Life of Wry

It was a beautiful afternoon–maybe just a wee chilly–with a few bright, white clouds slowly moving over a sharp blue sky. I was drinking petite sirah and having a fun and catch-uppy conversation with Darlene, a fellow mom from Chavez days, now a wine/dine buddy. We were listening to a great set list performed by Michael Ann’s band Five Three Oh. (When Peter dropped me off, he said, “Is that Nowhere Man?”  Yes, it was.)

Sundstrom Hill Winery in East Davis hosts Wine’d Down Thursdays, a pretty nice way to do a happy hour:

Their wines are good enough!

And these guys were particularly good:

Good energy all around.

I didn’t take any pictures yesterday and couldn’t think of a single thing to write about. (That’s a fib, I actually started two different posts, but liked neither, so they will join the other rejects in a draft folder in my WordPress account.)

But today… today, I took a picture I love, so am backfilling.

Naturally occurring surrealness, from my phone to you. No doctoring, no filters; not sure why Jim looks so weird (never mind the fallen plaster and teetering knife)… just does.

It’s raining today. That’s the fabulous news. Nice and dark and broody out there. Me, I’m sitting here catching up on a tiny bit of desk work and… reading (can I get an ahhhhhhh….?).

No pictures today, so running a set from Sunday’s rainy (intermittently) drive to Oakland (and back) to spend Easter with the Frames.

Operative words: Raining, rainy.

Along I-80, near Dixon:

The lollipop trees (of course):

Another I-80 orchard shot:

The Caldecott Tunnel in Berkeley:

And… a selfie.

Have I mentioned how much I just love riding shotgun, shooting ’em up?

Today was the official start of the Varsity baseball season. Yeah, Peter’s been playing with the Varsity team since last summer, played with Varsity all through the fall, played four scrimmages and another twelve pre-season games this spring… but today was the first Varsity league game.

An excuse for yet another baseball picture!

This one was taken a few weeks back by one of the fancy Enterprise photographers at their Clark Field game. I actually have the rights to use this one because I laid down good money for it ($9 for a lo-res digital photo file). I love it because it’s Peter and Daniel doing their hands on hips thing.

Gotta love ’em.

Just so you know, Davis lost its first league game. Close, 5-4 against a formidable Franklin. Went extra innings (a full eight)… and we were within one strike of winning TWICE in the bottom of the seventh.

Our pitchers were great–Walter, Tyler and Daniel–who collectively threw a LOT of strikes (nearly 70%!). That’s what you have to do…and let your defense work for you. Some hits are just going to get through, and that’s what did it this game (13 hits for Franklin).  This one was not as sloppy as some in the pre-league season have been, and our guys were hitting finally (we got a respectable eight hits). So… you know. We meet Franklin again on Wednesday.

And thus it begins.

Good Easter to all who celebrate.

The closest we came to things rising this year was a batch of cinnamon rolls (see below for a photographic step-by-step). Nothing else really rises for us on Easter, which has to do with Jim’s having left the Catholic church long ago, and my never having attached to any church. If anything, Easter for us is a celebration of Spring (to the extent the Frame boys need a thematic grounding to any holiday) and I can totally get behind themes of rebirth and renewal, because I always love a good reset, and am always ready to mark the start and end of anything. And chocolate; we can all get behind chocolate.

In the past, egg hunts gave Easter Sunday a nice focus. We used to participate in some doozie egg hunts with friends, we’ve gone to some pretty good family egg hunts, and most years we also threw in some clever clue-driven hunt for a special basket for Peter (I say WE, but it’s usually ME who orchestrates these because I’m the one with angst about providing Peter with rich traditions to fill his memory bank; Jim’s always like, whatever).  We’ve managed to cobble together enough activity to make Easter feel appropriately and predictably and comfortably Eastery (at least for she who worries about such things).

There has been a year or two when Peter was technically beyond the egg hunt and for some reason the Frames didn’t gather…. which left us a little rudderless (and full of Kari angst). Like last year.. which I wrote about here.

But this was not one of those years.

This year, we joined a significant percentage of the Dean Frames for an afternoon potluck brunch on Snake Road. Afterward, Jim, Peter and I visited Aunt Anita at her residence at Piedmont Gardens. And those both felt good. Duly, respectfully, adequately celebratory.

