Back from London!

 When the only bad thing about a trans Atlantic journey was the terrible airplane food, you know it was a total success! 

From the plane ride to the train ride to the hotels, restaurants and sightseeing adventures, the trip to London was remarkably easy and fun. It is such a pleasure visiting a city with an intricate public transportation system.  Getting from the airport to downtown London took 40 minutes and cost a few dollars. Navigating London streets to my first hotel was easy with my phone and a question asked of a delivery guy I encountered on the sidewalk. (Always look for delivery people when you are uncertain of the area, they know all the streets!) In fact, I used the underground Tube several times during my stay because it, like the Metro in Paris, is easy to navigate, inexpensive and covers the city like a blanket. 

The first hotel I stayed at was in a touristy neighborhood, which was deliberate on my part. I wanted an old, English-style hotel with a lobby, a decent bar and centrally located. While my room was small, it was very clean, quiet and on the top floor. From the hotel, I could walk for miles and always find my way back because of its central location. (I am sometimes directionally challenged in a strange city and often veer off-course.)

London is a huge city with a lot of very old and stately buildings but those held little appeal to me other than to look at them from the outside. I didn't want to spend time in a lot of museums or in historic buildings, I wanted to see outdoor markets and old bookstores and walk across bridges, have lunch in a pub, eat fish and chips. The weather was cold but clear (mostly) and off I went, walking several miles each day, stopping for a coffee (a flat white) when necessary and a pastry. For a country known for its cup of tea tradition, it also has a bounty of good coffee spots. 

Over and over I was struck by the kindness of the British people. Every person we encountered was personable and friendly.  They looked you in the eye, paid attention to what was being discussed and if we needed help, they were on top of it. People said "excuse me" and "thank you."  To us, strangers! There was the feeling of comradery,  like we were all in this, whatever it was, together. It was such a remarkably human interaction that we commented on it over and over. Not like in the US, where everyone seems to be out for themselves. 

The second hotel I picked was in a totally different part of town, not a tourist mecca. In fact, there was a Mosque across the street from our hotel, so it was definitely a Muslim neighborhood. At one restaurant we were the only women and the only white people in the entire place! We were welcomed as if we lived there. In fact, the owner of the restaurant offered to buy us dinner if we returned!

We walked through food truck locations, many outdoor markets, vintage clothing shops, an amazing LP record shop, totally old-school. We saw live music, an amazing production of "Cabaret" that was as gritty and chill-inducing as it was brilliantly staged. I saw the play "Mousetrap" which has been running in London for over 70 years, making it the longest continuous run of any play in the world.  It was delightful.  There was a special photography exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery by Catherine Opie, a California photographer, that was emotionally moving, worth seeing twice. We ate really good fish and chips and pasta and amazing sandwiches, some from food carts, some in fine restaurants. We drank champagne at Harrod's department store which is an amazing adventure all on its own! 

Not only was my trip great fun and thought- provoking, it also renewed my love of travel. I talked to two gentlemen in a pub one afternoon, they encouraged me to come to Sweden.  Another couple described the north coast of Ireland and said it was lovely. People asked us where we were from and we were always hesitant to answer, but once they knew we were from Northern California, near San Francisco, all negative ideas about us were dispelled!  Bartenders, fellow diners, people on trains, everyone was chatty about traveling and eager to share stories.

Where will I go next?  I am not sure, but whether it is by car or train or plane, more adventures are in my future.

Traveling again..... finally.

 After much deliberation and thought and weighing the cost vs the opportunity and finally saying "oh, just do it" I am taking off next week for a short ten day trip to London. Lucky enough to have United Airline miles to get me there and back, I have booked hotels and nothing else. My plan is to simply walk around the city, look in windows, eat  fish and chips and drink gin and tonics. And pints of ale.  And whiskey.  And anything else that sounds good.  I want to eat different food (not just fish and chips) from different countries, or English food prepared in some English way.  Honestly, I have no agenda except to enjoy London, a huge city that I visited once, 40 years ago!

Needless to say, I am quite excited. I promise to report on my adventures when I return.

