Life of Wry

So, I was reading the funnies this morning, as you do on a Sunday morning, and smiled sorta wryly at this one…

And it made me think of my little book disease. I buy, or otherwise acquire, books at an alarming rate. I hear about a book on NPR (and I write it down so I can order it), or someone tells me about a book (and I hunt it down and order it), or Amazon suggests I might like this or that book (and I click on it and then one-click pay for it), or I’m in Avid Reader and suddenly leaving with three or four books under my arm.

And I hardly ever read them. I mean I read some of them, but a very small percentage of the ones I buy.

I resisted for years (decades) joining a book group because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to keep pace (nor choose my books). And now I’m in a book group (and struggle to keep up, but I’ve read more books this past year than in a long while).

All I EVER want to do is curl up with a book. It calls me ALL THE TIME. But I always have just one more thing I need to do before I feel like I have the time, and my decks clear enough, to relax into reading. That would require an hour or two. And I seem never to have that kind of time. Even though, truthfully, all I have is time. Tons of it. I WANT to be that person of leisure who’s seen sitting in a cafe reading a physical book. Nothing appeals more to me than that.

Well.

Can’t explain it. I want to read. Books and stories call me ALL THE TIME. I have a lifetime of books I could read without acquiring a single additional book. And yet.

So I came home this morning after finishing brunch at Bernardo’s (an absolute Sunday morning ritural) and took photos of all our book shelves. Shelves stuffed with books I need/want to read. Here they are…

In the living room, I’ve run out of space on the shelves and am stacking books at the moment…

These (above and below) are mostly fiction. There’s a shelf of just Davis authors, there’s a shelf of just Neil Stephensen (Jim’s favorite author). There’s a shelf of poetry, one for spiritual books.. etc.

Those above are mostly travel, recreational (like hiking, camping), or international stuff. There’s a shelf of nature books (including books by my grandpa and uncle. This is also where I keep yearbooks, photo books, etc.. not, thankfully, on the reading list.

Non fiction books, political books, biographies, memoirs.. a whole stack of Michael Pollen.

Comedy, humor, and I’ve forgotten what those are on bottom shelf.

Cookbooks, of course.

And in the pantry, more cookbooks.

Peter’s books (and thankfully, those aren’t on my reading list), but it’s all of his favorites, including the entire Calvin and Hobbes collection.

These really don’t count.. they’re also in Peter’s room and are mostly college texts.

And a door stop.

The horror of my office. No real books of interest here.. mostly parenting and baby books I couldn’t give away yet.. hanging on to them, you know.. in case someone decides to have kids…

I remember hauling boxes of books to the library for their give-aways or book sales some years ago.. so at least some go out the door. But these all have to remain because I aspire to read a huge percentage of them. I LOVE having books around. Love the possibilities they represent for mind opening, mind expanding, mind bending, mind relaxing.

Think of all the time I’d have if I didn’t blog. And especially if I didn’t blog about the books I’m not reading.

(Note: I wrote this on Sunday, but realized I hadn’t blogged on Saturday (really??). So backdated it to Saturday and wrote another for Sunday. Does anybody care about this detail? No, but I do, so I’m clarifying.)

Now for something different, and other-worldly, I guess.

Last night, Andy Jones, aka Dr. Andy, reprised his Pub Quiz, a Davis institution for at least a decade. It was a one-off, however, not a real return to what had been, for us, a hugely fun regular Monday night event for a couple/three years running. The whole thing took a giant pause due to the pandemic, as well as the sad fact De Veres, the pub where it took place, closed its doors. Last night’s pub quiz was mostly a fund raiser for the Smith-Lemli-Opitz Foundation, which does research and hopes to find a cure for a rare form of autism that Andy (and Kate’s) son Jukie lives with.

What made the fundraiser (it was also Andy’s birthday) so other-wordly was the fact it was held in the “Encounters UFO Xperience Alien Museum,”which for a limited time occupies the space where Cost Plus used to be. It’s sort of a pop up, traveling exhibit thingie. And it’s quite odd.

