21 October 10
Just a Job
Each day the sun warms my feathers and I
Drop to the sky, spread, soar: to the next peak
For brunch. He sees me and with
Resigned terror screams. And on.
Per usual, no resistance from flesh.
Efficient, I tear straight to the
Bittersour pinkybrown chambers.
He screams, chains a-rattle, a-wracked.
I shit then fly off, wondering
If one day, oh just once, they’ll
Let me eat cake.
15 October 10
Gerrymandering
Tuesday we went to see the movie Gerrymandering, a documentary about the practice of redrawing legislative districts for political advantage. Admittedly the factor that got us to the showing was that Pica’s cousin Susan did the sound production on the movie, but the topic is a good problem in geography. The film focused on the passage of Proposition 11 two years ago in California, an voter initiative to transfer the power of redrawing districts from the legislators themselves to an independent commission. This proposition narrowly passed, and in the finest manner of the carnival that is California initiative politics, there are dueling propositions on the upcoming November ballot to repeal it (Proposition 27) or expand its powers (Proposition 20). The movie was tautly edited, with many animated sketches of the cartographic absurd districts all over the country produced by gerrymandering.
That legislative districts should be at least somewhat cartographically compact is a principle acknowledged by the courts, though rarely seen in practice. I wonder though if there are any sort of “natural” boundaries that can be used to constrain how one draws legislative districts, the problem being that there are an infinite number of ways one can draw lines on a map. After pondering this for a bit I came up with counties, the one set of political boundaries below the scale of individual states that is fairly stable over the years. Of course county boundaries rarely align with population density, and to ensure equal representation some counties would have to be lumped into multicounty districts. By contrast, highly populated counties (for instance Los Angeles County in California) would not be geographically split into separate districts; rather voters would elect several representatives at once from this “superdistrict”. The film interviewed legal scholar Lani Gunier, who it turns out has had ideas along these lines, but the film didn’t go into such alternative ideas. Maybe they fell in interview bits that were left on the cutting room floor.
10 October 10
10.10.10 -- On this day, in this place
I lay in bed and pressed my feet together, trying to stretch my left hip. Charlie Cat heard me rustle the cover and jumped on my bladder.
I got up at 7, emptied said bladder, and fed the cats and put the tea on.
I got out the silk scarf I was knitting for an exchange and knit 20 rows.
Noticed a tortie feral cat in the alfalfa, a day after Mary took her last two cats (outdoor) to southern California. Interesting timing, yes?
I went across the road to let the chickens out, feed them, water them, watch them. They are in heavy moult, having been wormed. They all looked up, alarmed, when the yellow-billed magpies gave a three-note alarm call. False. They resumed pecking at the scratch.
I went back across the street — noticing the sparrows in Mary’s ceanothus, thinking I should draw them — and saw that Numenius was out with the cats. Diego was getting stoned on catmint, the catnip now being entirely dried out, and Charlie was on another gopher which he didn’t catch, which is most of the time.
I had breakfast at around 9:30 am, cooked nine-grain cereal with fruits, nuts, yoghurt, same as every morning. It’s usually cold by the time I get to it. I love it anyway.
Numenius went out to do a 15-minute bird count and I moved on to the sock I’m knitting, a merino-bamboo handwash-only mystery sock whose pattern is released as a series of weekly clues on Friday. I’ve nearly finished the second clue for both socks, so I’ll be well ahead of the Friday deadline. It’s looking like a gansey sampler sock but I think I’ll call mine “Nanobot in the Garden.”
I called my mother and my friend Linda, neither of whom were in. I told Mum’s answering machine I expected she was on her 3-mile Sunday walk to get the paper and I told Linda’s I’d seen the mega-rare sharp-tailed sandpiper on Wednesday, when it got called a pectoral. I hadn’t just seen it: I’d spotted it first. (Note to self: don’t just take the word of people who are “better” birders…)
Numenius went in to work. I cut up a large pile of nightshades from the garden along with zucchini and pattypans and put them in the solar cooker for a ratatouille. I washed out the three large (3- and 5-gallon) water containers that have sat outside for months so we can fill them up at the Coop’s 11% sale next weekend. Then I got on my bike and went to work too.
