge crack in it, he thumped on the floor and it sounded hollow. I had to laugh at myself and my reflexive “maybe someone is buried under there,” Because of course, it was just my brain delighting in the macabre.

Well today, finally, they came with a jackhammer to break up that old concrete floor.

Under the floor, they found another concrete floor.

And under that . . . bones. Just two of them, but still — bones!

This mystery seems to be writing itself, which is actually is a good thing since I am not writing anything at all.

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Posted in house, life. Tags: buried bones, concrete floor, cracked garage floor, finding creepy things in old houses, jackhammer, old cistern. 11 Comments »

Joys of Planning

October 14, 2019 — Pat Bertram

I still have scabs and scars from the multitude of mosquitoes that feasted on me this summer, but I’ve already made plans for protecting myself next year. For example, I bought some khaki pants (they love the black pants I normally wear) and I intend to soak them in permethrin to make them abhorrent to the little monsters. I’m also collecting long sleeve shirts I won’t mind wearing for gardening or painting or any of the myriad outside chores that come with owning a house. And even though I do not like bug killers, I will spray my yard in self-defense. I tend to be allergic, and do not get small bumps and short-lived itching that apparently are the norm; instead I get immense lumps that itch for weeks.

Despite what it might sound like, the issue here is not the mosquitoes, but the planning. It’s been many years since I could pretty much count on being in a certain place the following year. I have lived on the edge of uncertainty for so long, that it’s a real joy to be able to plan on being somewhere and to know that, with a little luck, I will be that “somewhere.”

I have planned, of course, but always in the back of my mind was the qualifier: If I am here.

This need to qualify the future started long before Jeff died. His health was iffy for so long that we never knew from one day to the next if we could follow through on any plans, never knew if he’d even be around to put those plans into action. It was the same thing when I went to take care of my dad. I never knew from one day to the next if he’d be around and if I’d have a place to live. After he was gone, I traveled, never quite knowing where I’d be the next day, and when I returned to my dad’s town, I rented various rooms, and again, never quite knew how long I’d be there. I knew I couldn’t stay in California — didn’t want to stay — but with no compelling reason to move, I just . . . stayed.

Besides not being able to plan, I couldn’t buy anything big even if I wanted to because I didn’t know if it would fit whatever lifestyle I might have. Would I be forever a nomad? Would I move to a city? Would I bunk with a friend?

Well, now I know. Now I can plan.

And I’m planning what to do next summer when the mosquito invasion begins.

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Posted in home, life. Tags: being able to make plans, counting on being somewhere, knowing where I will be, mosquito bites, planning, preventing mosquito bites. 6 Comments »

Putting the Pieces Together

October 13, 2019 — Pat Bertram

Today is my twentieth straight day of blogging. So far, I am honoring my commitment to blog for 100 days straight, though I almost didn’t make it today. The note by my computer reminding me to blog got knocked over (during a wild game of solitaire) and without the reminder, it was too easy to let the day go by.

Not that the day was easy. It wasn’t particularly hard, either, just . . . well, let’s call it a rerun. When I first moved here, much of my stuff was stored in the enclosed porch, but when the workers came to redo the foundation of the porch (there were only two small columns of concrete on either end of the 20-foot room, and since that wasn’t enough to hold up the weight of the house, the porch was rapidly sinking), I had to move all the stuff into the garage. At the time, I thought it was the final move for the camping equipment, tools, and things I wasn’t ready to throw away — there’d been a huge crack down the center of the garage, and the patch seemed to hold. But then came a freeze/thaw cycle, and that was the end of my pretty floor. Now the crack is bigger than ever.

The workers are planning on coming later this week to redo the garage foundation as well as the concrete floor, and so all the stuff had to be moved. I’m hoping by the time I get it all back in the garage, it can stay there.

There are so many bits and pieces to putting together a home, it seems like I am forever moving the pieces around, trying to get it right — and to get my life right. I seem to manage not to do things I should, like exercise, and I seem to manage to do things I shouldn’t — like eat unhealthy things.

I’m sure there are also extraneous pieces that will need to be set aside one day, but that’s not a problem for today.

