Sayonara, Indian Summer

Cold! A sharp north wind has appeared, making the daytime temperatures feel lower than they probably are, and giving the nights a bite. It's beautiful, though. Out walking this morning, early, the sun just cresting the roof line of the houses, a persimmon tree, bare branches hung with fruit, each vivid orange globe seemingly lit from within. Whether it's the time of day or the time of year, that inner-light effect turns every autumn into a visual stunner. And the cold clear nights makes the stars hard and bright; every night, just before I go to bed, I step out on my deck and say goodnight to my old friend, Orion, the first constellation other than the Big Dipper that I learned to recognize. Always nice to welcome him back to the neighborhood.

Bird brain

Last night I went to the bird identification workshop offered by Yolo Audubon. I went because, though I like birds and enjoy looking at them, I can scarcely tell the difference between a chicken and a chicken hawk (and I don't really know what a chicken hawk looks like). The program included a lot of slides of various similar kinds of birds, the challenge to the audience being to say which one was which. I had no idea, of course (though I did know the mourning dove wasn't the ring-necked dove). But most of the differences came down to things like one bird having a darker stripe on its head (except when it didn't) or a larger patch of rosiness around its throat (except in the spring). Or something. All the birds were interesting, though, and beautiful to look at.

Despite my appalling ignorance, however, I was encouraged to sign up and take part in the annual Christmas Bird Count. So I did, and, along with my friend Dana, will accompany a much more experienced (and I hope infinitely patient) birder come Sunday, Dec. 16, out in the wide open spaces south of Winters. I hope there are a lot of chickens out there.

Speechless

I'm not much of a TV watcher. If you don't count baseball games, I've probably seen fewer than 100 hours of it all year. But I have been following the writers' strike. I occasionally write for pay. Once it's out there, in the world, it can kind of get away from you; no telling who's xeroxing it, or using it whole cloth in something they're writing. Not that this has happened to me, or at least I have no knowledge of it. But the point is, what I write, what anyone writes, is a singular thing, and wouldn't exist without the brain behind it. So it only seems fair and equitable that writers should share in profits generated when what they've written appears on the Internet, or on a DVD, or is transmitted in any other fashion. Kindergarten was supposed to teach us all to share. Were the studio execs absent that day?

For a look at the writers' take on all this, check out Speechless. Ditto the writers' blog. And if signing petitions is your sort of thing, you can do that here.

Back in the saddle again

I fell while hiking four weeks ago—caught my toe on a ridiculously small stub of some shrub or other and went down like I'd been sandbagged—and though it felt like every inch of the front of me made contact with the earth at one and the same moment, my right knee apparently struck a millisecond or two ahead of the rest. Diagnosis: a bruise behind my kneecap that has kept me off my bicycle ever since.

Until today. Today I rode again—not far, just to the Co-op and then took the long way home—but after four weeks of not riding, just being on the bike for that short time was exhilarating. The sore knee has kept me from riding, from doing any brisk walking, from doing much of any exercise of any kind. Not being able to do those things put me into a serious decline; been feeling quasi-blue and shut in. I'm not a rabid athlete by anyone's definition, but the lack of exercise, of being outside and breathing deeply, was beginning to wear on me. (Among other things, this blog has suffered from my lack of energy/motivation.)

So I'm keeping my fingers crossed that even though my knee is still sore to the touch, I'll be able to ride like I did today—easily and (relatively) pain free. I can cocoon only so long.

Distinguished speaker

I heard Luis Urrea speak last night. He's the author of The Devil's Highway, which tells the grim story of 14 "walkers" who died in the Arizona desert attempting to cross into the U.S. from Mexico. The book is about more than that, though; it's about people--on both sides of the border, on both sides of the law--who are working at cross purposes, sometimes even within themselves. A fair-skinned, fair-haired guy, he was born in Tijuana to a Mexican father and an American mother, and he spent the first half of his talk describing his family background and their quirky ancestral mix (his paternal grandmother's surname, for instance, was Murray, "pronounced," Urrea said, "Muurrrray.")