A couple specimens:

^^ That, of course, is ET, the extra-terrestrial. A little less cute than I remembered. I mean… moobs. And those cloven feet. Ew.

Throughout the museum, among other spacey, alien-y things, there were accounts of UFO sightings — over the course of centuries and all over the world — including an incidence in my very own Hermosa Beach, California in 2012!

I’m not NOT a believer. I’m quite open to the possibility (likelihood) of life elsewhere in the universe. I’ll just leave it at that.

~~

Bill G joined Jim and me as we reprised the never-a-winner-but-not-the-worst-pub-quiz-team Irish for a Miracle! And as is our tradition, we finished middle-ish in the pack. If we’d have gone with my guess of The Tempest, and if we knew anything at all about the NFL (which we don’t), we’d have had a slightly higher score… and MAY have been vaulted into the winners’ circle… but that’s sort of the story of our pub quiz life… always a bridesmaid.

Had a GREAT time though.

One of the owners of the traveling UFO museum is also a comic book writer/artist (the Ranger Steve series? Ranger Somebody, anyway) and he sat in the shadows and drew a picture of Andy quiz-mastering the pub quiz:

A pretty decent rendering.

Looking forward to the day when our earthly pub quiz returns!

So, first off, I’ll just say I’m happy happy happy for the rain. Happy! Capital H! Soggy ground, swollen rivers, filling reservoirs, incredible snow pack. This will mean verdant, green hills. Fertile farm fields. Dewy, fresh flowers. Clean air. Nourished trees. And all kinds of happy fauna, too!

And.. sigh. I’m a wee tired of all the grey. Been so wet, so cold, so … like other parts of the country.

We have another atmospheric river, or two, or three, to go this round.

Did I say I’m happy for the rain? Good.

So… I’m looking out the back window.. and decided to turn our dreary backyard into something a little more bright and cheerful.. or at least interesting.

Thanks, Prisma.

Most of the thinking world has known forever that Fox News is anything but. They’ve long been simply a propaganda machine for the GOP, mainly a mouthpiece for their main revenue generator: trump. They have long delivered the news their viewers wanted to hear, not the facts, not reality. The commentary these last couple weeks around the Dominion lawsuit has been rich. Not surprising but incredibly revealing nonetheless. For example: 1) Fox’s fear of losing revenue as their viewers found other conservative media outlets even more willing to elevate trump’s lies about the election; 2) and, in response, their desperate efforts stop the hemorrhaging by upping the lies; 3) Murdoch’s shocking comment about it being NOT about red or blue, but about green.

That was all fascinating enough. But then there were the revealed texts from yesterday that uncovered just exactly how snakes like Carlson really felt about their man trump.

Or this one:

Well. I could go on for pages and pages about this. I’m fascinated. I’m gleeful. I’m glad it’s come to light. I am also aware that Fox viewers will not hear about the Dominion lawsuit, nor will they ever see the texts or read the quotes. In fact, curiously, Carlson’s been doubling down on the lies in the last couple days. For example, he has selected clips from the 40,000 hours of Capitol security footage from Jan 6 (that McCarthy, shockingly, gave him and only him–another wild part of the story) and presented them on his show along with a phony narrative about peaceful, if curious, sightseers, suggesting the accounts of Jan 6 rioting is an exaggeration and mischaracterization of what really went on that day. He continues to stand behind the story that the election was stolen. Even as the text evidence shows he believed none of it. His doubling down is quite baffling at this stage.. as the defamation lawsuit against Fox rages on and the texts revealing his true beliefs have come out. I mean, wth.

They play a dangerous game. I guess time will tell if they will ever be held accountable.

I’d say it’s time for a spring snowshoe adventure… whattaya say, Jim?

Here are a couple choices:

Tahoe…

Or Yosemite… (given the amount of snow, we can probably do some snowshoeing in August when we’ve got reservations up at Tuolumne Meadows!)

Just to be clear, I took neither of those pictures.

But I did take this one the other night. I was hurried along and couldn’t work at getting a proper nighttime photo, but I still like the way it came out.

The green spec shows up a lot in my photos when I aim at something bright.. not usually moons. I can’t explain it.

it’s still winter in Davis.

