Fall

I don’t know how it was I failed to celebrate, but in the big countdown to Zoe I missed passing the 100 day mark. Today is 98 days and counting… literally, days, hours, minutes… I’m so over this part.

Secret and I went for our last big hike on the mountain before Ms Thing’s arrival. Climbing the rise was excruciating (why did I think it would be a fun thing to do again?) I brought the camera in tow (because hiking up wasn’t enough, I needed to load down with extra baggage too) but despite stopping and looking with a watchful eye, I wasn’t moved to frame anything and shoot. It was beautiful and I did try to stop and take it in, knowing it’s the last time I’ll see it until sometime next year. It’s all golden and thirsty this time of year, and the trails are soft with crushed leaves in all different arrays of pastels and dusty. When we see it next it will be wet and green and misty.

The Madrone trees are in berry with the bark in full peel – ribbons of swirling red paper-thin curls of shedding Madrone skin adorn the trunks like they’re all gussied up for a cotillion. Just makes you want to dance with them. There’s one, my favorite, I pause at it and run my fingers along the cool smooth bark after clearing away a patch of ribbons and I wish it well and I ask for the tree to welcome Zoe. I can feel it saying hello. That will not be the last time the trees speak kindly to her.

I’ve just come in from a hot tepid tub and despite it only being 5:30 in the evening, I’m feeling full on lazy and sleepy – nothing that either a bowl of ice cream with chocolate sauce or the bundle of Asian Peers on the kitchen table seems to shake off (I’ve tried them both for good measure.) They say that the third trimester is marked by a return of the fatigue and bully if just the mere mention of it makes me want to nap.

We went to see The Kingdom last night. Note to self, you are no longer equipped for 7 pm showings. It was very predictable and the special effects were far less special than I’d hoped for – but there’s something about getting beat up from the inside out during an action thriller that makes the whole thing take on the tenor of one of those John Water’s 3D scratch and sniff movies. Watching the portrayal of the Saudi Muslim fundamentalists blowing up the all-American baseball game recalled that documentary Jesus Camp where the camp director touts, with no small amount of pride, that it’s high time the Christians started raising devout, brainwashed, terrorist children to strike back, just like them fundie Muslims. They really are all so indistinguishable. Isn’t it just so incredibly true that pride indeed does go before the fall? I mean, even when people don’t even realize how shameful they’ve become.

With October waking this morning, the season resolutely changed with a cool rain and overcast morning. When it cleared around mid-day and the sun bellowed across the sky, it was interrupted by high cottony clouds which just seemed to scream things like hot apple cider, butternut squash and pumpkin pie. It was warm, but it was certainly Fall.

There Would Have Been A Time For Such A Word

There are high puffy clouds in the sky – not terrifically unlike the cotton ball clouds you see strewn across a Midwestern sky. A gaggle of swallows flit through the front yard while the Crape Myrtle has begun its spectacular fall flowering. Secret Agent Dog sits stoically in front of the screen door – ever a watchful eye. What I like is that when I look out the living room windows, I see mostly plants, green and sky. The season has begun to change and while partly sunny it’s a mere 65 degrees at the late hour of 11 am. The plants seem happier for the shortening days and reprieve from the relentless onslaught of summer in the North Bay.

In sad news, Marge is gone. She was here day before last, but yesterday when I went to check on her in the morning in preparation for introductions to a visitor arriving later in the day, she was no where to be found. Even her spectacular web was gone – suggesting clearly something sinister had transpired. Feeling hopeful that perhaps it was just a mishap, like the run in with Ms Honey Bee described previously, I went to the agapanthus stalks this morning without satisfaction. When Ed arrived home last night I grilled him mercilessly… Is there something you need to tell me? Something that happened in the agapanthus that you’ve been keeping from me? After ruthless interrogation I suspect he mightn’t have been involved. In lament of Marge – she should have died hereafter. There would have been a time for such a word… I suppose it is possible that she simply moved on.

It’s just a shy bit under four months until Zoe arrives – which seems all at once like forever-away and way-to-soon. I can hardly wait to show her the wildflowers in springtime. She’ll likely miss her first season of slink pods, but I imagine she’ll be quite alert when the later blooming wild irises start to parade. Despite the treachery of the trail, I’m determined to take her to the second waterfall at Elliot, to see the wild tiger lilies in full sail. I hope her little face doesn’t get scratched up while we rummage through the dwarf forest on the way. When the water stops flowing I’ll take her to the top of the falls where the little tree frogs live and the Canyon Larkspur bloom. While invariably she won’t have a perfect life, she’ll at least have no nature deficit disorder. We’ll plant flowers and harvest basil together and I’ll teach her how to bake bread and climb mountains. That is, of course, presuming I learn to bake bread in the next few months. All efforts continue to end in peril. Ever the Pollyanna – I’m certain I’ll succeed one day.

It’s nice to wander a bit into the future to a time when perhaps my belly isn’t stretched so taught, I can touch my feet and there’s not a creature inside kicking my internal organs for amusement.

Back In The Saddle

As to the issue of Marge the spider who lives in the agapanthus, Secret Agent Dog took a leap through the agapanthus on Thursday last and lept right through the two stalks that held Marge and her web. There was Marge, big as a small farm animal, plastered, along with her web, in the center of Secret’s chest. I was mortified and screamed – which seemed to make Secret quite happy and excited, which seemed to cause Marge to scurry down her leg. For several hours Marge sat still as a stone in the drive, not six inches from the agapanthus. I debated for some time whether or not I should help her back – but decided to let her fend for herself – she’d suffered enough indignities for the day. Every few hours I’d go to check on her, by the early evening she was nowhere to be seen but by daybreak she’d rebuilt her web and was once again poised between the two remaining (albeit brown and dwindling) flower stalks. She’s back in the saddle.

