April morning

Irises in Pica's neighbor's garden

Through a glass, brightly; Pica and Numenius's house

April afternoon

I spent the morning out and about, dropping Pica and Numenius at the airport, then to Lisa's for our Thursday session memoir dictation; back home to take care of some e-mail business for bike club and a freelance project. By 1:30, I was ready to head out again, this time just for fun.

Stuck a Jane Smiley novel (a very old one and not one of her best) in my bag and walked downtown, the temperature just about perfect, light breeze, no chill, not hot. Lateish lunch at Burgers 'n' Brew, across from Central Park, where I sat outside in the spring air, eating slowly and reading. Was offered a refill on my diet Coke, and took it so I could keep reading. Finally stirred myself to walk to the bank to make a bike club deposit, then windowshopped along Second St—Acquarius with its crystals and incense (it always smells wonderful in there), DeLuna's, filled with bling, The Naturalist (windchimes and pretty dishes decorated with bird eggs) and then to the Avid Reader, where I bought a book of Mary Oliver's poems. On to Samira's and to the Paint Chip, then slowly home. Everyone's garden is abloom, lots of roses already and, my favorite, the bearded iris—so many colors, each so clear and delicate. Rode my bike to P & N's to feed Diego and Charlie, play with them, check on the garden, take in the sheets from the clothesline. There, too, flowers in a riot of color—bright orange poppies, deep blue ceanothus and more iris.

Years ago, I saw these lines by Gary Snyder from a poem called, I think, For the Children. I wrote them on a yellow Post-It and stuck it on my Sierra Club calendar over my desk at work, where it stayed and stayed, moving from momth to month and year to year:

Stay together

Learn the flowers

Go light.

And this evening, I read this, from Sometimes, by Mary Oliver:

Instructions for living a life:

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it.

I'm looking for another Post-It note.

Let's get organized! Or not . . .

I got a new Levenger catalog in the mail today with a cover blurb touting "60 NEW Organizing Solutions." How, I wondered, could there be 60 new organizing solutions in there? So I checked, but the only "new" things seem to be the colors stuff comes in; no miraculous gizmos or methods for making one's life simpler or less cluttered. Just the opposite. Levenger is big on the 3x5 card method for taking notes, and for a mere $138, you can purchase a letter-size 3x5 Zip Action Folio (junior size, $98; $6 extra for monogram, $12 if you want your whole name). This thing is filled with card-sized pockets that hold 3x5 cards, which, once this treasure is in your hands, will be jotted on and arranged thus and so, and perhaps so and thus.

Just thinking about this kind of thing makes me want to lie down in a dim room with a lavender-scented hankie. I used to try to devise systems to keep track of stuff, but none of the Big Guns (Franklin, DayTimer, DayRunner, or Levenger) could overcome my natural inertia. In the ancient past, when I worked in the Reference Dept. of Shields Library, before all of us got so bloody busy that we needed more stuff to help us keep track of our stuff, I kept a steno notebook that I'd write in. Every day, I wrote the date, then whatever I needed to remember or keep track of got written down. Didn't matter where I started on the page, and when the book got filled up on one side, I flipped it over and started on the back side. The cover got the start and end dates. Worked fine, best system I ever had, and cheap cheap cheap.

We are the champions

The Sacramento RiverCats won the 2007 Triple A championship. Thanks to Gishi, we have T-shirts to commemorate the occasion, and we wore them to our first game of the 2008 season Saturday evening . . .
Our team: Bill "Dinger Dog" Sbarra, Susan "Put Me In, Coach!" Gishi, Babz "Duck and Cover" Anderson, and Liese "BatBabe" Schadt.

It was a perfect night for baseball—mild, T-shirt weather, good crowd, fireworks at the end of the game, even the dancing usher is back, now appearing as the dancing vendor—rendering the Cats loss to the Las Vegas 51s less painful. Also pain-reducing was getting to see a couple of former Giants, left fielder Todd Linden (who hit a home run) and catcher Justin Knoedler (whom we met a few years ago when we were all in Scottsdale for Giants' Spring Training).