And… because I had to, I crafted a small hunt for Peter. Just because. Kid’s gotta hunt. It’s Easter. And, at 16, I was glad to see he had to work for it just a little (a clue inside a small camo egg, inside a large multicolored wicker egg, took him to a place “where notes soar,” and there he found a small bag-o-organic jelly beans and pastel-colored chocolate things). A token nod to a somewhat random and confused little tradition. This satisfied me, and satisfied him (see chocolate comment above). All good.

Anyway. Cinnamon Rolls were our contribution to brunch. A bit over-the-top rich, and I might cut down on some of the butter next time, but good enough and a ton better than past attempts at Hot Cross Buns.

The dough has flour, yeast, egg, cream*, sugar. Here’s Jim kneading it…

(* The recipe called for milk, but why not gild the lily, right? Besides all we had was nonfat milk.)

While Jim kneaded, I watched, drank coffee, took pics.. you know… 

After about an hour and a half, the dough’s doubled and can be punched down then rolled out. Here he’s spreading butter on the rolled out dough (a lot of butter):

Then sprinkle sugar and cinnamon mixture:

And some chopped, roasted pecans:

Then you roll it up:

Cut it into about twelve pieces:

And lay in dish to rise again:

They look like this after about 45 minutes (See the little puffer bellies, all in a row.. is what I was thinking):

They bake for 30 minutes, until golden brown. When slightly cooled, you spread with a butter & powdered sugar frosting. Done!

These are a bit deadly. These were very gooey and super heavy because of all the butter. Tasty enough though. Just make sure you drink lots of hot tea and only eat fruits and vegetables for about a week afterward.

The other really lovely thing about today: it RAINED. Poor, poor California is so drought-striken I’m not sure we’ll ever recover (that is a real source of legitimate angst). But we got a little shower today, which goes right to the themes of newness, growth, rebirth, and renewal right?

Here’s a shot taken at the start of our commute.. the usual traffic slow down in Dixon.. HDRified.

.. how I do adore you.

So, it’s Saturday morning.  Jim and I walk over to the Farmer’s Market, as we do. We see a folk-or-two we know en route, as usual. I happen to know the group we pass at the corner of Third and C is a regular Saturday morning breakfast group from the bike club.

Jim bears off at Crepeville to get his iced tea, and I continue on to Mishka’s to get coffee. We’ll meet back at the park.  I’m planning to get a poppyseed muffin (you don’t say), but then see the chocolate donut that Sinisa posted about on Facebook–a weekend-only homemade specialty of theirs–and I get all excited about that, so order it.. before realizing Wait, I don’t have any money I’ll have to come back.

The guy behind me hears this, waves his credit card and says he’ll cover me. I’m so pleased! I ask if I may add a cafe au lait (bold, I know), and he says sure. We talk, we discover we’re both Mishka’s regulars, he’s a grad student in civil engineering (from Spain, it sounds like) and I make a mental note to seek him out at a future date to return the favor.

But wow. I’m all warm inside. I’m all I’m paying this forward!  I get it, this is how it works. I bounce out of the cafe. Happy.

On my way to the park, I stop off at Newbeat to tell Derrick I loved his review of Two Days, One Night. He’s not there. I continue on, past Compassion Corner–I always feel a special connection–and into the park where I encounter Lawson on the left and Joe on the right, both well known park/downtown fixtures, one promoting the Spare Changer, the other..  not ever sure. Further into the park, I see Ken Kemmerling (who played at our wedding eighteen-plus years ago), David Cary and another woman playing some wonderful music; I see a guy I dated thirty-five years ago, with his wife whom I also know, looking on.

Andy calls my name. Nice to see him! I tell him I have a Skype meeting with his daughter Margaret today at noon to discuss a project we are working on together. You do?! We talk about a lot of stuff, but the funny thing that comes up is the fact we both drive for the IRWS (Interfaith Rotating Winter Shelter)–he in the evenings, me in the mornings. You drive for the shelter? So do I!

I join Jim on the bench. We debrief the last twenty minutes. I tell him about this..

…and I’m looking at this (on this, the day before Easter)…

… and I’m thinking… Oh, Davis.

We’ve been without a lawn in our front yard since we added on to our house about 17 years ago. Before that, our house looked like this:

(I should have removed that staple before I scanned it, huh?)

Big Modesto ash in the center, which sat in a large raised boulder-bound bed, a lawn surrounded by shrubs, flowers and three large podocarpus… it was very shady and lovely. (And the house was avocado green!)

