"Bombshell" on Amazon Prime

 Taking on the heads of Fox News would in no way be an easy task and this movie about just that scenario shows how difficult it was. Yes, the story of Megyn Kelly and the sexual harassment suits against Roger Ailes  (the chairman and chief executive of Fox News) is a somewhat fictionalized account, but we all know he was eventually kicked off of Fox News, given a huge  monetary settlement and then, well, nothing really different happened. Some women stayed on, some left, and there is no doubt harassment still continuing.

But this is a good movie. The cast is excellent, there are light-hearted moments until the nasty truth comes out. A lot is happening in this movie, it's quick and to the point. Watch it while realizing that it was probably more gut-wrenching in reality. Take note of the creepiness of Roger Ailes. Played by an incredibly slimy John Lithgow, you can feel your face cringing every time he is on the screen. This movie reinforced my admiration for Charlize Theron as an actor. She barely looks like herself but she does a spot-on portrayal of Kelly. It's decent entertainment and if you are a Prime member, it's free!  Even better.

Cheers!

Please read this column, link included.

 At the end of every day, I look at the New York Times site on my phone, just to see what craziness has happened in the past 14 hours. This evening I came across this opinion piece and it moved me to tears. Please read it. Not because you need to know how to die, but because it's about love and life and sometimes the end of our days.  Almost every line, every sentence, could be taken out of context and praised for its beauty, clarity and truth.  Just this one sentence should compel you to click on the link below:   As a connecting force, love makes a person much more resistant to obliteration.

A very good friend lost her mother a few days ago, not from Covid, but from old age, dementia, other things. But talking to Kara about her Mom's death opened that door to the discussion of dying, of our immortality.  Talking about death means talking about life at the same time. Realizing  that you are alive means acknowledging that you still have choices, you can appreciate life and you can be ready for death. Not ready for sudden death but ready to release the fear of death. We are mortal. We will die. How we live until that time is what's important.

Please read this and think about it and share it with others. (If it doesn't link when clicking on it, copy and paste into your browser or simply go to nytimes.com and find it in the Opinion section,) I found it to be profoundly moving and very important for all of us, old and young, healthy and not. Death isn't a mystery. It's a fact. But it doesn't need to be put in a box and stored in a dark corner.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/18/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-death.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

To be in Paris right now......

 Walking early this morning, the air felt like Parisian winter air: damp, cold, fresh. The skies were gray, like the winter skies of Paris. For a  moment my eyes watered at the desire to be there at that very instant.  But that could have been the cold air making them water and making my nose run.

For years Tom and I left SFO the Tuesday after Thanksgiving and went to Europe: France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Portugal, Austria, Czech Republic, Sicily.  One two week trip to Manhattan, another to Montreal, another to Istanbul. Two weeks of nothing to do but walk and eat and drink local wine, revel in the fact that there wasn't much English being spoken, read books, sleep in and enjoy the cold weather.  Today would be the day we would return home, usually around December 15th or so. Is it any wonder that my body jumps at the thought of Paris weather? Jumps at the idea of getting on a plane and arriving in a foreign land?

That moment this morning opened a door in my memory bank, one that has been shut pretty tight lately. Not going anywhere, longing for a change of scenery, don't want to start thinking of all the beautiful places I would rather be. But I thought of the dinner we had in Sicily, a small trattoria that was almost empty at the early hour we walked in. The only occupied table had about 8 men, all in dark plain suits, all very Italian (or Sicilian to be precise) and all seriously talking and seriously eating. It didn't take a genius to figure out they were linked in ways Americans are not. Tom and didn't want to say the word "Brotherhood" or "Mafia" out loud but it was clear this was a business meeting of the most intense kind.

Another memory: we took a train from Vienna to Venice, a very long train ride. People on the train were coughing and it wasn't a surprise that by the time we got to Venice we were feeling terrible. Sore throats, chills, aches. The first three nights we were in Venice we were both very sick. Fevers, spirit people haunting our dreams, no appetites. The pharmacist gave us good drugs, they helped and the last two days we were able to actually enjoy the city.

So many more images popped into my head all day long:  walking across wooden planks from ferry boat to ferry boat in Istanbul, waiting for the ferry to take us down the Black Sea; driving through a blinding snow storm in southern Italy, traffic down to one lane, the front window freezing  up so the windshield wipers barely worked and my eyes burning from the snow blindness; watching old men play petanque in the Tuileries in Paris and watching little kids push small sailboats with a stick across the ponds in French parks. 

Travel will happen again. I just hope I am not too old to hop on that plane and take that trip.

A few more books for those of you who still read!

 In no particular order, here are a few more books that I can either recommend or unrecommend.  

"The Searcher" by Tana French. I have mentioned French in previous posts. This novel is a stand-alone, none of her other "regular" characters are in it, just in case you were attached to the Dublin Murders Squad series. A retired American policeman leaves the U.S. and buys a rundown house in a small town in the Irish countryside. His goal is to be left alone and refurbish the house, take a lot of walks and drink pints in the local pub. While this seems like an easy undertaking, it isn't long before Cal Hooper gets involved with a poor, troubled kid trying to find out what happened to his brother. With Hooper's background as a detective from Chicago, he starts investigating this disappearance and his dream of being left alone is quickly overrun by the angst and anger his work creates in the small town.

French is sometimes a little dense, a little too wordy, but her descriptions of the countryside are beautiful, her characters are always great and fleshed out, the plot is always good and with a couple of good twists, this is an enjoyable novel. Just don't plan on breezing through it in two days.

Next up is "Monogamy" by Sue Miller, a prolific writer that I have enjoyed in the past. This novel has gotten a lot of play mainly because it is exciting to have a new novel from this excellent writer. The story is simple: two sort-of mismatched people meet, fall in love, get married, and then the husband, Graham, dies suddenly.  (Not a spoiler, we are told this on the book jacket.) His wife Annie tries to move on with her life but Graham was a larger-than-life kind of guy who expected Annie to live in his shadow, and now that he is gone, Annie has a difficult time finding her way out of that shadow. Plus, what she learns about Graham isn't always easy to take.