Baseball . . . it's what's for summer.

Found it!

If you've been reading this blog for a few months, you may remember Gap in the Record, about my misplaced (and feared lost) notebook. I couldn't imagine that I'd thrown it out, but I'd looked everywhere and no luck. Just now I was looking through a stack of clippings and other assorted bits in the "things I'm saving to deal with later" basket, and there it was, stuck amongst the stuff. None of the writing in it is mission critical, mostly just notes to myself, quotes I want to remember, book titles I jotted down at the bookstore so I could remember them later when I went to the libarary, that sort of thing; even a grocery list or two. And I'm sure I would have lived just fine for the rest of my days if it had never turned up. But I hadn't forgotten about it, there was that gap, and now it's been filled. Quite made my day.

Ant-ics

I've heard from the Bohart. Monday, Thursday and their bretheren (sisteren?) are camponutus essegi, better known as carpenter ants. Here's what Steve Heydon at the Bohart had to say about them:

"Carpenter ants are found in houses and can be a pest since they hollow out wood to make themselves a home. You should do your best to determine if the ants are coming in from the inside or if they are living in your house since they can nest either place. When you look outside, you need to check dead wood, stacked boards, firewood, etc. Going around with a flashlight in the early part of the night might help. Many ants are nocturnal."

So far, I haven't done any flashlight hunts. But given their random and singular appearance in my house, and then only on my computer table, I have a feeling that these babies may be strays from the trees around my house, lost and trying to find their way home (see the link above). (Another one showed up last evening, again as I was sitting here typing away; I saw not from whence it came.)

So I've satisfied my curiosity, but I'm kind of let down. I think I liked it better when Monday and Thursday didn't have any other name. I'll have to be content now with the mystery of just how the heck they manage to appear. My landlord may be less thrilled with the whole thing, but I guess I should inform him . . .

The Masters

A minor surgical procedure early today left me with some residual mental spaciness. So, what better fit for a slightly dulled brain than daytime TV? Channel surfing, I found the live broadcast of the Masters Tournament from Augusta and have been watching it for the past 90 or so minutes.

Golf was a big presence in my growing-up life. My father was an accomplished amateur golfer who won many tournaments and, until his stroke at age 51, played whenever he got the chance. Neither I nor my sister took to the game (a deep disappointment for him, I know), but we learned a lot just by proximity, and names like Sam Snead, Ben Hogan, and Babe Zaharias were as familiar to me as the characters in my favorite books.

I don't follow golf much any more (I prefer baseball, another of my father's favorite sports and one I could participate in with him, as we were both spectators), but watching the Masters was a treat. The course, itself, is beautiful—lush, green, azaleas blooming, so, well, Southern—but it is diabolically wicked. Seeing the way the greens break, the position of the bunkers, the needle-thin fairways on some holes reminded me of nothing so much as some miniature golf courses I've hacked around; the ball never, ever goes where you want it to or where you think it should.

Despite that, a couple dozen or so players are under par following today's second round of play, about three times as many as were in that spot in 2007. The big surprise seems to be Tiger Woods' poor showing; he was even par until the 18th, when, executing a difficult shot out of the trees onto the green, he then sank his putt for a birdie. Brent Snedeker, on the other hand, is the current leader at 7 under par. But anything can happen; winds up to 25 mph are forecast for Sunday's final round.

Take me out to the ball game

Today was Opening Day at AT&T Park: Giants vs. the San Diego Padres. Gishi, Liese, Wayne and I sat in the bleachers, drank a couple of beers, ate Crazy Crab sandwiches, peanuts and sunflower seeds and had a wonderful time. Sun was shining, the ball yard and the bay sparkled, the crowd was happy, Matt Cain and Greg Maddux were dueling on the mound, and all was right with the world.


