Life of Wry

Way out of sorts this morning.  Feeling uneasy and unsettled, my knickers in a gnarly sorta twist, apparently. Going to try to sort it out here, so bear with me.

The ambivalence of Easter is upon me. It wasn’t until yesterday that I realized…ah yes, Easter Sunday coming up. Tomorrow. My adult self doesn’t really have a pony in this pasture, but my mom self is all confused. At least, I think it’s my mom self.

I’ve never really landed on an Easter tradition that makes sense to me. As a grownup in the world, reasonably secure in my own beliefs and priorities, I’m quite okay with it. It’s just Easter; I don’t celebrate this. Hell, I don’t even know what it’s all about. In my marriage to Jim, who’s completely on a remote end of the spectrum when it comes to holiday traditions (as but one example), I’m even more okay with it. Together, we are good. We pursue our normal Sunday morning activities, even though it’s Easter. All is good.

But, man, as a mom, I feel like I’m dropping some kind of ball.

I don’t feel like we should go to a sunrise service, become Christians for the day, or pretend in any other way that the day holds any sort of spiritual meaning to us. Of course it doesn’t. But I still feel like we’re a family in search of an Easter ritual…an acknowledgment that it’s Easter Sunday and, while we don’t have a religious practice, we do do this, or that, whatever, whenever the day comes around.

Like, in years past.  We have an egg hunt in the backyard (long since discontinued) or join friends for a multiple-families hunt (again, that was long ago discontinued), or we pull out our special recipe for hot cross buns (um, maybe two–unsuccessful–attempts at that, just.. because), or we join family for a brunch (happened a few times) or a lamb dinner (again, maybe a few times), or hide a basket (happened for a few years, post hunt days). Sort of all over the map, here.   And all that was at least fun, right?  I’m pretty sure it was. Easy, fun, uncomplicated.

But family’s not gathering this year. Kid’s too old for Easter egg hunts. Now what?

I don’t even remember last year.

Ah, just looked it up.. we left the house at 5:30am on Easter Sunday for a flight to Boston… we went to New England & New York for spring break last year. Problem solved.   (Nice!)

Not having a ready response to the holiday, a place to go, a tradition to routinely fall back on, I feel like I’m cheating my kid out of something. He’s still just 15… these are the remember years! He’s got to have something.  Mom guilt.

I fight this. I mean, what the f is that? A ritual in search of meaning?! Part of me feels a need to create ritual that leads to childhood memories.. this mom self aches for her son to carry with him cherished memories of holidays, summers, every developmental phase of his life with its attendant milestones. While the other side, the comfortable, wise self, desires simply authenticity. We don’t celebrate Easter; we are not Christians. You’ve outgrown egg hunts, sweetheart. It’s okay. Please, let’s dispense with the hypocrisy. So unattractive.

See? Totally unsettled.

So, a couple hours ago, I assuaged my Easter dis-ease with a hastily assembled basket of stuff for Peter to enjoy when he got back from a sleepover. Yes, between Jim’s and my return from our usual Sunday breakfast at Bernardo’s (now there’s a tradition I gratefully, totally relax into), and Peter’s coming home, I got a panicked notion to fill a basket.  It was short on chocolate bunnies, but otherwise respectably filled with items from the Easter box. I do have one of those, a vestige from the olden days, a collection of random Easter-related, pastel-colored paraphernalia. Many years in the making, many attempts at tradition-building… I do have a very serviceable collection of shredded, pastel filling, dozens of plastic eggs, bunny ears, mini-baskets, paper plates, etc, etc.  So, into his giant, colorful, wicker, egg-shaped basket went a chocolate bar (I found stashed in the freezer from a trip to IKEA a few months ago), a couple plastic eggs that I stuffed with bendy bunnies, another with chocolate chips (which we always have around), and one more with a $20 (desperation money). The box also produced some bunny toys (the kind you press down on and the bunny flies toward some determined target), a wire whisk (with egg-shaped grip) and a ceramic egg cup (the kind you use for soft-boiled eggs). Totally random stuff. I guess you could say I had an egg theme going. And I know… what’s he gonna do with those things?  It’s just…  having a basket.  For some reason, I needed to do this so the day would be marked, if even in an unremarkable way. I couldn’t really bear not doing it.  Because, you know, Easter ambivalence and mom guilt. That’s an eye-rolling cocktail.

But now, we’re kinda good with the universe. Glad Peter got a little something, a token nod to Easter. The holiday did not go un-recognized. And… part of me is unhappy that I succumbed.

Yeah.. my insecure little universe.

