It's been a while......

 So much has happened since I was last on the scene. Halloween, for example, a holiday that I have always hated and thus will ignore, simple to do when you live on a hill and there are no sidewalks and therefore no small, hideous creatures knocking on your door.        

And then, shortly after that potentially frightening evening we had another one:  the election. Not just frightening but mind boggling and maybe apocalyptical. I don't want to talk about that, we will all be participants in its unfolding and unspeakable repercussions. 

That evil evening was quickly followed by what I love: an atmospheric river.  It's not just that I love the rain, but that description always makes me smile.  An Atmospheric River: it sounds like something out of a "Raiders of the Lost Ark"  movie, when clouds and wind and rain and mud and trees and stones all come together in a monstrosity of a downpour, torrential, of course, flooding the local lands with all of the above and yet never getting to the really dire realm of ..... TORNADO!  No huge funnel cloud developed and stones did not fly in the air (neither did cows or trucks) but it was quite dramatic anyway.  Especially for us Californians.

So we had that. And then a freeze in the early morning, and now chilly nights and lovely sunny days with beautiful skies.  (see below.) 

And then Thanksgiving. Turkey Galore!  (Better than Pussy Galore, and if you know James Bond, you know what I mean.)  And now, upcoming Xmas holidays.  Oh gosh, yes.

This leaves out all the other personal stuff, of course. Doctors appointments, pain killers, X-rays.  Apart from that, trying to walk a small dog in four days of downpours, baking at the hotel, sleeping with the cats, fixing the car, and on and on. 

So it hasn't been dull.  Boring, yes.  But not dull.  Read a couple of good books, watched some really good streaming stuff, ate some nice food, and before my back fucked me up, took some nice walks and saw some lovely fall trees. 

More to come.  Thank you for reading.

A cobblestone sky. 

A cozy sleeping dog.

And color!

Sock Weather!!!

Finally, after so many months of hot, sticky, oppressive heat, we are now entering Sock Weather! Not that one needs socks during the day (it is still around 75-80 degrees during daylight hours) but once the sun sets and the air cools down considerably, socks are necessary.  Just small cotton socks, no need for the heavy duty warm wool socks yet, but socks of any sort are a harbinger of cool days to come. Imagine my happiness at digging around the bottom of my undies drawer to fish out a pair of neglected socks!  It was joyful!

The Joy of Pre-dawn Baking

 What is it about getting up and going to work before the sun comes up?  (Actually getting up and starting a road trip before the sun comes up is even better, but we will discuss that at a later date.) Since my current job (very part-time) is baking breakfast treats for a small hotel and since the weather has  been unbearably hot this summer, the only time it makes sense to bake is before 10:00 a.m.  Luckily the small hotel doesn't mind if I get into the kitchen in the pre-dawn hours.

There is something very stealthy and secretive about being awake and alone in those pre dawn hours. It feels like there is no accountability to anyone then, as if the day is still  up for grabs, as if you could commit a small crime and no one would ever know because no one in the world is awake except for you.  The air is heavier at 4:55 a.m. than it is even ten minutes later, quieter and not just full of possibilities but full of a false reality that belongs only to you. Being in the kitchen, measuring out flour and sugar, beating eggs, greasing pans, getting muffins in the oven  before the sky lightens is a promise that the day can be yours, all yours.

No one interrupts with chatter, no one needs anything from you. The sky slowly lightens and once the darkness has trickled away it is clear the day is now to be shared.  Someone else is awake, you no long need to stand sentry to the day. 

Plus, it's nice to work 5 or 6 hours and get to go home before noon.  And if I had to be a baker every day, getting  up at 4:45 every morning, it would get tiresome quickly.  But once a week, I'll take it.

Tee shirt summer

There was an article in the New York Times about how versatile white t-shirts have been on movie stars.  It made me laugh because this summer I am all in on the wearing off t-shirts.  Not white ones, mostly black, some navy and a couple of red ones. The reason: they are cheap, very available, comfortable, reasonably cool and totally disposable when they reach the end of their lives. 

