"Buddy" is an old, timid hound dog.
Friday, December 23, 2011
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Dec 13 2011
Kid's finals week -- hectic and pressurized.
Jonathan left an assignment at home and I had to carry it to school.
Car to the repair shop for broken motor mounts.
Carpet store says they can install next week, Christmas week.
Chimneysweep calls and can get by next week at the earliest.
Driving the spare car to pick up the kids, the radio was tuned to a pop Christmas station and when Bruce Springsteen belted out "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" I practically puked -- it sounded so cynical and cheap. There was a pall over me for the next hour.
Took a walk with Mary right after school.
The aspen next to Lorena's house looks for all the world like it is budding ?!
Mary has better eyes. When I remarked on the "bluebirds" she told me to look closer.
Cedar Waxwings. It must be Christmas. They appeared to be feeding on bugs in the air, which is news to me.
The old oak has its winter fungus. It must be Christmas.
On the way back home, talked to Lorena over the fence. One of her horses contracted "Pidgeon Fever" -- viscious deep open sores. It's a bacterial blood disease, transmitted by flies. She had to nurse the horse for 2 months. No other horses in the neighborhood got the disease.
Jonathan left an assignment at home and I had to carry it to school.
Car to the repair shop for broken motor mounts.
Carpet store says they can install next week, Christmas week.
Chimneysweep calls and can get by next week at the earliest.
Driving the spare car to pick up the kids, the radio was tuned to a pop Christmas station and when Bruce Springsteen belted out "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" I practically puked -- it sounded so cynical and cheap. There was a pall over me for the next hour.
Took a walk with Mary right after school.
The aspen next to Lorena's house looks for all the world like it is budding ?!
Mary has better eyes. When I remarked on the "bluebirds" she told me to look closer.
Cedar Waxwings. It must be Christmas. They appeared to be feeding on bugs in the air, which is news to me.
The old oak has its winter fungus. It must be Christmas.
On the way back home, talked to Lorena over the fence. One of her horses contracted "Pidgeon Fever" -- viscious deep open sores. It's a bacterial blood disease, transmitted by flies. She had to nurse the horse for 2 months. No other horses in the neighborhood got the disease.
Typical Afternoon -- Dec. 12 2011
Jonathan discovers that the clever, mysterious-working, log-holding contraption is made in Sweden --- that confirms it, Swedes are mechanical geniuses! (He was already enchanted by Ikea furniture and the store meatballs.)
Mary and I take a late walk to feed the donkey bananas.
In the road Brewster's Blackbirds flock with cowbirds, obviously finding windblown seed -- easier to spot on the road than in the dirt.
I pose Mary with two varieties of mullein. The one on the right is going to seed and will feed dove through the winter.
I play the trashman. Once a month I pick up the trash on a 3 mile circuit.
A California poppy blooms in the depth of December. I explain to Mary that individual plants can go crazy just like individual people.
Nameless weed is a jewel.
Vulture roosts before the sun sets -- he'd break his wings if he tried to fly in the dark.
???
An old childless couple decorate elaborately every year.
An hour and half has passed, hundreds of incidents and thoughts and funnies happened... how do you record it all? I didn't mention the unattended fire, or the strange man talking to his dog, or the tree with our initials carved, or the horses warm in their blankets, or the house suddenly and mysteriously for sale for a song, or the calico cat in the field, or the smell of fireplaces, or Buddy the adopted cur with his tail between his legs and his hangdog head, too shy to approach, or the fighter jet that screamed in a beautiful swoop
Saturday, November 26, 2011
November 26, 2011
Early this morning birds were rioting. In a blue oak near the front door they were literally shaking the leaves from the tree. Robins flashmobbed the toyon -- I didn't stand a chance.
Jonathan & I cut & burned.
We're saving this old car for him, using it in the woods, letting him drive on the property.
It was a good day. Evening spent working with Mary on quadratic equations.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Wake to fog; first fog of the season.
"Above the fog, below the snow" -- that's the motto, but occasionally it's lame.
Mary comes down the stairs holding her Kindle: "Jane Eyre is so good, daddy!"
She's seen 2 dramatizations on DVD and read the book at least once before, but something has her excited.
Spent day with Mary working old fashioned algebra word problems. I suggest she switch to pre-algebra class but she's determined to stick it out.
