12 November 07
Swimming!
Went back to Cordelia this afternoon. I saw people looking in pools as I arrived. I went up and there, in the first pool I got to, were about twenty surf scoters. Swimming. Clean, washed, waterproof, and swimming. I sketched one quickly. Have you seen the grebes, I was asked. No.
Eared grebes, and horned, fluffballs in a pen in the back close to cover.
I lost it.
Lots of birds, now, pens everywhere. There are nearly 700 of them. People are starting to get really tired, but they’re not quitting… Ran into Ron and Joe who were dropping 17 birds off from Brooks Island… this was their fifth run up to Cordelia.
9 November 07
(o)
Greg, doing intake on an oiled surf scoter.
It smells of oil in this room.
This was my day. During lunch I did this.
31 October 07
Massage Envy
They recently opened a branch of this outfit here in Davis after the last of the local hobby/scrapbooking shops closed. The paper was offering coupons — $39 for an hour — way back in August; I clipped one and stuck it on the fridge, waiting till the place opened. (I’d first heard about Massage Envy when we volunteered at the Princess Promenade, where they were providing free massages to the gals who finished the ride: it made a good impression.)
I’ve had a lot of experience with massage and bodywork, and wish I could afford to go every week. Every month, even. The flip side of that is that I need my therapist to understand my body issues, who can tell I’ve been doing too much digging in the garden and can feel the consequences (of course I tell them this, but I had no idea, for instance, that the lateral ligaments on my left ankle were so very, very tight — only they can find those hidden things).
It wasn’t a bad massage, this evening. But the place is SO corporate. Suggested gratuities tastefully set in italic palatino above where you leave your clothes. A full lecture afterwards about payment plans and membership options (the last thing I want after I’ve had a massage is to be given a sales pitch by a 19-year-old with a nail through her forearm — is this something that the massage gods would approve, I wonder? does she take that thing out to get a massage? It was red and looked very sore).
It WOULD be affordable, their payment plan. But the place lacks soul. It has as much soul, in fact, as most of the local manicure/pedicure places. And massage is about connection and healing. (If you’ve been reading Mole, you’ll know what this means. Soul in spades.)
20 October 07
Blogger Meetup in Pinole
More on this here. We saw several of these. Before the meetup we did this. Then as we drove home we listened to this.
And for a dissection of Watson’s racist statements published last week, see this.
10 October 07
Things To Do
Seems like no day goes by without someone else suggesting a thing to do or play or see or go to on October 20, a week from Saturday.
There’s Foxy’s Fall Century, which we’d work if we were here. There’s a Book Arts Jam in Los Altos. There’s an Artist Trading Card Workshop in Sacramento. There’s Pacificon.
There is also, dear me, a whole load of planting to do before it gets cold. We had our first real rain last night, and delicious it was too. I’m very, very late — should have done this weeks ago. I bought some Calochortus bulbs at the Arboretum Plant Faire on Saturday and need to get them in the ground, but the beds all need lining too. I at least bought the wire. Now it’s a race. I’m going to be modest this winter in what I plant, but there’s still work to do!!
But on the 20th we’re going to do this instead. If you read Creek Running North and are in the area, you’re invited…
23 September 07
YouTube At Two Inches
I am now in Victoria, BC attending a conference this week on open source GIS. Pica has this amazing gizmo that is perfect for such trips. This is a Nokia N800 internet tablet. It’s a little bigger than a file card and does wireless: web browsing, email, and anything else you might want to do on the net. I’m blogging this lying on my back.in bed, holding it in my left hand. And I can catch up on movie trailers too:nothing like watching tte one for “Sleuth” on a two-inch wide window!
11 September 07
Blackwolf the Dragonmaster
Since Numenius seems to be on a fantasy binge, I thought I’d include a sketch of Blackwolf Dragonmaster I did this weekend in Central Park in New York. I am well MOMA’d out. Plus I bought a new toy…
It was a delight to see old friends, meet oldish ones in person for the first time, and reacquaint myself with bits and pieces of a city that doesn’t sleep (but whose subway system does in fact slow down after 1:00 am). I’m sleepy, now.
30 August 07
Bound
The white-coated man
threads a needle
— black silk —
and trusses a quadrant
neat and tight, like a turkey.
I feel only dark shadows,
the thread on my lip,
to and fro, fro and to.
Cranberry hypnosis,
Narcotics: then sleep.
I truss up white pages
with cranberry linen
black words of pain,
fear, love, mangled awe.
I tug, with no mercy, through
voids I have drilled,
make a suture-knot,
Tie off. Conceal the ends.
A brilliant shroud
on a journey, beyond.
23 August 07
Mystery Solved
so in June when we went to the wedding on Putah Creek on the tandem and had the best damn meal of our lives pretty much and coveted the Tshirts of the catering staff I mean a magpie plus a great design how much better does it get and mentioned it on the blog and then several weeks later one showed up in the mail here at home I asked Andrea the lovely bride and she said sorry wish I’d had more presence of mind but no it wasn’t me and Barbara said nope and Numenius said no I was well and truly stumped and then yesterday after a gruelling couple of hours in the dentist’s chair dear Chris and Karen came over and it was like a balm having their wonderful presence around me and Chris wondered whether possibly had I ever gotten a package in the mail?
Be careful what you say on your blog. Somebody’s paying attention.
(Thanks Chris, what a great birthday present!)
11 August 07
Four Years
Four years ago yesterday, I snapped my achilles tendon. It cheated me out of a really fun tandem ride. We went out last night to celebrate our marriage at the same restaurant we’d gone to on the night before our wedding, surrounded by friends and family (a couple of them a bit whackily dressed).