I liked the first third of this book, then didn't like it for the second third but by the time I was finished, I found myself thinking about it more than usual. Miller is a slow and thoughtful writer and she wants you to think about the characters, not just about what those characters are doing. She wants you to get to know them, even if you might not like them. It's a good read.

Moving on we come to "The Truants" by Kate Weinberg.  I have no idea why I put this on my library list, I must have been seduced by a good review. It's a debut novel (I should know better) and takes place at a college and has the usual assortment of unhappy students having affairs with each other and their teachers and strangers and in the end, who cares?  I didn't.

I also read "When No One Is Watching" by Alyssa Cole, a thriller of sorts, that was so contrived and manipulative that I couldn't finish it.

I also started the newest novel by Jody Picoult, "The Book of Two Ways" but never engaged with it.  Could be me, not the book.

Finally, I found a new author and read three of his books in a row. Matt Goldman writes detective novels and lots of stuff for TV, but the best things about his books are 1) they are quick, 2) they are very funny but not comedies, 3) they take place in Minnesota (!), and 4) I can download them onto my phone from the library.  The main character, Nils Shapiro, is a bit crazy and a lot smart. The crimes are odd and intriguing, but I just like the guy's sense of humor. If you found one in a used bookstore (yeah, like anyone goes shopping these days) it would be worth a buck or two to pick one up.

And that's all for now, folks. In addition to reading, I am on the last season (via Netflix) of the great TV show "West Wing" so the days of Jed Bartlett are almost over. The show goes off the air December 24, and I am determined to watch it to the end.

Hang in there. Stay at home. Don't breathe when other people are in the vicinity of your face. Stay warm. There are still lovely leaves on the trees, enjoy them while they last.

xo

Books! More Books! Book Reports!

Having little else to do, I read. And in the past 4 weeks I have read many books. As a kid in school, we had to write book reports, telling what the book was about (plot spoilers) and who wrote it,  if we liked it or not and why.  I can't go down that path again, and if you have read this blog for a while (HA!) you know I don't do plot synopsis, I don't do character analysis, I try to not give spoilers.  But if I didn't like the book, I tell you why.  If I liked the book, well, it is usually clear and no explanation is needed.

In no particular order, here's what I have read lately.

James Lee Burke: his latest novel is "A Private Cathedral" and it is 100% true to his traditional themes: guilt, angst, alcoholism, lust and many more sins of the soul.  And kindness and redemption. There is no point in trying to tell you about the plot.... people get shot, people lie and steal and kill and do many things that are unmentionable. Burke's novels are not for the faint of heart but they are about the darkness of one's mind and soul and of one's past, coming back to terrorize you.  I have liked every one of his books and this one was no different.

And then I decided to go back to the beginning and read his first Dave Robicheaux novel, "Neon Rain" published in 1987. From then to now, 33 years have gone by and yet the character from that first novel is the same in the current publication, just wiser and less impulsive and less physically fit.  Not to say that Robicheaux has diminished, it's just to say that he, like all of us, has gotten older. But Burke's description of New Orleans has always been perfect: "The esplanade was shady under the spreading oaks, and the wind blew pieces of newspaper through the intersection. The streetcar tracks were burnished the color of copper, and they trembled slightly from the rumbling weight of the car that was still far down the esplanade. The wind was dry, full of dust, the burnt-out end of a long, hot afternoon, and I could smell the acrid scorch in the air that the streetcars made when they popped across an electric circuit. Overhead, clouds that had the dull sheen of stream floated in from the Gulf, where the sun was already sinking into a purple thunderhead."

OK: moving on: By Louise Penny: "All The Devils Are Here" was published this year. Again starring the amazing Armand Gamache, head of homicide in Quebec. This novel has Gamache in Paris (!) visiting his daughter and son and their respective families. Gamache sits in the garden at Musee Rodin and visits with his godfather. They talk about old times, about families, about politics. Later that night his godfather is run over by a hit-and-run van and thus the tale takes off.

This novel takes place in Paris, my favorite city in the world, so it's no wonder I liked it so much. They walked down streets I have walked along,  visited neighborhoods where I have stayed and they popped into bakeries that I have frequented! Penny writes so beautifully about Paris, it is clear she loves the city as much as I do, and for that more bonus points are awarded.

Being a huge fan of Penny's novels, I have written about them here many times. Yes, they are about a murder or a death that needs to be solved but they are more about the nature of humanity, about hate and greed and kindness and love. She is a fabulous writer.

And, as an extra bonus, read this:  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/25/magazine/lemon-meringue-cookie-gamache.html

If Dorie Greenspan doesn't convince you to read Louise Penny's novels, nothing will.

Third: John Grissom's latest novel: "A Time For Mercy."  I have read a lot of Grissom's books and have like most of them. This one, I liked but not hugely.  It felt plodding and padded. The story is of a young 16 year old boy/man who shoots the man who was beating his mother and terrorizing him and his sister. The trial comes down to this: cold-blooded murder or a murder to protect himself and his sister. 

I found the plot to be weak and predictable, the salient points are telegraphed to the reader much too far in advance and I never really came to like any of the characters, including the "hero" lawyer Jake Brigance. But hey, that's just me. Don't buy this, just download it or library it. Better than watching TV, although I am sure a movie is in the works. 

I have three more books to talk about, will do that tomorrow. Stay well, all of you out there.

xox

Documentary: A Life on Earth, David Attenborough

This documentary is on Netflix and you should watch it. Attenborough is iconic in his reporting on the planet, its health and its sorrows. In this film he shows us the worsening situation of the entire world, from Africa to Antarctica to  the United States, brought on by climate change and disregard for the stability of our planet.