And I’m left with the same questions.  Because, you know, this shit inevitably comes up at Christmas, on our wedding anniversary, on Valentines Day..  some of it works, but a lot of it is desperation tradition.  And I have to wonder, what is that?  At my age, I don’t get to blame the usual suspects.  I don’t get to blame the media which of course bombards us with Martha-esque holiday perfection at every turn. That’s old news and too easy. Yawn. Fall for that, it’s your own damn fault.  Or, god, social media, Facebook, on whose pages runs a steady stream of cheery holiday pics. I never feel lost and hopeless in that. (Progress, I think. Yay adult me.)  I also don’t want to blame my childhood, my parents and that whole thing.. like I was somehow deprived of this or that and don’t want my son to experience the same  (uh, really?!, please, that’s just tiresome, largely manufactured, false compensation, at least complicated, and simply doesn’t get to enter into this anymore).

I have to understand: it’s me, my little unrest, my little first world demon, and I just need to deal with it. Hopefully posthaste.

Because, Jesus. It’s only Easter.

We celebrated the anniversary of Jim’s Aunt Annita and Uncle Dean today.  As the title gives away, it was their 60th. They hadn’t had a wedding cake back then, so their daughter Marie brought one for today’s celebration.

Here’s what’s fun about Jim’s aunt and uncle: His aunt is his mother’s sister, and his uncle is his father’s brother.  Two sisters married two brothers.  Jim’s parents married first and Dean and Annita married a few years later in, well, 1954.

Their wedding way back then was a pretty simple affair: Dean, Annita, Sonia (Jim’s mom), Jim (Jim’s dad) and Teresa (Jim’s sister, who was about 2 or 3 maybe) were the only people there. And the priest, who I heard today was defrocked shortly thereafter.  They were married in St. Leo’s church in Oakland, the same church where Jim was an altar boy and which also had a school where all the Frame kids went, at least through 8th grade.

In case I haven’t shared the story here, Sonia and Annita were born and raised in Brazil to parents who’d emigrated from France (I do believe). They were part of the somewhat sophisticated, aristocratic class, and it was on a vacation to California that Sonia met Jim (I think at an officers’ club dinner dance thing) and somewhere along the line Dean met Annita, but my knowledge of this part of the story is sketchy.)  So, in addition to being a weird two-brothers-marry-two-sisters thing, it’s also a very cross-cultural affair, made more pronounced by the fact the brothers came from [the not very cosmopolitan] Kansas.

Even more fun is that Jim’s parents had three kids and the other Frame family had five, all very close in age, and they grew up in the same neighborhood in Piedmont.  AND we enjoy them all. Jim’s sibs are farther away (like Idaho and New York far) and we don’t see them as often, but we get to see most of the other Frame kids (kids… sheesh, everyone’s in their 50s and two are now in their 60s).  So family gatherings are pretty fun. It’s all we get for family, since nobody else–on Jim’s or my side–lives in Davis.

Other fun facts:

• My parents married in 1953, so they’d have celebrated their 61st this year — wow..
• If Jim and I make it to our 60th, we will be 100 and 103.  Heh.. wish us luck. 

I’m also throwing in a cat picture, because this cat, Fat Butt, is just too wonderful. Not the best picture.. with an iPhone in low light (sunbeam notwithstanding) from across the room, cropped to maximize its bigness, but, it’s what I got:

So I guess I can now call myself a real Davisite.  For the first time, made my way up and over the Dave Pelz Bicycle Overcrossing.

Which gives you a great view of Interstate 80, which was looking pretty mellow and peaceful from way up there:

(We do live in flattown.)

Dizzy yet?

Embarrassed to admit, I had no idea where one accessed the overcrossing, and no idea where I’d come out, but both were incredibly convenient to my beginning and ending points (Hoffman’s Automotive on the north side and Davis Swim and Fitness on the south).

I was also amazed by how many runners and bikers I came across making the same trip. Does absolutely everybody in town know about this thing?

And continuing my theme of community-built art in and around town, once done with my South Davis business, I headed home via the newly painted bicycle undercrossing:

It’s also a nice piece of colorful artwork (like its sister project at K and 4th):

This one’s shot inside, and that blur in the bottom-middle is a bike rider whizzing by.

It demonstrates one of the iPhone camera’s many limitations, but I like the effect anyway.

I finally went over to the corner of 4th and K to check out the mandala-like street mural. It’s really pretty:

It was painted a couple of weeks ago in conjunction with the Community Built Association conference.  Here’s what that movement is about:

The Community Built Association’s goal is to further the theory and practice of involving volunteers in the design, organization and creation of community projects that reshape the physical environment. We recognize the human need for connectedness and are committed to the positive value of communities creating and strengthening themselves through cultural action.

They did a number of projects around town.. this one, a mural inside the bike tunnel over by the new shovel sculpture near Whole Foods, and some others.  Derek, the guy who helped with our compost and recent series of backyard projects, was involved in the conference.  It’s a thing. It sounds cool.

