Life of Wry

Sure am grateful for all the creative people who add beauty and wonder and pleasure to our world.

Just a couple examples from yesterday:

Went to a baby shower for my friend and fellow compassionista Margaret (we worked together on David’s Compassion Tour). Not only did she fill the room with people I loved talking to (she is surrounded on her baby journey by friends and family thrilled somebody so loving and kind is going to be raising a child in this crazy, complicated world), but she filled a table with fantastic food.  Especially her signature homemade french-style macarons.

My favorite was the pecan, goat cheese, fig one. The label you cannot see is for the chocolate prune macaron on the backside. Those were great, too–dense, chewy, chocolaty. She’s a master at blending flavors, and an artist in her careful preparation.

I only ate maybe four of these.

Which made the day’s second event–a wine tasting and pig roast–a bit of a gastro-digestive challenge.  No pictures from the Sender’s Wine Release party, but it was plenty artful, viticulturally, enologically speaking.

Then, it was a photo gallery exhibit slash fundraiser for the Putah Creek Council, which featured the stunning, STUNNING photography of Andrea and Rob Stone (their F Street gallery is open by appointment).

Andrea’s art is like this…

About four years ago, she discovered a subject she really loved–reflections of urban life. Literally reflections. And then honed what is now her signature perspective. What she does is take pictures of urban landscapes and architecture mostly through window reflections. “Conventional cityscapes melt away as buildings of steel and glass morph into canvases, reflections become paint…and the camera becomes the brush.” 

It’s very eye popping!

Her husband Rob is a landscape photographer, whose current project, “Hidden Treasure: Restoring Putah Creek,” was on exhibit in the gallery. This is truly gorgeous work.

His brochure has an Edward Abbey quote I loved and fits his work well:

“Our job is to record, each in his own way, this world of light and shodow and time that will never come again exactly as it is today.” 

If you’re interested in a broader view of each of their bodies of work, go to their website, here. 

(I just have to say, he’s got a couple of the North Davis pond that really knocked my socks off.)

Anyway, take a bow artists! Your work inspires!

It’s midnight and the rumbling thunder is STILL going on, mixed with great flashes of lightning covering the sky in all directions. And RAIN! Lots and lots of rain!

This has been going on for hours!

Giddy beyond giddy.

It started earlier tonight when we were at Janet’s. The flashing of lightning was so spectacular we had to leave dessert and head out to the North Davis pond to get a better view.  Here is a shot of Jim and Janet, looking east, trying to get a shot of the lightning…

And, after shooting dark sky after dark sky after dark sky, also pointed east, but a little higher, I finally got a shot off at just the right millisecond, catching the lightning-lit sky:

A little while later, we were on the front porch watching an intense downpour illuminated by the street light.  Same drill: it was a dark and stormy night…

And then it was a bright and stormy night!

Snapped this one at just the right moment (and trashed about 30 misses). And I promise, these pictures are not touched up.

I tell ya, we Californians are a little beside ourselves with this wetness. I can’t wait to walk through my hopefully dust-free garden in the morning–hoping all this rain has cleaned the cobwebs and pollen and dirt from everything. Can’t wait to see about a year’s worth of brittle leaves and twigs transformed by the rain, all dark and soggy and tamped down.  I hope that there are still water driplets everywhere, and that the plants are all shiny and perky.

Excited with this real, REAL rain! Can you tell?

What this is? It’s a [pretty terrible] picture of the giant beefwood tree across the street from our house (aka sheoak or, more properly, casuarina).

And what this is, is an even worse close up of one of its branches.

We were walking home from the Farmer’s Market this morning and Jim paused beneath it because there was this very loud buzzing sound coming, seemingly, from within the branches of the tree. Upon closer inspection, we noticed it was absolutely, densely, fully, impressively abuzz with bees! Like, gajillions of them, all feasting on the beefwood’s yellow pollen… also hard to see (this is when a good camera really comes in handy).

Can’t see a single bee in this picture. [Frowny face.] But believe me…  ga-jillions.