The Giants lost, 8-4, but this team in this season being what it is, we didn't expect to win, really. And truly, we didn't care; just being out there amongst all the other Giants fans in their orange and black, cheering each time one of our guys did something hopeful, chanting "Let's go, GI-ants!" and stomping our feet to encourage the team, was plenty satisfying.

And for me, a bonus: a new Giants jacket!

Right after this picture was snapped, Giants broadcaster Mike Krukow walked past us. Liese blew him a kiss, I shouted "We love you, Mike!" and he blew us a kiss right back. If we couldn't get a win, a day at the game with friends, a new jacket, and Mike Krukow was consolation a-plenty.

Splendor in the grass

The Tule Ranch held an open house today. Part of the Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area, it's not usually open to visitors, and the article in the Davis Enterprise promised wildflowers and birds and lots of native grassland. I wasn't disappointed.

There were docent-led walks available, but I ignored them and just wandered off on my own to the west of the visitors' reception area toward masses of goldfields and tidy tips carpeting the fields. Sat in the midst of them, sketched a small green plant or two, and took some photos, but mostly just sat, listening to the wind and watching the flowers bob their yellow heads. Coast range sharp and blue in the distance, clouds moving slowly across the sky.

On the drive into the ranch, I stopped to watch a huge flock of geese (don't know what kind) circle over a field then slowly settle back down. Closer to the road, I spotted two large, long-legged birds with extraordinarily long, thin, curved bills. Looked them up in the bird book when I got home: aptly (though unimaginatively) named long-billed curlews.

I spent about two hours out there and came away feeling happy and peaceful; a mini-retreat for the senses and the spirit.

The ants come marching, one by one . . .

Remember that ant I wrote about a couple of weeks ago? Since then, two more have appeared, one this past Monday and one again this afternoon. I called the Bohart Museum of Entomology on campus on Monday to see if maybe someone there could identify the species by my description. "Why don't you bring it in?" the man said. So I put Monday Ant in an empty pint container (previously home to salsa), thinking I'd get it over there on Tuesday. But as Tuesday came and went, and I hadn't yet made it to the Bohart, I sprinkled a drop of two of water into Monday Ant's plastic house, thinking he might be thirsty. I felt responsible for his well being by this time. Unfortunately, he drowned, either because he couldn't get out of the water (there really was only a drop or two) or else, feeling despondent and hopeless to chanage his situation, he committed formicide.

I kept Monday, anyway (he was still recognizable as a Very Large Ant), and this afternoon, one of his nestmates showed up, same place, same behavior, same inexplicable appearance. Got Monday Ant's plastic home, nudged Thursday Ant into it, and headed for the Bohart straight away. And guess what—Steve the Bohart guy doesn't know what they are, either. After googling "ant images" (something I'd done, myself), he at first thought my specimens were pavement ants (a species I'd never heard of but that Steve says are fairly common around here), but on examining Mon. and Thurs. under the microscope, said, "Hmmm; nope, they're not pavement ants. This will take some research."

Steve had me leave my name and contact info, and when he figures out what Monday and Thursday are all about, he'll let me know. And then I'll let you know, too. Maybe it'll be some really unusual species. Kind of cool . . . I feel like a field entomologist.

Good neighbors make good fences

My neighbors Bill and Stacy are redoing their front yard, removing an old tree or two from the half-dozen or so that grow there, adding some new plantings and stepping stones that weave in and around the trees and flowers. And as the piéce de resistance, they took down the old, white picket fence and, in its place, erected this gem . . .

Bill designed the seaweed motif as an addition to the original, which was created by a company called Irish Iron. Here's the gate:

A whimsical and beautiful—and extremely fun—addition to the neighborhood . . . merci beaucoup, mes amis.

Bits and bobs . . . and baseball

Sitting here, 11 a.m., watching the Red Sox and the A's play baseball (at sweet, long last) in Tokyo. It's a tape-delay from the live game, which aired this morning at 3-something, but tape, shmape, I don't care; it's BASEBALL, and the winter-long drought is mercifully over. Perhaps its resurgence will presage my own. Herewith, the dribs and drabs of the few days past . . .