Everyone should watch this, not because he explains how humans have wrecked the planet but because he explains how we can take back the real world that can sustain us and how all of us are culpable in the destruction that has already happened. It is not always a happy documentary but if you know Attenborough's work you know that the photography will be gorgeous and the writing will be perfect. He is a master at telling about  and showing the life in the wilds, be it Africa, South America, Asia, America and on..... And now he is telling us the peril our planet is in.

Take the 90 minutes out of your life and watch this. It might not change anything about your life now but it certainly will make you think and possibly make you act. 

I have always believed that no matter what humans do to defile the planet, our Earth will go on, it will live on long after our screwing around with it, destroying ecosystems, raising the temperature of the planet, ruining biodiversity. The Earth will survive. Perhaps we humans are just another "experiment" much like the dinosaurs, and we will have over extended our time in another 100-200 years. Attenborough alludes to that: who cares what we do, the Earth will continue on as a nice, life-affirming planet, maybe not with our lives, but the Earth adapts. The planet will be fine, it is us humans who will not survive.

Anyway, please watch this documentary. It is important. 

Here now. Promising to be here more.

These past months have been difficult for everyone.  We have been isolated, removed, confined. We are depressed, sad, lonely, angry and confused. There are no quick fixes, no patches to put on wounds, no uplifting bromides to make us feel better. What we need to heal, as a country, as a county, as a neighborhood, will not be forthcoming.

It is up to us, individually and communally, to find a way out of the sludge we have been wading in for the past 8 months. Or for the past 4 years.  So many of us are stuck in the swamp that has been our political mess and stuck in the despair of the Corona virus that threatens us at every corner. But it is time to find a new path around that mess.

I don't know the way around the mess, I don't have a new path but I know it is time to start looking for hope on the other side of the chaos we are currently in. Any helpful ideas are welcome.

Thank you for listening. I will keep you posted. 

, 

The loss of Thanksgiving

We are not alone in declaring our love for Thanksgiving. A non-secular holiday where one can gather with family, friends, strangers even and share food, stories, love and warmth.  

Not this year. This is one more thing that has been stolen from us in 2020. From St. Patrick's Day going forward, everything we looked forward to has been torn away. No spring, everyone is sequestered in their homes. No holidays, no Memorial Day or July 4th because we cannot gather, and when some people did, more people got sick. No summer because of no gatherings, because it was too damned hot and because fire season started early. No summer barbeques, no picnics, too many Red Flag Warning days and Spare the Air days. 

Then finally, when the best months of the year arrived - October and November - there was still no joy because of multiple fires, many evacuations, more heat, and the unsettled situation around the Presidential election which still makes our collective guts clench in rage, fear and depression.  And then we have Thanksgiving, again usurped by this fucking virus, or more to the point, by the fucking idiots who don't wear masks and think it's fine to hang out in groups and spread the virus to anyone in their path.  This is all depressing at best. It's paralyzing and isolating and pathetic. I haven't talked to a single person in the past month who isn't going through some kind of depression, a lack of joy for anything.

Yes, we can try to be bright and Pollyanna-ish and we can be grateful that most of us don't know anyone firsthand who has died from Covid (but everyone know someone who has had it) but that fake upbeat mood doesn't do enough to mitigate the incessant fear and anxiety that still surrounds us. Not having an end to the election  doesn't help one bit, either.

I have no ideas of how to get oneself out of this circling the drain. I am in that circle of depression myself. All we can do is hold on, hope and be kind to everyone we meet with the thought that some of that kindness might come back to us, and in the end, it might help. Something needs to help. This situation is not sustainable.

Thank  you for listening.

Netflix movie: Stranger Than Fiction

 We all need to watch something other than MSNBC or CNN right now. There isn't going to be a peaceful transfer of power,  no forthcoming agreement from the Republicans that Trump lost the election.  It's going to be a nasty battle.  But we can take our minds off of the prevailing fight and wait for the courts to reassure everyone that the election was fair and just.  And this movie is one to watch for that diversion.

The cast is stellar: Will Ferrell, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson, Queen Latifah. The story is good: a writer with writer's block starts talking about the book she is writing and narrating the character's life and that character turns out to be a real guy and he can hear her!  Yes, it sounds far fetched but it seems quite plausible when it's on the screen in front of you. Harold Crick (Will Farrell) is a very OCD kind of guy, works for the IRS, never deviates from his straight and narrow path until he has to audit a wild-child owner of a bakery.  And then his life goes down a much wider and wilder path. 

Bottom line, it's a love story of sorts. Great dialogue, great goofy performances from Hoffman and Thompson and a couple of scenes that will break your heart. Watch it.  Free on Netflix, a couple of bucks on Amazon.  Worth every cookie dollar you spend.

Plus you get this:  https://youtu.be/bFU545ZtOpE

Copy and paste that into your browser and listen to it.

Have a good week.

I'd go the whole wild world just to find her.

Or this:  https://youtu.be/cYGakznEllM

November 7

 I am not home so cannot write much on my phone but I simply want to acknowledge, in writing, the relief of this day with Biden’s election. We feel like we can breathe for a minute after holding our breaths for the past 4 days. Biden’s Presidency will not repair the damage to our democracy but that healing can begin. We need to be vigilant and work hard for the Democrat party in the next four years to prevent another Fascist from assuming power in 2024. 

Raise a glass to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris tonight. What a journey they have had, along with all of us Americans.

Trial of the Chicago 7

Netflix is available to most everyone for a small monthly charge. Seriously, if you are not a subscriber of Netflix, you are wasting your money on some other TV delivery system and it will never be as good or have as many options.  Yes, some of Netflix is pandering, some is boring but some is really good.

"The Trial of the Chicago 7" is one of those Netflix shows that come around now and then and needs to be watched. This is not a drawn-out documentary, this is one movie, a bit longer than two hours but captivating for every minute of those two hours.

Many of you remember the Chicago riots in 1968, the run-up to the Democratic convention in that city, the terrible year the US had had up to that point.  Started out in January with the Tet offensive in Vietnam, hundreds of attacks by North Vietnam on South Vietnam. Thousands of lives were lost but more than that, the US attitude on the war started to turn. (Thankfully.)  It was a depressing and clear moment: the US could not win this war.