Something else of note on my way to grabbing an au lait this morning …

This is the Compassion Bench… rain-bowed sun rays shining through the giant elm:

The pile on the ground in front is a memorial to a long time resident of Davis, Steve Inness, who I think they have concluded killed himself a few days ago by stepping in front of a train.

I was moved by a flood of Facebook comments about him in the days that followed, particularly former mayor Joe Kravoza’s statement about him:

Steven Inness. Brilliant, insightful, kind. Interested and interesting. I loved him, and this town still more because of him. He will be missed by me forever. RIP, Steve. Take good care and know you touched so many. Davis couldn’t ask for a more conscientions and generous citizen. The bike community won’t be the same without you, nor campus lectures, nor council meetings needing perspective and progressive thought, nor the HS robotics team. Your rest has been earned. Now I say to you, what you once said to me, from Walt Whitman: O Captain, My Captain. I am devastated. 

I didn’t know him, but felt like memorializing him here was appropriate to do. Thanks for reading.

I am also moved that Compassion Corner has become a place for such spontaneous shows of love and community.

The mass shooting of yesterday continues to weigh on me. Life feels heavy today. I’ve never been in a boxing ring, but I imagine one feels slammed, battered and worn down the next day. That’s how it feels today.

And this from someone far away with no direct connection to Umpqua Community College! But I am a citizen of a gun happy country, the day after the latest in an unending stream of murderous gun violence.  And a very dispirited one at that. Just feeling depressed about the reality of life in the US–the powerlessness of knowing this is insanity and watching as our politicians lack the balls to stand up and do the right thing. About living in a country of people with whom I so profoundly disagree and for whom I have so little respect.

The state of our political system. Good lord. The hypocrisy and ugliness that is nationalism.  Just a big fat ugh.

I expected to be a bit knocked upside the head when reading Mark Morford’s day-after column in the Chronicle, and was. Here’s the last half of it… he pulls no punches:

“….religious and spiritual traditions the world over agree: Guns are for cowards. They provide only the thinnest illusion of authority, the ugliest veneer of control, the most artificial aspect of authentic manhood.

Proof? Simple: Just remove any gun fetishist’s (or terrorist’s, or mass shooter’s) stockpile of weapons, and watch what happens. They are instantly deflated, lost, rendered vulgar and human. All illusions of power and machismo vaporize, leaving only the base energies of hate and fear they often don’t understand, much less know how to transmute into something like kindness and love.

Do you wish to pretend otherwise? To claim that guns are effective for safety, or self defense, or a warped sense of patriotism? This is not merely laughable, it’s the opposite of the truth, of established fact.

Put it this way: If guns really conferred stability and protection, we’d be the safest, most peaceful nation on Earth. We are, instead, the most violent and deadly. We are viewed the world over as the most dazzling of bullies, and of hypocrites: We pretend to promote the values of democracy, peace and freedom the world over, and yet we kill one another – and anyone who disagrees with us – more horrifically, and more consistently, than any terrorist cult could ever imagine.

The bottom line is simple enough: America is, by every metric you can name, a far worse place for all our guns. They bring nothing of positive, uplifting value: no kindness, no strength, no peace, no divinity, no sense of community or human connection. Quite the opposite. Guns are the antithesis of love and compassion; they advance the human experiment not at all, and in fact, shatter and humiliate it with every pull of the trigger.”

It is so.

Well… the day was okay otherwise, due largely to a wonderful morning spent talking to David regarding the editing of his next book. It was certainly a welcome antidote, if momentary. We talked a lot about what he wants a reader to be left with after reading the book, what I, as a reader, would want to experience and know… things like that. I actually think, as the book documents a year on the road talking with people all over the country about compassion, that it could be quite an instructive and even hopeful book, especially as he spent time in some of the most conservative regions of the US, and spoke, generally, to people of all stripes. The binder, which he is giving to me this weekend to look through, contains the deepest thoughts and feelings of people from Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, Oklahoma on the subject of compassion. Not that I think for a second people from these areas are without compassion! I don’t at all. But I think it will make for a healing process to realize there are common threads that run between us, even as we hold our guns, money and bibles close. (Well, they.)