Weather turns very fine by late afternoon; we sit on deck, working math and listening to birds, frogs, squirrels -- all think it's Spring.
Wife insists on wearing massage contraptions she bought at last weekend's accupuncture conventions: eyeball massager goggles, back massager thumper. Usual weirdness.
Watched Great Courses lecture before bed.
"Above the fog, below the snow" -- that's the motto, but occasionally it's lame.
Mary comes down the stairs holding her Kindle: "Jane Eyre is so good, daddy!"
She's seen 2 dramatizations on DVD and read the book at least once before, but something has her excited.
Spent day with Mary working old fashioned algebra word problems. I suggest she switch to pre-algebra class but she's determined to stick it out.
Weather turns very fine by late afternoon; we sit on deck, working math and listening to birds, frogs, squirrels -- all think it's Spring.
Wife insists on wearing massage contraptions she bought at last weekend's accupuncture conventions: eyeball massager goggles, back massager thumper. Usual weirdness.
Watched Great Courses lecture before bed.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Silicon
Our nephew -- "Big Bird" -- is over from China and wants to see sights -- Silicon Valley, Golden Gate, etc. It will be a whirlwind daytrip, a big circuit around San Francisco Bay.
First on Big Bird's wishlist was Google Headquarters in Mountain View.
DON'T READ FURTHER if you want to keep a glamorous illusion of billionaires in Maseratis tooling around a futuristic Silicon Valley.
Towns close to the bay retain the gritty feel of wharfs & warehouses & railyards & chemicals. Mountain View keeps that pattern. We spot EBay headquarters in a small highrise behind a stripmall. Graffiti on the overpasses. The GPS says take a little industrial road off the highway; it leads to a nice but non-descript office park. Google takes most of the space in a dozen 5 story buildings.
We're here on Google Drive at Google Headquarters and there's no traffic, no action, no bustle or commotion... I was expecting helicopter limosines, towering gates with Pretorian Guards and machine guns...
I actually drove up to the front door ("Please Wait For Valet Parking") before skedaddling it back to the street.
Vignettes:
* free public bicycles in bright pastel colors for employes to ride building to building
* sign: "On-site haircuts today"
Next stop: Apple Headquarters in Cupertino, about 20 minutes away.
Big Bird arrived at our door with the latest Apple iPhone and iPad -- he works for Erikson in Beijing and they give Apple gadgets to all their employees. Big Bird says Apple has the smartphone and tablet market sewn up in China.
Cupertino has a more upscale feel than Mountain View -- it's a new town, farther from the bay. Every other person on the sidewalks and in passing cars is Oriental.
Apple Headquarters is even less impressive than Google's!!!
We drive down a sideroad beside a mall and across the street from Target's parking garage is THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE, Steve Job's secret lab.
Actually there are 3 identical buildings like this, side-by-side, and a vast parking lot in back. We drive through the parking lot lookin for Maseratis but find only Toyotas and Fords.
Vignette:
* As at Google, the only employees you'd see were lonely geeks sneaking a smoke, exiled to the sidewalk.
We ate at Chili's down the street and Big Bird ordered "authentic American food".
Apple engineers sat behind us and we eavesdropped to learn trade secrets -- but it was nothing special.
North to Golden Gate. A beautiful 45 minute drive through undeveloped rolling hills.
Into South San Francisco, the bridge in the distance, gingerbread houses (at a million dollars each), city traffic, funny characters.
Across the bridge...
...looking back to SF
Left to right: Alcatraz, Treasure Island, Bay Bridge, Telegraph Hill, downtown
We were back home 8 hours after we left.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Summer Camp
For summer holiday Mary spent the week at an Episcopal Church retreat -- Camp Noel Porter -- and now it's time to fetch her home.
Jonathan & I pull out of the driveway a little before 8:00. We figure an hour to get to South Lake, then another 45 minutes to Sunnyside -- we can be back before lunch.
You can reach Tahoe only 2 ways: corporate jet or winding two-lane mountain blacktop.
We've decided against going corporate jet and opt for the hairpin-turn blacktop -- this means you can't look up from the road, even for a second, else you crash (and then everybody in the county knows your name, and is mad at you for shutting down the road).
I'll watch the road and Jonathan will be the smartphone GPS navigator and photographer.