And just to let you know, in case anyone actually reads this besides Donna, the obtaining of the new passport was incredibly easy.  All done online and the new passport was in my mailbox in less than 4 weeks.  If you don't have a valid passport, get one. Online, through the mail, or go to a nearby post office and they can handle all of it for you.  A passport is not just a travel necessity, it is a statement of citizenship.  Everyone should have one.

Cheerio!

 

Thoughts on Renewing My Passport

 The passport I currently hold was issued ten years ago, 2016. For some reason, that doesn't seem like so long ago, but look at what has happened in those 10 years: the first fascist POTUS's term, Covid, Covid vaccine, uprising in terrorism across the globe, the death of George Floyd and its repercussions and the BLM movement, the rapid advance of AI, Jan. 6 Capitol attack, the overturn of Roe v Wade, the war in Ukraine, the death of Robert Redford, California on fire, the second POTUS fascist regime and so much more.

But some positive things took place as well: advances for LBTGQ rights, the Chicago Cubs won the World Series after 108 year drought, Wordle was invented. So was Taylor Swift. California got out of a drought, the James Webb Telescope was launched and sent back amazing photos of deep space, and maybe some other things that have been eclipsed by the evil that is taking over the world right now.

But back to my 2016 passport. Sadly, this passport was hardly used.  I have many other passports that documented my adventures with entry stamps, visas, exit stamps. This current one shows me going to France twice in ten years, and for those two journeys I am so grateful and had so much fun. And I went to Denmark, to Copenhagen!  Almost forgot about that, which is silly because I had such a great time in Copenhagen and might go back just to support the Danish people in their adamant refusal to relinquish Greenland to the fascist POOP. 

As I think about it, other things happened in the past ten years to me personally that are not noted on my passport or in the history of the times: I witnessed and survived the devastating fires of 2017 that wiped out an entire neighborhood 2 miles from where I lived at that moment; both of my knees have been replaced with new, fake knees; I took a solo road trip through the south, meaning Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and was made richer by that trip; my daughter married her amazing wife; seven dogs that I loved died and I mourned them all, especially my beloved Cooper; for the first (and possibly the only) time I officiated at a wonderful wedding; I was fired from two jobs and hired for a third; I saw Bruce Springsteen live (!), I moved into my current abode, a tiny cottage on a large property that I love......  and so much more. 

So it isn't true that a passport defines one's travels. It can document the foreign excursions, but that's about all.  Everything else, the memories, the pain and the joy of everyday life, the movies we see, the books we read, the hugs and kisses and broken hearts we experience, those are all ours. We hold those. Those are our true travels, whether here or abroad.

Hold them close. Life is mercurial. Memories can hold joy and happiness, and those are good.

A New Year But The Same Old Crap

 At least so far. 

Same old political deceit as 2025. Same old price hikes as 2025. Same old angst about everything as 2025.

But then, at this age, what is ever really new? In my earlier years, like 30-40-50 years ago, so many  things happened for the first time. First time falling in love, first marriage, first child. First time buying a house, a new car, first time cutting down a Christmas tree, the first time getting a puppy. All these first-time experiences had power, they had excitement and wonder. This is what life is about: the smack-you-in-the-face of the newness of it all, the amazement you feel every time something unique is in front of you. 

Now, all these years later, there isn't much new stuff left to happen.  I am sure I'm not going to fall in love again, or buy a house or a new car or a new puppy.  Certainly not going to have those kind of one-in-a-lifetime adventures because they can only be new once. There isn't the passion of discovering the rush you get in your earlier years. (In fact, sometimes there's no passion at all, except for the passionate screaming at what is happening to our cities, our state, country, world.)

So here we are, two weeks into 2026 and I am already feeling jaded and tired of everything, when a new year should give at least of month of hope and energic striving for something good. But perhaps it's not 2026's fault, nor the fault of all the crap that is happening right now in the world. Maybe it's simply that I am getting old and holding on to hope feels more and more useless and almost child-like.  Maybe being depressed and cynical is a more realistic approach to the world.  After all, being depressed and cynical means that any tiny ray of sunshine (metaphorically) can be good. Maybe we don't need an entire sunny day, a ten minute window of blue sky might help.

We'll see. 

Above is my attempt at trying to lighten the mood.