Sat in the window at Temple Coffee this morning. Things to notice: an absolutely beautiful latte and an absolutely fantastically tasty pumpkin muffin, AND, rain on the sidewalk. Seemingly never ending rain.

And just because.. here’s a close up of that latte. I love Cloud Forest and Mishka’s and will continue to patronize them, but will look forward to Mondays–when CF (current regular coffee spot) is closed–to go to Temple. Mishka’s has dropped down a couple pegs b/c it’s so crowded and the wifi is so terrible… but I’ll still go because, well, I love Mishka’s!

Really though.. look at this latte.

You also know it’s still winter when someone thought to give one of the joggers a tee-shirt to protect against these crazy low temps!

And finally, as I write this, I’m still sitting beside a fire to keep warm, still drinking hot tea to keep warm, still draping a wool blanket over me to keep warm, still wearing a heavy flannel shirt to keep warm, still wearing a down vest in the house to keep warm…

And it’s MARCH! And the rain and unseasonably low temps are still coming….

This is my house (our house) in Palos Verdes. Seems like my whole lifetime was there, but funny that I only lived in that house — in the same bedroom — from age 3 to 18. Crazy how our childhood years, compressed into such a small space in time, represent everything to us. Just fifteen years! That amount of time goes by in a blink in our later years. Still, it was the family home from 1959 until my mom died in 2017, a respectable 58 years. Let’s just call it 60.

All those numbers and time warps aside…

It was a lovely oasis in the trees, mostly eucalyptus and pepper trees, in later years some coral trees were planted. Lots of bougainvillea.. on the trellis around the house, along the fences. The bouganvillea and the brick added red to an otherwise dark green that defined that neighborhood. The name of the street: Via La Selva, which translates to by way of the jungle. An apt name, indeed.

Family homes have rich family histories, more than a few dramas, decades of memories. No exception here. I’m grateful for the anchor this home provided.. a place where we all grew up, a place we could always go back to, a place my mom remained in until her death. Awkward and sad as it was, I was grateful all four of us were on hand to divide the spoils. It was really something to walk from room to room with my brothers on the day following her memorial service — held in our home — and choose the things that were most meaningful to us. Surprisingly, gratefully un-contentious.

This painting was done by our neighbor and Chris’s neighborhood pal David Charlton. It hung in the family room, right next to the beautiful round table where we ate (played games, etc). I mighta wanted it, but felt like it was more appropriate for Chris to have it (he also claimed that table!). The painting currently hangs in Chris’s kitchen. It’s a wee out of proportion, but I find it totally charming and mostly accurate. I’m glad his rendering exists! Thank you, David.

~~

And now I’ve gone down the rabbit hole!

Went back into the archives to find a picture or two of the front yard as it appears in the painting (I know I have a bunch, but didn’t want to spend the time it would take to put my finger on just the right one, in a collection of 80,000 photos, marginally, at best, organized). Didn’t find that, but found a bunch of photos that show a bit of life around the round table, and otherwise..

This is a corner of the house, appearing as you walk up to the front door. You can see that David’s walk up is longer..

You can quite tell, but this on the front lawn and is a photo of our family of five, mom might have been pregnant with Matt. It’s Chris’s second birthday, obvs, and I’m 5 years old.

As a juxtaposition, this is standing on the same spot as the shot above, the day we moved everything out of the house and we are sad, but trying to make the best of it… Chris is 58 ish and I’m 61.

How about some shots around the family room table? This is two months before mom died. She made dinner, “mom’s chicken.” We all do a version of it, none as good as hers.

The first one is exactly one month before she died. Lots of gin rummy played around that table!

A nice mom pic… in October 2016 (about five months before she died). And I stand corrected! David painting hung in the kitchen next to the stove.. you can see it there over mom’s right shoulder.

Let’s see.. this is the dining room.. and a few different gatherings over the years…

The view of the patio out of the kitchen window..

A nice view of the family room..

Including this one because it speaks to me of comfort and joy. Mostly satiation. The family room couch was easy to sink into, hard to get out of. I wish I could put my hands on one of Jim sleeping on it… it was his favorite place to snooze in that house.