Outside In

I did rise at the crack of dawn and made it to Saturday morning yoga. I’ve missed my contortionist feat for several weeks running and have been less limber for the oversight. This morning I have the heat of stretching this muscle, greasing that joint, bending this way and asana-ing that. During yoga, I invariably feel nauseous. Afterwards, I feel great.

Today is the opening of Yellow Legged Frog Docenting season at Carson Falls and Peter and I have the afternoon shift. It’s our job to protect the egg masses. (I’m contemplating starting a new game called “chuck the newt” – although the rangers don’t advocate harming one species to protect another, those blasted newts are eating the egg masses – no doubt eating endangered plants as a starter and moving on to threatened egg mass as the main course to their sinister lives.) I have ceased looking forward to our docenting adventure because it’s too darn hot and the hike is hard.

To gear up for the Carson Falls trek, Ms G and I hiked from Alpine dam up the Cataract Trail, which follows along and criss-crosses a mountain waterfall. There are large deep pools along the way that hikers will splash in that some folks have been occasioned to swim in. I’ve since learned that these falls are another location for the threatened yellow-legged frogs and their egg masses. Unlike the other two locations (little and big Carson Falls) the only explanation for the decrease in population density in this area is due to hikers and swimmers disturbing the egg masses – which has driven their population to near extinction there. I do think if they posted some signs in the particular pools of most concern that the educational effort would indeed dissuade people from puddling about in the standing pools. Be that as it may…

My front yard is a blaze of color - waves of orange poppies wafting in the light breezes. Everything is beginning to flower. I’ve planted pansies and violas as border flowers in the side yards and am sitting quietly with the new lemon tree and Moro blood orange tree to see where they’d like to be planted. I’ve been digging up daisy bushes (which I loathe) and am working on ousting a few oleanders and trying to see what comes together with the front yard. I want to try my hand at more substantial vegetable patch (patch as opposed to garden) this year – but I haven’t really the space so I continue to think on it. I’ve got two blueberry bushes that a neighbor gave me that really must go in the ground by tomorrow as well. I love this time of year. My lilacs are bursting into flower as I write – a fragrant delicate bouquet to hang in the air and catch a breeze!

I just seem to not be able to be outside enough.

Little Star

Burrrr… I’m freezing cold. Okay, it’s not freezing cold… it’s fifty-something.. that must seem like just plain and simple whining to you Mid-Westerners and Northlanders. I suppose the fact that the wild irises are blooming on the mountain, the shooting stars, milkmaids, hound’s ears, slink pods, Indian warriors and assorted other wildflower fare are blooming madly negates any sympathy I might otherwise accrue for my ‘plaints of chilly marrow. Yet here I am crying chilled to the bone!

If you’ve any sense of compassion you’d at least eek out a sympathetic poor sod, even if you’re tongue in cheek about the whole thing. Over these modest wires I won’t even notice the eye rolls and will feel imminently cared for, even if it’s all a grand illusion, a big ruse. Even if it is a ruse, if I’m none the wiser, what would it matter?

I’m not want to write about work here – it takes up a great deal of my life and I resist it infringing on these parts too. Once and awhile, surely, I digress, transgress, sully this sacred space with that messy stuff. It’s been a difficult year there, calendar year really – not awful, but certainly not easy – painful. Painful? You might query, How’s that… painful? At the root of it, you see, there are really good people struggling together, sometimes against one another, sometimes in the same steaming pot of stuff, and the lot of us concoct a pretty toxic brew together – despite ourselves, our best intentions and all efforts to concoct something other. It’s like we can fancy ourselves as fabulous cinnamon sticks – all sweet and spicy and a little hot – but somehow when we come together we begin to ferment and it doesn’t result in something pretty anymore. Maybe it once did – I’m sure at once it did, despite ourselves even then.

I don’t think our intentions have changed one iota. I think our ability to envision or believe in something (someone?) has. I’d like to believe that I’m just speaking for myself. I know the way this goes if I help to find a voice for like minds. I’m accused of leading a charge, manipulating others, putting thoughts and words in their mouths and heads. And the whole damn thing can (and will) likely backfire if anyone agrees that they’re not speaking their own mind, but rather mine. I don’t really lose anything if that happens – but rather, we all do. We all lose the possibility of something different happening (rather than this terminal sameness.) I don’t think it means as much to others that we break these cycles. To me it would be symbolic of our ability to grow (emphasis on symbolic.) But oddly, that would leave me with a sense of rightness and hope. All this is mission.

I know, I’m speaking cryptic gibberish. What else is there? You don’t really want the details unless I’m willing to form them around constructive examples – leaving them evaluable and/or instructive. That would take more of a tome then I’m sure anyone really wants. Maybe the bottom line comes down to two simple words “big sigh” or a gesture shrug. You know what they say about the violets in the mountains? I feel like a little violet.

Wild Cat

Bunny, Rose, Ed, G and I all went to see The Good Shepherd last night. What’s the casting of Angelina Jolie? That was weird. I liked the movie, however. Matt Damon was indeed stellar and I like the kid who played his adult son. We went to a six-something show and were home before ten, leaving an evening of concerted bundling beneath blankets and robes as the temperatures plummeted in these parts. The thermostat, which was turned to nothing before slumber, didn’t stop the heater from cranking out as the interior temperatures were below 40 and the thermostat doesn’t go lower than that. That’s some crazy shit.

Despite myself and the icicles dripping off the still flowering (though sad and frozen) potato vine, I rose at 7:30 and pulled on layers and layers and layers, grabbed the yoga mat and trekked the few blocks to the women’s gym for an early Saturday morning class with Kaye. After bending and twisting and stretching and yanking my body here, there and ways it ain’t suppose to go, I was sufficiently warmed and even took the Honey Bee out for a stroll. Pools of standing water were frozen and icicles dripped from the outdoor fire-sprinklers on the patios of the units at School Park Plaza.