The Case of the Missing Sock and More

Some of you might have read about my pasta bowls which mysteriously vanished from my tiny cottage.  Those pasta bowls have not resurfaced, and again, I have no idea where they are. Strange.

Then about 6 weeks ago my dog had an unfortunate encounter with something in the back of my car and tore off one of his dew claws. A trip to the emergency vet ensued (so, so expensive) and he came home (with my help) with pain meds and a five-day regime of antibiotics. I gave him the correct dose of those pills for the first two days and I was very clear about where I put them in my tiny cottage (there aren't a lot of places to hide things here.) And yet, they disappeared overnight! The meds were in their little pill pouch when I went to bed and they were NOT there the next morning. And yes, I looked everywhere, and swept under everything and moved the fridge out and looked there..... I went through the trash, looked in every drawer, every cupboard, everywhere. They were gone and they have not reappeared.  

That was quite disconcerting, especially since I was very certain I had put the pills back in their pill-pouch, right on the kitchen counter.  But they were gone. 

And now this. This is just as strange and bizarre. Here's the set-up: I have (had) a pair of Bombas  socks. They are nice and cozy, warm and comforting. On Wednesday evening I put them on because my house was cold and so were my feet. When I went to bed, I took them off and they were tossed on the floor next to my sofa. (I am a bit of a slob at times, but I intended to wear them again the next evening.)

The next morning, I got up normally, put on my sloppy dog-walking clothes and the dog and I hopped into my car, drove two miles and jumped out of the car for our walk.  We (me and the dog) finished our walk, came home, I took a shower, went back out and ran some errands and returned home. 

About 2:30 that afternoon I repeated the dog-walking process, as I always do in the afternoon.  This time both me and the dog had our raincoats on because, of course, it was raining. We drove the 2 miles, got out of the car and about 15 feet past the car, on the sidewalk, was a wet sock. A Bombas sock. The same color as the sock I wore the night before. I stopped, looked at the sock on the sidewalk and thought "Well, that's strange, looks just like my sock."  We finished our walk, came home and I glanced at the floor where I had tossed my socks the night before. 

There was one Bombas sock on the floor.  One. Sock.

Now, I have absolutely no explanation why one of my socks is laying on the sidewalk 2 miles from my house. It was bizarre enough yesterday, but today that sock is still on that same sidewalk, acting all innocent and looking quite chagrined about being wet and lonely on the sidewalk but offering no explanation of how it got there. 

This is beyond my powers of deduction. I am not Sherlock Holmes, not Armand Gamache, not Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot. There is no dead body, just a wandering Bombas sock and some missing pills and two absent pasta bowls. 

Seriously, I am mystified.

Perry Mason, Redux

 When I was about 10 years old, the TV show "Perry Mason" was in high form. In our house we didn't get to watch much TV, but since Perry was shown on Saturday nights, sometimes us kids were allowed to see it.  Now I don't know what my parents thought of the show but I totally loved it. It was clear cut, black and white (not just the TV but the morals) and Raymond Burr was, in my tiny mind, amazing.  In those days you could write to the television studios in care of an actor and ask for an autographed photo of the star.  I did so and a black and white photo of Burr came to me!  Autographed, well, no, but some machine signed it and that was fine with me.

For many years I watched that show. I wanted to be a lawyer because of Perry Mason. How exciting to gather evidence, to interrogate  a possible criminal! How powerful it would be to expose the real killer in the middle of a courtroom trial, to prove a client innocent and defy Lt. Tragg, the face of injustice!

I kept that photograph of Raymond Burr for a while. I kept the goal of being a lawyer for a while as well.  Eventually that career path disappeared.

We all know that trial lawyers are not like Perry Mason, things don't proceed in such an orderly fashion, trials don't get wrapped up in two days and the guilty don't always go to jail and the innocent sometimes take their place in that  jail.

I am writing about this because the TV show "Perry Mason" is on streaming TV now for free. The episode I just watched, from Season 3, ends with not just Mason but also Lt. Tragg letting a guilty man go free.  The man is a war hero and has just a few months to live, so those in charge decide, without a word spoken between the two of them, to close the door and let the soldier live out his last months in a Vet hospital instead of prison. While this is right and just and humane, it is also wrong and unjust. Guilty or innocent, the rules are the rules. The guy should be prosecuted. 

