Here’s the class of six, plus teachers Adele Schmidt on the far left and Sam Hampton on the far right.   My co-director, the talented Mario Starks, is second from left.   The students are a United Nations of aspiring filmmakers, and a wonderful bunch who produced some great 3-4-minute documentaries over six weeks.  It all happened at Docs in Progress in downtown Silver Spring, Maryland.

Feeling a bit sluggish about  now, deprived of gardening for all these months?  Me, too!  But not as sluggish as I’d be feeling if I didn’t have THE PROGRAM.   That’s what I call my ever-increasing compilation of exercises that a bevy of physical therapists has devised for me over the years.

Exercise for the gym-averse

See all my exercise toys?  They’re cost under 150 bucks and with a little training in their use, comprise everything a gardener needs to stay fit – just add cardio.  So if, like me, you’d rather not spend money on health clubs you’ll use for a  month, or even if you DID go to the club you’d really rather not exercise with the sweaty young crowd there, no problem!  Do-it-at-homers can get just as much done – with practically NO excuse for ever skipping a day.

So here’s my routine:

• Every single fricking day, right after reading my email and the NYTimes online, I get on the treadmill, with coffee mug in hand, for 45 minutes of fast walking.  What makes this tolerable – nay, even enjoyable – is the television you see here, on which I play tapes of the Daily Show, the Colbert Report, an assortment of PBS shows and even the occasional network show (I’m loving “Modern Family”).  Oh, and how can I forget Netflix?  Good lord, what a great service!  I’m currently racing through the fifth season of “Weeds”, thanks to those red envelopes of happiness.
• Also every day, I do a bunch of stretches and some Pilates core-strengthening exercises.   (Once you’ve discovered your “core”, you’ll never want to go back to your old, slouching, flaccid-muscled state.)
• Every other day I use those dumbbells and stretch bands and that cool “therapy ball” to staunch the muscle-deteriorating trend that kicked in big-time in middle age.   “Use it or lose it” turned out to be one of the better slogans from the ’70s.

That’s it.  Plus in season, gardening my ass off, as we say in the  GardenRant Manifesto.   So what do YOU do to keep your boding from wasting away in the winter?

Photo above right:  The view from the treadmill.  The TV is mandatory, lazy cat optional.

My adventures in video continue!  After all my troubles buying the wrong stuff, it came time to learn to DO something.  My first grown-up move was to admit that when it comes to either hardware OR software, I'm not what you would call an autodidact.  So I ignored the advice of my videographer friends to "Just do it" and signed up at the nearest teaching facility that looked promising.  (After my Photoshop class at the nearest community college ended up teaching me exactly nothing I needed to know, I learned to do some research before payment.)

So voila the film school - Docs in Progress, a nonprofit promoting and teaching the art of documentary-making, and it's right in my 'hood.  I caught one of their free salons – on the subject of point of view – and noticed the atmosphere was welcoming to beginners.  Same thing at the work-in-progress screenings they hold at the Geo. Wash. U. Film Department. (The screening I saw included a rousing 3-camera-crew doc about Obama's inauguration.)

So I signed up for their "Film Production" class – really a workshop because only the first class is classroom-style.  The instructor (Adele Schmidt in the photo right) has created over a dozen films for PBS, so has actual cred as a  filmmaker .  Now, can she teach?

Class One – The Rules

Turns out the workshop is rigidly defined and limited by rules.  With the 3 video teams having only 6 classes and the weeks between to plan, film, edit and show a 3-4 minute video, ya gotta have limits.  I totally support that.  But it's scary to only be allowed to shoot 30 minutes of video.  Oh, we can shoot more if we want, but it won't be downloaded for editing (gotcha!).  Up to 3 still photos can be used, as well as a limited amount of music.   Also, we can only use one location, and we have to use their cameras and editing equipment.  Kinda like those survivor-type reality shows, and may the best team win!

The Hiphop Garden Production Company is Born

I swear I had nothing to do with being paired with Mario Starks, my smart, savvy and personable partner – we were teacher-assigned.  He's a young web designer in the nonprofit world using his off-hours to inspire people his age to acquire the skills they need.  He's also part of Global Soul Power, which showcases the "creative works of musicians, filmmakers, writers, and activists who promote world awareness messages of unity, self-respect and peace."  Good lord, how cool is that?

Asked what our new "film production company" should be called, the class decided quickly – Hiphop Garden.  Okay!

Our Assigned Topic? A Civic Center

At first I thought the other two teams had been given much more promising, artsier topics – a local stage for plays, and an artist (of some sort).  (All subjects were in Downtown Silver Spring.)  Our topic was to interview a government worker about a new government building.  Oh, goody.  Like that's anything new in this government town (DC and 'burbs.)

But we did the research about this new civic center and the guy in charge of getting it ready for its July 1 launch, and learned it's intended as a "tool for social transformation" and that the "government worker" is an experienced community organizer.  So when we met political appointee Reemberto Rodriguez  we were pleasantly surprised by his friendliness and dreams for the project's impact on the town.  Like the image of Latin Americans gathering in the large outdoor theater to watch the World Cup, or seniors hanging out in the media room and picking up skills – cool images of a lively communal space.  But really, you can build a wonderful facility – indoors and out – but it'll only succeed if people use it.  So he knows he has his work cut out for him – and he's super-happy that we're creating a little video to help publicize it.  (We learned that these student projects sometimes end up on websites, like this one for a tap-dance company.)

But can it Compete with Astroturf?