LB called at 11:30 suggesting a hike. I told her she was crazy and high and that perhaps at 1 pm, but anything sooner was just out of the question, even with these layers piled on like they are. So we’ll be heading out within the hour yet, but I’m holing up in the warmth until the last possible moment.

I’m worried about the birds. Have others been following the story of the dying birds in Australia?

Yesterday afternoon, instead of the regular pilgrimage to Bon Tempe that seems to have become routine, we took the dogs to Deer Park on the old stand by that I call the Long Loop. On the Buckeye trail (which joins a fire road with a switch back trail by way of narrow and exposed ridge trail, the same one which my mother tripped on – leading to a fall and the fateful broken wrist a few years back) I spied something unusual on the hillside above us, near a spot that forms a natural stone alter of sorts. Succulents will grow out of the black rock there which in the wetter season is decorated with some kind of orange lichon-looking stuff. It’s a favorite sunning spot for the western fence lizards and lots of wild flowers blossom about the place in early spring. There are two stones on the bank of the downward slope side of the trail – perfect for perching and enjoying the sun as well as a stellar vista of rolling hills and valley. Anyways, above this spot, about twenty yards up the hill, I pointed out something I hadn’t seen before but I couldn’t make out what it was.

As we drew closer to the spot, Peter guessed a bird, a stone, a log. I asserted I suspected it was a cat. First I proposed a common house cat, then perhaps a wild bob cat, but as we moved closer and given its size, maybe even a mountain lion cub? It had to have been near thirty pounds – quite large for a bob cat. I took a few pictures and when I was able to really zoom in on the pictures it seemed quite evident it was a bob cat, though up close and personal, in real life, it was easy to mistake it for a puma. It was ginormous! (Also upon further inspection, it was hissing at us.. heh. Good thing the Honey Bee didn’t hear and take on that challenge.) It made for quite a bit of excitement on the trail. We moved further down the switch back and were able to look up and fortuitously see it leap and pounce on its prey. That was cool. I’d post a few pictures but they really didn’t turn out that well.

At The Wonder

There were internet cable access problems in these parts today, making work after about 3:30 pm virtually impossible. I left Peter word and we took off into the water district to discover some new terrain. He’d sent me a pdf of a regional map and I’d spied something called Hidden Lake that looked intriguing. Some seven plus miles later we’d completed the journey. I’d say the first five miles were fun, the last two were a bit brutal. My toes hurt like crazy which put a damper on an otherwise spectacular trek.

Hidden Lake was a bit more of a Hidden Pond, but this time of year it was wonderful to see and feel the green algae-covered wetness, native grasses, cat tails surrounded by towering redwoods. It’s clear it’s not an oft traversed path and I like those mysterious little out of the way places best. Peter contends this was the best find, but despite how wonderful it was, I still think the second waterfall at Elliot is the best. (Probably because it’s just so brutal getting there and when I descend out of the dwarf forest, battling brush on what amounts to a rejected deer trail, onto the moonscape vista of the creek and the two swimming holes – particularly in May/June when brilliant splays of wild tiger lilies glow orange against jet black rocks – I always gasp at the wonder.)

But, like I say, my feet hurt. I got home after dark and was able to connect to the internet and send a gaggle of email that sat waiting for the portal to open so they could sail across the wires. Under the stars and moon I sank into the hot tub and bubbled and boiled until I was wiggly and relaxed.

Ed arrived home around 8-ish, and was mostly an asshole. I tell myself, “some days are like that. Some days I’m an asshole.” He’s been on a winning streak lately. On the bright side, he’ll be staying at LB’s house watching her dog for a few days while she’s in Vegas. That will be good – we’ve been too much together lately. Some nights I want to wish him into the corn field – make him go away and have life unfold without him. Other nights, well, I don’t obviously. It makes happily awaiting his return from work rather anticlimactic. I was looking forward to this? Despite his efforts, he really couldn’t ruin the day.

Well, it’s midnight and tomorrow is a crazy mad day, so I’m off with me – to dream about wet hidden places in earth blanketed with soft nettles, a hundred different words for green and Secret Agent Dog running fast as the wind, lugging logs through the forest, drowning sticks and chasing crows. I love her. She’s so cool.

Ante Up

Okay… here’s today. Well, last night first. Went to see Departed at the Fairfax theatre. That was fun. And then the afternoon before the night - went bowling at the Country Club Alley in San Rafael on Vivian. I so totally suck at any sport that involves a ball – but I’m amused all the same. And I must say I kick ass on this Area 51-like shoot’em-up game in the arcade area. And all the while I’m limping around because I hauled my sorry self out of bed at 7:30 on Saturday morning to get back in the grind of yoga and between that contortionist bruha and the bowling I’m limping around today with what I’ve heretofore described as bowling-butt but it’s got a richer, deeper and more meaningful ache as it feels like I’ve torn my muscle away from my butt bone doing yoga (ouch. Could that really be possible??) Why this manifests in some sort of extra added foot cramp, I dunno… but it’s a little icing on the cake of these bones. “Hello,” she says, this body, “I’m here. I’m alive.”

I arose for another early morning conference call – this time I got to sleep in until 7, but again, it turned out not to happen so the Baltimorian (Baltimorani? Baltimorer?) colleague and I used a regular direct land line (it’s so old school) and did most of the work between the two of us. It sucks being one of the responsible ones.

Since I was up early, I took my morning coffee in the hot tub. Anything to soothe the bowling butt – to no avail. The sky is relentlessly blue today. The redwoods in the yard next door tower precariously (deliciously.) Talk about a murder of crows – this change of season has brought on a multiple homicide of crows (a mass murder of crows?). They bomb the house with walnuts from the neighbors brilliant tree (I like it more than almost any tree I the hood – and I have several favorites.) Secret Agent Dog climbs the teetering redwood steps up to the hot tub and looks over the edge – she always leans forward to kiss me – I think it’s her way of saying, relax mom, I got the house. It’s all good. What a great way to start a day. The sky, the water, the trees, the dog, the coffee.