However, it's a TV show from the late 1950's, when compassion was still to be found. 

In the end, "Perry Mason" is a good show to watch if you want something entertaining in less than an hour.  Dramatic music, dramatic courtroom dialogue and a look at the world (in a way) 65 years ago.  Check it out.

And more of the same....

One would have hoped my dark, cranky mood would have changed by now.  Nope, not happening. Everything we read, every bit of news we hear reinforces the facts that we, as Americans, as humans, are in for a world of hurt, hate and terror for the next several years. If anyone out there has heard otherwise, has some uplifting splinter of light, please bring it on. Share it.

It boggles my mind that we have sunk so low in such a short period of time but then I think of the 1930's and the rise of Hitler and Nazism. It didn't take long before the Nazi Party reached its peak.  It isn't taking long for the current administration to wield its sword of power and bend the laws to suit its agenda. And now we have reports that POTUS is planning on skipping the election in 2028 and simply remaining president forever. And who's to stop him? Clearly not the Democrats, not unless a very, very strong leader emerges soon.  Kamala Harris says she is considering running for president again.  What a fiasco that would be.  

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."  Somehow we need to stop that backwards movement, we need to find a way to the future that does not include the monsters now in power. We need to move forward, not let ourselves be pulled backward, into the past.

The next time I write, it will be less dismal, I promise.  

What to say, or to say nothing?

 There have been times in the last few months that I have wanted to sit here and write about what is happening to our country, to our state, to our community, to our souls. But there isn't really anything to say that isn't full of anger, fear, animosity, selfishness. To lament what is going on seems indulgent at best and useless. What difference will it make?  None. Why bother discussing something that is so out of control, so blatantly evil? What can one person say that isn't as negative and as depressing as the reality of POTUS.

But then. Then I think that we MUST talk about it because we must acknowledge what is happening and face it, just on the very small chance that there is someone out there who might have an idea of how to curb this violence of the United States. 

We all read the headlines in whatever news sources we rely upon. Most of us skip the articles because the headlines are enough of a lesson in futility and panic. We wonder if banding together, protesting on the national days of protest can stimulate change. Maybe the change isn't going to grow out of these protests but the simple act of coming together with like-minded people for an hour or two can help cancel the feeling of isolation these current times have created.  Coming together, waving a sign, chanting a protest mantra, at least it is doing something with someone. It isn't sitting alone on the couch, reading trashy novels and watching ridiculous television to block out the reality of the world. Connection does help, at least for the moment.

If there are any answers out there, any course of action that can instigate change, we need to find them and find them quickly, before every state and county and city and community is locked down and turned into a police state.

Sorry for the depressing tone here, but these are depressing times.  Thanks for reading.

Junk food that serves a purpose. Sometimes.

Has it really been 3 months since we've spoken?  Yes, indeed, it has been that long.  No excuses, just laziness, which isn't an excuse or a reason. 

So here I go again:  You know how we are not supposed to eat processed foods? They are full of preservatives and bad ingredients, they have no nutritional value, they are the mark of a doomed soul?  And most of us try not to eat bad things. But.... every now and then junk food, really bad junk food, is called for.

I was talking with a friend about road trips and about getting up really early (pre-dawn) and hitting the road, taking along a good cup of coffee and some tasty treat like donuts or a good pastry.  There are fewer things more enjoyable than watching the sun come up out in the wasteland of California (or any state for that matter) while sipping on coffee and eating that breakfast sugar bomb.

This, of course, let to a conversation about car snacks on road trips. Car snacks can have great nutritional value when one is close to home.  Think apples, bananas, trail mix, a slice of homemade banana bread. But once that "close to home" barrier is crossed, nutrition flies out the open car window. No one should want "good for you" food on a long road trip. How boring. 