I've heard a lot of people lecture at UC Davis, but I have never heard anyone better than Luis Urrea (he joins Bill Clinton and Mario Cuomo in that category). Smart, engaging, moving, a riveting storyteller with a self-deprecating sense of humor who talked for a solid hour with nary a notecard to guide him; he made me laugh . . . and brought me to tears. He opened with a prayer to the four directions, which he spoke first in (I think) Nahuatl (I'm not sure I'm remembering the name correctly), then Mexican Spanish, then English: "I am West, I am . . . ; I am South, I am . . . ; I am East, I am . . . ; I am North, I am . . . ." Beautiful, moving, wonderful to hear how the words sounded in each version (and reminding me how words are only symbols of the things, themselves).

Urrea's Web site, La Vista, is worth a visit. And do I ever wish I could have dinner with him.

Visiting

I'm at my cousins Joe and Debbie's house in Torrance, where Debbie is in the throes of preparing to host about 18 people for Thanksgiving dinner. The woman has an abundance of courage, along with a 26-lb. turkey. I peeled potatoes, as close to unskilled kitchen labor as you can get and which suits my talents. Other than that chore, I spent the day chatting, reading the Los Angeles Times (still a good newspaper), and having fun watching J & D's 6-month-old granddaughter. At 2 o'clock, realizing I hadn't left the house yet, I went for an hour-long walk in the neighborhood. Dinner, some TV, more reading, and that's today.

Tomorrow, I will board the L.A. Metro's Blue Line, ride it to the Red Line, take that to Union Station and get on the Gold Line, riding it to Pasadena to spend Thanksgiving Day and my younger granddaughter's 5th birthday on Friday. I've only been on the Metro once, and that was a long time ago, when it was fairly new; rode the Red Line from Union Station to Olvera St. This will be a longer journey, and I'll have my large suitcase and a carry-on bag with me. Could be an adventure to remember . . . or forget.

Only in L.A.

I'm in SoCal, here for Thanksgiving week with family. Usually I fly into Bob Hope (nee Burbank) Airport, but this trip I came via LAX. There may be a spot in the world that's laying down a bigger carbon footprint, but if so, I don't want to go there. The airport itself wasn't too crowded, but outside, in the passenger pickup zone, it was zoosville, an unbroken stream of vehicles—passenger cars, buses (shuttle and public transit), taxis, vans, pickup trucks, police motorcycles, airport utility vehicles—all maneuvering, honking, creeping, making their way in a slow counterclockwise circle around the terminal, eyes peeled for an opportunity to dart into or away from the curb. Add to this mix the intermittent P.A. announcements ("The white zone . . . ," etc.) interspersed with Muzak that was nowhere near decipherable, and flight-deprived nicotine users puffing away, and you have a scene from one of those surrealist movies where you can't ever figure out what the whole thing is about. Many of the vehicles have a theme. I saw one white passenger car covered with a lacy decoration of pink vines, flowers and butterflies, the name "China Laundry" on the door. Another, a white 12-passenger van, had "H.I.S Tours" stenciled on it in blue, the "I" encircled by a halo. When I saw it, no one was aboard.

Turkey Trot

This morning, about 9 o'clock, the 10K runners in Davis' 20th annual Turkey Trot began streaming up 6th St., less than half a block from my house. I could hear them before I could see them, a murmer of sound that swelled as the crowd came into view. It was like being near a river—people filling the street from curb to curb, moving at a steady pace, talking, laughing, an occasional cheer, just like the sound of water as it flows downstream. They just kept coming . . . and coming . . . and coming. I belatedly checked my watch, and clocked more than two minutes before there was any lessening in the volume.

Among the spectators were a man and a little boy. The boy was really small, wearing a sweatshirt with the hood up, and from my second-story vantage point, he looked exactly like a garden gnome. When the two of them reached the curb, the boy just joined in with the runners, his dad falling into step beside him. Everyone cheered.