Three months later, in April, Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed in Memphis.  As shocking as this was, the riots that soon followed were an aftershock of this horrible event. Riots on the East Coast, in Washington DC, in Chicago and in the south were violent and they lasted for days. 

On June 5, two months after Martin Luther King Jr was murdered, the hope of millions in the world, Robert Kennedy, was assassinated  in Los Angeles. He was the hopeful front-runner to secure the nomination for President that year and his death sent the United States and a lot of the world into a tailspin. 

Then came the Democratic National Convention, held in Chicago. The atmosphere was incredibly tense and into that stepped Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, outlandishly out-there Yippies,  trying their best to upset the American norm. Add to that the militaristic tactics of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, the huge and nasty fight between Hubert Humphrey, Eugene McCarthy and the delegates from both sides, it's no wonder that things would escalate to the point of rioting.

And so it did.....and with that very limited background, it is no wonder that several of the far left leaders were arrested and brought to trial for conspiracy and inciting a riot. 

OK, back to the movie at the top of this blog. It's on Netflix. It is really good and pretty true to the facts. When I taught history, no matter if I was supposed to teach only up to 1950 or 1920 or whatever, I ALWAYS taught 1968.  I added it in as a large footnote because it is seminal to how we are now. (Well, pre 2016, I must say.) It was a year of trauma, war, death, free speech, loss of leadership and reaction to all of that and more. It was the beginning of the loss of faith in our country and the start of the cynicism that is now the reality. 1968 shaped attitudes in the US as no other year had since possibly 1929.

I digress. "The Trial of the Chicago 7" is a good movie. For many of us, it will take us back to that time and give us a little hint of why we need to still stand up for free speech, free actions and why causes matter. The acting is excellent and the cast is perfect. A lot of the dialogue came from the court records and from what I read, there isn't a lot of license taken with the events of that time.

Thank you for reading. Watch the movie. VOTE!  (I know, in California that is preaching to the choir.)  If you know anyone in the other states, call them and tell them to vote, unless they are Trump supporters, then drive to their house and steal their mail-in ballot.  Hold on to whatever good thoughts you might have for this November 3 election.  Whatever voodoo dolls you have, whatever saints you pray to, whomever you bribe, do it. We need evil to be overcome by fair play.  We need decency restored to this country. Bottom line, we need to live in a democracy, not a fascist state.  

xo

 

 

Trying but not suceeding

 Seriously, folks, I am trying to come up with things to write about here but I am failing. Everything weighs me down, as I am sure it does you. With the repeated Red Flag Warnings, the repeated warnings about Covid, the repetitive crap about the election, over and over, I am weary of it all. Like so many, I cannot wait until November 4, when we will have a decision on how this country and our lives will proceed. I hold out little hope for a good result but that's because I am a pessimist and I do not trust 70% of the American voters.

Perhaps our human race is just an evolutionary experiment. Dinosaurs lived on this planet for about 165 million years. Humans have been around for less than 6 million years.  With the destruction of the earth that we humans are causing, especially climate change, maybe in another thousand years we will all be gone and the experiment will be over. Other life forces will arise, of course. The earth will still exist. We silly humans cannot destroy the planet entirely, but we can destroy our viability on the planet. And it seems we are headed that way.

Pessimistic, yes, but maybe not entirely unfounded. I just read this online:  This week, a new policy paper from an Australian think tank claims that those other reports are slightly off; the risks of climate change are actually much, much worse than anyone can imagine.Climate change poses a "near- to mid-term existential threat to human civilization," and there's a good chance society could collapse as soon as 2050 if serious mitigation actions aren't taken in the next decade.

Yes, that sounds ominous and it should. It is any wonder why some of us are in the dark zone right now?  Seven months of being told not to engage in social activities like going out to dinner or hanging out with your friends. Seven months of being wary even going to the grocery store. Seven months of crossing the street when someone is coming towards you, even if you are both wearing a mask. Seven months of listening to fucking jerks who deny the safety of masks, who think "herd immunity" is the answer to this virus, who think there is a pedophile ring being run by Hillary Clinton under Grand Central Station in New York, seven months of that shit...... is it any wonder why a person with an IQ over 100 is sick of this crap?

But then there are all those people with an IQ over 100 who are promoting this crap.  I don't get it. I get none of it.  And it makes me sad, depressed, scared and anxious and pissed off. 

I will try to write more often and in a less scathing manner. But I cannot promise that.

.

Here I am, back again.

 Thank you to the few readers who read this blog regularly and have nudged me to write by saying things like: "Are you okay?" or to be more blunt "Are you alive? Or not?"  Or being kind: "Are you home yet from the evacuation?"  (Which was lifted ten days ago.)

I thank every one of those peeps.  Thanks for pushing me to post on this blog again.  So here I am.

Got home several days ago. Being evacuated was fine (HA!) because I have lovely family that will put up with me, my dog, my anxiety and my brother Steve, his dog, their anxieties, idiosyncrasies, all the invasive properties one carries with one living in someone else's house. It was safe and at the same time fraught with many moments of awkwardness and weirdness. Gabe and Annie's house is so lovely and they are so gracious but I know that we (me, Steve, Cooper and dog Random) are not. We probably overwhelmed them. I am sorry about that but we did the best we could. (Well, maybe we could have been quieter!) 

Gabe and Annie gave us a place to be safe and to decompress for 4+ nights and then we left for Jenn and Dar's. 

I cannot explain how much I love the tolerance my two kids and their mates have for me, Steve, dogs, oddness, loudness, imperial thoughts, perceived righteousness,  and all the other baggage we carry with us.  While I was ready to kill a dog or a human, everyone else just carried on. I know that Gabe and Annie probably felt invaded;  they both work from home for at least 8 hours a day and we were a bit of a disruption for them. Jenn and Dar were lucky because they got us on Friday and the weekend meant no work via Zoom, via the phone, via anything that needed us to be quiet. Plus their house has distractions:  a pool table, a dart board, a full-on bar.  (Steve doesn't drink a lot.  I do. So that helped me.)