What one wants and needs are snacks from gas station mini-marts. Really good treats like Cheetos, especially the Flamin-Red-Hot Cheetos. These will turn your fingers red and your mouth red as well, so grab lots of paper napkins with your purchase. Other salty snacks are also welcome:  Honey-Roasted Peanuts are a favorite, Ranch Doritos as well. Candy can't be overlooked, so grab a few packages of Starburst and a Heath Bar.  Mini-mart beef jerky is allowed, even though it has some marginal food value. Check out the selection of refrigerated drinks because if you are lucky you will find a can of Starbucks Doubleshot Espresso hiding there.  These tiny cans are not just delicious but they have caffeine, a handy friend on a long drive. 

However, each individual has his or her own favorite car trip food.  While I totally enjoy all of the above, in my mind the perfect snack on a car journey are peanut M&Ms.  They aren't messy, they don't melt (only in your mouth) and you can fool yourself that they have value: a little sugar rush and a little protein from the peanuts. (They are also perfect on an airplane, but that's a topic for another day.)  Grab a yellow bag of these little nuggets and you are set for hundreds of miles.

Enjoy your road trip..... drive safely, stay awake and eat good junk food!  No one will know, no one can see you. It will make you happy.

  

Is someone taking over my life?

 First, let me acknowledge that I haven't written anything here in almost two months.  How this happens is obvious:  I am lazy.  Plus I have so very little to say because our world right now is full of too many people saying too many stupid, cruel, untruthful things. I feel it's of no use to add my innocuous words to the universe.

However, having said all that, here are some new words.

In the last few weeks I have had the unsettling feeling that someone is interfering in parts of my life without my knowledge. Someone (or something?) has insinuated itself into small bits of my life, in ways that are clear but totally mysterious.  Here is an example: one evening I was browsing through one of my streaming services, BritBox, for something to watch.  I clicked on a new series, something I had NEVER clicked on before, never even saw listed before this evening.  But instead of the series opening with the first episode as I would have expected, it opened half-way through the third episode, as if I had already watched two and a half episodes of this series. This was impossible, and yet there it was. Of course I started the series from episode 1 and of course I had never seen it before.  Very strange.

And it happened again!  A few days later I clicked on a show on Netflix and it indicated that I had already watched two thirds of this particular movie. WHAT? Impossible.  What is going on here? No one has access to my Netflix or BritBox account. And yet the system seems to think I have already watched part of each of these two different shows.

In a totally different realm, there are dishes missing from my cupboard. When I moved in to this little cottage, I had 4 white pasta bowls. I noticed about a month ago that one is missing, my favorite one.  And then yesterday I realized that another one was missing. I have spent some serious thinking time on this, trying to remember if either of those bowls were brought to someone else's house, but that is ridiculous.  When I take food somewhere, I don't carry it around in a shallow pasta bowl! No way. But I have absolutely no idea how those pasta bowls vanished.  I am 100% sure that neither of them broke, that I would remember. Is some force  fucking with me, removing actual objects from my home. How is this happening?

Now, we have all had the experience of picking up a new book, usually a novel, and in the first couple of paragraphs a date is mentioned and it is exactly the same day as it is in real life. Some random date, like September14th or something. Coincidence?  Yes, but still a little creepy. Or you come home from the grocery store, unpack your groceries and there is something in one of the bags that you are certain you didn't buy. Something small, like a lime or a tiny jar of horseradish, but you know for sure that you did not put it in your grocery cart. How is this possible?

(This leads me to want to put something in someone else's grocery cart very deviously, which now that I have had the idea, I am definitely going to do it!)

Back to my dilemma: this all makes me feel like there is some force out in the universe that is messing with me. Not in a bad way but in a "watch out!" sort of way.  We'll see what happens next.  I will keep you posted.

Bologna and Its Namesake

 Many years ago, before the turn of this century (and doesn't that sound OLD!) I was traveling with my friend Tom and his friend Dorothy and we took a late night train from Paris to Bologna. Our cabin had three beds that were magically pulled out of the wall after about 10:00 pm and we were supposed to sleep.  My recollections, such as they are, don't involve a lot of sleep until well past midnight because I found the drink cart and stole (!) many small bottles of Cognac, which Tom and I happily consumed.  Dorothy, probably, wisely, had a couple and went to sleep.

Fast forward to morning, when our train pulls into Bologna. I don't remember much about that night except falling asleep at some point, looking out the window and marveling at the amazing moon.  And then passing out again.  We woke hungover and very thirsty and it wasn't even 8:00 am. Clearly we needed coffee, water and food.... and eventually a place to spend the night.