So a change of pace.. okay, girls (and boys), who’s doin’ NaNoWriMo this year? I haven’t yet registered but the inimitable, fantabulous, sparkling Alison has raised the flag. Ante up.

It's Wahed

Five in the morning and I’m sitting on hold for the weekly conference call - mute button on, San Pelligrino limonata (with a straw) at the ready, fourteen minutes left on the download for the latest Survivor episode from iTunes. I have every intention of going back to sleep once this call is over, so there’s no coffee brewing, no anticipated familiar or comforting wah of the coffee maker signaling all is well with the world. (That’s often my first question to Ed in the morning, has it wahed yet?)

Ten after five and I’m sitting silently on the call, the lone participant it would seem. Twenty after my Parisian colleague joins and we commiserate for a few moments – me on the early hour, her on her frustrations with the project at hand – and then, like a cool San Francisco fog, I curl twice around the house and went back to sleep.

I wake again near noon, patter about the house mindlessly, take my coffee in the hot tub, walk the dog at Bon Tempe lake in the silver misty afternoon. I’m a little bummed reflecting on how my intention was/is that with this reduced schedule I’d spend Fridays writing, reading, painting, exploring non-work interests, but instead I slept, lounged, didn’t even read a magazine. Next week, maybe next week I’ll do what I intended as opposed to not much. Wah.

Dolphinese

It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English – up to fifty words used in correct context – no human being has reported to have learned dolpinese. - Carl Sagan

When I tell the above to Ed, he contends I’m entirely wrong about that (or rather, that Carl Sagan is.) He proceeds to cackle out a strange staccato sound and proclaims that it means I want a ball in Dolphinese. Promptly, upon hearing the odd cackle, Secret Agent Dog’s ear perk and she jumps to the quick, runs out the front door, and returns moments later with a Hi-Bounce Pinky ball in her mouth. This proves, we think, that Secret understands Dolphinese and that Ed’s Dolphinese diction is spot on.

The Imperfect Host

There are no pictures from yesterday – I’m falling down at the start! The camera was going to accompany me on a journey in late afternoon that never materialized due to a mishap from point A to point B.

A friend arrived yesterday, visiting from New York. He’d spent the first few days of his spin to the left coast with his parents and yesterday afternoon and last night with us here. I’d spent the lion’s share of the weekend readying the back cottage for his stay – nothing like a house guest to motivate some massive cleaning. (Frankly, there’s more to do back here, but what a phenomenal leap forward we made!)

On a whim I suggested we go for a bike ride. What a great way to maximally see this area, cover the most ground with the least effort, and given he’s been under some stress with a relationship break up, a potential job change, an impending move, etc., I thought it would be great to kick start his vacation with some endorphins. My strategy on this whole relationship going south, ugly, uncomfortable end of the affair stuff is that one should pour his/her energies into working out – so at least when the depression clears you look fabulous. If you’re going to be depressed, you may as well look great doing it. He was game so we dusted off Ed’s bike, hopped on the ride and were off like a prom dress.

It was a great ride until the very end there. That part where his tire blew when we were on the downslope off the mountain, that part wasn’t so great. Nor that little extra added part where he flipped over the handlebars after losing control of the bike and stopped the whole tangled mess with his elbow, his wrist and his back. Compared to that part of the ride the emergency room was actually fun. Yup, you guessed it… I broke another house guest.

I know, I know, I should have brought the camera – caught at least the ER part in one’s and zero’s for some digital memory of the whole thing. I’m a failure and a terrible host.

To Sleep Perchance To Dream

After my mid-day 20 miles bike ride - with the steepest grade you can think of going on for over a mile - I took a monster 5 mile hike to the second waterfall at Elliot last evening. I love the long shadows and golden light of late afternoonish.

I keep forgetting to mention a dream I had. I was about to die - and in the dream, when one died, they had to meet the executioner (or maybe it was a reeper - whatever the case... I remember him as an executioner of sorts.) It was love at first site. I swooned and lamented the thought that at this juncture I would meet the person of my dreams and that that person would by the executioner. On some level, however, it didn't matter - because I was immediately smitten, immediately in love and something about that, in the face of everything, was perfect and hopeful and completing.

The twist of the story is/was that the executioner fell in love with me too. And I became the only person, ever, to be spared the fate of the executioner as a result. And it is/was because of this it became known that while incredibly rare some people escaped the executioner's fate - and in a place there was little to no hope there was placed a glimmer. And the most humble and wisest would realize that hope was realized through love.

I know, it sounds corny - but that was the dream.

It was almost as good as last night's dream - in which Ed not only quit smoking, he cleaned up after himself. Wow.. what startlingly divergent expectations for fulfillment. heh.

Waiting For A Miracle

I went on an ambitious bike ride today – it was a mere fifteen miles, but a brutal fifteen miles. A good mile and a half of that was less than a bike ride and more of a bike push. My back tire started spinning on the loose gravel, the road was so steep, and I couldn’t get my bike shoes out of the clips. I was stuck on my bike when it tumbled. I was virtually standing still when it happened, however, so I didn’t end up with even a scrape – just a bruised ego and my feet stuck on the peddles. I was planning to round Lake Lagunitas, but I was so exhausted when I peaked Fish Gulch – the murderous incline – that I skipped that intention and just took it all back on home. I wish I’d have had the camera with me (I wonder how it would have faired the fall…) I ride through this area with my friend P when we walk our dogs together at Bon Tempe, but it was qualitatively different on the bike – in slow motion, being closer to it. I saw some beautiful things that I guess we pass by too quickly. That’s saying something because I keep my camera out, always, when we drive this road and he stops whenever I ask so I can take pictures – but I just didn’t see the light or the low hanging trees the same way before. And well, I didn’t have the camera so what’s the point in waxing on about it, right?