At work, I watered all the plants, read my email, scanned my feed reader, put some pdfs in a folder to upload (conference proceedings from last week), worked on the Audubon newsletter, farted around on Ravelry which is far more compelling than Facebook and for me much less of a timesink.
Came home and made a sandwich from natural ground peanut butter from the Coop. For a treat, I added raspberry jelly which I never do. Harry and David. I think the last time that jar was opened was the last time Linda was here, at this point years ago, she not ever considering peanut butter without jelly. That reminded me to email her that the sharp-tailed sandpiper WAS in fact seen yesterday at the bypass. She has over 750 ABA birds but that’s not one of them. She’s 3,000 miles away. I am losing my credentials as a birder fast. Somehow, this doesn’t distress me.
Turned on the Giants game after the national anthem (phew) but before the first pitch (Phew). Picked up my sock. Numenius comes in during the first inning.
We listen to the entire game, agony and all, missing god bless america but catching take me out to the ballgame, which is so very much as it should be. Giants win, 3-2. Nothing about this is easy. Game 4 tomorrow, still in Atlanta, we’ll have to put up with that horrific tomahawk chop again, makes me stabby. During the 5th inning I get the quinoa on, chopped onions (half of the insides are rotten and fetid, will make fantastic compost) sauteed in organic extra virgin olive oil from Napa.
After the game I call Andrew then Chris about delivering my ratatouille and quinoa to them as brand-new parents. Baby is still in hospital with jaundice. Andrew is getting the cable people sorted out so I see Chris and Rafael the baby, complete with purple eyemask and UV bed (needs his bilirubin count to rise before he can be allowed home). Veterinarians make bizarre mothers: they see their babies as patients.
Go to the Coop and put in a bulk order, for the 11% sale, for 25-pound bags of beans, rice, 9-grain cereal, lentils, and a 2-lb bag of Irish Breakfast tea. On the way home I shut the chickens back into their coop (it’s now dark, a waning crescent moon on its way to setting). I say goodnight, ladies, like I do every night.
Get home and serve myself some ratatouille over quinoa with a glass of Chilean red. When I get the parmesan out Diego mugs me for it.
Sit down to write a blog. This is quite the longest one in ages. Great questions of the day: will I ever be able to sit comfortably on the floor, cross-legged? And have I really entered menopause, rather than all. these. false. alarms.? Stay tuned. .
9 October 10
Three Out Of Four
That is the number of Giants losses out of the games we’ve seen on TV this season. Clearly we are jiinxing them, and must stop accepting invitations over to friends’ houses to watch critical games. Last night’s epic failure against the Braves is well up there in the history of Giants’ postseason infamy.
Jinxes or not, watching baseball on television just does not agree with us. Or conversely, I don’t think there’s a sport that’s better suited to radio than baseball. Baseball is not about visual glitz of the sort that TV excels in, it is about narrative, exactly the sort that good radio announcers can draw out exquisitely. We’re lucky that the KNBR radio team for the Giants is very good at what they do.
7 October 10
Around the Baseball this Weekend
I did this
and this
GO GIANTS!
3 October 10
End of Season Joy
At home now, basking in the Giants winning the NL West, which they did today on the final game of the season, a 162-game slog most time of which was spent chasing the San Diego Padres, trading division leads with them much of this past month, overtaking them by three games as of last Thursday night, only to see that lead evaporate as they lost two in a row against the Padres on Friday and Saturday, but the Giants pull it out in the end as they beat the Padres today 3-0.
I only caught bits and pieces of the game before the seventh inning. We were providing radio support for a bicycle event (the Princess Promenade) along the American River Parkway. Doing bike patrol I ended up cycling about 42 miles cruising the stretch between Discovery Park and the CSU Sacramento campus. The game started around 1, and I didn’t finish with my bike duties until around 3. We were back at home in time for the final half-inning, and avoided getting too hysterical after the last strikeout because Diego was sitting on Pica’s lap while she was spinning yarn. The cats haven’t quite figured out our baseball mania.