I am a sloppy person at heart. There is no way I can cook anything without getting some of it on my clothing and let's not even talk about dripping food all over myself.  So many times I have walked out the door, looked down at what I was wearing and swore out loud, turned around and changed shirts. Going out in public with spaghetti sauce dribbled down the front one one's shirt is socially unacceptable once you are over the age of 3. And let's not talk about grease stains which totally ruin any kind of shirt.

Enter the cotton t-shirt. There are a few that I wear purposefully when I cook because one more stain isn't going to matter. I don't wear them off my property so no one sees how messy I can be. Once they are too disgusting even for my messy mind they get turned into dust rags or car-washing cloths or simply tossed in the trash. They are all cotton, they will eventually compost into nothing, and that process will be a lot quicker than the plastic bags we use to pick up dog poop that are supposed to be compostable.

T-shirts are not offensive,  no one can really hate a t-shirt.  They can be bought singly at a store like Kohls for under $10 or in a pack of 3 or 6 for even less.  Washed out in the sink and hung out to dry on a hot day means a clean shirt is always nearby. And if you are a woman of a certain age (meaning me) and you have that slack, flabby arm thing that wobbles around, the t-shirt hides it.  Yes, one ends up with a farmer's tan (tan forearms, lily white upper arms) but who cares?  Woman of this certain age and arm flab don't wear sleeveless shirts anyway so no one sees the farmer's tan.

That's my tribute to summer t-shirts, but they aren't just for summer, of course. In the winter they are another layer of warmth when worn under a sweater or flannel shirt or with flannel pajama bottoms when sleeping.  I am never giving them up, fashion or not.

 

And just like that.....

.... I've got a new dog!  All it took was a Saturday visit to the Marin Humane Society, there he was and I grabbed him.  Six years old, has had only one owner, very smart, already knows several commands.  Sleeps all night, house trained, and he is small enough to pick up but big enough to not be a yapper.  And he is a terrier!  Lots of people don't like terriers because they are sometimes barky, often too independent and they like to dig.  I have no preconceived anti-terrier ideas so I adopted this guy for all the other reasons:  age, size, house trained and adorableness.  Supposedly they are difficult to train because they are independent, but this guy doesn't have too many bad habits (yet!) so I am not worried.  Here he is:  Shiloh.

He is happy relaxing on the couch, or cuddled up in his bed.  And look at that little face!!!

Shiloh loves walks, is excited to get in the car, likes to stick his head out the window while we drive.  So far he isn't concerned about other dogs or cats, but we have yet to meet many face-to-face, but that will change.

He is going to be a lively, spicy little guy but as I mentioned, he is smart and I think he wants to please.  Time will tell.  For now, it's nice to have another being in the house. 

Gardening = dead plants

It's amazing how many people say things like "I love to garden!"  What they really mean is "Everything I plant grows and flourishes!"  If everything they planted died, their love for gardening would greatly wane or disappear entirely. Trust me on this. It isn't fun to invest in a tiny plant, put it in the soil, water it, watch it and finally see it's tiny dead body shrivel and die. 

Yes, it's just a plant but one that had five siblings in that little six-pack from the nursery and they all died! Last year I decided I was watering my tiny plants too much so this year I thought holding back on the watering might work.  Perhaps it would make those little six lettuce siblings work harder to stay alive! Sadly, that was another mistake. They all shriveled and died. Don't get me wrong, I did water them (I do know that plants need water) but there must be a magical amount of water that they needed and I failed to discern what that magical amount might be.  A couple of years ago I tried to grow zucchini, a plant that most people have abundant success with, and that failed as well. 

Sigh. It has been this way for most of my life. Growing flowers, like geraniums, works for me. (However, I am pretty sure even a squirrel could plant and grow a geranium.) A few years ago I grew some very lovely arugula which I enjoyed completely, so that is what always holds out the hope for me:  I did it once, I can do it again!