We begin from 1500' elevation in the foothills and will cross the Sierra Nevada through a gap at 8,000' -- all in a hour's time. The temperature will drop 15 or 20 degrees, the oxygen about 25%.
Highway 50 follows the American River South Fork for much of the assent. The river is boiling and tumbling and freezing cold from snow runoff. "How much gold is being washed down?" -- that's all that my boy & I can think of.
We turn on NPR radio for laughs and aren't disappointed.
* Moira Liason interviews a hipster couple who form a two bass duet. For 20 years, through marriage to each other followed by divorce, they play to empty coffee shops. Naturally, NPR thinks they're heroic.
* Next Robert Siegel proves that just because the current heat wave doesn't prove Global Warming, it still proves Global Warming -- if you'll tilt your head and squint just right. The whole piece is desperately delusional but delivered in a measured dulcet voice. The NPR demographic laps this kind of stuff up.
* Then a Tibetian rapper is profiled. He's spent a decade as a Buddhist monk but he's now liberated himself to a life of liquor, promiscuity, and ghetto jive talk in NYC. "My guru understands." NPR predictably swoons.
* Finally, a segment on waterbirds. Jonathan & I begin to relax but "Global Warming" pops up its ugly head to spoil it all.
At 6000' we're in the middle of vast granite basoliths -- single pieces of rock miles in diameter.
To the right Horsetail Falls barrels down the hill like a freight train. The guy is huge.
At the very tippy-top, Echo Summit (the Pacific Trail crosses here) and suddenly we're on the other side of the divide, looking down into the Tahoe Basin.
That's the lake in the distance.
Into the town of South Lake Tahoe. Mom & pop hotels, mom & pop restaurants, mom & pop vendors. It's touristy but not too garish.
Every visitor is on a bicycle. Paved bicycle trails course through the woods. On the roads there are more bicycles than cars.
Since we're ahead of schedule (Mary's camp isn't dismissed until 10am) boy & I get out and take a walk.
I pose Jonathan for a photograph and he pleads "Dad, what do I do with my hands?" He never knows what to do with his hands; he ran his track meets this year with his hands in his pockets.
There's nobody else around. It's perfectly still and quiet.
Back in the car, we continue around the west side of the lake.
This is Emerald Bay, with pleasure boats streaming in & out of the broader lake.
(Nevada over there on the other side.)
Soon we come to a 20 mile stretch of tourists. Everyone is biking or jogging. You sense that dirty ol' cars are at the bottom of the hierarchy and we'd be lynched if we bumped somebody; it's slow going.
All the joggers are girls, each one looking California identical: white tank top, blond ponytail swinging, designer sunglasses, running with a duckfoot sashay canter, iSomething in one hand, etc. I asked Jonathan to take a picture of these specimens but he's too embarrassed - use your imagination...
In the midst of all this self-indulgence stands a little unassuming church. Our destination!
Mary and her friend are very happy to see us. They had a GREAT time. We toss their stuff into the trunk and we're driving again...ugh...
Birders: an osprey hangs in the air above the cliffside road.
It was an uneventful ride home, coasting downhill for 2 hours, listening to the little girls in the backseat gossiping about campmates.
Jonathan & I pull out of the driveway a little before 8:00. We figure an hour to get to South Lake, then another 45 minutes to Sunnyside -- we can be back before lunch.
You can reach Tahoe only 2 ways: corporate jet or winding two-lane mountain blacktop.
We've decided against going corporate jet and opt for the hairpin-turn blacktop -- this means you can't look up from the road, even for a second, else you crash (and then everybody in the county knows your name, and is mad at you for shutting down the road).
I'll watch the road and Jonathan will be the smartphone GPS navigator and photographer.
We begin from 1500' elevation in the foothills and will cross the Sierra Nevada through a gap at 8,000' -- all in a hour's time. The temperature will drop 15 or 20 degrees, the oxygen about 25%.
Highway 50 follows the American River South Fork for much of the assent. The river is boiling and tumbling and freezing cold from snow runoff. "How much gold is being washed down?" -- that's all that my boy & I can think of.
We turn on NPR radio for laughs and aren't disappointed.
* Moira Liason interviews a hipster couple who form a two bass duet. For 20 years, through marriage to each other followed by divorce, they play to empty coffee shops. Naturally, NPR thinks they're heroic.
