24 January 08
Viva Nicholas
I don’t know what led me there today maybe it was the bells or the gray weather we’re having that’s so like Bodega Bay’s or maybe the memory of Dad discretely pointing out the boy’s father at the post office but not wanting ever to intrude in that English way on the deep pain of losing a child so absurdly in a case of mistaken identity while driving to Sicily then suddenly thrust into the spotlight so much that even the Pope wanted to meet them all just because they said on brain death simply and without much reflection we’ll donate his organs and the whole of Italy reacting in tearful love and shame taking this family as theirs and the story of his grave at St. Teresa’s in Bodega where still now there are flowers and I think of Dad’s ashes that were scattered over the cliff not five miles away and sing with the pain of it all of love and death and of falling rain.
6 December 07
Dogma
I was driving back from Santa Rosa in December 1999. My father was dying in hospital. I was exhausted (but kept reminding myself that my exhaustion was so minor compared to my mother’s; a little like the minor exhaustion I have felt during this oil spill when I was practically keeling over after a 3-hour stint in stabilization, compared to the 16 hours some of the others were putting in. It’s good to get this kind of perspective sometimes).
They were interviewing Kevin Smith on the radio about his then-new film, Dogma.
Absurdity in the face of tragedy. A laugh where it seems almost impossible. Alanis Morissette as God, not at all implausibly. This is what keeps us going, I think, when despair would be a more obvious response.
Dad, your favorites was Jacques Tati and Charlie Chaplin. May wherever you find yourself now be filled with delightful absurdity.
22 November 07
Venturing into Starbucks
I’m not a coffee drinker. But even if I were, I don’t think I’d spend half my salary on Starbucks coffee — it’s too strong, yet even their strong espressos don’t taste good like Spanish ones to me. I make my tea, by the gallon (I think I need a samovar), and drink it. No need for Starbucks.
This morning the oiled bird caregivers were giving their orders to Ann, the volunteer coordinator, because Jay had a raft of donated Starbucks gift cards (about $50 worth). I offered despite my better judgment to drive and help carry back twelve sloshing cups, individually marked (under the cup holder). Venti (invariably pronounced Ventey by customers whose second language is Spanish not Italian). Grande. Latte. Frappuccino. It’s such a caricature of itself, Starbucks. Precious. Pompous. Pretentious. It makes me nuts.
It took twelve tries, folks. The cash register can’t do more than about $20 on a gift card (but then won’t do it a second time). The total came to $42 and change. Two baristas and a bunch of spent and re-spent gift cards later (and a host of impatient people behind us, waiting junkie-like for their fix before heading off to face impossible relatives over dinner), we emerged with various concoctions to spill all over the Honda Element.
Connecting people with their coffees was another trick: no food or drinks in the stabilization room, hot chocolate in the trailer, where’s Rebecca, she’s a mocha, no, that was Sandra … I don’t know how anyone ever gets anything done in Starbucks-land.
Added, November 29: Lewis Black’s Starbucks rant.
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.