We are now home, Thursday night, with a new Red Flag Warning, high temps, high winds predicted, and let's see what happens tonight. My "go bag" is ready.  I will again sleep with the windows open so I can hear if the wind picks up and be ready to leave. 

Thank you everyone for checking in as often as you did. It meant a lot to me and Steve.  We are living the mantra "No Wind. No Wind." And we are hoping that's the case.  How great would it be to see the end of this month with no more destruction from fire? Knocking on wood and don't want to jinx anything but hoping out loud is a shout-out to the universe.  

Over and out for now.  Be careful out there. Be kind. To Everyone.

xo

Evacuated and anxious, concerned and antsy.

 Sunday the village I live in was told to evacuate.  My brother Steve's neighborhood of Kenwood also had to leave.  I left Glen Ellen around 10:30 that evening, Steve followed a couple of hours later. We are currently at my son and daughter-in-law's home in Daly City, on the San Francisco border, with our dogs, just wishing and hoping and waiting.  Today's CalFire press conference reported that the winds are supposed to pick up today and there is a lot of heat in Sonoma Valley.  They also said there's a 50-50 chance that the fire could get to Kenwood and Glen Ellen.

So we wait. And hope and try not to be too anxious, which is a lost attempt since anxiety is an obvious outcome when you are worried about your home burning up.

Gabe and Annie are being very kind and generous to let us invade their lives.  They work from home, so having two other bodies in the house and two other dogs is tough on their work process. Steve and I try to be quiet but it doesn't always happen. 

There's nothing else to say.  Tomorrow morning we will go to Guerneville and spend a few nights with Jenn and Dar. We don't know when we can go home, don't know what the fire will do, don't know where we will stay after Sunday. The situation is compounded by Steve's dog, who has a difficult time walking very much and can't really do stairs.  We may end up in a hotel, which would be fine with me.  At least we wouldn't be pestering others!

Keep good, safe thoughts.

Books, bread and boredom

 To classify Tana French as a writer of crime fiction does her a huge injustice. Yes, her novels are centered on solving a crime but her writing is so much better than simple police procedure. French lives in Ireland and her stories take place there. Her writing is atmospheric, dark, sometimes comedic, always spiraling down a rabbit hole of evidence and quirky characters. 

Her second novel is "The Likeness" (which I just finished) and while the premise is rather preposterous the story works because French can take the odd bit and make it believable. A female detective is involved in a murder investigation where the victim looks exactly like her.  Instead of publicizing the murder, the police decide to have this detective go undercover and pretend to be the dead girl in order to find out who is the murderer.  Unbelievable, yes, but as a novel it works.  Psychologically twisted in whodunit sort of way, it's a compelling read and is the perfect antidote to the reality we are all facing right now with fires, covid, politics, pollution and impending doom.

I have read a couple of Tana French's other novels and can recommend them as well. They are not quick reads, she is a dense writer, but they are all entertaining and engrossing.  

Bread: 30 + years ago I had a bread recipe that I loved. It was a honey-oatmeal yeast bread and is incredibly delicious. For some odd reason it dropped out of my bread-making recipe roster. Two weeks ago it popped into my mind and I had to question why I had put it on the back shelf. I dug it out of my file, made it and was blown away once again about how good it is. Great texture, delicious oaty taste and one can use either honey or molasses. Each gives it a different taste, of course, both very, very good.  The recipe makes two loaves so I gave it to random friends and it now has a very strong, loyal following and I am loving making it again.

Finally: boredom. That's all I am going to say on that subject. With people fleeing for their lives, seeing their homes destroyed by fire, others in hospitals fighting for their lives, with the overwhelming anxiety we are facing with the election in two months, with so many people world-wide out of work and facing eviction, starvation and worse, complaining that I am bored is nothing but a glaring example of white privilege.  So I am shutting up about that.

Please remember to be kind to each other. Tempers are short right now, we all feel like there are bees buzzing in our bodies, no one is sleeping right, everyone is anxious.  We need to calm down, we need to cut everyone some slack and simply be kind.

Charming and Beautiful Netflix Documentary

 With all the bad, frightening and unsettling news that constitutes our current world, one needs to search out things that will instill hope and awe. It's rare to find this on TV but here's an antidote to some of the negativity surrounding us right now: "My Octopus Teacher" on Netflix.

Filmed in the waters of South Africa, this short (90 minutes) documentary is a story of a scuba diver who decides to explore the waters around his home and discovers a dense kelp forest alive with an ecosystem that is like a foreign country to him.  The tidal waters are rough and freezing but he goes diving every day,  Eventually he finds and is intrigued by a small, female octopus.  From being totally skittish and stand-offish, this sea creature comes to recognize the diver and they develop a sort of "friendship."

Well, okay, it might sound strange and hokey but it isn't. The underwater photography is stunning, the scenery from that different world is mesmerizing and the octopus and her environment are fascinating. The story is emotional at times but it reminds us of the beauty in the natural world and the life and death struggles of every living creature.

Check it out. I guarantee that you will enjoy this little film.  

Book Reviews!!!

 As I mentioned previously, my reading mojo has returned.  Lately there is nothing to do but bake, eat, sleep, walk the dog and read.  Luckily the last three books I have read (and one I am listening to on CD in my car) have all been good.  Without further ado and in no particular order:

"Nothing To See Here" by Kevin Wilson is so quirky in its premise that I had no great desire to read it.  But it was available for downloading onto my Portable Device (i.e. phone) that I opted to get it and am so glad I did. (Side note: not all books are available to download and I do not like reading books on my PD (i.e. phone) but one takes what one can get in these troubled times. Right?)