This particular community-painted art project was co-designed and lead by Mark Rivera whose work, increasingly, is all over town (murals, ceramic sculptures, ceramic murals).  I got to work with him on the Compassion Bench a year ago (the 1-year anniversary of its dedication is May 31).  He’s a treasure and has added so much to the vibrancy of Davis through his art and vision.

So, the one at 4th and K…

I took all my photos of this street art while riding around and around and through it on my bike. Here’s another shot I took just after I recovered my iPhone, which had sailed out of my hand while I tried to take a picture of the ground while balancing and framing the perfect pic. Not so perfect…you can see my shadow and bike basket.. but the colors are wonderful.

I’m a big fan of our every-two-weeks CSA service (Community Supported Agriculture).  Even though I’m not the one doing the cooking, I’m thrilled to get the box. Cooking is one of those things I’m certain I will get around to in the not too distant future, but for now I’m not doing much, if any, of it.  Still, I love the CSA box.

I’m the one who takes care of the box each time, though. It’s not that small a task. I end up going through the refrigerator and evaluating the current stash of produce, which… between these boxes and the normal accumulation of produce each week, we have a ton of.  I remove all the stuff that’s spoiled (more than I’d like to admit) and I organize all the new stuff, meaning I trim excess growth off certain things, wash & prep others for use, consolidate redundant items, etc. And I generally tidy up the various boxes into which all the new produce goes. In some ways, it’s nice because it’s a way of cleaning out the refrigerator on a very regular basis, and that’s a good thing, right? But it’s also a fair amount of work each time we bring home the box.

And STILL, I love the CSA box.

We’ve been ordering these from Eatwell now for about two years. In that time, we’ve settled into the seasonal rhythms–certain things come in spring, other things in summer, and so on. The variety over the year is nice.

This is the first time we’ve received these, though!

(Nice blurry photo, huh?)

They’re tiny and remind me of some fantastic artichokes we ate when we were in Italy about 7 years ago. I’m not sure they are the same, but I’m very excited to cook them up and see.

We also got some of this, which is new:

No idea yet how we’ll use this, but eager to try it.

We got some interesting mutant strawberries (very mutant), but my attempts tonight with macro were mostly terrible–the above photos being the best of the bunch–so no picture of the quintuple, bulbousy strawberry.

Here’s a list of this week’s haul…  some very good looking stuff in there…

Hung out here today:

With her:

Mostly we talked and walked (and acted like woodchucks in the tall grass… well one of us did).  But we also drove around in this (it’s her shiny, black, convertible Porsche; she’s into cars).

Who’s this she: My cousin Heidi.

Why all the talking: She’s recently back from India where she was visiting her husband, Manoj–who’s living over there on a work assignmen–and was going to tell me all about it.

But: We didn’t even get to the India stories because we talked the whole time about her son Miles’ concussion from a water polo kick to the head a couple months ago and the fact he can’t play water polo right now and had to drop three of his four classes.

Which: Is a fine how-do-you-do if you’re a freshman  in college.

Where: Pepperdine, Malibu.

Is he okay: Conner, his twin, is keeping an eye on him.

What’s with the blog title: They used to call her that.

Who: My aunt Joy and uncle Vic.

Whom: I wrote about here and here

This thrills nobody but me.  It is the result of several days now of hacking, digging, removing, filling, dragging, leveling and compacting. Fortunately, bigs guys a lot stronger and more tenacious than I am are on the job. Little by little, what was once a gnarly, uneven, gravel-strewn, root-bound, weed-infested path is now what you see in this photo.

Next step is to lay out all the large flagstone sheets and cut them to fit (you can see one such sheet in the top right, above. The others are distributed all over the yard at sort-of-intervals, as they will be used for the new path.).

Pictures to follow.  Of course.

If you’re only going to get one day in the snow for the year, this was a good one to get. Himlen är alldeles blå! as they’d say in Sweden.

Decided this morning to explore a little of the Pacific Crest Trail south of Hwy 50 up at Echo Summit, since we’ve only ever gone north from that particular point.

Paid online for a sno-park pass and headed up to the mountains.  These were the conditions on north-facing slopes–lots of snow still and the snow was fairly deep (maybe four feet?); you had to avoid tree wells and rock wells. Not always successful; stepped through many times. Even needed a rescue once. Snow shoes, once in, are hard to pull out.

Warm enough for t-shirts. Jim took it all the way down to the first layer (sparing you this photo series); I was too lazy so hiked in a light thermal on top and left the heavy thermal on below (sweat therapy?).

We followed the PCT for a little ways, then bore off, through a modest sledding resort and up a hill to get this view of Tahoe. Once we left the sledding area, we didn’t see anybody for the rest of the afternoon.