Two approaches to cycling

Approach No. 1:
Make sure you have a good, lightweight road bike equipped with moderate- to high-end components. Wear lycra cycling shorts, knee- and/or arm warmers, a lightweight, brightly colored vest or jacket, cycling gloves and shoes with cleats that are compatible with your clipless pedals. Ride 20 miles, stop and eat lunch, then ride home. Total: 40 miles.

Below is an illustration of Approach No. 1, as exemplified today by Stu, me, Barbara and Dave just after a lovely lunch at Tomales Bakery.


Approach No. 2:
Find your bike. Pump up the tires. Put a rack on the back and attach a pannier-type bag to one side. Put some clothes and other stuff in it and into a couple of large, black garbage bags, which you can also attach to the rack. Put on a sweatshirt and a pair of pants and some shoes. Gloves can be of any description. Start riding in Olympia, Wash., sometime around the first of October and head south to San Francisco. Total miles: 750.

Below is an illustration of Approach No. 2 as demonstrated by Kate, riding solo from Olympia. (Not her first such trip; this past summer, she rode to Chicago.)

Conclusion: Stop reading all those cycling magazines and just get on your bike and ride. (Disregard if you are older than 25.)

Bloggers, take heed

Today's New York Times ran the obituary of Robert Shields, who devoted the last quarter-century of his life to writing entries in his diary, documenting his days in five-minute segments. Everything he did—eating, performing household tasks, urinating—he considered worthy of note. By the time a stroke ended his ability to type, he'd entered 37.5 million words.

I think I'll stop now.

Way back . . . way back . . . gone!

The baseball season is now Officially Over, both too long (baseball is a summer game and should not be played when the forecast is for snow) and too short (both league championship series and the World Series were done in four games each, darn it). Congrats, Red Sox; you are definitely the best team in baseball. And congrats to the gritty Rockies, whom I fear we Giants fans will see plenty more of (but how about that Matt Herges, who used to be Our Guy, ditto Yorvit Torrealba? And the Rocks have the best-named player in baseball: Troy Tulowitski).

So now begins my personal drought. I listen to a lot of baseball during the season, and when the end of October comes around, I go into withdrawal. Aside from the games, themselves, I miss the Giants' play-by-play guys—Jon Miller, Mike Krukow, Duane Kuiper, and David B. Fleming—who are vastly entertaining. I learn a lot about baseball by listenening to them, and their post-game rap is often hilariously funny, even (or sometimes especially) when the Giants have tanked (sadly, a commonplace this 2007 season).

I'm not a football or basketball fan (don't hate 'em, just can't relate to players I either can't actually recognize because of all the gear or, in the case of basketball, are running back and forth in incomprehensible patterns), and until recently (like, yesterday, when hell froze over as the Comcast guy was installing cable in my flat), I haven't had TV access to the more arcane sports, like bass fishing and rodeo, that are featured on the Versus channel.

Now that I have cable, though, I'm gonna check out bullriding. The cowboys are cute and exotic, the bulls are handsome, and I can recognize all the players. It's not baseball, but it'll have to do until spring comes round again.

Peg Bracken, 1918-2007

In September 1964, I was living in Chicago with my then-husband and our 9-month-old son when a package arrived for me from my mother. It was a book, and on the flyleaf she'd written

"With love to Barbara. Happy housekeeping!"

The book was The I Hate to Housekeep Book, by Peg Bracken, and it was terrific—funny and irreverent about maintaining a house, it wasn't the slob approach but dedicated, she said, to those of us who are "random housekeepers." There were chapters on how to clean things ("Stains, Spots, Blots, Scars, and Dueling Wounds") and how to cook things ("Dinner Will Be Ready As Soon As I Decide What We're Having") and overall, how to not take it all--or yourself--too seriously.