I took a shower when I got home and rinsed the dirt of the mountain off me. I still don’t bathe very often – I feel like I’m doing good if it’s once a week. Such a far cry from City living where I couldn’t leave the house until I’d had a shower. I’m dirtier here, but it’s good dirt. The dirt we live in.

I tried to stop by the art/glass – stained glass lady’s store. I need to design the bathroom windows before fall gets too much further upon us and the rains threaten to commence. It’s already August. I’ve got to move on that. There was a note on the door that the lady was ill and how she’d be in tomorrow. I guess I’ll try to stop back.

I called P and asked him if he was willing to try a walk with me, the gimp, to the waterfall at Elliot. I haven’t been walking or hiking lately and it’s driving both myself and the dog insane. I wore open-toed sandals and just hobbled slowly. I’m not sure if it was the right thing to do or not. The feet hurt like the dickens – but my spirits are lifted. How does one weigh the relative value of these things? Or perhaps more importantly, the relative harms? It was beautiful and Secret Agent Dog was sooooo happy to be trekking as opposed to stimming on the same blasted ball all the time. She needs the diversity of activities – she gets kind of tweaky when it’s just fetch day in and day out.

I have to push myself to be a bit more creative than I have been of late. I find myself waiting for something – this sense of waiting. I sit back and I wonder what I’m waiting for. I’m often filled with this pensive sense of anticipation. It’s driving me a little nuts. I have this inner desire to just let go in a big bad way. Part of me says, just do it! and another part asks, sure, but what the hell does that mean??? Let go of what, exactly? Just do what, exactly? No more waiting…

Home Again

I returned from London last Thursday. I was there during the record breaking heat wave - a tepid ninety-something. Those wimps. Yesterday, the high here was 112.9 - at nearly 6 pm. Friends (who we love, very much, maybe forever despite any wrong doings or offenses they may commit) bought us two air conditioners. We paid, they drove and got them - they drove to Concord and Cupertino - a gazillion miles, in miserable heat - to get these air conditioners. When they pulled into the parking lot of the store in Concord they called to report that the temperature there was 129 degrees Fahrenheit. I'm becoming weather-obsessed. I've been sucked into the vortex of people who watch the weather channel. Okay. I'm not there yet. I still don't have a television - but I have a secret weather blog. There I write things like: It's hot. It's cold. It's raining. I write there more often then I write here. Maybe because the weather changes, noticeably, more often than I do.

One air conditioner is an 8,000 BTU - it cools, supposedly, up to 400 square feet (I think not!) We've put it in the window of my study to cool the 350 square foot back cottage. It barely cools down the one room there, so I keep the door shut. This room was our bedroom for over three years. It felt cozy and familiar to be living our lives out of the back cottage for the weekend. We'd brave the heat and go look at the front cottage from time to time - but mostly we shut the shades and read books, magazines, played suduko, watched DVDs on the computer. We had the three essential heat wave beverages, San Pelligrino Limonata, sparkling Calistoga, Corona. And I'd venture out to water the garden every few hours. Despite heroic efforts I couldn't stop the hydrangeas from drooping.

I had a lovely time in London. It's changed favorably since I went to school there in the '80s. It's more cosmopolitan and despite the global fascination for increased development of open space into concrete structures, I'd still say it's an improvement. I wouldn't live there. It's not my thing. But it was fun to visit - the night bus tour was loads of fun - and the food, hands down, has been the most dramatic and notable improvement over the past few decades. The London aquarium, however, proves to be among the worst of the world's tributes to aquatic life. I'd liken it to little more than a spot of spit in a mud puddle with a few fish tossed in. It's a pathetic little place and they'd do better to simply close it down than to tout, as a town, that they house an aquarium. What an embarrassment! It's a tragic little fish prison.

Traveling made me want to travel more, as opposed to the more traditional outcome where I'm left feeling like all I want to be is home among the Cookie Pie, familiar things, my mountains, summer. That's such a push-pull phenomenon with the Honey Bee. I hate to leave her behind, but it's really not practical for her to come along.

The Savaging of the Butterfly Bush

I could describe the day yesterday, the beach, the blood, the puke, the paw. I could tell tales of the tragedy, the vet, the sutures. But why mince words on the mundane when I could remember the errant rat (did I say RAT?!?) gnawing it's way through the screen window to get out at 5 a.m., or the Fellini-esque dog that the rat happened on in the yard outside the bedroom window. And how the rat and the dog caused a stoned pup to rouse and pee herself, on the bed and a day that started with more laundry in the wee hours of the morning.. the key term being wee. Or perhaps, just then as we're ringing out the pee and decide to remove the bandages on the good leg when we reveal a forgotten catheter sticking out of the vein. The Zuzu-McGiver trick of cutting up tampons to put on the bleed. The unwillingness to eat or drink. Then the willingness. Then the urgency to unswallow like a bolumic on a mission.

No... why waste a spectacular morning on tales such as this, when you could simply enjoy the savaging and ravaging of the butterfly bush.

More Later

I’ve been busy. No. That’s not it. Too many plans, people, things. I need my time alone – but not too much. I’m looking for that good in-between. I’m feeling crowded. I get pretty agro when I feel crowded. I like the time I spend weeding the garden, pruning, working the soil. Get down in the dirt with me. There’s plenty of room down here in the dirt.

So today I’ve extracted a quiet day (so far) off the loom of them. Somehow the alarm failed to go off at 7 am, so I rolled off the bed at 7:11, not as pleasantly as I’d have preferred. Pulled on my sweat pants and FBI glow-in-the-dark T-shirt (at the aiport Kiosk store in Washington Dulles, United terminal, near gate C17), brushed my teeth, rolled up my yoga sticky matt and out the door to meet Kaye, the neighbor lady. We do yoga together on Saturday mornings. Actually, it’s her routine, I just encroached myself into it. She’s been welcoming. We ladies stretch together.

