15 April 04
Delta Dreaming
An entry for the Ecotone Wiki topic on River and Estuary
It’s one of those places that though nearby — fifteen miles to the south-southeast will put you in the middle of a slough — we never get to. The Delta, formed by the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, consists of thousands of miles of sloughs, levees, submerged islands, channels, and river reaches, a maze of waterways and islands. We’re not aquatic sorts however, and its possibilities for boating and fishing don’t lure us. Levees, toe drains, and creeks block entry for those who travel by road.
If I cycle south from here as far as I can go, the road making jogs to the east occasionally, I reach Liberty Island, and can’t cross the slough on my bike. It’s a land of marshes, pastures, and always a stiff breeze. Beating upwind is never much fun on bicycle, and since the wind usually heads either north or south here, I am not wont to head that far.
I think we have made the east-to-west drive through the Delta once, starting off on Interstate 5, driving past the fields where the sandhill cranes spend the winter, and into the Delta proper. It’s rich agricultural land (I’ve been working recently with the digital state soils map and the Delta shows up as the area with the highest organic matter content), much of it lower than sea level and hence dependent on levees to stay dry. A map of the Delta shows a watery hole in the land pattern at Franks Tract, where the levee failed in 1937 and again in 1938 to flood the area permanently. Our exit from that trek across the Delta was at Rio Vista in Solano County, practically due south from where we live but a circuitous route from our house.
There’s a quirky book about the Delta which I recommend entitled Sturgeon Tales: Stories of the Delta by Charlie Soderquist, a great benefactor of UC Davis who unfortunately died recently. A talking sturgeon by the name of Sally features prominently in the stories, as well as a fleet of ghost ships. The book is beautifully illustrated with a set of watercolors that well capture the lazy verdure of the region.
14 April 04
An American Institution: The Shower
Not the one where you get wet: the one where you go to someone’s house and give presents to a bride- or mother-to-be and everyone’s a bit awkward. I’ve never come across this phenomenon in any other culture, and frankly it freaks me out a bit. People seem not to know what to say, and so silly games are the obvious solution.
Nevertheless, I’m going to a shower tomorrow night, the first social event with my new colleagues. One of the vets is having a baby soon. I figured I’d put aside my distaste for one evening, and Numenius is hiding in Spanish class. I know nothing about babies or what to buy them so I volunteered to make a card which has an otter mother/baby theme. (The mother has done a lot of epidemiological work on sea otters.)
I’ll be taking a Spanish omlette-tortilla espaola-to the potluck.
Tortilla Espaola
3-4 large potatoes, diced
1 onion, diced
4-6 eggs
cooking oil to deep fry and good olive oil for second frying
salt
Fry the potatoes and onion in a lot of oil for about 20 minutes until the potatoes soften but don’t brown. Remove from cooking oil, strain.
Beat the eggs with a fork until frothy. Add the strained potato-onion mixture and stir, salt to taste. (This can be set aside for a while if needed.)
In a smallish rounded frying pan (straight sides are best, 8” wide or so) heat about 2 tsp good olive oil until hot but not smoking. Test by placing a drip of egg in the oil; it should sizzle immediately. Pour in the egg/potato mixture and agitate the pan slowly in a circular way. Cook on high, agitating, until the sides are cooked. Place a plate upside down on the pan and turn the whole thing over; slide the cooked omlette back into the pan. (I always do this over the sink first time round. It should be browned on the bottom in spots but not overcooked.) Repeat this process as many times as you like depending on how cooked you want the eggs.
Can be cubed for appetizers or sliced like a pie. It goes very well in French bread, sandwich-style. Great hot, even better lukewarm.
13 April 04
Baseball In Verse
Thanks to an article on Slate today about the plethora of baseball blogs, I’ve discovered Humbug, written by Score Bard, that features many verses about current events in baseball. For instance from his prognostications for the NL West this season, we have:
Padres
It came to me once in a dream:
The Padres will have a good team.
I will trust this strange vision;
They will win the division
Or I’ll pinch myself, sit up and scream.
Giants
Maybe Alfonzo will hit,
While possibly Durham and Schmidt
Along with Robb Nen
Will be healthy and then
They won’t just be Bonds and that’s it....
Meanwhile Bonds hit No. 661 this evening, to move into third place on the all-time home run list. Two home runs in two days, both splash hits into San Francisco Bay.
12 April 04
The Twenty-three Questions
Jenny has referred me to an interesting survey along the lines of my car inventory via Tvindy, so here are the results, which I wrote down this morning as I read through the quiz:
1: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, find line 4. Write down what it says:
“1. Define the goals of your site.” It’s Carrie Bickner’s Web Design on a Shoestring.
2: Stretch your left arm out as far as you can. What do you touch first?
The telephone wire.
3: What is the last thing you watched on TV?
A soccer match, one of the U.S. leagues, that was playing in a restaurant where I had lunch on Monday. (We don’ t have a TV. I wasn’t really “watching” this, either.)
4: WITHOUT LOOKING, guess what the time is:
6:30 AM.
5: Now look at the clock; what is the actual time?
6:40 AM.
6: With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?
A freight train, our noisy fridge, the ticking of the clock, and yellow-billed magpies quarrelling. (I can’t hear the computer; it’s basically silent.)
7: When did you last step outside? What were you doing?
6:05 this morning, when I dumped the contents of the teapot onto a spider plant that’s lived in that same spot ever since we moved in here in February 1999. It seems a bit forlorn. So I give it yesterday’s tea.
8: Before you came to this website, what did you look at?