Gave some tips on editing to a UC Davis staff development class a week ago. Three hours is scarcely enough time to teach anything, much less editing, but I make no promises except the hope that the students will leave with one approach they hadn't thought of (which may well be the realization that editing ain't for them) . . . Ate a wonderful meal with my havurah ("havurah": Hebrew for "group of friends"); the star of the menu was chicken breast with a cranberry-port wine sauce. Fabulous . . . A potluck birthday celebration for my friend Phil, also fabulous; all Phil's friends are wonderful, inventive cooks (i.e., seafood paella, a meatball dish, white beans seasoned with Portuguese olive oil, steamed asparagus, beet and feta salad, chocolate cake from Just Desserts, and lots of good wine) . . . I have a new neighbor; he was born two weeks ago to Hillary and Conor, who live downstairs. He's been named River (his 7-year-old brother is called Granite), and a most adorable little guy he is. Quiet, too; I thought my feeble hearing might be why I never hear him crying, but Hillary says his cries are scarcely more than whimpers, which may atone for the struggle Hill had getting him to appear in the first place . . . Helped serve dinner yesterday evening to about 50 people who came to the weekly community meal. Bet Haverim takes the fourth Tuesday of every month, alternating between setup/serving and cleaning up. Last night's menu a bit different than the one at Phil's dinner: Southern supper (sausage, rice, tomatoes, green pepper, onion), cole slaw, mixed vegetables, macaroni and cheese, fruit salad, rolls, and an array of baked goods for dessert—cookies, cupcakes (with an Easter theme), coconut cream pie, triple chocolate mousse—milk, coffee, juice, water. The dinner guests were a mix: some obviously from the local homeless population (I recognized several, including one sweet man who has the most beatific smile and who doesn't speak, whether by necessity or choice, I don't know; I see him and his loaded-up bicycle often at the Co-op), some elderly people, some whom I couldn't categorize. More men than women, though. The tables looked nice—colorful tablecloths, flowers (donated by a local florist)—and there was live music, courtesy of a piano player and a violinist. Coversation was lively, the guests were cheerful, and a good time seemed to be had by all. There were no leftovers; as people finished their meal, many came up to the serving table to request a container or two of food to take home (clean, empty quart yogurt containers were on hand for this purpose). I had a good time shmoozing with people as they came through the line (I was serving the Southern supper) and will make this a regular date.

Insect conundrum

Now and then, an ant will appear on my computer table. Not "ants," but "an" ant—single, solitary, and quite large—and which seems to have materialized out of thin air. I never see one anyplace else, just on my computer table. I'll be working away, typing an e-mail or reading someting on the Web, and there it will be, zigzagging slowly and apparently aimlessly around. This morning, when I went over to the computer to check my e-mail, I found another one, this time on the keyboard . . .
As you can see, this is a pretty large ant. I have no idea where this one, or her (his?) comrades, come from. The only ants I ever see outside are the small, Argentine ants, never any the size of this lummox. They move slowly until they are cornered, then they hoof it—this particular one nearly made it into the keyboard before I managed to capture it and squash it (and they don't go quietly, let me tell you).

It's a bit disconcerting when one shows up (and why just one at a time?), as I can't imagine how it gets here or why only here on the computer table (though I'd rather have 'em confined than roaming free-range throughout the house). But with no other information and no working knowledge of ant behavior, it's liable to remain a mystery.

Wisteria dreams

For Susan . . .

Just how high IS W's S.Q.?

Meaning Stupidity Quotient. In today's New York Times, Gail Collins writes about The Leader of the Free World's talk on Friday to New York's financial community. (N.B.: I think the Free World would like its money back.) Every time I think I can't feel more embarrassed or ashamed of having this nincompoop as the president of my country, Ol' Mr. Glibshit manages yet again to top himself.