As we speak, my lettuces and arugula (yes, I tried again) are dead. My chives are holding on. The basil hasn't died but in no way has it flourished either. There is one houseplant that has lived for more than a year, so perhaps all is not lost. It isn't too late in the year for another go at lettuce, so that might be in my future.  There is something nice about picking one's own greens for dinner, or so most people tell me.  As far as growing tomatoes, don't even get me started.

Living alone: good or bad?

A  friend said to me the other day "It's hard living alone, isn't it?"  I wasn't sure how to respond.  Yes, sometimes it is difficult but other times it is peaceful and quiet. 

But  thinking about it further, there is a lot more variance than that quick sentence.

It wasn't until I was 48 years old that I ever lived alone.  I grew up in a household of 8 people, never enough room or enough money, always tension in the air from so many factors. Looking back, part of the reason I got married at the age of 20 was for a change of scenery, a chance to live a different life. (There was no way I could have articulated that then.) Married, a couple of kids, then not married, then married again.... then not married again.  That was the trajectory from 1970-1998. Then, in 1998, I was divorced and alone.  And I loved it.

There is such freedom in living alone, at least when you haven't experienced it your entire life. It was a cliché, of course, to get to eat and drink and sleep when I wanted and with whom I wanted. But clichés are commonplace for a reason: they aren't original. My experience as a newly single adult wasn't original but it was important and right for me at the time. 

Now, 25 years later, here I am, still single, still living alone (i.e. no roommates) and still enjoying it.  Mostly. To be honest, there are times when it would be very nice to have someone else around to share an opinion, to share a meal, to share expenses, to share a decision.  Living alone is hard at times.  No one to laugh with while watching a goofy movie, no one to eat with, no one to take the trash out.  No one to be part of the goods, the bads, the ups and downs. There is no regret here, and very little longing for another person, just the acknowledgement that yes, sometimes living alone is hard. 

But still, for the most part, it works for me. 

The summer doldrums

 Most people experience winter doldrums, when it's dark and wet and gloomy.  That's my kind of weather. This time of year, summer (as of tomorrow) drives me crazy with its cheery sunny days and long, limpid evenings.  Those sunny days bring the threat of wild fires, which we have already encountered this past week.  The long evenings would be nice if not for the blasted mosquitos, biting me every chance they get. And don't get me started on the over 90 degree heat that pounds us day after day.

People go on vacation in the summer and other than parents who have kids out of school, I can't imagine a worse time to travel.  Hot sticky cars, steering wheels that burn your hands, traffic jams everywhere, crowds of people slurping sugary soft drinks, dripping ice cream everywhere, tossing trash into overflowing trash bins. Or lines and lines of travelers with overstuffed luggage trying to jam that suitcase into an already over-filled luggage compartment, crammed into an airplane seat next to a stinky, sweaty loud-mouthed jerk in shorts who wants snacks and drinks even before the plane takes off. This is enjoyable? This is someone's idea of a vacation?

At least if a person travels in the winter the lines are shorter and people sweat less. And since I never travel in the summer, my interaction with sweaty bodies is limited to those I encounter in my local tourist-oriented grocery store.  That's enough for me.

Besides wild fires and heat waves and long mosquito-driven evenings, the summer is not for those of us with chunky bodies.  Summer is for people who look good in shorts and tank tops. People who have media-friendly bodies. The summer is cruel to the rest of us, those who have jiggly upper arms and wrinkled knees and a spare tire around our waists that is impossible to camouflage. 

I spend a lot of time inside my tiny cottage (with AC) and read books and take naps. Early in the day is the only time to take a walk, which I do. There is a large pool on this property so a daily dip is part of my routine. Cocktail around 5:30, dinner two hours later. Summer lasts for months, of course, and it's just getting started. Can't let the doldrums get me down.....

