The sounds of spring

Rain hitting the windows. It's chilly and looks like winter. But not inside; here in my house, it's definitely spring. The voices of Jon Miller and Dave Flemming describing the play-by-play; the crack of bats hitting balls comes through crisp and clear; the voices of cheering fans—music, sweet music to my baseball-starved ears. It's spring training on the radio! The visiting Giants are playing the Seattle Mariners at the Mariners field in Peoria, Ariz. The Giants lead 7-3 in the bottom of the 5th. It's the beginning of a beautiful season . . .

So long, Vancouver

I've spent the past two-plus weeks engrossed in the Winter Olympics, and I've had a fantastic time. Thanks to the twin luxuries of spare time and a new, big-screen, HDTV, I've seen winter sports like never before, and became a fan of way more than figure skating. Like halfpipe, and freestyle aerial skiing, and snowboard cross. And Nordic combined! In fact, all of the cross-country ski events were thrilling to watch—the stamina, aerobic conditioning, strength, and just plain guts are beautiful to behold. I've done a tiny, tiny bit of cross-country skiing, enough to be slackjawed with admiration for those athletes. All of them, all of them . . . the Alpine athletes hurtling downhill at unearthly speeds on two skinny pieces of fiberglass . . . the lugers (and that sad, tragic boy who died before he even had a chance to compete), the bobsledders, the skeleton (too aptly named, in my opinion) . . . curling, such a quirky and whimsical but hugely serious sport that was on TV nearly all the time . . . the skating, of course, figure and ice dancing, always lovely to watch, but didn't this year hold my interest as much as the short-track did, Apolo Anton Ohno with his impish twinkle and his astonishing talent and moxie and the wild and wooly action on the ice . . . The athletes are so fit, so incredibly well conditioned, and they're all amazingly beautiful, healthy, strong; they glow. Inspiring stuff; makes me realize if all of them can train with that much determination and discipline, I can manage to get to my aerobics class at 7 a.m. every day.

And the hockey! I've never watched hockey, never paid any attention to it at all. But this Olympics, I watched a lot of hockey and have become a fan. Where else this side of roller derby can you witness the barely controlled chaos that is ice hockey? Wahoo! Add in the gorgeous images of Vancouver (a beautiful city where I was once lucky enough to ride through on a bicycle trip) and the mountains and water of British Columbia, and all those wonderful Canadians, it was a total treat. I even learned the words to "O, Canada."

Anyway, all this is still swirling around in my head as I gradually come out of the Winter Olympics fog and come to terms with the end of the games. It was swell, I loved watching and agonizing and cheering along with everybody else. And tonight, it's all gone. Good thing baseball starts soon.

Ski shoot

I'm watching the women's biathlon, which in my book contends with curling for the two most peculiar—and opposite—Olympic sports. Curling is silly, but sweet, with teams of people trying desperately to make a "stone" slide farther than their opponents' stones by sweeping the ice in its path. Biathlon, on the other hand, looks to be lifted straight from a 007 vs. Blofeld novel; i.e., cross-country skiing interrupted at intervals by the skier stoppng, unhooking what appears to be a lethally high-powered rifle from her back, firing at a target, then restrapping the rifle and continuing along the course.

There must be some historical reason to justify including both of these, um, sports in the winter Olympics. I feel a Google search coming on . . .

OK, the Norwegians take credit (or blame) for this shoot-n'-ski thing. According to Wikipedia, the sport has its origins in an exercise for Norwegian soldiers, as an alternative training for the military. (Wikipedia doesn't reveal whether this jolly event was ever used in actual combat.) Due to some squabbling over the rules amongst its proponents, biathlon didn't become an official Olympic sport until 1960, and women—those lucky devils!—at last were allowed to compete in 1992.

Further adventures in name- (and also gender-) changing

Christine Elizabeth Terry wants to change her name. So does Daniel Robert Spalding. Christine has asked the court to allow her to be known as Christopher Aaron Terry. While the court is at it, Christine is asking for a decree changing her gender from female to male and that a new birth certificate be issued declaring same. That same day, in the same courtroom and at the same time, Daniel hopes the court will allow him to henceforth be known as Sarah Elizabeth Spalding, legally change his gender from male to female and provide him with a new birth certificate that says Sarah was always a girl named Sarah.