9: What are you wearing?
A light blue brushed cotton nightie.
10: Did you dream last night?
Probably. No clue about what, though.
11: When did you last laugh?
About 40 minutes ago when I saw the photograph of Little Max that Numenius posted last night after I’d gone to bed.
12: What is on the walls of the room you are in?
A faux Arts-and-Crafts mirror, a couple of pastel paintings by my great-great-Aunt Nenna, an oil painting of persimmons by my cousin Gainor, and far too many cobwebs.
13: Seen anything weird lately?
Yes, me holding a plastic see-through keychain with a transparent teddy bear at the end of it so Numenius could photograph it in front of the sign of the California Raptor Center. (It’s a geocaching travel bug.)
14: What do you think of this quiz?
Fun, a good segue to what’s in my car piece.
15: What is the last film you saw?
Lawrence of Arabia.
16: If you became a multi-millionaire overnight, what would you buy first?
The services of an accountant.
17: Tell me something about you that I don’t know.
I’m a new, very reluctant, convert to flossing twice a day.
18: If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?
Have it be a requirement that anyone who’s thinking about starting a war get stuck in a room talking to like-minded nitwits for all eternity.
19: Do you like to dance?
Yes. It has cost me dearly in the past but I still do it.
20: George Bush: is he a power-crazy nutcase or some one who is finally doing something that has needed to be done for years?
He’s an arrogant moronic puppet. Which makes him far more dangerous than anything that’s come this way in a long time.
21: Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her?
Not sure. When I was eight I thought it would be Laura, because that’s what I wish I’d been called. I don’t want, and have never wanted, children, however.
22: Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call him?
No idea. Not Sue, though.
23: Would you ever consider living abroad?
I have extensively and might again if this upcoming election goes the wrong way…
11 April 04
Birthday With Foal And Puppy
Today was my birthday, and we spent the day with family in Berkeley. My uncle has been visiting my dad, and we took the occasion to reminisce and go over family history. But there’s a new member of the family, pictured at left. Little Max (as he’s called now, which will probably be short for Maxwell), is a Bichon Fris puppy somewhere around 12 weeks old that came home to stay with my dad and stepmom a week ago. His older half-brother Mischa is a little miffed that’s he’s no longer the center of attention but the two are playing together well, if a bit fiercely.
Yesterday we met a one-week-old foal named Chloe. Foals and puppies make for a good birthday weekend.
10 April 04
Religion and Non-Violence
I finished my religion and non-violence class here at UC Davis back in mid-March in a mixture of stress (I was just starting a new job) and depression, because it really does seem, when you consider all the evidence from all different cultures, that the case that religions are inherently non-violent is not tenable. Certainly, it’s easy to find references throughout the New Testament to support the non-violent position, but basically people will find what they want to find in religious texts.
George W. Bush and his family, on vacation at his ranch in Texas, will no doubt go to church tomorrow morning, a church full of flowers and beauty and hope and soothing words. I’m almost certain that Bush sees no moral inconsistencies in his position.
American forces bombed a mosque this week where people were praying.
They were PRAYING.
When you have the most powerful country in the world-where the number of religious believers is growing and becoming more conservative-bombing mosques, many of us wonder when the madness is going to end. Where is the outrage?
Maybe with women getting more involved in public life (though with women like Margaret Thatcher and Condi Rice, who needs men?) there’s a chance. Maybe so through secular humanism. Maybe just through more hard thinking.
Good luck. The world isn’t looking like this tonight.
9 April 04
Arboretum In Line And Wash
Inspired by our circumambulation last weekend, I’ve been having fun doing some ink sketches with watercolor. At left is a sketch I did this afternoon of the gazebo at the Arboretum on campus. Nearby is a tree where black-crowned night-herons roost; they were keeping me company with their frequent squonkings.
8 April 04
First Game Scored this Season
The difference between scoring baseball and scoring cricket is the length of the job, but I always find myself tiring of scoring a baseball game early in the eighth inning. The Giants are playing San Diego in their new park, Petco Park (Bark Park, the Doghouse, etc.), which is getting its major league debut today.
Thirty years ago today, Hank Aaron beat Babe Ruth’s home run record with his 715th long ball. He was in Atlanta today, enjoying pre-game festivities with his old club, the Atlanta Braves.
Numenius is kindly finishing up scoring this game for me. The Giants are losing 1-0. Barry Bonds had the chance to tie Willie Mays’ home run record. No luck so far….
7 April 04
Rewatching Lawrence
Inspired by last week’s outing to see “Hidalgo” (an entertaining horse movie featuring Viggo Mortensen riding across the desert), we just watched “Lawrence of Arabia” again, having found the DVD at the library this weekend. It remains an amazing film, an epic which after 42 years hasn’t lost a bit of its power. I love the shots of the desert, the horses, the camels (the greatest camel movie of all time).
Favorite T.E. Lawrence fact: in the summer of 1908 he rode his bicycle 2,400 miles around France for his study of Crusader castles which he wrote up in his thesis at Oxford completed in 1910.
6 April 04
Dissertations
Our friend Mike had his dissertation signed off on tonight at a party, not by his entire committee as hoped but at least by the Chair. The food was wonderful, the music was live, and the occasion was perfect. (I’ve never been to a “live” signing before, performed to a drumroll followed by “Blue Eyed Girl.”) A bottle of St. Emilion 1993 (which, I’m told, is a “vin des dames”) was opened and finished off.
Lorianne just got her dissertation (“Bill”) through as well; stop by and congratulate her if you haven’t already.