I loved it. She made me laugh. I read it over and over again. I bought her other books—The I Hate to Cook Book, The I Still Hate to Cook Book, I Try to Behave Myself (this one an etiquette book) and The I Hate to Cook Almanak—but my favorite was, and still is, the housekeeping one.

I sometimes thought about writing to Peg Bracken to let her know how much I enjoyed what she'd written, but, like so many other things I think about doing, but don't, I never did. And now I never will.

I still get The I Hate to Housekeep Book out to look something up, and every time I do, I see my mom's inscription and wish again that she'd lived a whole lot longer. I wish I'd thanked Peg Bracken for her books; I'm sure I never thanked my mom enough for everything.

Parenting Rule #1: Stay on the offensive

In line at the small grocery store in Nevada City, behind a mother and her two preteen sons. Mom and younger boy are in conversation, and mom is growing increasingly irritated with what son is saying . . .

Mom [exasperated]: That's the wrong thing to say! I don't know how many times I have to tell you!
Son [in a reasonable tone]: You've never told me.
Mom [same tone as before]: I shouldn't have to tell you! You should know it yourself!

Desperado

Saturday's "This American Life" was called "Act V," as in Act V, the final act, of Shakespeare's Hamlet, as performed by inmates of a high-security prison in Missouri. The cast included men who had committed violent crimes—first-degree assault, rape, murder. Most, if not all, had never seen or read a Shakespeare play. To hear their impressions, their reflections on the characters and motivations of Hamlet, Horatio, Laertes, et al, was to hear Shakespeare interpreted as I've never heard it before.

It was hard for me to continue thinking of these men as not nice people, as people who need to be locked away for a long, long time. In talking about their crimes, they sounded compassionate, self-aware, resigned, remorseful. They talked about what prison life feels like--dehumanizing, demeaning. And yet their crimes were horrible, and they did do them. They learned to act, to interpret Shakespeare; was all the other talk an act, too?

Some years ago, I was on a ferry in San Franciso Bay that passed close enough to San Quentin that I could see the exercise yard, prisoners in their orange jumpsuits standing at the fence, looking out toward the boat as I was looking over at them. "They were all once 3 years old," I thought. What had happened to them between age 3 and that moment of my seeing them from the ferry?

Why do we put people in prison? To keep them away from us? Certainly. To teach them a lesson? That, too. To purge them of their "badness" and rehabilitate them? Not so sure about that last one; seems like that ought to be part of it, but how can any rehabilitation occur in such a place? I don't know the answers to these questions, and it seems pretty clear that the people in charge of running our prison system don't, either. Maybe, though, we need to start with the 3-year-olds.

The cast and director of Hamlet, Act V

Missouri Eastern Correctional Center

Wombat

The Wild & Scenic Environmental Film Festival screened last night at the Vets Memorial Theater. Wombat was the best—unlike many environmental "message" films, this one is short, clever, and utterly hip. Oh, and it's spot on with the message, too

One down

Yesterday's Los Angeles Times carried the obituary of Barry Tunick, who, along with Sylvia Bursztyn, had been writing the Times' Sunday crossword puzzles since the '80s. I've been working crossword puzzles for nearly ever, and those puzzles have always been my favorites for their clever clues, the wit and the puns, for how smart they are. Turns out Tunick was the one who wrote those clues, the one who loved the puns.

I never knew anything about either one of them before yesterday, only that I enjoy their creations immensely. Working one of their puzzles is one of the small yet completely satisfying occupations of my life. And now one half of that partnership is gone. Coincidentally, just yesterday I began Puzzle No. 50 in Vol. 22 of their collected puzzles. I hope when I finish it, I'll find Vol. 23 at the bookstore.

Thanks, Barry. I'll miss you.

Wild things

The cedar waxwings are back, making themselves fat (and probably tipsy) on the grapes still present in great quantities on the vines that climb into the almond tree and onto the railing of my deck—elegantly dressed bandits in their black masks and grey morning coats traveling in big gangs.