That these two petitions will be heard on the same day may just be coincidence. But I'm kind of hoping that Christine/Christopher and Daniel/Sarah plan to leave the courtroom hand in hand, head straight for for the county clerk's office and plunk down the fee for their marriage license. I'll be watching for the wedding write-up.

Purity polluted

The American League was founded on this date in 1901. Who then could have imagined that, 71 years later, the league's honor and dignity would be tossed onto the trash heap of craven pandering to slugging over strategy when it adopted the designated-hitter rule in 1973. Ben Johnson must have wept in his grave.

What's in a name?

I was perusing the public notices in last night's Davis Enterprise. (You don't read these? Riveting stuff; I recommend them.) Businesses old and new file fictitious business name statements with the county (the Richardson Group/Richardson United is really just Tobin Richardson; a group of one, apparently; and nice to see the Pincushion Boutique is still opening its doors here in Davis.)

But the most fascinating listings are the ones headed "Order to Show Cause for Change of Name." Quite a few people want, or need, to change their names, and to do it legally, they must go to court, get a case number and a hearing date, and run a public notice in the newspaper of record (in Yolo County's case, the aforementioned Enterprise) to alert everybody that, unless someone objects, the bloke they used to know as Joe Smith will hereinafter be known as Joe Jones.

The fun lies in musing on why Joe Smith now wants to be Joe Jones. Last night's paper printed several name changes, and by and large they were pretty straightforward. Joseph Vincent wants to change his name to Joseph Vincent Calabro. Was Calabro a family name that got dropped someplace along the family tree? Maybe Joseph Vincent married someone whose last name is Calabro, and felt the thoughtful gesture would be to tack his spouse's name onto his. Slightly more enigmatic is Earl Thompson's petition to become Ej Thompson. I've never seen "Ej" as a name before and wonder, among other things, how it's pronounced: "Edge," maybe, or perhaps "Eej." "Ej" could be the name of a popular rapper, or have some religious significance. Curious.

What's in a name? Whatever the court decrees.

What They say

They say we're going to get rain. A lot of rain. They are pointing to maps of the jet stream to back up their prediction. Maybe even enough precipitation to cause the Sacramento River floodgates to open, sending excess water into the Yolo Bypass. And, They say, lots of snow, too.

But They have been known to disappoint. The maps, the isobars, the El Nino effect, the historical record—these are the tools They use to make their forecasts. But They are never the Final Arbiter of what, eventually, goes/comes down. Ma Nature always has her spoon in the soup, and She, not They, decides whether it's a good, thick, chunky bowlful or the Oliver Twist special.

I hope They are right this time. I'm hungry for rain.

Dinner with friends

Just back from Fuzio's, where I had dinner (and at least one too many glasses of wine) with JC and Teeb, my former UComm colleagues and dear friends. All told, we worked together more than 15 years, and when I think about work and what the best thing about it was, I always think JC and Teeb. Good minds, good hearts, good people, witty and smart and committed to doing the best job they could. In truth, this was true of nearly all of the people I worked with. But for whatever reason—the fact that we worked so closely together for so long, that our senses of humor meshed so well, that our astrological signs were compatible, or something equally intangible—JC and Teeb and I became friends as well as co-workers. And even though we don't work together any more, that friendship has lasted and still feels solid, reliable, steady. Dinner was tons of laughs and good conversation and connection. I needed that. It felt good. And we will do it again. Soon.

I see blue people.