From Paris to Copenhagen

Having never been to a Scandinavian country, it seemed time to remedy that situation and get myself to Denmark. It's a quick (and cheap) flight from Paris to Copenhagen and there is a train from the airport to downtown, three blocks from what looked like a good  hotel. Off I went!

Copenhagen is, of course, decidedly Danish. It was founded in the 12th century, so by other European standards it is relatively new. (Paris dates back to 250 BC.) But before the 12th century it was a Viking country, and the launching spot for many Viking excursions to pillage and plunder the surrounding northern countries. The buildings are mostly brick faced, the streets are often cobblestone and the city is crisscrossed with canals. It seems very neat and tidy, buildings lined up next to each other, clean designs everywhere.  Everyone (it seems) speaks English and it is very easy to be a tourist in Copenhagen.  Good food, good beer, great cocktails. It is flat and therefore easy to walk about, and there are many parks, botanical gardens, museums, churches, outdoor markets.  

However, as lovely as it is, it is definitely not Paris. In Paris, every couple of blocks brings something new to see, whether a church from the 12th century, a fountain honoring Joan of Arc, the place where heads were lopped off in the French Revolution, a magnificent museum or just a cobblestone street of historic restaurants. Copenhagen seems tame and a little boring compared to Paris, but I readily admit that I am quite prejudiced in that judgement. I enjoyed my time in Copenhagen but there is no need to return. 

But I must give credit:  the people of Denmark were incredibly friendly and helpful.  Customer service was outstanding everywhere: hotels, restaurants, train stations, historical sites, even the guides in the parks were lovely. The French can sometimes be a bit .... stuffy (some say rude) and the Danish never were. 

And ..... I'm back!

From my travels, of course.

It's always awkward writing about going to Europe because to me it feels so.... decadent. Like I'm some sort of entitled sap who jets off to foreign shores whenever the mood hits. Most people work and work and never have the time or money to go to Paris or Rome or even take a vacation in a prestigious American city like New York. Because, let's face it, it ain't cheap and it ain't easy.  

But I did it, once again.  Got myself to my favorite city in the world and then went to another city that was totally new to me. Yes, it was expensive but since I have decided to die a pauper, I spent the money and have zero regrets about doing so. In fact, I am looking forward to doing it again as soon as my bank account allows.

Paris is gearing up for the Olympics, of course, and the town is buzzing with activity: remodels, new construction, scouring the old statues, polishing everything so it is beautiful by July 26th. The city was quite crowded with vacationers already, I can't imagine being in town when millions descend to watch the games. 

However, crowded or not, Paris is still the best place to wander around.  Since I usually travel in the winter, seeing the Tuileries in the spring, seeing them blooming and green and lush, it was such a treat.  Lots of gardening is being done, flowers are being planted, hedges trimmed, trees pruned. 

The weather was lovely, rather chilly but perfect for walking, and when the sun came out the sky was a masterpiece of clouds and shadows.  Plus there was a great feeling in the air, one of joy and anticipation and happiness.  But then, it's difficult to be in Paris and not be happy.  At least to me.

After Paris I flew to Copenhagen, a city that was new to me.  More on that tomorrow.  Tune in.

Thinking about travel instead of death.

 It's been far too long since I left the country, not counting all the times I leave the country (and the planet) in my mind. I've flown to Oregon and Arizona in the past two years, which hardly counts as barely leaving the state. But in ten days  I will be on a jet blazing across the sky to Europe and I must admit I am equally a bit fearful and excited. 

Flying is an unnatural act: humans were never built to soar thousands of feet about their habitats.  Wings, anyone?  Nope. But some crazy person was determined to lift off of the terra firma and stuck to that dream until a flying machine was created, which then got bigger and bigger and possibly safer and more accessible and now we have the ability to have breakfast in California and dinner in a foreign land. (And by foreign land I don't mean Arizona.)