Because of the afore mentioned hangover, I have no idea what we did with our bags, our bodily needs or our need for coffee and water. What I do remember is that around noon we found a very small, very Italian trattoria down a small alley and we went in for lunch, probably at the stroke of noon when they opened. 

It was clear very quickly that this was a restaurant that catered to Italians.  What a surprise!  English was not fluent, to say the least. But since we were there early, we got a table. Within fifteen minutes the place was full, mostly of business suited men and women, a sign that this was not a toss-off place to eat.

Two things stand out: first, my body was rocking internally, like it was still on the train, quietly drifting side to side, my head still slightly spinning and my eyes rolling around like two unconnected marbles in that aching head, not quite ready to focus on the menu.  Or anything else.

Second, this was possibly the best pasta I had ever eaten in my entire life. When in Bologna one orders Pasta Bolognese. At least I did. How different my life would have been had I ordered something else! Perhaps there was a first course, an antipasti of some sort.... I do not recall. But the waiter put a bowl of fresh tagliatelle in front of me that had been tossed with a very conservative amount of what looked like meat sauce. It appeared that the sauce was barely enough to coat the pasta. Then I tasted it. And I swooned. There is nothing to compare with that first taste. Rich, meaty, not a lot of tomatoes, a dusting of fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. Simplicity itself, no parsley, no garlic, no oregano, no spice of any kind.  Meat and something else.

It was salvation. It was a revelation. It certainly cured the hangover (with a nice glass of Chianti) and it set me up for disappointment ever since.

Two years later, I took Gabe to Europe and we stopped for a couple of nights in Bologna because it was, at that time, an amazing city of history and beauty and learning and Bolognese pasta! Gabe and I found the small restaurant down the alley and we were there for lunch. Gabe had the Bolognese pasta and he had the same reaction: one bite and he simply put his fork down and closed his eyes and slowly moved his head side to side.  The owner/host saw this and came up behind Gabe and put his hand on Gabe's shoulder, just a physical acknowledgement of how Gabe's taste buds were surprised and overwhelmed and overjoyed by the taste of that pasta.

And I have been chasing that taste for over 25 years. Today I made Bolognese sauce, once again, trying for that ethereal taste, that elevating experience.  My sauce cooked for 7 hours. It is good. But it isn't it. It isn't Bologna. Maybe that's appropriate, and it is okay, but it is a bit disappointing. I want that first bite experience to be repeated.  Probably never going to happen.  Sigh.

 

"Park It, Whore!"

 Years ago on a local SF radio rock station, there was a DJ named Alex Bennett. He was on during the morning commute, was rather irreverent and one of his catch phrases that he used dismissively was "Park It, Whore." I loved it, of course.

In the past week I have witnessed several really terrible parking jobs in parking lots and the phrase came rumbling back to me. Only this time, it should be "You Can't Park It, Whore." 

What is wrong with people, especially old people, that they have no idea how to simply pull into a parking space?  We aren't even going to discuss parallel parking; that would be a death knell to these folks.  This is simple grocery store parking: pull into a spot and try to get between the two white lines painted on the asphalt. 

Five days ago I was in such a parking lot, talking on the phone (instead of talking while driving, a crime in California) and the car who was nose-to-nose with me backed out and another car pulled in. However, this car, a normal sized sedan, must not have seen the white lines on the asphalt. She parked with about 4 feet on one side of the car and about 6 inches on the other. Plus she left about 6 feet between her front bumper and mine so her car was sticking out into the driving lane.  One would think that when she opened her door to exit the vehicle and could barely squeeze out of the car she might have realized something was amiss. "Oh, gosh! Silly me! I must have parked too close to the edge of my parking space! Let me try again!"  But no. That thought was miles away from her clearly addled brain. She managed to get out of the car, shimmy between her car and the one next to her, walk past the 6 feet of empty space that her car should have occupied in the front of the space and wander away. 

Now, granted, she was sort of old.  But definitely not my age....younger. How does this happen?  How do people become so oblivious to the world around them that they don't even see that world around them?  Parking spaces have lines for a reason but if you don't even see those lines then you are lost and should be shuttled quickly back home, slapped with an ankle bracelet and confined to quarters. Forever.