Went to see "Avatar" yesterday afternoon, and a better antidote for a gray, fogged-in day (just like the previous umpty-ump days) would be hard to find. Never mind that the script is really bad and the acting over the top (even Sigourney Weaver struggles with it), and that the action is so slow the first hour that I began to wish I'd bought popcorn just to have something to keep me occupied. Because the visuals make up for everything. Everything. The color is so vibrant, so rich, the detail is so splendid, the graphics so amazing—and all of this is squared and trined and ratcheted-up-to-the-nth-degree by being in 3-D. It took a few minutes for me to get used to the 3-D sensation—a bit of motion-sickness effect, though not at all severe—but it didn't take long to get my sea legs, so to speak, and by the time the film was rocketing toward its conclusion, I'd forgotten I was seeing something different, effects-wise. It simply was gorgeous. Worth the premium price the theater charges for 3-D action ($11.75) because I can't imaging seeing "Avatar" in anything other than 3-D. So, even if you don't like science fiction or animation or outer space or clunky storytelling or James Cameron, see this movie. You will like it. Really.

First you hear it, then you don't

My venerable 1985 Honda Accord started making an intermittent squealing noise a couple of weeks ago. I'd notice it when I'd first start it up, couldn't pinpoint exactly where it was coming from, and, up until earlier this week, would shortly forget about it because it would stop after I'd driven for a bit. But last Sunday, it was really making a racket and that time it didn't go away, so Wednesday evening I took it to my mechanic so that on Thursday morning, he could start it up, hear the noise, find it and fix it. Except he couldn't hear it. The car never made a peep.

There must be a name for this kind of phenomenon. It's the same one that causes that twinge in your back that's been bothering you for weeks to disappear totally when at last you make it in to see your doctor about it, or that alerts your cat to the fact that you plan to take him to the vet later in the day and even though you haven't even gone near the cat carrier and have acted perfectly normally around him he crawls under the bed to the very center and can't be reached no matter which side you try.

I've dug out my tape recorder and am going to keep it in the car. Maybe Click and Clack can figure it out.

Another one bites the dust

The Naturalist is closing. That beautiful store, where I go first when I'm looking for a birthday present or a Christmas present, and where I often stop in just to browse because there are so many lovely things to look at. Wind chimes, jewelery, pottery, calendars, children's books, puzzles and toys, guide books, greeting cards and notes, bird feeders . . . the list goes on. The two women who own The Naturalist have wonderful taste, and have continued and expanded on the types of merchandise featured by the store's former owners. We came close to losing The Naturalist some years ago, when the original owners wanted to retire, but were saved by Cheryl and Patty, who bought it, moved it to its present spot on Second St., and continued to offer not only a beautiful variety of merchandise but their own involvement with what they sold and with the community. Special sale nights that supported the Yolo Basin Foundation were just one of those. They chose their wares with care and a discerning eye, offering beauty and functionality at a reasonable price. The store at Christmas was a feast for the eye, with the decorated tree, sparkly lights and ornaments . . .

They've been trying to sell the business for months, but despite interest from many, no one has come forward at the 11th hour to rescue The Naturalist. So, along with dozens, probably hundreds, of other Davisites, I will have to say goodbye. There are so few shops left like The Naturalist, businesses owned by the people you see behind the counter and stocking the shelves. Sadly, the Targets and Wal-Marts are the order of the day, made sadder still by the fact that, once the small, independent places are gone, the children of today will have nothing to compare to their "big box" shopping experience.

The Naturalist's doors aren't closed just yet; they'll be selling off their stock, and I'll go down to wish them well and maybe pick up a few last things. As I was doing some last-minute Christmas shopping a couple of weeks ago, a necklace caught my eye, a small silver oak tree on a silver chain. I was stretching my gift budget, but I bought it for myself. I'm glad I did; it will always remind me of the one-of-a-kind store it came from.

Christmas wrap

Relaxed, friend-filled Christmas holiday. The annual Davis Holiday Meal served probably more than 800 people with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, vegetables, cranberry sauce, rolls and butter and a huge variety of desserts. I hadn't been for years and years, and it was fun to be there. Saw lots of people I knew, many I didn't; a cross-section of Davisites.


My dining companions (below)—Bill, Pica, Numenius and Susan (not in the picture):


A better picture of Pica and Numenius:

And yours truly, forking in turkey stuffing:

After dinner, Bill and Susan and I gathered 'round my bottle of Bailey's (still drinkable even though probably 7 years old—maybe it's like brandy), opened a few presents and chatted about this and that, simply enjoying one another's company.