The "highlights" of his speech, as pointed out by Collins, are stunning in their failure to convey any sense of urgency, crisis or even awareness of the plight this financial debacle has visited on so many, and with no end in sight. Among the many clumsy and dense "points" he made, my favorite is this one, on what Collins describes as "the nub" of the housing crisis as perceived by Bush: "Problem we have is, a lot of folks aren’t responding to over a million letters sent out to offer them assistance and mortgage counseling.”

Gee, d'ya think maybe that's because those letters came back marked "No longer at this address"?

Changing the subject

If I talk (or even think) about politics any more for a while, I may commit a violent act. Spring is so much more, well, springy. Here's what it looks like these days in my front yard . . .



My sister knows the name of these orange-red flowers, and she told me what it is, but I didn't write it down and now I've forgotten. All I remember is it starts with a "C" and has at least three syllables, more likely four.


These little flowers, ranging from lavender through pale, pale blue to white, appear every year. I have no idea what they are, but I love them; they're thick on my street in the parking strip between the curb and the sidewalk. Like walking through a field of stars.

Again with the sex scandal?

When I first saw the headline in the New York Times that Eliot Spitzer had been found to be connected to a prostitution ring, I thought they meant that he was one of the lynchpins of the organization—one of the head guys making big profits off the backs (or wherever) of those high-priced call girls. Shocking, I said to myself; Eliot Spitzer, ferreter-out of corruption has been found to have his hand in the till.

Well, I don't know where he had his hand, but it wasn't in the till. No, the Guv was a client, paying out major bucks for the services of a well-paid "escort." And again, I'm asking, so what? What's the big deal? His wife is humiliated, of course, and whichever other elements of his family are old or aware enough to fathom the sleazy details. But why, when graft and corruption that do real harm cause only tiny waves in the smooth sea of business as usual (Enron, Halliburton, Dick Cheney all by himself), but when it comes to sex, we are appalled! Shocked! Outraged! and above all, Self-Righteous and Judgemental! Off with his head!

Mind you, if Spitzer is a big enough idiot to engage in an activity that he must have known without a doubt would, if discovered, be the end of his political career and possibly his marriage, does he have the common sense to be governor? It does give one serious pause . . . But what gives me even longer pause is the discouraging awareness that this country, this culture, while flaunting sex in every medium imaginable, still reacts with moral outrage when one of its leaders is discovered actually engaging in it. You'd think we'd have better things to do with our time, and better activities at which to direct our outrage. We could start with Iraq.

In the hills

Saturday morning I drove to Pope Valley to help give food and drink to a bunch of cyclists who had ridden there from Davis and, once suitably refreshed, turned around and rode back again. There are just a couple of ways to get to Pope Valley, none of them direct. I took the one I know best, the one I've ridden many times and the one the Saturday riders would also follow, which takes you past Lake Berryessa and winds through quiet, up-and-down back roads through Chiles Valley, eventually arriving in Pope Valley (pop. hardly anybody).

The best times of year to be in those hills are spring and fall, and Saturday was a picture-postcard example of why. Fruit trees in bloom, both the ones in actual orchards and those stray ones along the roadside, origin unknown but a delightful surprise when they appear. The most eye-popping element, though, is the mustard in the vineyards. It's at its peak now, and seeing its chrome yellow brilliance amidst the dark vines and against the green hills made me feel like I'd stepped into an Impressionist landscape, as here, along Lower Chiles Valley Road:

Fifteen years ago this spring, a friend and I were cycling along this same road and, just for fun, stopped in at RustRidge Winery. We were in the tasting room, chatting with the owner, when, in the next room, I spotted a litter of kittens poking their way here and there. It so happened that I had begun thinking about getting another cat, my sweet Moe having gone on to his cat reward about a year before. "Are you looking for homes for the kittens," I asked? Yes, indeed, they were . . . And so it was that, a few weeks later during Memorial Day weekend, Ernie and his brother, Julio, came to live with me (they having become old enough to leave mom and I having a vehicle more suitable than a bicycle to transport them).