After an hour or so of contorting, pushing, pulling my body every which way till Tuesday, I stopped at the coffee roaster enroute home for a nice cup of organic Mexican Jose (aka Joe.) After I’m all slippery and loosed up, the caffeine goes down smoother, surer. While I waited for Ed to more fully awake, I continued fertilizing the lawn – there still more to go, but enough for the morning.

And then we hopped on the mountain bikes and road the ten miles to Larkspur. Ed went out drinking (bad man – I hate it when he drinks, he promised he’d stop, dog house and all that rot) and took a taxi home from The City – leaving the truck at the ferry building. However annoying that is, it’s better than irresponsibly driving drunk I suppose. And admittedly, it was a beautiful morning for a ride – a light breeze, still early enough to escape the heat of the day. We had to stop at the Pet Food Cottage to pick up the Honey Bee’s chow before turning back home.

Swooping into the cottage, we off loaded the dog food and bike, did a quick change of clothes, scooped up Ms. Secret Agent Cookie and road the bikes up to LB’s house to watch the US v. Italy World Cup match. And what a stellar showing by the US. (LB says, “we must believe.” I say, “believe what, that Italy is going to kick their ass?” She says, “no, that they’ll win.” “Hmmmm… The World Cup, or just this match?” I ask. “Let’s just start with the match,” she says.) But really, coming up with a draw when the US is two men down is about the same as Italy losing, really. They should feel shame.

We’d intended to go to the beach today, but we’re bagging on the idea. It’s 2:30 in the afternoon, there’s more gardening to do and yet I feel like I’ve done enough today.

As much as I do, I don’t want sustainability and environmental issues to be the it girl of this era. I’ve been thinking about this quite abit. I’m in a hot spot, again, of a movement. But this time I’m dabbling around on the fringe and not wanting to jump in. Or I do, but not holding hands with a crowd. If I wrote about that, that would be an entry.

Of course, I think Hedgehoggy would want to hear about what’s on my feet to make it real. Right now, there is Rhythm and Blues polish on my toes – just an exciting electric blue making them glow like crazy. And then there are the rather mundane white cotton socks. My shorts are army green and my tank top is mottled black with bleach streaks from when it went in the wrong load. The royal we (that’s me and Ed) are reading the Horse and his Boy or the Boy and his Horse (whatever-the-hell-it’s-called) – the third in the Narnia series (the first being my favorite thus far.) There’s a box of stewed tomatoes in the middle of the living room floor – for the life of me I don’t know why.

Oh yeah, we went to a monster yard sale in between things this morning. I found nothing to buy, yet like a seedy back-alley character the neighbor man showed me his etchings lamps and gave us three, for free. They’re sweet and lovely. I think many of the neighbor’s raise their brow in pity and wonder at our lack of furniture. I took the lamps but they’re table lamps and we have no tables.

The other day it rained, a few scattered sprinkles, during a walk on the mountain. This is nearly unheard of in this part of the world, in June. It made me happy. I loved, loved, loved it. I loved it as much as Fondue and riding my bike along the canal on a breezy Saturday morning. Things that make me happy: In addition to those things… wood ducks, wild native grasses, the twins.

More later.

Poopy

Okay, say something damnit. Hi – another busy weekend. Too busy. Ed and I sat in the hot tub last night – under a canopy of stars and towering redwood trees – and decompressed our weekend. Too busy. So much so that I feel really resentful toward all the going’s on. Not toward any one person or thing – just the whole package – it was too much. And too many foiled ventures. Perhaps if some of them had yielded better fruits.

Despite this, I happened to get some great pictures of a tree frog, above the waterfall at Elliot. The rangers were out in full force, meaning the Honey Bee was leashed the entire time. Used to be one was allowed up to three dogs, off leash, under voice control, in this open space area. Someone has deemed it a sensitive wild life habitat, however. So now the dogs must be leashed. From my understanding the only sensitive wild life area is a roped off area near one of the fire roads. I’m sure dogs run through that area from time to time. But just as often, because the sign explaining what the sensitive wild life habitat is all about is posted in the middle of the sensitive, roped off area, humans have to crawl over the rope, through the sensitive area, to read that it’s a sensitive area and be informed they need to stay off/out of it. Sheer genius. And the dogs are the problem. Jeeeeesh.

I know, I should oblige and follow the rules – but I can’t. I try to make up for it in other ways… rouge broom pulling excursions, frog docenting (though not always gleefully), caring for the planet in my own ways. Hopefully is the cosmic pinball game I’m equalizing my karma points. I’m sure one day I’ll get a ticket, and I’ll just deserve it. She’s a good girl – well behaved, sunny disposition, avoids people, loves kids – it’s really me. I’m the problem.

So I’m about to drop over $1300 on what I’ve learned is called bathroom trim. That’s the faucets for the sink and the shower stuff – handles, spout for the tub, etc. etc. That’s in addition to the 200-and-something I spent online for the showerhead from Mac The Antique Plumber. I figure, however, since I decided not to buy a new bathtub and since no wood rot was discovered in the walls/floors/ceiling, etc, I could splurge a little and get the trim I wanted and liked. Even still, it feels rather overwhelming and extravagant and crazy. Be that as it may – I’m gonna have the nicest trim in town.

It smells poopy around here.

Pronoia

I know, I know, I’ve been terrible about updating here. Things have been going along swimmingly, yet quite busily as well. (Is busily a word?)

I love that when touched by Ithuriel’s spear, the true form of evil is revealed. So occasionally I pick the flower and hold it, waiting for something to change – wondering if the evil that lurks in me will suddenly become revealed in some striking form. As long as I look pretty much the same, at least we can assume I’m not cloaked – you get what you see – fangs and all (wink.)