Come Christmas morn, I wallowed in bed staying warm and toasty, then up for a breakfast of French toast with bananas, yogurt and maple syrup accompanied by good strong French roast coffee. Around noon, broke out of the house and went for a Christmas walk in the Arboretum, which seemed to be an idea that had occurred to a number of others—couples, families, folks walking their dogs. Weather had warmed up and the sun was out; still a bit chilly but fine for walking. I stopped to sit for a bit on one of the benches in the native California section, one of my favorite spots.

I was surprised to find this California poppy blooming along the path. It's December, fercryinoutloud!

Fall/winter still in evidence, though . . .

My return route took me up to Voorhies Hall and through its lovely (and largely ignored, it seems) courtyard, planted with roses surrounded a burbling fountain. Another favorite place.


Then it was off to Danville with Susan to her sister Jane's house for Christmas dinner.

Susan and Jane attack the cooking.

This Brussels sprouts-cauliflower concoction tasted even better than it looks.

The festive meal:
Pork roast, dried cherry relish, brussels sprouts-cauliflower dish, mashed potatoes, applesauce

I came home with leftovers. Perhaps tomorrow, I shall fast. Or not.

Eve afternoon

Just finished cleaning house, leastways my version of cleaning house—picking up all the newspapers and vacuuming the floors—and am looking out my back window at a sunny but crisply cold afternoon. There was ice on the fountain again this morning, confusing the birds. Susan and Bill are coming over around 4:30, and we'll head up to the annual Davis Holiday Meal, given these past 24 years by the Davis Food Co-op as a way to bring the community together to celebrate the season and one another. After dinner, it's back here to crack open the Bailey's and exchange Festivus tributes. As for tomorrow, I've been invited to join Susan at her sister's house in Danville for dinner. And maybe, just maybe, if I'm not in fear of my earlobes freezing off, I'll get in a bike ride beforehand.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a warm night!

Thanks. A lot.

For lots of things, I'm thankful. In no particular order . . . Barack Obama. Davis, a town still small enough to have edges to ride my bicycle beyond. Baseball in general, the San Francisco Giants in particular, and the proximity of AT&T Park. Netflix. UC Davis, which gave me 31 years of employment and now provides me with a pension and health insurance AND dental insurance AND vision insurance (how did I get so lucky?). Trees. Dear family, great friends, good neighbors. Movie theaters within walking distance. Ditto bookstores. The Co-op. The Perfect Chair, and a warm bed, which I am now headed to.

P.S. Speaking of fall color, as I was yesterday, here's the view out my back window . . .

Riding to Vacaville

Stu and I have been talking on and off about doing a ride to Vacaville while this fall weather is still with us, and I don't think we could have picked a better day than today. It was still a bit chilly when we started off around 9:30, but we hadn't gone 5 miles before I was stripping off the knee- and arm-warmers, and even the vest on the return trip.

We've had no real rainstorms to speak of so far, so the trees still have most of their fall color—the brilliant yellow of the walnut, the orange and red of the Chinese pistache, and the garnet of the ginkos, arrayed against the greens of olive and valley oak. Coming back into Winters along Pleasants Valley Road, the sun slanting into a grove of mature walnut trees made me think of light streaming through a cathedral window, filling the space with gold.

Bonus points: a 36-mile ride banked against tomorrow's highly likely overindulgence in mass quantities of food.

Cy x 2 x 2

The Giants' starter Tim Lincecum won his second Cy Young award in as many years this past week, a historic achievement—never before in the 54-year history of the award has a pitcher won back-to-back Cy Youngs in his first two full seasons in the majors. He's also only the fourth National League pitcher to have won in back-to-back years. The first to do so was Sandy Koufax, back in the 1965 and 1966 seasons.

I was lucky enough to get to see Sandy Koufax pitch a few times at Dodger Stadium. Like Timmy, Koufax combined power, athleticism, and huge talent in equal measures, making him one of the most exceptional pitchers ever to play the game. Koufax and Lincecum couldn't be more different as men and even as ballplayers, but they share that ineffable, undefinable but unmistakable "something"—electricity, charisma, a compelling presence—whatever it is, I'm on board with it.