(I found this quite disturbing piece in a puzzle of featuring a cardinal in a cottonwood. It took me awhile to realize I had it upside down and that it was not part of the bird but a face. It took me even longer to discover that it is part of Chaz Palminteri’s face from a movie puzzle.)

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Posted in home, life. Tags: blo, Chaz Palminteri, creating a home, extra puzzle piece, garage foundation, postaday, postaday2019, puzzle pieces. 7 Comments »

Apple Season

October 12, 2019 — Pat Bertram

Jonathan apple season used to be my favorite time of year. The apples — crisp and juicy, tart and sweet — were not year-rounders like the appalling “delicious” varieties, which are anything but delicious. The delectable Jonathans came once a year in the fall, and every year, I looked forward to seeing them.

But no more.

I can’t remember the last time I had a Jonathan apple. Ten years ago, perhaps. I do remember it was a surprise — and a joy — to see them piled in the produce section because even then, the apples were hard to find. It must have been a bumper crop that year since those Michigan Jonathans managed to find their way to Colorado.

The apples were wonderful that year, and that, too, was a surprise because when the apples are good, they are very, very good, but when they are bad, they are truly horrid — mealy and tasteless.

Jonagolds — a combination of golden delicious and Jonathan apples — are the fall staple now, and though they appeal to me better than most apples on the market, they fall vastly short of the true Jonathans.

So I’ll eat the Jonagolds I bought today and pretend I don’t remember better apple days.

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Posted in culture, life. Tags: apple season, Delicious apples, Jonagold apples, Jonathan apples, Michigan apples. 6 Comments »

Don’t Fence Me In

October 11, 2019 — Pat Bertram

Oh, wait. Do fence me in! At least do so if you are the people putting up my new fence.

I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of fencing myself in — I worried I would feel a bit like a prisoner, and I worried it would cause problems with the neighbors since the fence would cut off some of the access to their vehicles. But I do like the safety factor, even if it is mostly an illusion.

This town is a mixture of the good and the iffy, with less than 50% of the houses owner occupied. The street where I live is wonderful, though there have been instances of people walking off with stuff that doesn’t belong to them, more homeless are moving to the area, and the drug dealers are quite blatant. One drug dealer lives on the corner, and a couple of drug dealers supposedly got in a gunfight in the rental across the alley right before I moved here. (The rumor is that one of the guys killed the other, but the dead guy has been seen on the streets of a nearby town, and the killer was never arraigned. They say he could have been a cop or agent checking out the local drug situation.)

To my surprise, I feel good about the fence, and not just because it will protect against impulse theft, keep dogs out, and deter the reprobates. I think my neighbors have come to an acceptance, not of the fence, but of my need for the fence. (Whew!) And I don’t feel at all as if I’m fenced in, at least not in a bad way. It feels as if I am claiming my territory, and expanding my home into the outside.

When I moved here, only a fraction of the backyard was fenced, and originally, I liked the idea of a small yard, but it turns out I like the big yard even better. Although it’s only about 1/6th of an acre, this property feels quite substantial with the little fence out and the big one in. It will feel even more substantial when the garage is done and the carport out. (Right now, it sits in the middle of my backyard.)

I’m so looking forward to planting flowers and bushes and whatever else I can think of to make my outside “room” as livable and homey as my inside rooms.

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Posted in home, life. Tags: benefits of a fence, big yard, chainlink fence, drug dealers, fence, fencing a yard, owner occupied houses. 3 Comments »

Shortest Adventure

October 10, 2019 — Pat Bertram

Yesterday I discovered the shortest highway in Colorado, and one of the shortest in the USA. It runs exactly one mile (1.6 Kilometers).

It seems odd that such a short little country road would be termed a highway, but it leads to a national cemetery and what was once a VA hospital, so apparently, it was an important road, and from what I can gather, is under the jurisdiction of the state rather than the county.

What you see in the above photo is the highway in its entirely. Cool, huh?

It wasn’t much of an adventure, to be sure, but it was short. Nothing actually happened to make it an adventure, other than the thought of such a short highway makes me smile.

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