This story is about, ostensibly, a sort-of loser woman in her mid 20's who doesn't have a real job who is contacted by the woman she loved in her brief stint in college to watch over a set of sort-of orphaned twins who ..... can set themselves on fire.  No wonder no one wants to be a nanny to fire kids, and these aren't cute, cuddly kids either.  OK, you can see why I hesitated to read this book, it sounded too contrived to be even half-way reasonable. But the thing is this: not only does it become reasonable, it becomes much more than that. It becomes real. Lillian, the mid-20's sort-of nanny, realizes that she can not only help these kids, but that the kids are real and needy and loving and (....wait for it....) so is she!  In the end it's a great story about shedding one's past and embracing the vagaries of life and its uncertainties and insecurities.  And in the end, it's a great story of love and how kindness can overcome even children who can set themselves on fire.

Read it if you get the chance.  Right now, with everything that is happening in our world, danger, fire, death, virus, evil.... this book is a little tonic for all of that.  Wrap your arms and your soul and heart around this little book and love it.

Whew. Didn't mean to get so philosophical there. 

OK, book number two is a first novel and you all know I approach first novels with trepidation. This one was better than most.  "Such A Fun Age" by Kiley Reid is a book for right now. A young (again mid-20's) black woman is a babysitter for a rich white family and one evening Emira has the little kid in an upscale (i.e. expensive) grocery store and is confronted by the security guard questioning if that little white girl is supposed to be with that over-dressed black woman.  Well, things happen, nothing bad, but repercussions ensue, of course. The novel goes on to the explore Emira's relationship to her employers, Alix and Peter, and there's lots of race and economic issues that are tossed about. Reviews of this book have made much of the black-vs-white themes in the relationships but I am not going to get into those. Read the reviews. But it's a good story of one woman trying to find her way in a world that isn't hers but maybe could be someday. Emira loves the little girl she takes care of but that little girl's future is one that Emira will never have. She needs to figure out where she is in all of that.  Eventually, she does.

Those two books were surprisingly good and I had little expectations for them. I enjoyed both of them.  "Nothing To See Here" made me almost cry at the end because Lillian had so much to lose and so little to hold on to but she landed on her feet.  In "Such a Fun Age" I was a little more confident that Emira would figure it out.... and she did and carried on. Neither book was pandering and both were well done.

Two more books to review. Tune in tomorrow.  (And that means you, Ms. Mahalo.)

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James Bond

 Don't ask why but I have been watching James Bond movies the last couple of nights.  James Bond and Jed Bartlet of the "West Wing" series.  And look at that!  They have the same initials!  Coincidence?  I think not.

I saw "Casino Royale" in the theater but might not have seen it since then.  Totally enjoyed watching it again and it led into "Quantum of Solace" which is a totally weird name of a movie, even for Bond. But here I am, enthralled. I have a feeling I didn't see this Bond movie,  so it's totally new to me.  The next in the series is "Skyfall" and that one I did see in the theater. Perhaps I have not seen it since then, don't know yet.  I will let you know when I get to that one.

There is something about James Bond that gives me comfort.  I know that Sean Connery was the totally best Bond ever but times change and we have to ride that wave of change. Daniel Craig is fine as Bond. He's not as suave or dashing and he does that weird thing with his mouth, a little pouty thing,  but he is great in the current action sequences and he gets the job done. And that's the point: the job gets done. Bad guys get erased. Good guys don't flourish but they don't often die either.  It's not always black and white but it is always bad guys die.  In this time of uncertainty, that's fine with me.

So no judgement here, please. The fact that Bond is a sort of killing machine doesn't mean I like killing. It means I like the entertainment factor of good vs evil and good sometimes winning.  That seems to be happening less in our present day world. So indulge me in my fantasy of Bond doing clean-up work.  It's working for me right now.

OK, over and out.

Talking to you

 Sadly, I have not been talking to you. The reasons are obvious, at least if you know me and read me now and then. My take on our world is gloomy, depressed, sad and angry.  Why would I want to share thoughts of that kind with anyone? I can hardly stand to have them living in my mind, let alone putting them out into the world. There's already too much angst and sadness, anger and gloomy crap running amuck everywhere. 

But I must communicate, I must talk, I must write. While those negative birds are flying around in the cavern that is my mind, there are also some less negative ideas fighting to take hold. Those I will share with you.  Not tonight, but tomorrow and the next day and the next. Be patient.  Thank you in advance for that patience.

Talk to you very soon.

Trashy book review !!!

 Yes, we all pretend to read "good" books, ones with thought, substance, intelligence.  But often I read trashy novels because they are entertaining and we all need some entertainment now and then.  Or all the time. I read a lot of reviews, in the New York Times, Washington Post, Goodreads, yada yada.  I have no idea where I read the review of this book and it doesn't matter but it ended up on my library list and curb-side pick up at libraries is now a thing, so there it was, in my hands.

"The Guest List" by Lucy Foley isn't too trashy but just trashy enough. It's well written and well paced. The twists and turns in the plot are enough to make your head spin around like Regan's in "The Exorcist."  But rest assured, there is no devil possession in this book.  All the evil comes from the characters.

Six different characters narrate interlocking chapters.  We know from the outset there's going to be a murder, we just don't know who dies and who does the killing. Each of the six have motives and means. It's a crap-shoot until the last couple of pages. And therein lies the entire skeleton of this novel. 

The location is a remote, creepy, dark and gloomy small island off of the mainland of Ireland. The event is a very well-produced and very expensive wedding. The cast of characters includes bride, groom, best man, maid of honor, caterer, a plus-one and lots of other random people who could be killers or just hangers on. 

A storm comes in unexpectedly, wind and rain and loss of power !!!!  A body is found !!!  Bloody clothes !!!

You can read this book in two days, that's how unsubstantial it is.  But I am not saying it's a crappy book, it's just a trashy novel that you can leave on the bus or on the beach and not miss it.  Pretty close to the end a wise reader can almost figure out the last of the twisty plot devices but since the person who gets killed isn't very likable, it's a bit poetic finding out the who, why, where and when of the killing.