So here's to you, Timmy. Congratulations—you are in august company, right where you belong.

P.S. Don't cut your hair!

Better than sliced bread

I like ice cream. A lot. I especially like good ice cream, by which I mean the kind made with a whole lotta cream and other tasty globules of fat-type ingredients. Why eat the stuff, I say, unless there's that yummy, rich, creamy texture sliding from spoon to mouth, full of the flavor of chocolate, or coffee, or dulce de leche, or caramel?

But because its blessings are also its curse, I don't often buy the stuff. A pint of Haagen-Dazs dulce de leche in my freezer can disappear faster than those funds you invested with Bernie Madoff. So imagine my oh-boy-oh-boy joy when I spotted these teensy-weensy half-cup cartons of Haagen-Dazs in the freezer at the new Target. Portion control! Exactly the right size! And in my favorite flavors to be mixed and matched! So much better than buying a whole pint of just one flavor.

I'm sure there are people out there working on a better mousetrap, but until they find it, half-cup cartons of Haagen-Dazs will do.

Packaging perfection

Saturday walk

Took a walk in the Arboretum this morning and did the entire loop, east to west and back again. Yesterday's rain must have washed everything clean, because it was a beautiful fall day—bright blue sky, plants and trees sparkly, ducks' backs glistening. Thought about taking my camera but didn't want to be burdened with any accoutrements so left it at home. So the images are in my head, and you can get some of your own if you go there, yourself.

I hadn't done the whole Arbo distance in a while, and my cranky right hip is definitely grouchier tonight, but I don't care, it was worth it. Tylenol is my friend.

The 2009 baseball season ended last night, Yankees 7, Phillies 3. Two great teams, six skillfully played games. Personally, I was pulling for the Phillies, the National League in my book being the league that plays real baseball, but props to the Yankees for fielding a team chock-a-block with supremely talented ballplayers. Yes, they're paid well, but they still have to play well. The money didn't create their greatness, it only enables them to play with others of their ilk. A harrumph on my part, though, re the Series MVP going to Matsui, the Yankees' designated hitter. Please. The most valuable player should be a guy who does more than swing a bat. He should be out there turning a brilliant double play, or making a diving catch of a vicious line drive in left-center field, or being the most dazzling and feared closer in modern baseball history. The MVP to the DH? Bah!

Bottom line, though, baseball is over for this year. More than any previous season, this one, for me, was a whole lotta fun. I went to 10 Giants' games, I listened to or watched all the others, and rediscovered the complexity, the passion, the joy of baseball. Yes, it's flawed, but so is the world, so am I. And flawed though it may be, there's a whole lot to be said for nine innings, 27 outs, the hit and run, the sacrifice fly, the stolen base, the unhittable curveball and the Big Fly. What will I do this winter? Read some baseball books, try once again to learn exactly what the waiver, Rule 5, and the option are all about, and watch Bull Durham again. And again.

Pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training right around my birthday, the rest of the players a week or so after that. I have my hotel room booked and my plane ticket purchased. Hey, it's already November—spring is right around the corner.

You're never alone at a ball game.

The largest thing I've learned is the enormous grip that this game has on people, the extent to which it really is very important. It goes way down deep. It really does bind together.
—Bart Giamatti

Coincidences

My son John died shortly after midnight Oct. 12, 1986. He was a huge fan of the Miami Dolphins and the Dolphins' quarterback, Dan Marino.

This past Sunday, Oct. 11, I was up late; the TV was on. Just after midnight, a Jim Carrey movie came on. The cast included Dan Marino.

This past Monday evening, Oct. 12, the Miami Dolphins played the New York Jets. The game was televised. The Dolphins won, 31-27.

In today's mail, I received a letter from the San Francisco Giants, thanking me for the donation I made a couple of months ago in John's memory to the Jr. Giants Fund. The date on the letter was October 12.

I'm sure these coincidences are just that—coincidences. John would probably say that's so.