On my way home from Pope Valley, a year now having passed since Ernie (a cat of most blessed memory) joined Moe and his brother, Julio, I stopped again at RustRidge. Was it possible, I wondered, to lose my heart twice in the same place? Though all was much the same as it was years ago, this time there were no kittens, though I did meet several lolling-about yellow labs and one excellent gray tabby called Tex. I also acquired a bottle of excellent Chiles Valley 2004 Zinfandel. Not as cuddly as a kitten but fully capable of offering its own kind of warmth and cheer, especially when enjoyed with friends.

Gone without a trace

Kabul, the Afghan restaurant on Second Street, has closed. My sister and I walked past their spot at some point while she was here, and there was no sign of them—just papered-over windows and a sign announcing that soon a new sushi (!!) establishment would open in that space.

I was crushed. Kabul's lunch buffet was a culinary treat—delicious, interesting food (their milk pudding sprinkled with crushed pistachios, alone, was worth the price, which was extremely reasonable, considering you could eat as much as you liked, and I liked it all). Their dinner menu, I thought, was less tasty, for some reason, but there always seemed to be a decent crowd in for the dinner hour (though not so for the lunch). The staff were wonderful, too, gracious and friendly and always ready to answer questions about the food and extoll the virtues of Afghani cuisine.

So now we get another sushi place. Whoopee. Time was, Davis was overrun with Chinese food and pizza places, the kind of thing you'd expect to see in a college town. But though there is still plenty of pizza around, there haven't been any new ones opening recently, and Chinese is losing favor (Kabul opened in a spot vacated by a Chinese restaurant that itself hadn't been there all that long). Now it's Thai and sushi, both of which are fine. But who needs so many, and who needs another sushi place when the loss is Kabul? OK, I know it's not the sushi joint's fault; not enough people thought Afghan food was what they wanted to eat on enough days. Even as much as I liked it, I wasn't what you'd call a regular customer, just a now-and-again one. And restaurants fail at astronomical rates. Nevertheless, I'm sorry to see Kabul go; I hope the owners manage to open somewhere where maybe they'll do better. I know I'll miss that milk pudding.

Holey feet

I'm getting seriously worried that once again we Dems will manage to waste our energy bickering amongst ourselves like kids in the back seat, while the Republicans (who should by all rights be ridden out of town on a rail or at least pilloried in the town square for all to mock and pelt with rotten eggs) will sit back and watch their supposedly smart opponents hold their feet out and wait for the self-inflicted shooting to begin.

Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are highly intelligent, experienced, dedicated, passionate candidates. Either one will do a better job of leading this country out of the mess W. has created than John McCain will (and even he wouldn't, couldn't, be as disastrous as our current idiot). I said from the beginning that though I'm favoring Barack and voted for him in the primary, I would happily and strongly support whichever one got the nomination. Still true. But here's what I'm worried about. I worry that if this thing goes all the way to the convention, the nastiness between our two very good candidates will have weakened our position and given much ammunition to the Republicans' already scurrilous attack machine (and if Clinton is our nominee, that's like adding hydrogen to the blaze). I also worry that if Clinton wins the nomination, all those voters Obama has been able to galvanize into believing things can really change, that the political process can, indeed, include them (the young, the marginalized, the cynical), well, they'll slip back into the shadows, disillusioned and bitter. (Remember the '60s, when we thought we could change things? Me, too.)

These things may not come to pass, and I may be fretting about this stuff needlessly. Our case against Republican policy may be strong enough in the minds of voters to overcome the smears and dirty campaigning they'll employ, and those voters Barack has appealed to may stay on board with Hillary, especially if he can convince them of its importance. And maybe those whole thing is evidence of how democracy works and I should be thrilled that we have two such great candidates that are strong and appealing to so many of us. Which I am. But I've seen too many holes in too many Democratic feet in recent years, and I'd prefer to see those holes shot in the Republicans' policies.