Don't buy this book.  Get it from the library or a used book store. But for a beach read, or a book to get you through a couple of Covid days of going nowhere, it's fine.

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Virus, heat, fire and sadness

It's been a while since I have put pen to paper here. Or fingers to keys. These days are either full of angst, anger, sadness and fear or they are full of nothing. Some days it's a struggle to not go back to bed, pull up the blanket and sleep.  Sleep until November and if the election goes bad, sleep again and never get up. 

There is too much happening right now that is out of our control. It's not just Covid and the incredible heat wave we have had, not just the social unrest over Black Lives Matter, not just the fires that are threatening my daughter's house as I type this.  It's all of that and more:  fear of four more years of Trump, fear of getting sick, the unrelenting unemployment, our impotence in all of the above and the uncertainty of what is going to happen in a week or a month or three months.  Never have I felt so powerless as I do now.

I have read books, watched movies, baked. I do have some things to share. But right now, at 10:00 pm on this Tuesday night, while I am guessing the R.N.C. is finishing up its fucking campaign rhetoric, while the hills in historic redwood sanctuaries are burning, while families I know are trying to hold it together with one half of their income demolished,  while our country continues to be split apart because of disastrously inept leadership and while my belief in my country continues to erode, there is nothing but sadness in front of me.  It is very, very difficult, right now, at this moment, to find goodness in our world. 

I will try to find it again tomorrow.  Good night. And good luck.

Two new books for your reading pleasure

 My reading activity since March 17th has had its ups and downs and stalls.  At first I was delighted with all the time I had on my hands to read for hours.  I read several books on my shelf and my sister Kate sent me a box of books from her shelves and I read those.  Having always wanted unlimited reading time, I was quite happy. Well, I was happy for a few weeks.  Then came the Brain Fog: inability to concentrate, lack of interest in anything, mental and physical restlessness.  The only books I could read were old detective/private eye novels. Downloading books onto my phone became a real thing for me (something I hated previous to the Covid invasion) and I reverted to old-school authors:  John D. MacDonald (The Travis McGee series) and Robert B. Parker (Spenser series) and even James M. Cain (what's with the middle initials, guys?) and his noir classics like "Double Indemnity."  Those I could read on my phone and they got me over the Brain Fog months of this Sheltering in Place situation.

Now my reading abilities have returned!  While I will continue to read old detective novels, the thrill of reading a really good book has given me a new lease on my reading life.

Two novels recently released:

"The Cactus League" by Emily Nemens is a story about minor league baseball players and coaches and owners, but it is so much more than that. It is also about the geology of Arizona, about gambling, relationships, greed and goodness.  Plus baseball!  Some of us are missing the baseball season this year and getting to read about spring training (albeit fictionalized) helps. This is Nemens first novel and I am often disappointed in first novels because of their cliched over-writing. This one, however, is worth a read.

"The Glass Hotel" by Emily St. John Mandel follows her brilliant and quirky novel "Station Eleven" from several years ago.  This novel is so good but rather difficult to describe without giving too much away.  The characters draw you in even if you don't really like some of them.  The plot does not follow along linearly, it jumps around a bit which can feel gimmicky in mediocre writers but St. John Mandel is anything but mediocre.  There is flat-out greed and love of money at play in this story as well as the search for the meaning of life in small, measured ways.  Betrayal, redemption, selfishness and generosity:  all are represented here.  As I read this book, I kept thinking of the William Faulkner quote: "The past is never dead. It's not even past."  That is definitely true in "The Glass Hotel."  One cannot count on the dead being dead but that doesn't mean they come back to life.  You'll have to read this novel to see what I mean.  I hated for it to end and I look forward to reading it again.

Finally, I am listening to a book on CDs as I drive aimlessly around these days.  Simon Winchester is one of my favorite non-fiction authors ("The Professor and the Madman" is one of his early books, about the creation of the Oxford Dictionary and you should read it if you haven't) and he often writes about geology and the formation of our physical world. This book I am listening to is "A Crack in the Edge of the World" about the April 1906 San Francisco earthquake but it is about more than just that earthquake. It is a look at plate tectonics, fault lines, geological makeup of the world and so much more.  Way better than trashy detective novels, fascinating and educational at the same time!

The next book on my list is the first in a series by Louise Penny.  I have read several of her Inspector Gamache novels but have never read the first one, "Still Life."  I will start that one today along with a book by Michael Lewis, "Liar's Poker" about the Stock Market in the 1980's.  I will report back on those......  keep reading!

Movie: "Margin Call" on Netflix

 When depressed, let's watch a movie about the beginning of the collapse of the economy in 2008!  Right? How about that to lift one's spirit!  "Margin Call" is basically a 24 hour look at Lehman Brothers Bank and its fail in a spiral pretty much unparalleled in economic history to that point. ("To that point" is relevant because who the fuck knows what is going to happen to rival that economic failure in the months to come.  Just saying....)

The premise of the movie is simple:  employees at a large, highly capitalized bank get laid off and one of them had an inkling of how deeply leveraged the bank was.  That guy left notes about that leveraged position and another person found those notes, and yada, yada, so it goes.  It gets chased  up to the owners who pretend to be shocked but who sort of knew it was happening all along. Keep in mind that this was happening in 2008 and banks were selling, reselling and re-reselling home mortgages as quickly as they could, just to make money.  In truth, they were selling crap. They were selling mortgages for less than the house was worth and they (the banks) were selling them over and over for small percentages to other banks and lending companies with no guarantees and finally that scam collapsed.  That's how Lehman Brothers died.  

OK, I digressed. There is a bit of suspense here, waiting for the dick-head owners to figure out how to make the most money in one day before the Stock Market knows they are fucked, and for the already fired employees to figure out how to get the biggest parachutes when they leave and for the viewing audience to feel some sort of resolution of all of it. Hell, we lived through that Great Recession nightmare, we want to see retribution!  

