29 August 03
One Down, Two To Go
The Red Sox beat the Yankees this evening 10-5 in the first game of a key three game series at Fenway. I checked out the score early on and saw that the score was 2-0 Yankees in the first inning and thought oh no, it’s going to be one of those games. But the Red Sox rallied twice from behind to win the game.
David Halberstam has an excellent piece in today’s Boston Globe about the state of Red Sox Nation.
28 August 03
The San Marcos Trout Club
At the end of June 1997 Numenius and I moved into a leaky cabin from the 1930s that nestled in a tiny hidden community in the mountains above Santa Barbara. Called the Trout Club by the inhabitants and the US Postal Service and “the old fish farm” by the few Santa Barbarans who knew about it, it was originally set up as a place where well-to-do doctors and lawyers could ride their mules or horses up to in the summer months to fish (and escape their families and the oppressiveness of Fiesta, it seems). They built cabins and had themselves a rustic, peaceful, male time nestled among the oaks that bordered San Jose creek.
The Trout Club is now prime real estate. It houses an odd mixture of alternative lifestyle folk who shrewdly bought when they could, early Microsoft investors, and professionals. We were going to rent a cabin from one of the first of these while they travelled for a year to Cuba, Mexico, and Belize. The appeal was great: apart from the beauty of the spot overlooking the Channel Islands, there were forty fruit trees, including four avocados, an outdoor shower with solar-heated water, and a bike commute that went through at least five ecosystems (which led to the most incredible “birds on the way to work” list I ever expect to have in my life, as well as the best bicycling fitness).
It wasn’t pure Eden, though. There were problems, like the proliferation of rodents around all that fruit; the local snakes had their work cut out for them. It was the wettest winter in over a century, and the mountain threatened to fall down around our ears at any moment; the constant rain deprived us of a lot of solar-heated water. But it was exciting and reminded us it was still possible to live simply; that one’s surroundings and the wildlife that inhabit them constitute ample entertainment; and that this might be the kind of place we might consider living—provided we found it before it became trendy and expensive.
27 August 03
Sunset With Cam Walker
A homage to Coup de Vent. Pica watches the sunset from her reclining chair in front of the house.
27 August 03
Beavers Go On Rampage
19 out of 20 players on the Portland Beavers, the Triple-A team for the San Diego Padres, were suspended yesterday after an incident in a game in Las Vegas last month where they chased and got into a scrum with a Las Vegas fan who heckled and threw a stress-relief ball at one of the Beavers’ players. The one remaining player, a pitcher, will have his work cut out for him if the team wants to make the playoffs.
26 August 03
Have Cam Boot, Will Travel (Some)
Being able to put a tiny amount of weight on my left foot is better than none at all, but it doesn’t mean I’m able to start turning cartwheels yet by any means—or even getting myself a cup of tea. (Crutches are NOT GOOD for carrying anything that can spill.) After a minor meltdown about this last night, I’m feeling a lot better today, and have begun to resign myself to the fact that this really is going to take a long time. Today I had to beg off a bus ride into Sacramento next month because I have no idea how I’d get onto a bus with crutches unless I sat on the bottom step and edged in backwards like a crab, which even I’d balk at, having done enough to sacrifice my dignity this year already.
I’m boring even myself with all this talk of infirmity, so I’d like to urge everyone on down to check out the fabulous Doc Rock at WriteOutLoud, who is dodging desert thunderstorms and articulately bemoaning the state of the teaching profession, all the while wielding a machete.
Finally, I just started reading Michael Lewis’ Moneyball, a wonderfully entertaining account of the paradox of poor baseball clubs and their strategies for selecting winning players—against all the traditions of this tradition-laden sport.
25 August 03
Three-Way Tie
The Boston Red Sox concluded a four game sweep of the Seattle Mariners today, making the playoff picture with about 31 games to play very interesting. The Mariners, Red Sox, and Oakland A’s all have identical records (76-55) and are completing for two playoff spots between each other (assuming the Yankees don’t collapse), the AL West division lead and the American League wild-card spot. The A’s are playing well, the Mariners are slumping, and the A’s may be about to claim the AL West lead, after trailing the whole season.
Meanwhile, the Central Division races in both leagues are quite tight. Unlike Aaron Gleeman, who’s quite excited to see a real race in the AL Central, I have basically no interest in what happens in either of these races. I wouldn’t mind seeing the Cubs win the NL Central, but that’s about it.
24 August 03
Baby Steps
My world has been diminutive the last two weeks—the sofa, the bedroom, the bathroom. A big outing involves going outside to sit down and watch the birds and the trains. I have to say I’ve been well spoiled by lots of people, not the least of whom is my new husband (who has managed to throw his back out; it’s like the walking wounded in here).
All this is likely to change tomorrow. I get my sutures out (hooray—they are itching like crazy). If all goes according to plan, I exchange my plaster cast for a Cam walker, and start putting tiny amounts of weight on my left foot, which will increase progressively as the leg gets its strength back. I start seeing the Physical Therapists. And I’m going back to work.
I may not last all day for a while—being on crutches is still exhausting me. It’s going to be strange to leave this little space I’ve confined myself to and interact, as if it were normal, with the world again.
Being taken out of action like this is a really good reminder that lots of people can’t walk—ever. Not properly, not without help. I’ve been given an opportunity to see what that must be like. It will have been only two weeks since I’ve had a real shower! A friend brought over a copy of Frida for me to watch, and I wondered a lot about showers and such things as I was watching it…
23 August 03
In Memoriam Bobby Bonds
Growing up in the Bay Area in the early 1970s, I remember three names in particular from the San Francisco Giants: Mays, McCovey, and Bonds. That would be Bobby Bonds, who died this morning of cancer. Last Wednesday he saw his final baseball game, watching from a luxury suite in Pac Bell Park his son the great slugger Barry play against the Atlanta Braves.
Accounts of today’s Giants game at Pac Bell Park are very moving. After a long silence in tribute, and videos of Bobby’s career and life, the Giants played their heart out, and won 3-2 against the Marlins. And people left the park with smiles, just as Bobby would have wanted.
22 August 03
Cabin Fever
We had no power all day—the thunderstorms Numenius mentioned yesterday continued all night and knocked out a lot of the county. For us, this means no water either, since we’re on a well with an electric pump.
I finished a colored pencil drawing of what I’m spending lots of hours looking at these days from my sofa, inspired by Beth’s recent watercolor and intrigued by the challenge of how to render transparent fabric. It’s moderately what I was looking for. The colors aren’t quite right, but I think the values almost are.
We’ve been enjoying the pleasure of the company of a MacGillivray’s warbler the last two days in the rosebushes and oleander—this is an unusual bird to have in one’s yard! Fall migration is definitely underway here in the Central Valley.
21 August 03
August Storm
We were up at 5 AM this morning, and took a peek outside to look at Mars in the southwest and the third-quarter moon in the southeast. Both were shining intermittently through partial mid-level cloud coverage. There were winds from the south most of the day, and by the afternoon it was overcast. Some thunder, and then a shower, rare for August! This also meant it was time to unplug the computers.
This evening there was another thunderstorm, with lightning to the west and north, looking like it was mostly over the Vaca Mountains. On the radio listening to the Giants game we heard lightning-induced static frequently, sometimes identifiable with particular flashes. There was a little more rain, giving us a total of 0.14” for the day. It’s enough to wash down some of the dust, at least.