Meandered through a small cluster of closed-for-the-winter cabins and down into a small basin. Came upon this no-name lake (we’re heading up on the other side of this):

Then climbed up a great, sparkly slope (here’s a portion below) for a better view of the canyon through which Hwy 88 runs (though couldn’t see it.. too far below). This was a great hill to climb–good traction because the snow was soft and a great workout.

Found a huge boulder at the top of this ridge–great views–and sat for a while, ate an apple. Glorious up there. Jim added back a layer.

Then after about 30-40 minutes, headed down again into the canyon. Passed this beautiful–dead–Jeffry Pine (or possibly Ponderosa):

Not much more to say. We more or less picked our way through the trees until we found that sledding place again. Some poor guy (an adult) was being carried out on a stretcher to a waiting ambulance.. even in a small po-dunk place like that. Then back to the sno-park.

Nice day traipsing around with this guy:

Yadda yadda.. Picnic Day.  Not one of my favorites, but I don’t hate it or anything. Happy to walk around town on such a perfect, sunny, mild day, and especially happy to see a lot of people we know in every corner of town and campus.

(To wit, I ran into Dave Merrill, someone I was very good friends with for a few years when I first moved to Davis. I have not seen him since he left town about 30 years ago, but he and his wife Winky have moved back to California (from Boston) and are now running a vineyard in Healdsburg. They were here for the day and we just happened to run into them at the Farmer’s Market.  (Coincidentally, the Merrill family was one of the founding farm families for the Market way back when..).  It was amazing to see them in person–I’ve been connected to Winky on Facebook so have tracked them a little but have had minimal communication. They had literally just gotten out of their car and walked into the park when we saw them. We were walking out of the park on our way home with arm loads of stuff we’d bought for dinner.. completely unplanned.. perfect timing.  Dave was such a great friend all those years ago.   Still shaking my head over that one.)

Back to the beginning of the day…

I’m not a parade person, but we typically watch the parade first thing for the tradition of it.

Here’s the reasonably entertaining, musically talented, if largely uncoordinated, UCD Band-duh in awkward step.

Glad to see they allowed a protest entry, students against UCD police brutality and the corporatization of the university:

And here’s a shot of Peter Wagner, the guy who builds non-traditional bikes–called whymcycles–definitely an institution in this town:

I’ve actually been in the Picnic Day parade three times.. once when the Davis Community Cable Cooperative was the latest and greatest new thing in town (1984), and we took video cameras and rode on top of a City of Davis fire engine, which was pretty fun. Another year, Peter’s T-ball team and parents got to ride on a UCD elephant bus with the River Cats’ mascot Dinger (and his wife), also fun. And a few years ago, Peter and I (it could have been  just Peter), rode one of the whymcycles.

So much for not being a parade person.

I was also invited to participate in the cow milking contest one year, being a quasi well-known community type, which was actually quite a fascinating experience. All the participants went to the dairy barn for serious training a few days before the event, which I really appreciated. I didn’t do too well on the day of the contest but enjoyed the whole thing.

As for Picnic Day activities…

The animal events, while wonderful, are just too crowded and I can never find a place to stand where I can see, so I’ve given up on those. I’m super tired of the Dachshund Races, I’m not a fan of the Battle of the Bands, and never had the patience to figure out how to get into the chemistry and physics shows. So forget all that.

But, if there’s a track meet–there used to always be one–I like to drop in on that. I ran in it the year I ran track for UCD, so, you know, I need to see some of it, preferably the races I ran in (200, 400, the sprint relays).. but it didn’t happen this year.. not sure why.

For the last 3 or 4 years, Jim and I have gone to the UCD baseball game.  This year they played Long Beach State.

It was an absolutely perfect day to sit for a couple hours and watch baseball. We saw a number of Peter’s teammates there (and after a while noticed Peter was among them). Sat behind some crusty old scouts who were fun to watch.

I wanted to stand up and say, Hey, anyone here wanna know whose grandpa founded LB State? But I didn’t. Long Beach won 2-0. I was not displeased.

BBQ’d dinner here with P&J and that was that. I can still hear students roaming drunkenly down our street, though it’s been relatively sane this year. We’ll see what the red cup count is in the morning.

And by around town, I mean pictures I took when I was on the outskirts of Davis, as in around Davis.

Took a walk with Carrie and Bodie the bear dog this morning out near the university airport.

Walked along this field of alfalfa..

Walked past a university vineyard..

Saw a couple of huge and stately oak trees..

Then, later, went out to Vacaville to the Brickyard to look at and order some flagstone. Coming out of their driveway, saw these guys..

This evening, drove Peter to a friend’s in Dixon (well, he drove, I rode, as we do these days) and caught the tail end of this sunset..

That is just a lot of beauty in one day.