Turns out there's an interesting landscape-related twist on our story.  This this isn't just any government building we're talking about but one replacing an incredibly successful public "garden" called the "Silver Spring Lawn", though the lawn was a fake.  That's right – the entire site was covered with synthetic turf for a couple of years waiting for the project to begin and to everyone's surprise, it became a wildly popular space to hang out.  Reports in the local media included residents' rhapsodizing over its utter fakeness – no grass stains!  No bugs!  Landscape architects despaired at the popularity of something so devoid of actual plants, with several long reports on its popularity in Landscape Architecture Magazine, no less.

Next – the Interview w/B-Roll
More rules come into play the next time we meet with Reemberto because we can use only 40% of our 30-minutes of video interviewing him (only 12 minutes~!) and have to use the rest for B-roll (background shots).  But Mario and I dutifully did our homework – creating a list of shots and questions for Reemberto – and I'll report back after we've nailed those 30 minutes, so stay tuned.  It's not like you're gardening anyway, right?

Astroturf photo by M. V. Jantzen.

Okay, so my mostly-black cat doesn't really look scary, maybe just ridiculous.  And okay, so it's a day late but this blog's been out of commission all weekend.

Not long ago I reunited with one of my college boyfriends through Facebook and made quite a fuss about it coz it was so exciting.  Now LinkedIn has led me to my other college boyfriend – Earl Singleton, the love of my junior and senior years.  And this week we caught up by telephone and OMG what a  trip it was! 

So first, I promised Earl I’d find some embarrassing old photos of him and post them and a short scanning session later, here they are!  Above you see what we dubbed our "Mod Squad" shot after the old TV show.  That’s my best-guy-friend Joe Blitman on the left.  We memorized the entire sound track of West Side Story and reenacted it frequently, with full choreography, to our own immense delight.  Joe went on to become a big name among Barbie collectors, having even written two books on the subject.  Me, I hated dolls as a kid but I’ll always love Joe (even though he doesn’t call me when he’s in town for Barbie conventions!)

But back to Earl, my heartthrob -"Link" in the Mod Squad analogy.  Raised in the South Bronx, Earl headed to the Midwest for college and decided to stay, apparently.  We met at Oberlin (where he shared a house with one of our more famous alums, Avery Brooks), and when I caught up with him on the phone I found out he’s teaching at the U. of Indiana Law School.  Runs the Community Law Clinic.  Has a daughter who’s a lawyer and a son who’s in IT and a wife of 35 or so years.  He’s done good.  

Now I just want to see him!  The Garden Writers will be meeting in Indianapolis in 2011 but that’s not soon enough. Earl, it’s time to come east for a visit, and call me!  And show this next picture to your family – it was my favorite of you coz it’s so sexy.

I came to the Senate in 1971, right out of college, working for myriad committees as their "Official Reporter" - the person who creates the official verbatim record for their hearings and executive sessions.  So over years of working for the Judiciary Committee and especially the HELP Committee that he chaired for so long, I had a front seat – actually closer than the front seat – to maybe hundreds of meetings where Ted Kennedy either presided, questioned as a member or even appeared as a witness.  He was a HUGE presence, as the talking heads are all saying, and I won’t go near his accomplishments or legacy.  I just offer some personal memories, the ones that come to mind today as we’re absorbing the inevitable loss of a great senator.

The Brother.  My earliest memories are from the early ’70s, not really that long after his brothers were assassinated, after all.  In crowded elevators he always seemed – at least to me – nervous.  And once when he appeared as a witness before a committee that was assembled around a conference table, he was instructed to sit next to yours truly and seemed really  uncomfortable about it.  Despite my harmless appearance and committee staffers telling him I was "okay".   I felt so sad for him. 

The Chairman.  He was the best chairman I ever saw in action because he got things done while being friendly and respectful to everyone, even the famous bastards.  One famous bully I watched him interact with was Tom Delay, toward whom he showed amazing civility and warmth.  Unfortunately, some of the bullies chair their own committees, and what a difference they make.  I’m glad I’m not working there anymore, overall.

The Cigar-smoker. Oh, those were the bad old days – the ’70s and even the ’80s when there were NO smoking regulations in the workplace.  Then even after most workplaces had gone smoke-free, Congress maintained its lovefest with Big Tobacco, and committee rooms were still smoke-filled.  My absolute worst memory of that era – of a work assignment that brought me so close to puking as to bring back a mild sense of revulsion even today at the memory of it – is of Kennedy arriving at another small committee room for a closed-door business meeting and passing out cigars to everyone there.  Which cigars were all duly lit.  

The Dog-lover.  For years, Kennedy’s Portuguese water dog had the run of the place (rules be damned; who’s going to say  no to Chairman Kennedy?)  Even in the middle of a hearing – in a BIG, public hearing room – Kennedy’s beloved would run around freely, stopping to sniff me and everyone else, and generally living the good life.  That is, until he bit someone.  (Hope the one he gave the Obamas is better mannered!)

The Bad Dresser.  The last memory I have of Senator Kennedy is almost intimate, it’s so up-close-and-personal.  We were all crammed into yet another small room for another conference committee (where a handful of Senators and Reps meet to hammer out the differences in the bills they passed in their respective bodies).  I was jammed between Kennedy and some staffers, holding my breath and trying to function just inches from the Chairman, where I got a very close look at his suit, and what a sorry sight it was.  This man of privilege I’ve been hearing about all morning on MSNBC was wearing the most frayed and darned old clothes I’d ever seen on a fully employed person.  No kidding – you could see the very amateurish stiching-up of some tears in his suit coat.  He clearly didn’t care (man after my own heart on that score, even though in my income bracket it’s less of a surprise).

That’s all.  It’s not as though he ever shared his lunch with me, but just watching such a masterful, compassionate and personable leader in action and making such a difference in the world was a great privilege.