Between an acupuncture appointment and a massage (it’s hard work healing an inflamed arthritic hip), I took myself to lunch at Symposium.

Retsina and spanakopita on the patio. Warm breeze blowing.

I’m just beyond. Beyond words, beyond ideas, beyond hope.

So, yeah, another mass shooting today, this one at a community college in Umpqua, Oregon. Something like the 45th mass shooting at a school this year. I guess it was another lost and unstable young kid. I don’t really know, or care to know, the details.

It’s not like I think there is really ever going to be an end to gun violence in this country. That horse has already left the barn. We are a country that a long time ago decided it was important to allow its citizens to defend themselves against a government that might overreach or abuse its power.  After 250 years, more or less, maybe that’s not such a threat? Maybe the circumstances have changed somewhat since our founding days? Except now, every second person has a gun (I don’t really know the statistic) and there’s pretty much nothing to be done about that. To take them away is … well, I don’t know, but the guys with the guns don’t like that idea.

The NRA is no less powerful than the billionaires and corporations who own our government. To get elected these days, you need obscene amounts of money, gladly provided by the NRA (and corporations). All you have to do is vote in the laws that benefit them. You win, they win. Win win. Yay! Everybody wins. Except society. The people who the politicians were supposed to represent… they don’t win.

Laws will never be changed because the NRA does not want them to change. They are in charge. And they’ve been successful in whipping people into a froth over the potential loss of their guns (o-BA-ma’s coming for your guns!), controlling the conversation at every turn with distraction tactics (“this is not the time to be talking about gun control”). They are GREAT on message. And they work well with a media empire that influences just enough of a voting base to keep them in power. We won’t mention names.

I don’t even want to talk about it. Disgusts me.

We’ve become a stunningly amoral country, completely without ethics, intelligence, integrity and common sense. You’ll NEVER convince me otherwise. I would chose to live elsewhere if it were a viable option. It’s not really. I’m born here, I have deep roots, friends, family, a life. I love so much about our place on the planet. There is much to love about northern California. But if I had it do to all over again, with some knowledge back then of where things were heading, I’d have moved. I’d be perfectly happy in Norway or Sweden, Maybe Canada. I’m sure there are other places. If I were to stay in the states, maybe Vermont.

The idea that we are the greatest nation on earth is laughable. It hurts my heart. I really can’t even type those words–the idea is so utterly ludicrous.  A great country is compassionate. It takes care of its people–all of them. It educates them, respects them, makes sure their needs are met. Like a good parent does his/her children. It accepts who they are and treats them with dignity. ALL OF THEM. There is so much ignorance, so much intolerance, so much hate here. It’s breathtaking. There are so many people in other people’s business, so many people who’ve decided what is best for everyone and who, exactly, should remain in charge.

In regards to who’s in charge–who holds the power–it’s a small percentage. And they are making sure it stays that way. There is a devastating statistic in Elizabeth Warren’s recent talk on economic injustice (and racial injustice) about who holds the power and how the gap between people with money and people without has grown obscenely since 1980 (the utter fallacy and hoax of the trickle down theory).

Our country is politically corrupt. A small sample: Citizens United (in what universe is that even remotely defensible?). Repealing the Voting Rights Act (bald faced racism). Not taxing the rich. Defunding Planned Parenthood (blatantly anti abortion). Shutting down the government (you stupid, petulant children). The NRA. Building a wall at the border (stoke fear much?). The Keystone Pipeline. Fighting healthcare. Racial injustice. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? All of this is sickening.

And, of course, gun laws (the absence of).

Our country has allowed itself to be taken over by people, corporations, industries, with self-enhancing economic interests. Duh. How is it so many just follow along, at their own peril, voting again and again against their own interests?

Back to guns. Right. How about this: There is NOTHING, not one bloody thing, that makes sense about people owning assault weapons. What about open carry. OPEN CARRY! What the hell is THAT about? We can’t get simple background checks?! They work. We can’t take even the smallest, most common sense steps because the NRA doesn’t want us moving down the slippery slope of gun control? And we’re beholden to the NRA…… why?  Oh right. They fund election campaigns. We don’t need them; the politicians do.