19 September 10
Yellow-Green Vireo
My 700th North American bird was the Colima Warbler, back in April 2008. At that time I decided to stop chasing birds — partly an environmental decision, partly because getting from 700 to 750 is a very expensive proposition, partly because I’m interested in other things too — and start sketching them in earnest, which i’ve done more or less regularly.
A Spanish cellular biologist has shown up for three months; a plea for help going birding turned into a trip to Point Reyes today with Yolo Audubon. A happy walk up the path from seeing a pair of harlequin ducks hauled out on the rails, preening, was interrupted by a somewhat breathless Rich Stallcup saying he had a yellow-green vireo back up the hill.
That’s a life bird for me, one I’ve missed several times elsewhere. A couple have arrived in the mail since my 700th bird — the result of split species, which are a sort of bureaucratic ornithological irritation — but I have never been within walking distance of a life bird since. We hoofed uphill in the intermittent drizzle and saw it feeding in the thistles by the parking lot, obviously exhausted and ravenous. It later took several baths in the water trough, near where the black and white warbler was duking it out with nuthatches.
Several people got life birds today (José Alberto got over 40; this number would have been doubled if the weather had been better). We saw few warblers (though a nice long-tailed weasel den sort of made up for it under dripping cypresses up at the lighthouse), no elk. But a day spent in the wet (to parched Central Valley birders, this was heaven) with great people and a bird worth toasting with Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut is a day worth spending, and we are home happy if weary.
A sketch made in the rain of the bird (not great before it got dripped on) will follow on Bird by Bird.
10 September 10
Correlative Fandom
The Giants are in the thick of the pennant race, winning the first out of four games in a critical series against the San Diego Padres to move to one back of the team. As a fan of course I worry about just what are the necessary steps to take before and during the game to ensure success. Do I need to listen to every pitch, for example? I did carry a radio with me early in the game this evening when I went outside with the cats, just in case…
1 September 10
My New Buddy
On Sunday we went up to Placerville to visit the studio of dyer and spinner extraordinaire, Lisa Souza. We took two knitters with us — one a friend from Davis, another a knitter from Baltimore we sort of adopted since she was working in Sacramento for a month. Numenius went for a bike ride while Laura, Cami and I got lost in some serious yarn for a while.
I had asked Lisa to dye me some fiber in her “Electra” colorway. The fiber is 50% merino, 25% silk, 25% bamboo, and it drapes in the most gorgeous way. Because 75% of the fibers are animal protein but silk and merino take dye at different rates, and because bamboo won’t take acid dye at all, the effect is shimmery and magical.
As I was paying for this, I noticed a dark blue-green bump of fiber in her dyeing studio. It’s Wensleydale. I shuddered and put it down — too scary. I’ve heard dozens of stories of people—good spinners—turning this super-long stapled wool into piano wire. Lisa looked at me and laughed. “It’s because they don’t listen to me,” she said. “You have to spin really low-twist and let it go, let it go, let it go.”
Let it blossom, let it snow. I have a new best friend. Two days later, I’ve finished spinning the undyed fiber she gave me to practice with and am halfway through the blue-green.
The photo of the Wensleydale sheep, above, is taken by the super-talented Birdwoman of the Birdwoman Knits blog, and I’m grateful to have such a splendid creature gracing the walls of Feathers of Hope. That’s a 10-11” staple, folks.
28 August 10
Settling Into Fall Footie
The answer to what am I going to do after the World Cup has been taking shape. So far the only soccer I’ve been catching on TV has been when we go to our favorite taqueria for Saturday lunch when more often than not they are showing a random footie match on their bigscreen. But following the BBC live text reports does in a pinch (it’s how we follow the Tour de France), giving us a new Saturday morning activity where I read these out to Pica over breakfast. And there’s always watching the goal highlights on YouTube. I am following Tottenham Hotspur in earnest now, finding myself surprisingly thrilled by their victory at home on Wednesday to make it into this year’s Champions League competition. Following the Champions League should be fun — it’s anybody’s guess who will win it, unlike the various national leagues.
La Liga gets started tomorrow — expect even more entertainment.