* Next Robert Siegel proves that just because the current heat wave doesn't prove Global Warming, it still proves Global Warming -- if you'll tilt your head and squint just right. The whole piece is desperately delusional but delivered in a measured dulcet voice. The NPR demographic laps this kind of stuff up.
* Then a Tibetian rapper is profiled. He's spent a decade as a Buddhist monk but he's now liberated himself to a life of liquor, promiscuity, and ghetto jive talk in NYC. "My guru understands." NPR predictably swoons.
* Finally, a segment on waterbirds. Jonathan & I begin to relax but "Global Warming" pops up its ugly head to spoil it all.
At 6000' we're in the middle of vast granite basoliths -- single pieces of rock miles in diameter.
To the right Horsetail Falls barrels down the hill like a freight train. The guy is huge.
At the very tippy-top, Echo Summit (the Pacific Trail crosses here) and suddenly we're on the other side of the divide, looking down into the Tahoe Basin.
That's the lake in the distance.
Every visitor is on a bicycle. Paved bicycle trails course through the woods. On the roads there are more bicycles than cars.
Since we're ahead of schedule (Mary's camp isn't dismissed until 10am) boy & I get out and take a walk.
I pose Jonathan for a photograph and he pleads "Dad, what do I do with my hands?" He never knows what to do with his hands; he ran his track meets this year with his hands in his pockets.
There's nobody else around. It's perfectly still and quiet.
Back in the car, we continue around the west side of the lake.
This is Emerald Bay, with pleasure boats streaming in & out of the broader lake.
(Nevada over there on the other side.)
Soon we come to a 20 mile stretch of tourists. Everyone is biking or jogging. You sense that dirty ol' cars are at the bottom of the hierarchy and we'd be lynched if we bumped somebody; it's slow going.
All the joggers are girls, each one looking California identical: white tank top, blond ponytail swinging, designer sunglasses, running with a duckfoot sashay canter, iSomething in one hand, etc. I asked Jonathan to take a picture of these specimens but he's too embarrassed - use your imagination...
In the midst of all this self-indulgence stands a little unassuming church. Our destination!
Mary and her friend are very happy to see us. They had a GREAT time. We toss their stuff into the trunk and we're driving again...ugh...
Birders: an osprey hangs in the air above the cliffside road.
It was an uneventful ride home, coasting downhill for 2 hours, listening to the little girls in the backseat gossiping about campmates.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Daytrip
Since the inlaws are returning to China next week, we plan a last daytrip -- to beaches north of San Francisco.
It will be a two or three hour drive to Bodega Bay (where Hitchcock filmed The Birds).
Six squeeze in the soccer van - mother, father, son, daughter, grandmother, grandfather -- with a month's worth of travel food (it's a Chinese thing).
And changes of clothes: no telling what the weather will be. Up at Tahoe it snowed this week, we are in the nineties, and the coast is predicted at sixty.
30 minutes down the foothills to Sacramento: just in time for morning rush hour. I don't get out much, so I always feel assaulted by cities.
About 1 hour to cross the Great Central Valley: rice & corn & hay & almond orchards.
Flaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat. They use lasers to mark the rows, GPS to drive the tractors.
I-80 is a narrow black ribbon that cuts through the vast farms.
"No, we won't tour the Jelly Belly factory." Every trip this way, the same plaint.
Then it's the hills of the Pacific Range. This is my favorite part of the drive west. Our own Sierra foothills look something like this, but not quite as mellow and cartoon-like. It resembles a pneumatic Grant Wood / Thomas Hart Benton landscape
Close to Oakland/San Francisco, we veer north through Marin and Sonoma counties, traveling the back country roads.
Cattle farms and dairy farms and vineyards, bucolic and slow. Small crossroad towns, the storefronts and churches 100 years old. Farmers working their fields.
This is supposed to be Limousine Liberal Mecca, "Home of the Hot Tub" -- where the last Republican was chased out decades ago. True, I see no Tea Party signs like back in El Dorado, but I also see no limousines -- just tractors.
Where Central Valley agriculture is hi-tech and gargantuan, here are small (1000 acre) traditional family farms.
Clouds in the distance mean "ocean." Now we pass through fishing villages perched on the edge of estuaries and bays. "Bar-B-Q Oysters" must be a local specialty. These ramshackled joints are for locals, not rich tourists.