And then today it happens again!  I am in a parking lot near a Very Expensive Grocery Store in downtown Sonoma. (Redundant, yes.) This store makes Whole Foods look like a Grocery Outlet. The only people comfortable shopping here are rich white people. (Sonoma, again redundant.) I will occasionally go into this market for one reason: they have an incredible salad bar that runs 30 feet and has all kinds of salads and tasty bits. Granted, a small cardboard box of such a salad will run about $8.00, but some of it is so good that I treat myself.

But this day I was, once again, on the phone to a friend, and together we watched, via my narration, a terrible parking  job.  A guy pulled into the spot one over from me (in front) but he was next to the railing that defines where you can leave your grocery cart.  He was very, very close to that railing, and I knew there was no way he could open his door and get out. Sure enough, he tried, failed,  slammed the door and said "FUCK" really loudly. Then he tried to back up, almost scraping his car against the railing, then sort of edged forward until he was 2 INCHES from the car next to him!  His back end was 6 inches from the railing but he managed to open the door and exit, and walk in front of his car (and in front of mine) and leave. But the car next to him, the one that was 2 inches away,  was trapped. That person wasn't going to be able to get into her car.

This was actually hysterically funny while it was happening, much more amusing than it seems here. My friend and I were both laughing. But eventually, we hung up and just then the owner of the trapped car appeared. Oh my. She was shocked at this situation. She stood there for a few minutes, and just as she realized that the only way into her car was to climb over the passenger seat and into the driver seat, the stupid parking culprit appeared.  Words were exchanged, hand gestures were flung about, faces became red.  I simply sat and watched. The stupid guy managed to maneuver his car out and drove away.  She did as well. Whew, situation resolved without bloodshed.

Too many people with too little awareness of how their actions will impact others.  Amusing to watch but an indication of the aging of America and the indifference of strangers.  Come on, kids. It's a crazy world out there. Pay fucking attention. I don't care if  you're old, I do care if you're oblivious. 

Blogging: Old School but who cares.

While in the back of my mind this was apparent many months (years?) ago, I didn't acknowledge it until recently.  Blogging is rather passé.  Sure, if you google something like "is blogging dead?" you will find articles saying "NO!" but that is because businesses still occasionally have blog pages that no one wants to dismiss as redundant. But let's be real. Most successful blog pages have been around for 20 years and no one who starts one now is going to make anything of it.  So, that's that.

However, my tiny little blog page never aspired to be anything but ramblings from my mind, an occasional cool photo, sometimes a book recommendation and general whining prose. So that's not going to stop.  Here we go.

There is absolutely nothing to discuss at this moment that bears any weight because EVERYTHING right now is enormously weighty and fraught with angst and anger and fear. Therefore, resorting to talking about junky stuff is the only way to even vaguely consider putting words down on paper.  If I was a real writer, someone like Ann Patchett or a journalist like Sam Anderson, writing about anything would result in a great book or an intriguing column in the NYT. That is so not me. My words are caught up in the mundane, the boring, the everyday drippings of a small, enclosed life. But since I don't care who reads this, those drippings will continue to serve as the basis for random thoughtless musings. 

Somewhere in my strolling through the internet, I have absorbed book recommendations and have added them to my library list of books to read. Many times those books are boring or pedantic or of no interest, something I don't discover until actually getting them out of the library and attempting to read them. For example: historical fiction: how many more books do we need of a plucky young woman in war-torn Europe who ends up saving thousands of  refugees from the gas chamber while carrying on a painful romance with a soldier who will eventually be killed on the battlefield just as  the plucky woman realizes she is pregnant with his child and sneaks aboard a transatlantic ship and arrives in American in 1944 to become a world-renown seamstress for an incredibly famous fashion designer?  Too much, too many words and it's giving "historical fiction" a bad name, like, perhaps, "hysterical friction." 

