Life of Wry

I was walking home yesterday after spending a good part of the day either walking and reflecting, or standing and reflecting (see yesterday’s blog about the Davis Day of Reflection). Lots of walking, lots of reflecting/shaing/listening. Lot of sun, sorta sweaty, definitely tired, and emotionally a big wrung out.

Anyway.. I was walking home, and as I rounded the corner at 3rd and University, I found myself sorta pining for a tall, cool glass of beer on a very shady patio.. mostly because I saw a number of folks sitting on the patio at Guad’s eating chips and drinking beer and all of the sudden that seemed exactly what the doctor ordered. (What doctor?)

I’d actually passed Guad’s, but then held up, thought for a moment, backed up, and went right in.

I eat by myself a lot at lunch time… usually at Cloud Forest these days, but that is different.. it’s a cafe. Seems different anyway.

But I gotta say… this was so lovely.

Also had a couple fish tacos. Muchos yummy.

Guad’s is literally the closest restaurant to our home.. just about four blocks. I could def get used to this.

I experienced a pleasant and moving morning with Vicki as we participated in the Davis Day of Reflection, organized by the University in partnership with the City. We walked a ~4.5 mile loop that started and ended at Sycamore Park (where Karim Abou Najm, a 20-year old student, was murdered in late April). We spent a long time at the Compassion Corner Earthbench to honor David Breaux (murdered two days before Karim while sleeping on a bench in Central Park). Along the way, we passed dozens of signs placed to mark the route and offer mental health messages, and reflection stations strategically located that invited people to share reflections and remember people they’d lost. I think the whole thing was nominally about honoring David and Karim, but I also think it was more generally about mental health awareness. We are certainly a community traumatized by two senseless murders, and the attempted murder of another woman (Kimberlee Guillory, unhoused, sleeping in a tent near the railroad tracks). I believe the UCD Health folks thought it timely to engage the community in an activity that would focus on mental health.

We started here.. in Sycamore Park. This is the spontaneous memorial that has been in place since Karim’s death:

Karim..

These are what the signs along the way looked like..

The Compassion Corner Earthbench has been covered and cleaned up (in an appropriate way) several times over. Here are a couple remembrances that sat today on the bench…

Some stations provided ribbons for people’s thoughts, which were hung on trees (for example); the one at 3rd and C provided sticky notes. People here (including me) answered the question, “how can you bring hope to others.”

Ran into lots of folks, including Maria (David’s sister), Robb and Carrie (from our organizing and David celebrating days) and a number of friends. It was just lovely to hang out at the corner.

[Note: the picture at the top is a rock painted with David’s image that sits besides the bench… very nice!]

A beautiful spring at the creek continues…

We are having exceptional weather right now, mid-70s, a gorgeous spring blooms everywhere. Enjoyed my (and Vicki’s) Tuesday walk around the creek today. Lucky us.

I did a bit of a search on yellow lupine and found this.. not conclusive, but close enough, I guess:

Yellow Bush or Coast Lupine is a species Fabaceae (Legume) family native to the western United States in California and Oregon, where it is widely distributed in coastal scrub and sand dunes.

Or maybe this:

Lupinus luteus is known as annual yellow-lupin, European yellow lupin or yellow lupin. It is native to the Mediterranean region of Southern Europe.

This is the bike part sculpture at 3rd and University. It glows at night, it reaches for the sun during the day. It’s a pretty awesome obelisk. (Now, while I got the spelling of obelisk right on the first try, I may be wrong in describing this prominent, impressive, super tall thing as an obelisk. It may be that an obelisk is only an obelisk if it’s made of stone.. preferably a single slab-o-stone.

Whatever it is, it’s cool.

T’was my turn to host the Divas (the Dining Divas, that is). My turn comes up about every 15 months or so. This evening’s theme — chosen by the host (me) — was dishes with lots of antioxidants.

Yup.

• Tracy, app: endive with a filling of parsley, celery, walnut, parmesan, garlic, salt, mayo, lemon, olive oil.
• Madeline, salad: spinach, celery, pomegranate, apples, walnuts, blueberries and a honey/lime vinaigrette
• Carol, side: black beans, avo, tomato salsa, and I haven’t seen her recipe yet
• Kari, main: curry chicken, apple, walnut, mandarin orange, mint, coconut, golden raisins, mayo
• Rissa, dessert: chocolate/cherry granola bars w/ ice cream and chocolate chips, cherries and choco sauce

Plus wine and coffee, and it was all pretty good! Here are at least a couple pics… the raw ingredients and the finished main course:

And Madeline’s salad (Madeline had to drop and run b/c she has a cold) but she left us with a great dish!

(just realized those fingers look a bit creepy up there in the corner.. not sure whose they are…)

No pics of the app (beautiful), the black bean side dish or the dessert. But it was all colorful and tasty!

…. because every day is a good day to feel nostalgic and in love with your kiddo.

Came across this photo yesterday and love every inch of it.. the umpire, the catcher, the tuft of dirt that Peter has kicked up as he begins his journey to first base (hope he made it before the throw!)

Jim and I went to hear a lot of people du wopping tonight at the Melon Ball… Watermelon Music’s performance venue. T’was a fun night. Mostly, we went to hear our good friend Bill, who’s been a singer in many groups, of many styles, over many decades. There were a couple of other du wop groups, who were fine, but the main draw for us was Bill and, thankfully, he sang with two different groups tonight, both pretty good!

A couple/few pics:

This was the best my iPhone could do (with me an an operator.. I think there’s a better way to get a longer exposure for low-light situations, but I don’t know it). Let’s just pretend that I applied a fancy, artistic filter and that this is a stylized and totally intentional effect.

~~

It was also a fundraiser for Watermelon, who lost a whole bunch of money during the pandemic. Davis, being the generous community that it is, and a community that loves its homegrown businesses, has responded to pleas of help from Watermelon, including donating at concerts like this. So that’s pretty nice, too.

Ima reaching back for a photo for today’s blog. I quite literally could not find a picture of Peter EVER taken on a May 25 — and I looked through 85k photos (from 2001 to 2022) to find one (thankfully they’re date stamped and in chronological order, so, while this was a tedious exercise, it was at least a precise one, if non-productive!).

This was from May 30, 2010. Peter and I attended a Giants game in San Francisco. Love this shot.

I’ve probably bragged blogged about this before… but today is kind of neat for me because today I gave my thirtieth pint of blood.

Can I get an exclamation point?

This is the kind of email that makes it all worth it:

You’d think the donut would be the selling point….. but in fact, it’s the email above that motivates me. And besides, there are no donuts. I keep meaning to talk to the management about this sorry situation. Raisins, yes. Goldfish, yes. Cranberry juice, yes. Packaged cookies, yes. DONUTS?? No.

I mean.

I’ve never had the nerve to ask someone to take my picture while nestled into the blood-giving lounge chair. But I found this image in the Googles and it’s pretty close. I chose this image because: she’s blond, she’s all happy, she gripping a red rubber item (just like we do at the Davis Vitalant), AND, she’s wearing blue jeans and a white shirt (which is exactly what I was wearing today!).