Again and again we pass through stands of eucalyptus and the smell is overpowering.
What would it be like to live here and smell Vicks Vapor Rub perpetually?
And finally we intersect Route 1, the Coastal Highway -- a two laner that hugs the cliffside.
In my youth, this was the highway that movies stars driving sport convertibles sailed off of.
Portuguese Beach
There's no one on the beaches this Thursday morning. The air temperature is maybe 65 with a sea breeze.
As you can see, it's quite unlike the Gulf Coast. The sand is dark and coarse, the water is painfully cold, the rocks and plants are strange & marvelous. There's no teeming life of crabs and darting fish and biting insects. Much more austere.
Goat Rock Beach
Lining up for the obligatory Chinese "picture with famous thing" -- there were lots of these.
We had a blast.
However... there was one disturbing incident at the beach.
"Undocumented workers" making landfall right where we stood.
And a disturbing billboard roadside.
Octogenarian playing the casinos. "Caps" mean "bald". Not shown are walkers.
Finally, on the trip home, we were caught in traffic north of San Francisco Bay -- the afternoon rush hour overflow from the city? -- and sat for an hour in the middle of a marsh. It happened again as we approached Sacramento. Ughh, we wanted to be home.
It will be a two or three hour drive to Bodega Bay (where Hitchcock filmed The Birds).
Six squeeze in the soccer van - mother, father, son, daughter, grandmother, grandfather -- with a month's worth of travel food (it's a Chinese thing).
And changes of clothes: no telling what the weather will be. Up at Tahoe it snowed this week, we are in the nineties, and the coast is predicted at sixty.
30 minutes down the foothills to Sacramento: just in time for morning rush hour. I don't get out much, so I always feel assaulted by cities.
About 1 hour to cross the Great Central Valley: rice & corn & hay & almond orchards.
Flaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat. They use lasers to mark the rows, GPS to drive the tractors.
I-80 is a narrow black ribbon that cuts through the vast farms.
"No, we won't tour the Jelly Belly factory." Every trip this way, the same plaint.
Then it's the hills of the Pacific Range. This is my favorite part of the drive west. Our own Sierra foothills look something like this, but not quite as mellow and cartoon-like. It resembles a pneumatic Grant Wood / Thomas Hart Benton landscape
Close to Oakland/San Francisco, we veer north through Marin and Sonoma counties, traveling the back country roads.
Cattle farms and dairy farms and vineyards, bucolic and slow. Small crossroad towns, the storefronts and churches 100 years old. Farmers working their fields.
This is supposed to be Limousine Liberal Mecca, "Home of the Hot Tub" -- where the last Republican was chased out decades ago. True, I see no Tea Party signs like back in El Dorado, but I also see no limousines -- just tractors.
Where Central Valley agriculture is hi-tech and gargantuan, here are small (1000 acre) traditional family farms.
Clouds in the distance mean "ocean." Now we pass through fishing villages perched on the edge of estuaries and bays. "Bar-B-Q Oysters" must be a local specialty. These ramshackled joints are for locals, not rich tourists.
Again and again we pass through stands of eucalyptus and the smell is overpowering.
What would it be like to live here and smell Vicks Vapor Rub perpetually?
And finally we intersect Route 1, the Coastal Highway -- a two laner that hugs the cliffside.
In my youth, this was the highway that movies stars driving sport convertibles sailed off of.
Portuguese Beach
There's no one on the beaches this Thursday morning. The air temperature is maybe 65 with a sea breeze.
As you can see, it's quite unlike the Gulf Coast. The sand is dark and coarse, the water is painfully cold, the rocks and plants are strange & marvelous. There's no teeming life of crabs and darting fish and biting insects. Much more austere.
Goat Rock Beach
Lining up for the obligatory Chinese "picture with famous thing" -- there were lots of these.
We had a blast.
However... there was one disturbing incident at the beach.
"Undocumented workers" making landfall right where we stood.
And a disturbing billboard roadside.
Octogenarian playing the casinos. "Caps" mean "bald". Not shown are walkers.
Finally, on the trip home, we were caught in traffic north of San Francisco Bay -- the afternoon rush hour overflow from the city? -- and sat for an hour in the middle of a marsh. It happened again as we approached Sacramento. Ughh, we wanted to be home.
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