Morning Mail

"Buddy" is an old, timid hound dog.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.