The mere fact that we cannot seem to do ANYTHING in response to the shooting of children because the NRA has a stranglehold on our politicians nauseates me. And every sane person I know. There is a majority of people appalled by the lack of action on gun violence and gun safety. But not the right people, not the ones benefitting from the NRA’s support.

I keep wanting to write about this, but never do because I don’t have the words. Other people — our forefathers who warned us, Einstein who spoke eloquently, poets, historians, philosophers, the Pope, actors even — have the words. I just have frustration and anger and utter hopelessness.  I don’t have ready facts. I just have profound sadness.

I feel so let down by our leaders. I feel so defeated. How is it that intelligence and compassion, wisdom and common sense are not guiding us to make the changes we need?

We are so far from living in a safe society. We will not see it in my lifetime. We will continue to live in fear that our children will go off to college and get shot. Or we’ll be in a theater and will get shot. How crazy is that? I know this will not change. Guns are sacred in the US. Pathetic and true. As much a part of our fabric as, I don’t know, 4th of July parades or something. They are not going away. Do. Not. Understand. It.

And let’s say we do make strides, even teeny tiny ones. You know what happens next? Lunatics work harder. They shoot more people just to prove it wasn’t the gun laws that kept us safe.

(That’s cynical, I realize.)

But it would help if we could take some steps, because steps are important. Taking a step, enacting something is a symbol. It says we recognize we have a problem and gives people some comfort that help is on the way. You know, like a background check. OF COURSE that will not stop all the nut cases. Some will still kill children, but it’s a step, a gesture, an act of goodwill, and it could stop a few people. Or at least slow them down. It’s not doing nothing.

Like Mr. Obama said today, it’s not enough to offer our thoughts and prayers. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families.” Again. Again. Again. I agree. It’s an insult to us all to fall into the well-worn, mind-numbing routine of our national response to senseless violence and senseless murders at the hands of nuts with guns. And then do absolutely nothing. Again.

The real criminals here are the cowardly politicians who deliver the NRA’s message, not the guys who do the shooting. The shooting guys? They are lost souls, mis-guided kids. Evil sure. But in so many cases, they are abandoned, lost, angry kids. They need serious help. They’re criminals, too, responsible for their actions. But they are sick and the product of some nasty childhoods, negligent parents. Maybe a twisted, chemically deficient neuron path. Who knows.

But, the politicians are just plain corrupt. They want their power and know the NRA will help them get and keep it. That simple. That twisted.

I can’t really figure out the people who elect them. But it’s why I have so little faith in the future of our country. I have no doubt money and greed, and/or sheer lack of intelligence is at the root of it. But even so, I just can’t fathom how it continues to even exist. I thought we were smarter.

I really do think we are smarter, until I realize I live in a bubble. I live in California. A coastal state. I live in the northern part, a bit more progressive. I live in a college town. We are largely educated. That is the bubble. Where there is education, there is a bubble. That is not the reality elsewhere, and I just forget that.

Yesterday, I’m at a gas station. I’m inside buying something to eat for the road. Hard to do in a freeway-adjacent gas station convenience store. I bought a pack of almonds (very stale) and a banana (surprisingly good). While in there, three twenty something guys, seemingly not from around here, were loudly, obnoxiously ragging on the female clerk who said they’d have to pay ten cents for a bag [for their junk food]. They were ridiculing Davis for its plastic bag ordinance, OBVIOUSLY NOT UNDERSTANDING the environmental justification for it. It didn’t satisfy them–the idea that the planet and oceans are dying for the mountains of plastic we are unable to manage. They must not have seen the video, read the article or heard the news story. But no kidding, they were SO unhinged about this plastic bag thing, I hung behind an aisle with my phone ready, just keeping an eye on the counter where they stood, afraid they might get violent. I was actually a little scared by their behavior. At 2:30 on a Tuesday afternoon.