Redwood Bard designed the initial re-vamp. The most enduring feature is the terrace that they created with those boulders. In the years since, we’ve gone through numerous different planting schemes. We’ve had various kinds of gardens, including an extensive vegetable and herb garden. We’ve planted and removed a few trees, too. Now the yard is grassless. It’s STILL a work in progress, but for now looks like this:

Here’s a bit of detail:

I only bring this up because we are considering removing the lawn in our backyard now. It’s tiny but a real yard enhancer… if ya like lawn (which I do).

The idea I had was to remove the lawn and put our soon-to-be-built raised stone bed in its place. Originally, the raised bed was going to go in the back near where all the snow in summer are blooming right now. Not as visible, not as accessible.

Plus, drought being what it is, we really ought to remove the lawn anyway.

What to do, what to do…

Not nearly as often as I’d like, but from time to time, Peter comes into my office and hangs out. He’s more likely to stay awhile if I allow him to lecture me on some topic (whatever his obsession du jour is… which, for months now, it’s been physics, ever since he started taking physics in school). Here, he’s talking about the behavior of various kinds of waves, and actually has a small slinky in his hand that he is using to demonstrate the various wave properties. (The slinky reflected the flash in my camera so glaringly I edited it out, sorry… I know… it makes the picture look a little weird. I also replaced his red eyes with slightly mis-aligned black dots, which explains the faraway look in his not-usually-black eyes, but hey.. it was dark-ish in my office and this was the best I could do with a pretty marginal photo.)

The reason I took the picture (somewhat to his annoyance) was because as I listened to him talk, I suddenly realized that behind the big, mature sixteen-year-old version of Peter was of a photo of a tiny, five-year-old version of him in kindergarten. And, as it happens, the kindergarten photo is taken in front of a poster full of numbers. The juxtaposition kinda choked me up. I mean, he’s kicking back in a rocking chair that is way too small for his large, gangly frame such that he’s got one very long leg slung over one of the arms, and he’s lecturing on and on in his cracky, teen-version-of-baritone voice about concepts that are well beyond my present day understanding of physics and instead of hearing the substance of what he’s saying I’m just floating back in time. I could recall exactly how his whispy hair and delicate skin smelled and how his voice was so high and sweet back then. And oh man, I’d love to hear that voice.

It was a bit hard to focus on wave theories.

Time does march on, doesn’t it? We hit a significant milestone today, as, at 5:00am, the scores from his recently-taken SAT test were available online. Is that a milestone? Feels like it. He was so incredibly anxious to know his results that he set an alarm so he could log on at the moment they’d be posted (I mentioned he’s a bit obsessive, right?).

And at 5:01, he’d seen his scores and, satisfied, went back to bed (I guess).

Don’t want to say a lot about that, because, you know, scores are scores, just like grades are grades, and batting averages are batting averages, and ERAs are ERAs.. and they are but a teeny tiny measure of a person who is much more than his scores, grades and averages (!). But I will say this:  Peter’s obsession with physics is a good match for his skills.

This week’s been all about this big fancy tournament called the Boras Baseball Classic. Say the planners:

“Over the past year we have been gathering a list of teams that we feel best represent the most talented teams in the state of California. We truly believe we have identified the best of the best in 32 High School Baseball teams throughout the state… Our objective is to give young baseball athletes an opportunity to play against the best and compete on one of the biggest stages for this age group…Our goal is to give young players a platform to showcase their talents to college and professional recruiters while giving the athlete an opportunity that could potentially impact their educational future and athletic dreams.”

Wow, huh?

The atmosphere is heady–press tents set up, people with badges hanging around their necks on lanyards, recruiters and coaches walking around with clipboards and radar guns…

Davis was one of sixteen northern California teams selected to participate, largely based on their having won the whole section title last year (our San Joaquin section is some large subset of the northern part of the state). The Boras winner up here, faces the Boras winner down in southern California in a game next month.

That won’t be Davis, but I guess just being invited to this thing is big enough.

Actually, we’re playing pretty poorly so far. Our pitching’s been fine, but our hitting and fielding have been quite underwhelming.. it’s not been an impressive showing.

We’ve won one and lost two so far, with one game left in the tournament. Peter did get to start our second game on Monday and did okay.. not his best outing.. but we ended up winning that game due to some outstanding relief work. And I have to say that, overall, we’ve had some solid pitching this tournament from Walter, Brendan, Daniel, Tyler G, Tyler M. and Ray, which has really been our story this entire pre-league season.. but not enough other highlights to speak of.

Yay pitching staff.

Davis played Boras last year, as well, and also did poorly (even worse than we’re doing this year), and then went on to a great season and an even greater post-season, winning the whole enchilada… so nobody seems too discouraged yet.