For those who remember the Hell’s Kitchen saga of last year, what you mightn’t know is that the saga never ended. There remained a built-in dishwasher that never had a cabinet to build itself into. Without said cabinet, the dishwasher, when opened to be loaded or unloaded, would become front-heavy and tip. Hundreds of dollars of broken dishes later leaves me restless. The floor has never been quite finished, trim was never trum. And what’s gone unmentioned is that we haven’t had a bathroom – for the past year it’s been all sub flooring and a teetering toilet. To shower we go use the back cottage and the sink has been shut off for a year given a leakage problem. The little room can hardly be called a bathroom, and more suitably called a rather undignified toilet.

And there’s the problem of contractors/skilled labor in this part of the world being invariably (though not universally, as I’ve recently discovered) unreliable. Well, suddenly and without expectation a guy called me who’d gotten my name from a neighbor and through a rather whirlwind chain of events demolition began on the bathroom last Friday and has been proceeding at break neck speed ever since.

Sure, there was a trip to LA before that that failed to get mentioned here I believe, and last weekend a trip to DC. Blah, blah, blah. Whatever. What’s important is that this bathroom is finally coming together and every discovery has been great news! The walls and floor were ripped up to unveil NO dry rot! This is absolutely amazing (and what one gets for having a house built of precious woods!) An area that has been cause to suspect a roof leakage problem reveals itself to be a sink that drains under the house… as opposed to in a drain (!?!??!) It was easily connected to a drain and suddenly this likely means that there is/was no roof damage!

And all this news leads me to a notion called pronoia. It was first coined by a lyricist for the Grateful Dead. It means nearly the opposite of paranoia. It is a notion that there is a conspiracy by the universe to shower you with blessings. That by 10 am, an hundred things in the universe have conspired to go right, just for you. It really seems to be happening that way, if we pay attention.

There’ll be more later… but for now, if we touch ithuriel’s spear to Hell’s Kitchen it’s looking much better.. and the bathroom, the bathroom, the bathroom… ah.. what more can I say about that bathroom? It commences… love, love, love!

Follow Me

I’m all muddle-headed for the cold Ed generously shared with me. He’s so giving when he wants to be. I called off work early today – not so much because I must sleep, but moreso because I’m having a hell of a time concentrating. At a certain point I just concede that it’s not even right that someone should pay me to gaze out the window while my head’s in a day-dreamy fog. I’m not sleepy for the DayQuil and coffee, but I’d call what I am decidedly distractible. I’d describe it as a day of oh look, something shiny! It’s going around. It’s not terrible – but it starts off with a scratchy feeling at the back of one’s throat (at 4:30 am night/day before last I woke up with that burning swollen dry throat feeling – assuaged by a popsicle in the wee hours of the morning.) And then it burns on with a mild fever, loss of appetite and stuffy nose, etc. This too shall pass.

Day before I stopped work early too – but later in the day. Not for the muddle-headed stuff, but due to inclement weather and flood warnings. The town activated The Emergency Notification System (TENS) and I received a phone call around 2 pm, notifying me of imminent flooding and encouraging me to evacuate. I watched the neighbors evacuate. I thought they were being a bit premature. Instead, I made sure the electric equipment (cameras, lap tops and other valuables) was up off the floor and before even rolling up the carpets I went to see the water level in the creek/river. It looked okay. It was actually receding some as I arrived which was my cue to let the carpet’s lay. The rains were relentless, however – coming down steady and heavy for hours. All together, in a 24 hour period, we easily saw 5 inches. It continued yesterday at a much slower pace. The weather services changed the flood warnings (which mean flooding is imminent and/or occurring) to flood watches and/or advisories. The striking danger now, they say, is probably not so much the risk of flooding (which has abated some now that the rains have slowed and become more intermittent) but the risk of earth movement/landslides.

We saw evidence of this yesterday evening and we climbed the rise up Bolinas-Fairfax road to the Water District preserve around Lakes Alpine, Bon Tempe and Lagunitas. Slides were occurring all along the rises banking that road – even the short distance to the preserve area.

A few towns away there’s a Mill Valley man reported trapped (dead?) by a 14 foot wall of mud that came tumbling down. The earth is so saturated it’s now the people who thought themselves safe in the hills that have to worry. Those of us in the lower flat lands – in the flood plane –rest a little easier while our neighbors in their lofty perches begin to sweat. Whoever is worrying, it’s never good – though perhaps all part of the order of things.

I think of when I lived in the City, we never worried about such things. Cities are immune, for the most part, to most of the effects of inclement weather and natural disaster. Oh at least the inhabitants believe they are. It’s that little insular bubble of energy/heat/pollution that for the most part pushes the weather to the suburban areas – protects them from tornados and the like. Public works are set up to respond promptly and accommodate things like increases in volume of sewage processing and/or a terrifically windy day.

When things go wrong in a City, however, the level of devastation can increase just for how people pack themselves in to live so unnaturally on top of one another. But even still, it’s always amazing to me how relatively few lives are lost in natural disasters that strike first-world Cities. I know, folks might be thinking Katrina – but I’ve yet to see a good breakdown of urban versus rural life lost and the numbers were relatively small at the end of the day. There were predictions of tens of thousands – and I believe it was just shy over one thousand, wasn’t it? Compare that to losing upwards of 130,000 to 230,000 people in a single day, from that massive Indonesian tsunami, however – and it really puts things in perspective. Or does it? Are we capable of really understanding perspective at that level?

The thing is, when we hear numbers like this, 230,000, they don’t mean anything to us. I’d read a good/fun(?) book called Cambodia: A Book For People Who Find Television Too Slow. I think it was written by a guy named something-Fawcett. I read it a long time ago. Anyways, he talked about numbers and statistics and how we can’t really fathom or hold the impact of numbers that are really large. What does that mean? Does that mean one in five of my friends and family members, one in two? Does that mean, if they were lucky, entire families? On some level it’s got to be worse, don’t you think, if you’re the only survivor? I don’t know.. maybe, maybe not. I doubt one would ever think of it that way. We’re used to saying that the survivors are the lucky ones. I believe that. I think life is fun, even when we lose parts of the game.