Which… god… the whole 60-second experience says something sad about not only the painful fact of their ignorance, and their lack of good manners as they badgered and bullied a female gas station clerk, but also about the fear that is just mildly present at all times… the fear of having to be anywhere near three testosterone-fueled yahoos pissed off about something stupid, and the fear they might be packin’ because we live in a country where it’s somehow okay to walk around with guns in your pocket, or worse, hanging, threateningly, over your shoulder.

And remind me again why we all need to carry guns? To protect ourselves from the guys carrying guns? Oh right.

It is so mind-numbingly stupid I can barely breathe.

A whole bunch of us think it’s stupid and can’t seem to do anything about it.

Except cry out of sheer frustration, and embarrassment for our country. Which I did today. Again. Nobody anywhere else in the civilized world understands what’s going on here. Don’t believe that? Travel. Talk to anybody from another modern country. Try explaining what we are doing here. It’s absolutely un-defensible.

I was going to go to bed early, and here… I got mad instead. Here’s the picture I was going to post, with something nice about the baseball game in Rocklin this evening….

This mantis prayed.

And it must have been for rain… because we got some today.

She hung around while we planted some new succulents. Very companionable.

We mostly planted plants today, focusing primarily on the porch pots…

We split and repotted the spider plants, added a fuchsia, and embellished the succulents. That fern’s doing its crazy, happy thing; didn’t have to do anything to him.

Added a few new flowers for color in the front yard, too… three gauras, six vincas, and one of these lacy, cream-colored flowers, whose name I’ve forgotten.. begins with a c.

We’d gotten a very late start on the summer garden, so now, on the eve of October, we are finally getting some tomatoes …

(And peppers, arugula, eggplant, chard…)

Here’s a cantaloupe we thought was cucumber…

Finally, a half ripe Meyer lemon…

I love Wednesdays. The yard’s looking fine.

Frances even complimented me on my willingness to live with all the leaves (great moisture-preserving mulch layer). I admit, it took some getting used to–tidy person who favors discreet lines that I am.

All for the cause, you know?

In fact, we talked quite a bit today about what it’s going to take to live in California going forward as climate change imposes continued and unprecedented dryness upon our state. Obviously, we’re going to have to get used to a whole new way of gardening.

So we are.

The Dining Divas theme this time around was Healing Foods, in honor of one of our members who’s dealing with a cancer diagnosis (dealing admirably well, I should add).

My assignment for this quarter’s meal was the vegetable. I googled healthy, healing, powerhouse vegetables and, of course, all roads led to kale. So I made a kale dish…. Gingery Creamed Kale and Cabbage.

Here’s how you do it:

First, wash and de-stem a pound and a half of kale…

Boil it for about six minutes until it’s pretty tender.

When drained, it’ll look like something Popeye used to eat out of a can.

Coarsely chop that and set it aside.

Then coarsely chopped half of a white onion…

… and saute it in about three tablespoons of canola oil until soft, about five minutes.

Then coarsely chop about half a pound of cabbage:

Grate about 3 teaspoons of ginger and add a quarter teaspoon of turmeric to that…

.. then add the ginger, cabbage and turmeric to the sauteed onion, and continue to saute until the cabbage is wilted, about five minutes. Next, add a cup of heavy cream, cover and simmer for about eight minutes, until the cream has thickened.

Finally, add the chopped kale and heat through.

At this point you can set the whole thing aside for later, or you can serve it immediately. In either case, just before serving, add half a cup of buttermilk to the whole mixture (and heat). The buttermilk sort of sours up the heaviness of the cream, and really works to balance the whole dish. I thought it was a great final ingredient.

So… that’s it.. a heathy and tasty dish. It’s not at all low-cal because of the cream, but it’s a nice way to get a lot of super high-octane kale!

Here are a few other of the dishes from our dinner (two nights ago):

The appetizer… cucumber slices with a topping of tomato and feta (lemon, basil and vinegar, too):

A salad of candied pecans, raspberries, blue cheese, peaches, tossed in a light peach-balsamic vinaigrette:

Broiled teriyaki salmon, black Chinese rice and my kale, served with an organic table white. 

Dessert was a fantastic rustic apple tart with an apricot glaze and whipped cream of which I have no pictures. Ate it too fast.