But that doesn't happen. Nevertheless, it's a good movie and worth watching.  On that same  note, in case you are interested in how the Great Recession came to be and all that financial stuff,  read "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis. It's written in laymen terms but does a good job explaining the global mortgage crisis, how people made tons of money off of those mortgages and how it led to the 2008 fail of banks and stock brokerage houses.

But back to the movie:  it's good.  Good characters, good actors, a solid film.  It won't make you happy but since it doesn't have Trump in it, it won't make you sad either.  And you might learn something.  Or not. Or just go watch "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark" which is so much more uplifting and not sad at all. And also free on Netflix. 

Dinner, a movie, old school

At one point, like what seems like years ago, we all thought "how cool would it be to have tons of free time and watch everything we ever wanted to watch on Netflix or Amazon or Hulu!"  Some of us also thought "how cool would it be to have tons of free time to read and read, no one interrupting us, nothing to do but read."  

And now here we are in the reality of that free time (well, some of us who are jobless actually do have that free time)  and what happens?  TV gets boring and even reading gets itchy.  Yes, we all know there are great documentaries out there that we can watch for free or for little money but do we watch them?  Or do we watch crap, like that really bad "Tiger King" series on Netflix?  Or re-runs of "Friends" and "Cheers" and the endless "Law and Order."

Let's talk about dinner.... every online cooking site for the past 4 months has been touting what to cook from the ingredients in your pantry.  Now that some of those sites realize that there is nothing left in your pantry they are reaching out farther afield and are trying to entice us to keep cooking. Who out there isn't tired of cooking?  Who out there doesn't long for a sit-down experience at a real restaurant?  I am not talking about an outdoor venue where the temperature is 95 degrees and you have a lame umbrella covering part of your table, the food is hot and already wilting when it is plunked down on your table and you are separated by 3 - 4 feet at most from  your fellow diner and no one is wearing a mask? That's not the dining experience I want. 

Yes, I know whining about all of the above is stupid and boring. 

Netflix has been trying to help by running a lot of old school movies and I just watched a couple that exited Netflix at the end of July. "Back to the Future" was a star of that line-up, at least for me.  It was released in 1984 which was so long ago.... I was working in San Bruno at a motorcycle dealership and one of the salesmen had just seen the movie and loved it.... a few days later I saw it and totally enjoyed it as well.  Seeing it again, 36 years later, it was still fun. But part of it is the comfort of seeing something that has no part of our current world, and thus seems safe and innocent.  "Back to the Future" was hopeful in a small way.  Our world today seems to have zero hope.

Ah, I don't want to seem so depressed. I made a great dinner tonight, pasta with raw tomato sauce.  Seeded a couple of really good tomatoes, chopped them and into a bowl they went with one smallish garlic clove, finely chopped, some chopped fresh basil, a small bit of chopped mint, one mild jalapeno pepper  salt, pepper, good olive oil and a very small dash of red wine vinegar.  Let that set for an hour or so, then tossed it with angel hair pasta.  Delicious.  With a glass or two or three of Graziano Barbera, made my TV viewing of "Oceans Thirteen" almost palpable. 
Old school still lives on.

more to follow.

OK, that's it.  Thank you for reading along. Here is what Cooper thinks of everything right now.

Yes, this is sort of cheating but still.....

I am giving you someone else's words today, as I randomly do.  Ian Frazier is a very good writer and this piece spoke to me so clearly that I must share it.  He has written mostly about travel so you must realize that I have read most of his work.  Right now, this day and every day, I long for a road trip: to the Eastern Sierras where the summer heat smells like sagebrush and wild trees, back to the Southern States where so much of our county's history was formed, to Death Valley with Tom to watch the rising sun over those sand dunes.  The long, straight roads through Wisconsin, the winding roads up the coast from Southern California, the wide-open roads of the wide-open lands of Montana.  I want all of them and I want them now.

Frazier mirrors my longing in this article.  I haven't been on that train in Russia nor have I eaten frozen kielbasa for breakfast but I did drive through a thunder-and-lightning storm from mid-Louisianna into Mississippi last spring (2019) and, like Frazier, felt "... a power that could squash you flat."  Road trips give you such a sense of place and of purpose, even if they are purposeless and meandering. They teach you so much that you never knew you didn't know, not just about the roads and counties and states and countries you are driving through but about yourself as well. Don't get me started, I could talk about road trips for hours.

Read this if you care to and enjoy it. And start planning your next adventure.

https://www.outsideonline.com/2415424/comfort-in-motion-traveling#close

Can this madness end?

Stupidly, I glanced at the headlines of New York Times online tonight and almost threw my laptop out the window. The asshole in charge declares that a great deal of the US is corona free.  The asshole in charge laments the fact that Dr. Fauci is getting more press time than he is and whining about why he isn't more popular. The asshole in charge continues to divide the country on every level.

It can't be more depressing. Well, yes it can. Come the winter months, when flu season kicks in, and covid is still running around like a flea on steroids,  it might be even worse. 

But right now, this is the low point for me. I do not speak for anyone else, just me. In the more than 4 months that we have been in this Pandemic Situation, this is the low point for me and I am guessing it will get lower before Labor Day.  I wish Governor Newsom would just shut California down, shut the entire state down, much as he did on March 17th.  Close everything that is not essential and we can halt the virus to some extent. Many of us have been living in the SIP bubble since then and many of us are happy to continue to do so if it means ending the infections that are now taking place in California. 

But that isn't going to happen.  Infections will continue. Deaths will continue. The fear we have following us around constantly will not go away. I feel like there is a dragon in the room, all the time, breathing on me, waiting to snatch me up in its jaws. This dragon is not going away, and I fear it will only get bigger and bigger, more dangerous, more insidious in its digging into my everyday life. 

Watch this video, all the way through

Finally, an articulate woman stands up to harassment from men in power.  This is powerful, passionate and very important.  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is now more of a hero to me than she was before.  Check it out.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/23/us/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-sexism-congress.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

If for some reason the link doesn't work, you can find this video online, just google AOC video. It will come up, titled Condemnation of Sexism in Congress.

Stay healthy.

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