So I try to embrace these numbers. Over the past twenty years, roughly 18,000 people have died of AIDS in San Francisco (about 2.25% of the population of the City.) Generally the current population of the City is believed to be about 800,000. All together, throughout the southeast, the death toll from Katrina was said to be something like 2,000 people – not from a single city, but throughout the entire region. Even still, however, consider the context of population density of New Orleans, estimated at roughly 470,000. Looking at less natural disasters, the death toll associated with 911 in New York City was roughly 2800 people – in a City of 8 million people. 2800 people represents just a little over .03 % of the population. That’s nothing when you think about it. Over the past twenty years roughly 85,000 New Yorkers have died of AIDS (a little over 1% the city’s population.) Even when you average that out, that’s over 4,000 people per year. I don’t even know how to compare these figures to populations in Indonesia and Southeast Asia affected by the earthquake and subsequent tsunami – given just the raw numbers, however, it’s clear these are relatively small.

While statistics are a bit old, I found one source suggesting that 41,000 women die of breast cancer each year in the United States, total. Similarly, the total annual AIDS deaths in 1995 was about 50,000, but that number seems to be decreasing with the advent of more potent therapies to treat the disease. I couldn’t even begin to figure out how we would estimate the number of deaths in the United States due to poverty and violence, but I’m sure it would outstrip these numbers.

So what’s the point here? Sure, many people die for many reasons, every day. What’s the point of comparing these statistics and then talk about 7,000,000+ Jews, Gypsies, queers, etc. who perished in extermination camps under Hitler’s Nazi Germany? Or the 2+ million deaths in the Killing Fields of the Khmer Rouge’s Cambodia (which was believed to represent 15 to 25% of the countries entire population)? Or the slaughter of upwards of 850,000 ethnic Tutsi’s in Rwanda? Or the stoning to death of a single woman in Afganistan by religious zealots?

The point is that there is something horrific and frightening and political about these numbers. And they don’t include the suffering of the living, who long afterwards, perhaps generations, are scarred by the events. Nor do they include the stories of people who are strangely healed by them either – the people whose hearts are uplifted by helping those more keenly affected by death and dying nor those inspired by the telling and hearing of heroic tales. What affects us more, broad sweeping figures of annihilation and destruction or the suffering of one – our mother, our father, our sister, our lover, our dog?

When it’s close, the personal becomes the political.. the political becomes the personal. It’s that one, I think, that we take into ourselves. The one whose suffering becomes our own suffering – or perhaps the end of their suffering is the beginning of our own – a slow overlap where we take possession. At first diagnosis, at first threat, they hold all the fear, uncertainty and pain. Later the loved ones take possession of all the fear and sorrow. And oh how we can caress it. And we have two choices – to become it or to let it go.

Those who become for a spell or forever are the ones who walk the earth hollow-eyed, always reaching out to touch something. They are aware of the thin layer of energy, space that surrounds them that keeps them from truly ever touching anything or anyone.

There is a chemical you put in pools that breaks the hydrogen bond at the surface of water – the thin sheath that the bugs walk across or that allows a leaf to float, rather than sink, immediately. Disease, fungus and worrisome stuff can grow in that space and become difficult to get rid of. At first blush, dissolving that layer makes all things sink and die. But it also allows you to touch the problems and deal with them. What a scary place to be.

Those who let it go – they’re like the ocean horizon. At first the line looks so clear where the one thing, the water, stops and the air begins. But it’s really not so clear is it? The water evaporates and mingles with the air and the place where these two things meet are quite entwined like the legs of lovers. Not only do they touch everything around them, they become part of it and it becomes part of them.

It was Rilke who wrote that if we fling the emptiness from our arms perhaps the birds will feel the expanded air with more passionate flying.

I lived in San Francisco during the time of the big earthquake of 1989. This was a 7.1 on the richter. My understanding is that the richter scale is logarithmic, not linear. Thus, the 9.3 magnitude earthquake that shook in the middle of the Indian Ocean in late 2004 was over 100 times the magnitude of the famed Loma Prieta quake. It was also the longest in duration ever recorded and I’ve read reports that suggest that the quake that inspired the tsunami caused the entire planet to vibrate over half an inch. Now… are you absolutely sure that you have a solid foundation, that your feet are securely planted on the ground, that the earth beneath you is solid and that everything you hold in your beliefs is right and sound and true?

I’m telling you, I think we’re all only scratching the surface – picking at it really, like an itchy scab. What’s down there deep is powerful, destructive and very, very fragile.

And now you're thinking.. enough already, we liked the pretty pictures. bring back the pretty pictures!

Step Back

Greetings from the desert – sunny Palm Springs. I flew down on Thursday for a conference that ended today. Yesterday there was only a morning session so mom and B, my brother, drove to Thousand Palms preserve for a walk and to see the desert pup fish. The wind was howling – it hurt my ears and we were pelted with sand. You’d think it would serve as some kind of natural exfoliation. Really, I just got sand in my hair.

B was out for a conference in San Diego and rented a car – he’ll be staying until the 8th. I’m flying back Monday early evening. Every time I turn around, mom is putting food in front of me. Lemon-caper chicken with asparagus baked in garlic and olive oil, baked ziti, exotic quiche-like pastries heavy with cheeses, creams, and pancetta. Everything is fabulous and seemingly effortless. It’s not effortless. Emphasis on seemingly. She’s just amazing.

On Thursday morning we hiked Palm Canyon, the Murray trail to the seven sister’s waterfall. I brought the camera, but I’m not seeing what’s in front of me. And when I do see something, I’m sloppy with the camera settings. It’s interesting that on the mountain, at home, I just can’t get close enough. Here I wish I had a wide angle lens and wish I could get further away. I’m not accustomed to looking at things this way. Not used to wanting to back up. It takes practice, like standing on my head or reading upside down.