The other returning visitors are the leaf-footed bugs that for reasons known only to them have found the inside of the metal reinforceing plate on my screen door to be an ideal home. They don't bother anything (leastways, not me), but I suppose they could be gathering their strength in preparation for an onslaught on some plant or other. I get an up-close-and-personal look at them, as they're usually clinging to the screen, making it easy to view both topside and underside.

I have images of both these critters, but there seems to be a glitch at blogspot HQ, and I haven't been able to add them to this post; thus the links. Maybe later . . . maybe tomorrow . . . maybe never. It's a virtual world thing.

Rocktober

The Colorado Rockies have swept the Arizona D'backs, four games to zip, and are headed to the World Series—first time for the franchise. I like both those teams but am happy for the Rockies and especially for Yorvit Torrealba, who once upon a time played for the Giants. Liked him then; like him now. Matt Herges, one of the Rocks' relief pitchers, was also once a Giant. My best memory of him is something he once said about how he focuses when he's on the mound: "I look for a pebble, and I concentrate on it before I begin my windup." When he began faltering and losing games, some of us considered sending him a handful of pebbles to help out.

Meanwhile, east of the Mississippi, the Boston Red Sox are down two games to one against the Cleveland Indians, and I'm rooting for the Tribe, mostly because they haven't won a Series since 1948 or so. Plus, they have Kenny Lofton, also a former Giant, who knocked in the winning run back in '02 (or some such year—I'm not very good at remembering that kind of stuff) to send the Giants to the Series.

What I'm enjoying most about watching these games is how nice it is not to care so bloody much about who wins. When the Giants are playing a game, every pitch is fraught with anxiety. Nevertheless, despite my more-detached attitude, it's my nature (and maybe human nature) to come down on the side of one or the other (which may explain world politics). Anyway, just having baseball for a few more days is happiness . . . soaking it up to try to make it last until spring.

Lovely Rita

Today is my sister's birthday. She's now 62 years old. I find this incomprehensible. I'm not bothered being 63—to my mind, getting older is much preferable to the alternative—but having a younger sister who is working her way into her 60s just doesn't compute for me. She's my little sister, fercryinoutloud! So stop kidding around—surely she's scarcely into her 30s!

Happy, happy birthday, dearest Reet! I'm very glad you were born.

Hot dam!

The Monticello Dam is 50 years old this year, and today the Solano Irrigation District, which owns the dam, was having a birthday celebration. I'd thought vaguely about going. Instead, I decided to do a bike ride out to Winters with four other Davis Bike Club members.

Beautiful October day, easy ride to Winters, where we had some lunch at Steady Eddy's coffee house. "Hey," I said, "there are tours this afternoon up at the dam. Anybody want to ride to Lake Solano and take the shuttle up to the dam and take the tour?"

Three of the four others headed back to Davis, but S of D and I headed to Lake Solano. "Sorry," the volunteer said, "all the spaces on the rest of the shuttle trips are filled." We thought briefly of waiting around to see if anybody turned in their tickets, but it didn't take long for us to decide to just ride up there, ourselves, and try to tag along. So we did, and bingo--got up to the dam at the same time the shuttle did. No problem getting on to the tour.

Tour itself was a bit disappointing--I had hopes of actually going down into the dam, itself (turns out the only way to do that is through the dam's "front door," located nearly at the base on the downstream side), but we did get to walk out on the top and look over each side. Best little tidbit: The "glory hole" (the overflow structure) is a seamless 30-ft in diameter concrete tube, which, until 9/11 precipitated major upgrades in the dam's security measures, was a magnet for skateboarders. Cowabunga!

The best part of the day, though, was how leisurely it all was--I ended up riding 52 miles without even thinking about it, chatting with S of D, whom I hadn't seen for a while, drinking in this marvelous fall weather, the trees coloring up, the buckeye seeds looking like pears hanging on the almost-leafless branches. October is the best of months.