Met my kindergarten pal Sarah at her cool studio loft on R Street this afternoon.

She prepared a simple yet sumptuous repast…

..which we ate on the rooftop.

(Beets and goat cheese, hummus with carrots and almonds, crackers & brie and some lemony, olive-oily beans that were great.)

(I’m tellin’ ya…)

This Warehouse Artists Loft (WAL for short) is a pretty swell place to hang out. Not only is it architecturally attractive, overflowing with art, and located in a neighborhood densely packed with hip restaurants, but the first floor of the building is a small public marketplace with its own eclectic assortment of vendors…a juice bar and sandwich shop, a fish place, a rug store, a men’s shoemaker, a flower stall and.. a vintage clothing store where I happened to find a pair of boots I’m sure I need…

…and bought (like I ever do that).

Rediscovering kindergarten pals on the eve of turning 60 is kind of a hoot. I know I wrote about this before–last spring when four of us from the way back olden days met up for the first time since high school–but I will say again: it just becomes a pretense-free zone. Like who do we need to impress? Nobody. We talked honestly (brutally) about this stage of life, what it all means, how disorienting retirement is, how we got here, what our kids are doing, what our husbands are doing, how ridiculous college admissions have become, how embarrassing presidential campaigns have become, about her rooftop hay bale garden plot, how to plant gardens that optimize insect and bee populations, and how maybe we’ll just go to the French Laundry for dinner sometime. Those kinds of things.

Such a nice afternoon.

Drove through downtown Davis on my way home.. and had to stop to shoot this:

Kind of a busy sky.

Did you hear they found water on Mars today? Mars may have more water than California!

Tonight, there was a super moon–super big, super bright–but I missed most of its special effects due to clouds on the horizon where a giant rising moon should have been. By the time it rose over the clouds, it seemed like any other moon, except…. it was behind a big earth shadow and appeared sort of reddish due to tonight’s other unique lunar phenomenon–a total eclipse… which was also hard to fully appreciate because I was viewing tonight’s moon from the middle of a well-lit street, trying to look beyond the headlights of passing cars, which rendered that big ol’ eclipsed super moon a tad faint.

I’ve already seen some impressive photos posted online, so I’m not feeling deprived. And I did get to lay my eyes on this once-every-couple-decades event, so I’m satisfied.

I took the obligatory photo, with my good camera, even.. but this is all I got:

And that was with lots of zooming and photo enhancing.

It’s going to have to be another set of more or less random images. Too late, too tired, and maybe too much wine. Or ice cream. Or all of the above. It’s about all I can do to throw this much together.

I’m only sorry I missed the stunning flourish of cirrus clouds at sunset. What a show-off Mr. Sky was tonight. I did manage, however, to collect a few other pictures on the day, so here goes:

Early morning shot of Compassion Corner and the earth bench on my way to get coffee…

A little while later, we ran into David himself at Farmer’s Market. He returned to town just a couple of weeks ago and is settling in to write his next book. Had an interesting conversation about what is really found at the core of human beings. He had a more compassionate take on this question than I did (I’ve been reading too much about the presidential race, gun violence and the world’s reaction to the Syrian refugee crisis. Easy to get cynical and believe that maybe greed, power, and ignorance are more dominant than love, kindness and compassion.  It’s why I like running into David… he always re-inspires my weary soul.

Wes took a great photo of Peter on the mound today. As he always does. And what’s more, it’s an 0 and 2 count. Peter was one of six pitchers today. The boys went on to win the 12-inning game, 12-5. Their record so far this summer: Six wins, no losses.

Somewhere along the line today, probably at the high school baseball field, I ran over a thorn on my bike and ended up with a very flat tire. It showed up when it was time to leave Carrie and Marc’s house this afternoon (where six of us assembled–assembly-line-style–500 boxes of beautiful, handmade photographic note cards for an upcoming fundraiser for Putah Creek Council).  Here’s my bike… one tire short.

Here’s Marc patching my tube. It has been a very long time since I’ve done anything of the sort. It was a great place to discover a flat tire, I’ll say that. I think the patch is going to hold, too!