Off I go. Visiting Paris for a week, my favorite city. And then up to Copenhagen, of which I know very little other than what's online and in a guidebook. A new city always presents a quandary:  should one read up on the place and scout out where to go, what to do, who to see?  Or just wing it, arrive, get a map and start walking? I'm in that second camp. Copenhagen will unfold before me, what I see and discover will be great and what I miss will be unknown to me.  All of that suits me fine.

Death, or DEATH?

What is it about death that occupies us so totally? Once we get to 60 or 70 or 80 years old, it is on our mind all the time. (Well, not all the time, but quite often.)  No matter if it's smoke and mirrors and floating souls or simply blood and bones and guts, it's there. It skirts the periphery of our consciousness constantly, it's on the edge of our thoughts while at the market, floating in like fog when we're out walking, even creeping along the top of the hedge when we're simply sitting in the backyard. Death. Darkness. Deep-sixed.  

Well, of course we are occupied with it: it's the only thing left out there, the last real adventure. Who knows what waits for us after we die? We all hope it's something but what if it's nothing?  What if those "after life" experiences we all read about with great hope are nothing but nothing? When we die, is that it? 

Or maybe there's something else, something not redemptive but another reality. Something not defined but parallel to our current existence.  But probably not. 

No answers here, of course, just more ruminations. We wish that those who have died could give us a sign of their not-yet-vanished presence and I believe that they often do. But we mortals are not always paying enough attention to catch those small signs, and that's okay. One cannot be on the alert 24-7 for something that might not exist.

That's it. Settle the scores that seem unresolved to you just in case you die tonight. The last thing a soul wants is to exit this physical world with debts unpaid and love unrequited. Or so I think. But again, who knows?

Personal food heritage?

 Because I needed something mindless to watch, a few episodes of Top Chef found their way to my TV. There's something soothing about watching strangers prepare odd food, sometimes succeeding and often failing miserably.  Truly mindless.

In one episode the bossy hosts demanded that the contestants cook something from their "personal food heritage." This might be easy if you were raised in a house that had a heritage, like Italian or Southern or African or Russian. Even if you barely had such a heritage, one could probably come up with a reasonable facsimile, like a modern-day borscht or some fancy and weird take on Mississippi fried chicken. 

But this assignment made me wonder what I would cook if I had to come up with something from my "heritage."  There wasn't any heritage when I was a kid. There was barely anything resembling any sort of cuisine, let alone something that spoke of my parents' roots. Tuna-noodle casserole or hot-dog-canned-bean casserole don't really call to mind  recipes handed down generation to generation. Gray ground beef fried up and thickened with flour and water served over boiled russet potatoes isn't in any version of "Joy of Cooking."  So what would I prepare in this situation?

Honestly, I couldn't think of anything. My Mom was a pretty bad cook, but she did make good fried chicken, but it wasn't part of our heritage, it was just something she made that tasted good. She made good pies, but again, that's not a "family recipe" sort of thing. No one waxed poetic while eating a slice of apple pie.  We just ate it and were happy to have pie for dessert. My Dad grew up on a farm, a real honest-to-dirt farm, so his cooking skills stopped at eggs fried in bacon grease. 

This made me wonder what my kids would pick as a "family heritage recipe."  They had an Italian grandmother, so that would help guide the needle to an ethnic food choice. My cooking was good but it wasn't ethnic at all.  There are a few things I made when they were growing up that they actually liked, but to riff on flambeed chicken with almonds seems sad and definitely not Top Chef fare. 

In the end, the contestants all made something that had meaning to them, like deconstructed spaghetti and meatballs or a hearty soup with cabbage and cod. My dish would have to be a remake of a Swanson's frozen pot pie, one of the only things I remember getting excited about as a kid. We only got to have them a couple of times a year, when our parents went out to dinner by themselves and left us home alone. They were terrible, of course, but the idea of frozen food was so luxurious that we were all overjoyed at the prospect of eating what everyone else in America was eating on a Saturday night.  Swanson's pot pies and Swanson's TV dinners, with the four little compartments of food: main course, veggie, mashed potatoes and a teeny nub of dessert: now that was incredibly fine dining!  

