30 June 08
One-Nil
Lots of sports action these past couple of days decided by the score of one to zero. In Oakland last night, the San Francisco Giants beat the Oakland A’s 1-0 behind the stellar pitching of Tim Lincecum who struck out 11, giving up 5 hits. The Giants only produced two hits, but that was enough to win. Lincecum’s record is now 9-1 with an ERA of 2.38.
Also last night, the L.A. Angels lost to the Dodgers 1-0. The Dodgers however never got a hit in the game. The only run came on a fielding error by the Angels’ pitcher. This is only the fifth time since 1900 that a major league team has won a game without getting a hit. The Angels however made up for it this afternoon and beat the Dodgers 1-0. Both teams got hits.
Best of all, Spain beat Germany today 1-0 in the finals of Euro 2008. We watched the match over at Mariachi’s. About 25 others were paying attention to the match in our favorite taqueria, most of them rooting for Spain. The decisive moment of course was striker Fernando Torres getting by defender Phillipe Lahm and getting his foot on the ball just before the arrival of goalie Jens Lehmann. Torres is 24, Lehmann is 38, playing in his last European championship — we thought that the age difference might have been a key factor, Torres having just more speed than the goalie. Pica has been thrilled the whole rest of the day by the result; the Spanish team just achieved something which hasn’t happened since she was growing up in Spain. And the team is young and talented — what’s next?
29 June 08
Big Day
My birding buddies threw a party for me yesterday morning to celebrate my 700th ABA bird. We met at 7 to wander around Lake Solano, enjoying multiple and gorgeous views of pileated woodpeckers (and multiple views of peacock chicks, which was cause for a bit less joy, that place is going to be overrun in no time). A few later risers joined us for a potluck breakfast at 9…. the sketch at left was done by Sue, who was with us on the Sierra Valley trip two weeks ago, which she presented to me. Other Sue brought flowers. Shucks, guys.
This was followed by a wedding in the evening. A former coworker and her sweetie got married out at Phillips Winery (food by the fabulous Magpie Caterers ). The funnest part was running into the flower girl at the hairdresser; she was having multiple curls applied to her head and fell asleep in the process. (I begged a pen and paper from the gals and sketched her; I had to beg another pen from the wedding bus driver, having forgotten mine at home.)
Sunday’s big dayness involves the Spain/Germany final. We’ll be at Mariachi at 11:45 if anyone wants to join us…
25 May 08
The Damn Big Boiler
Sometime in the early 1970s, a girls’ boarding school in the British midlands burned down. The “progressive” independent school of Abbotsholme decided to become co-ed and integrate the hapless St. Vincents’ girls.
We ran about in the nick and had communal baths and did lots of things that we thought were outrageous (some of which really were, others not so much) and experimented wildly and generally lived a Hogwartian lifestyle minus the magic.
Today I met up with a friend from that time and immersed myself in a hot tub in Berkeley with her. It’s been thirty years, pretty much. Our bodies aren’t as lithe, but we have a jump on those kids: a little bit of wisdom. Oh but it goes a long way…
22 May 08
Excess
the love of it
the Schumann of it
the oceans of tea of it
the wine and baked brie of it
the overflowing basket of cards of it
the clucking everyone round a table of it
the isn’t chicken a vegetable at Passover of it
the flour up to the elbows making playdough of it
the determination to walk with no pain of it
the teasing of nuance in the fingers of it
the effing the ineffable in Bach of it
the Sunday New York Times of it
the steep steps up or down of it
the antiquated beam look of it
the three damn pianos of it
the love, the love of it
O, the love in it
For S., with love
13 May 08
Gray-haired, Gaunt, Giddy
I see it. The reflection in the mirror. The face of my great-aunt, of my grandmother, of my mother’s cousin. We are one, across the years, across the barriers that seem at this point artificial.
Death will unite us. I hope between now and then, for me, I will cause enough mayhem for these hellraisers to be proud of me. And if they forget themselves and sniff instead, a silly nod to their perceived station, I’ll take it up with them on the other side…
23 March 08
Five-year Retrospective
Last week was the five-year anniversary of the start of the disaster in Iraq. We started Feathers of Hope shortly afterwards. The blogosphere was teeming with political commentary; we elected not to do much of that, but to focus on our little spot in this part of the Central Valley. It doesn’t mean we’re not political or don’t read (still) political blogs, but our choice (much like Beth’s, I think: Cassandra Pages turned five a couple of days ago) was not to write much about politics.
I still think that was the right decision. What can we add? The words still fly fast and furious and we’re still in the middle of the disaster in Iraq. We are hoping for a change this November. I think Obama’s speech on Tuesday is the most important I’ve heard in my lifetime (possibly with the exception of King’s, though I was nine and living in Madrid at the time). Whether he can prevail through the crud that will undoubtedly be hurled his way first by the Clinton campaign and then by the Republicans will remain to be seen.
There are California poppies in bloom outside. Today I saw the first Western Kingbird of the year. The Swainson’s hawks have been back a week and have sent most of the red-tails to the foothills already. I can still look and take delight in these things despite the stress/funk cycle that I’ve been mired in.
Thanks for sticking with us for all these years.
15 March 08
Procrastination
I have dozens of things that need to get done. I seem unable to finish any of them. It’s a spiral that’s not good to go down…
5 March 08
Reason #431 Why I Love the Coop
We’re standing in line at the checkout waiting to pay having seen Jim and talked about canning tomatoes and having seen Ann and talked about Kilimanjaro and the lad with the strawberry blond hair and beard greets us and takes the yoghurt container full of prunes and mutters numbers and then I tell him I have ten gallons of water and he says okay then I hand him the card and he says Agh brain overload then quickly apologizes and says I just got handed a note by a pretty girl.
Discretely, he says.
He goes bright red almost like his hair, smiles from ear to hear, pulls the note out of his pocket and reads it again.
(I feel oddly honored that he should have divulged this to me. Tickled.)
Oh, and Brian finally started a blog. About time, monsieur le philosophe.
29 January 08
Prothonotarian Spycatcher
At a meeting of the Yolo Breeding Bird Atlas committee tonight it was mentioned that Alger Hiss was proved to have had association with Whittaker Chambers because he had once seen a prothonotary warbler on the Potomac in the 30s, which Chambers remembered. The person whose career was launched on the House Un-American Affairs Committee through this accusation of perjury in 1948 was none other than Richard Nixon.
This is why you need to subscribe to Birds of North America, folks. You learn all kinds of things.
27 January 08
The Story of Stuff
There was a front page post today on Daily Kos highly recommending a new video called The Story of Stuff. Annie Leonard, an activist who has been researching the flow and waste of materials through our consumer society, came up with the idea to present this tale in cartoon fashion overlaid with footage of her narrating. The 20-minute video is viewable at the link above.
In good simple living fashion we bicycled to Pica’s office this morning to watch the video (no broadband at home, it’s not worth it.) It is humorous and thoughtful, capable of entertaining five-year-olds and provoking those an order of magnitude older into thought and action.
We do pretty well here in avoiding accumulating and consuming stuff, though of course there are lots of little things to work on improving. One needn’t scratch very hard to find such critiques of consumerist society going back a long ways, but how will the values of simple living and frugality ever make it back into mainstream culture?