But I digress. Many times those random recommendations lead me to a book I would have never found on my own. I just finished reading a small novel written in 1965 called "Stoner" by John Williams about a very sad, lonely man named William Stoner.  An oddly compelling story, very well written if somewhat of a downer.  And now I am half-way through another small book written in 1960 called "So Long, See You Tomorrow" by William Maxwell who wrote more than a dozen books, none of which I have ever heard of.  It's another story about a lonesome man, living in the early 20th century, trying to align his past with his current life. Very good, introspective and thoughtful.

All this is to say that sometimes a book report is the only thing worth writing about.  Sometimes reading is the only thing that gets one through the day, especially in these times that are overwhelmingly frightening and awful.  A good book, a good glass of wine or whiskey, a cozy reading spot. 

Read on, my friends. 

Birds, still captivating

 Two years ago I wrote a blog here about the birds in my backyard, how fun they are to watch, how they all have a different style of scratching for birdseed and how much I like spying on them from my kitchen window. Two years later I am still tossing seed out.  Because it is winter and there isn't a lot of field activity happening, the birds are incredibly grateful for any birdseed that gets thrown their way. (Of course, this is simply my anthropomorphizing them; they probably don't even know what gratitude is, being creatures of very small brains and no human emotions. But still...)

There is a small vole who shares the space with the birds, although they swoop in when seed is present and the vole actually lives there, not a swooper. But he creeps out of his (or her) hole in the ground and very quickly grabs a seed or a grain and darts back into his underground condo and no doubt hides it away in its vole pantry. The vole is a delight to watch and it makes me happy that my bags of birdseed are keeping it well-fed.

The time I spend watching the fauna outside my kitchen window is like my own private National Geographic show. The local feed store has a program when you have purchased ten bags of birdseed, you get one for free. Talking to the owner of that store, I mentioned something like "...maybe feeding the birds keeps them from hunting for food on their own, maybe it's not the right thing to do for them."  His reply was perfect: "We should do things that make us happy and if they make other creatures happy at the same time, everyone wins."  So I continue to enjoy the show and I will scatter birdseed until spring brings more plants and bugs and seeds and everyone wins.

Buy some seed. Scatter it.  See what happens.  We are living in a time when happiness is becoming difficult to find. Watch the birds, be happy with that one, small thing. 

Empty

 Nothing seems important enough to write about because everything that is currently happening is too important, too weighty, too catastrophic, too disappointing, too depressing and so, so frightening. How our country and our world got to this tragic moment is incomprehensible. I can read books and watch movies and have dinner with friends but none of those activities are of any importance when I compare them to real life. And by "real life" I mean what is happening minute by minute in the power structure of America.  I am deeply worried about the future. We all should be.

Over and out for now. 

Here We Go

 So far, not even a week in,  2025 doesn't feel any different than 2024 except more ominous. We have a very large monster waiting behind the stage curtain, eagerly anticipating its own power. That's reason enough to approach this year with caution and wariness and fear. Combined with other unresolved evils (wars, famine, poverty) there aren't a lot of positive incentives poking us forward. So we need to create our own.

Resolutions usually fail because (in my opinion) they are too grand or they imply character defects (i.e. need to lose weight, read more books, cook better food, be nicer) that are not going to change just because you tell yourself it's time for that change to happen.  Instead of a resolution, perhaps we need to embrace uncertainty and hesitation. Instead of insisting on getting more exercise, for example, one could simply say "maybe I will go outside now and then and look at the birds." Nothing major there, just a hesitant idea of looking around the yard. Or instead of planning on eating less processed food, one could say "maybe I will start reading the list of ingredients before I buy anything."  Not even deciding NOT to buy the product, just adding an action (reading the ingredients) to the process of shopping.

Maybe I am just blowing smoke here. But sometimes life is difficult, every day, day in and day out, and making a resolution and then failing at it will only make life more difficult. And send you down another spiral, another bout of depression waiting at the end of that tailspin. No one needs that, of course.  What we need is to be lifted up out of that tailspin. We need hope and a tiny bit of happy and some calm waters ahead.

So my resolution this year is the same as always: absolutely no resolutions. Just an idea or two to change the routine a tiny bit, to get out of the rut, to not let the swamp of current events (and the dungeon of events to come) kill us. More smelling the flowers, more stopping for a coffee, more daydreaming.  That's the ticket!

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 of 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 of 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?  Women 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.