Reading a great book.....

 ... and I know it's been a while but since only three people read this, just accept my absence as part of real life.

"Fire Weather" by John Vaillant. I cannot impart how amazing and suspenseful and frightening this book is.  (Bad grammar there.) All of us who live in California, especially NorCal, know the terror of fire season.  Almost everyone I know as a friend has had to evacuate more than once in the past seven years and some of us have seen the fires from a block away from where we live.  I personally know five people who lost their homes in the Tubbs fire of 2017 and I am acquainted with many more who lost homes in the fires of 2018 - 2020.  Just go to the Cal Fire website and look at "incidents" for those years and the statistics are staggering.

The book "Fire Weather" is a comprehensive look at the fire in Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada in 2016, before our onslaught of local fires began in 2017.  The first 50 pages or so document the creation of Fort McMurray as a mining town and the chemicals and products mined there. But once the author begins to document the fire there in May 2016, the book takes off like a blast furnace. 

I sometimes get bored with non-fiction because of the incredible amount of details that don't resonate with me. But not here. Reading this had my heart pounding because it's an hour by hour look at this fire that began small (as most fires do) and within a couple of hours turned historically extraordinary. The descriptions of the fire's ferociousness and the immediacy of its horrible path of destruction are written so clearly that you feel like you are there. This is the best documentation of fire that I have read.

You know a book is getting to you when you take to your computer to find out more and get led down a rabbit hole about the subject you are chasing. Today was a stormy day, no need to go outside, so finding those videos about fires in the last seven or eight years, reading the transcripts of firefighters who experienced fire storms so bizarre and unprecedented, seeing footage from people trying to escape with fire all around them, listening to the trauma, five years later, of families who were convinced they would die in their cars as they tried to flee......it was all incredibly intense and frightening.

There is no way I could read this book if it wasn't a stormy, rainy day. In fire season this book would be the monster under the bed, coming out to burn everything to the ground. Vaillant's vivid written pictures of neighborhoods being consumed by fire, houses gone in less than 3 minutes from roof to basement, the often heroic but useless actions of firemen trying to save their own homes, their own neighborhoods, their own city, all of it is gripping, terrifying and profoundly tearful and moving.

Put this on your library list, or buy it if you are lucky to be a book buyer. Read it, pass it on, think about it. It is powerfully written and it is important in the study of climate change and our increasingly heated planet.  It should make you think about the precariousness of life, about personal safety and the power of weather and what we are doing about the new century of fire.

Three Months Later, Back to the Dogs

 It's about time!  Pain or no pain, I needed to get back to my early Wednesday morning dog walking job at the local humane society because I miss the dogs! Up at 6:00 am, quick shower and off to the kennels! Of course, most of the dogs I knew in September are gone now, having found forever-homes, for which we volunteers are very grateful.  

There were a few dogs I recognized, most of them were dogs I wouldn't walk because of their jumpiness and bad manners.  One lovely little pitbull, Shamira (aka Marley) was still there, however, and I got to reintroduce myself to her and take her out for a stroll. She is a reddish color, not huge but quite strong and very alert to her surroundings. She just wants to be petted and has a ton of love to give. Sadly, she hates men and so her adoptability is limited because of that. I am sure that she could be persuaded to cut men some slack if someone was willing to put in the time and training with her. Samira is too young and lively for me, sadly, but she has been at the humane society for almost a year, way too long.

Two other lovely dogs were Muffin, a low-to-the-ground 5 year old pit bull, a scruffy girl but very low key and great on the leash. And then there was Felt, a young tripod (three legs) that is full of energy, very alert and rambunctious. He needs a young kid to play with and I hope he finds a good home.

Yes, I am still on the lookout for a dog for myself. It's time.  But there's no rush, at some point the dog will find me as I find the dog. That's how it works, you cannot force these things. Until then I will be content with helping out when I can by walking these love-bugs.

This is Samira, the beautiful red-head.