mid century artifacts and marie antoinette

bev died in december. i went to her house for the memorial, and kicked myself for a month for not being there at the end. i had been there in november, after the hurricane, to help her clean up, get food, gas, etc. i had the plane ticket because the operation had been originally scheduled for november. the operation was rescheduled. i had promised i'd be there, and then with the rescheduling for the third time, she became her stoic yankee self and said 'never mind, you come down at christmas". i had postponed my job, and had only taken that job because it was 3 days a week, so that i could concievably be there for her at least 4 days a week, if she needed me. bev could have afforded flying me back and forth, having money sitting in the bank "doing nothing" as she said. but $500 for the 4 days seemed like a waste of money. frugality won out. she had the operation, i sat in ny with my sweaty teenaged students, called her every day. on the forth day, she died. "i hurt so much" she said. "where does it hurt" i asked. "everywhere", she said. "I love you". I said.
"I'm right there with you". but I wasn't. I was in bensonhurst with the truculant actors, and verclempt bureaucrats.
reading this back, it all looks like justification. on the one hand, i had three classes full of drama students, wanting to put on their pagent, on the other hand i had an 81 year old lady who was going for experimental surgery. I should have been there, the drama job was cancelled after christmas. and all was vanity and dust.
i went for the memorial, and her niece and nephew asked me if i'd like something of hers. I asked for two serving trays, mid century bohemian, with primitive drawings of fish and wine and cheese on them..they were pretty battered. they had been gathering dust, but i loved the 50's stuff. it drew back images of a more egalitarian time. post war good buddy ship. that was the america i grew up in. bev wanted to be nothing but a middle class person, to escape her waspy patrician roots. after the war, a class society was an embarrassment, and even ceo's weren't paid the gajillion dollars they earn today..shoot, if i was a sociopath, with no regard for my fellow man, i could be a ceo. look at micky eisner. 250k per hour, as ceo for disney. all they do is fire people, thereby showing a lessening of spending, then they give themselves a huge salary increase, for their genius.
the government is now equally sociopathic, taking people's property, as part of eminent domain, and selling it to another person or corporation, if they can pay more tax. somehow this model is shortsighted.
i hope bev isn't seeing this. i hope she's in a place where animals are happy and people are happy. here we have a growing group of mindless, loveless millionaires who push the rest of us around. after you, the deluge...