A kitchen shot. I have better that show the kitchen, but I like this. (NTS: What were you thinking with that shirt?! Find a new home for it, stat.)

Here’s one from 2015 when we were heading down to La Jolla for Jim’s dad’s 90th birthday. We stopped into PV to say hello. Jay happened to be in town. Mostly.. a front yard shot.

Here we are on move-out day… Matt had rented a truck to first haul stuff up to Chris’s apartment, then to re-load and haul stuff down to Matt and Michael’s. Jay filled a POD with his items, and Jim, Betsy and I packed everything I was taking into, and on top of, our Honda. Jim got a photo of his rig somewhere along I-5. He drove the car back to Davis; I would fly some days later after closing up the house.

Again.. sad day. But productive, smooth, efficient and memorable.

Will close this look back on the family home with this one… mom and dad sitting on the hearth… a common place for family photos. I really needed to get one of dad in there, blurry as it is. I like to remember them in their chummier, more affectionate times. They did have them…

And that is the end of today’s rabbit hole into the abyss that is my photo library!

The main attraction at tonight’s dinner was mahi-mahi tacos, which came out pretty tasty (thanks, Jim!). Dessert was a cherry pie that I bought at the Coop, which underwent a bit of drama when, handing it off to Jim, he accidentally jolted due to stepping on something hard, which resulted in the pie flipping over and falling to the ground, which made us both crack up, thinking we’d turned our cherry pie into cherry cobbler, but it turned out fine and mostly intact!

But I’m posting pictures instead of a couple other dishes I made…

First, was this cuisine-bending salad. Cuisine-bending, as in: an asian chopped salad hardly goes with Mexican fish tacos! But it’s what I wanted to make.

Chopped into tiny bits: cabbage, kale, cucumbers, red bell peppers, cilantro. Served with a dressing of: ginger, garlic, mayo, rice vinegar, sesame oil, salt and pepper. Topped with sesame seeds (added subsequent to this photo).

Next time, if there is a next time: more pow. More ginger, more salt, more sesame. Something. It just died upon entering your mouth. All I could really taste was the cabbage and kale. Maybe overnight in the fridge getting all meldy will help. We’ll see.

And then there was this: Nordic Nut Bread. It was not for dinner, but I made it this evening, as well. Super easy:

Two cups of nuts (pistachios, pecans, almonds and I may have tossed some peanuts in, as well). Plus three cups of seeds (sunflower, pumpkin, sesame, chia, flax).

To these you add five eggs, 1/3 c olive oil, salt and pepper. That’s it. Put it in a parchment-lined loaf pan and bake at 325 for an hour-ish.

I cut it up to fit into a tupperware box. Here’s a closeup:

I made this once before (and have already blogged about it!), but felt it was worth posting again. It’s just an amazing bread. And so healthy!!

This was the sky above the Davis Food Coop a couple of weeks ago.

It kind of took my breath away as I walked out to get in my car.

Right? I honestly do not have to work at this.. I don’t ever have to remind myself to see the beauty all around us. I’m not sappy about it, I just am always seeing it. I don’t mean to say others don’t — I hope everyone does, and expect most do.

I’m always feeling like snapping a pic of this and that. Because honest to god, it is just one big work of art out there.

These are not award winning (they’re not meant to be), but represent a few lovely (or interesting) shots on the day.

I met Jennifer for a late afternoon walk. We started at Muir Commons and made our way over to Emerson. She needed to walk her two dogs, Cooper and Cuddles. This is Cooper snooping around a tree near the Emerson track.

As I was driving home, caught a bit of a nice sunset… and felt envious, for the millionth time, of those who have a view of the horizon from wherever they might live. I do wish we could see more sky from our windows at home.. but our tradeoff was to live downtown, among the trees… which affords zero view of any horizon in any direction. Waah.

This is at the corner of Denali and Road 31, looking toward the Berryessa Gap. Ahhhhh.

And just for fun….. any guesses?

I stopped to get gas and wash my car on the way home… I’m now getting blow dried.