Life of Wry

This tree.. hmm… is it an almond? Whatever it is, it’s his favorite spring tree in his favorite alley. Its blooming every year makes me so happy because it makes him so happy. This photo is a bit disappointing; it doesn’t come close to capturing the loveliness of this alley and tree — honestly, it was far prettier in person — but I post it anyway.

The shadows are too dark and the detail in the tree is washed out. You have to imagine the quiet morning on our walk to an early Sunday brunch.. maybe add a bird or two chirping. The air is icy cold, but the sun is starting to warm things up. The sun was still low in the sky and the light through the alley was dappled. I love the tunnel effect of the canopied trees.. but that’s even hard to appreciate here. So: oh well.

There is a huge hole in my American cultural life.. lots of holes, actually: a million books I’ve never read, music I know very little about and don’t even get me started on video gaming, or fan fiction, or tiktok…

But thanks to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows of Davis, I am filling the American Movie Classic hole. Well, hardly filling. There are more movies in the world than I have time left to watch, but I’m scratching the surface a bit, which is pretty fun. The Odd Fellows has been offering fall and spring series of classic films — four films in a series — for ten years. Darrick Bang is the movie guru who introduces the films and adds all manner of trivia and cool information about the production, the stars, the backstories. He’s so damn knowledgeable and entertaining (takes me back to the earliest days of DCTV when Darrick produced one of our first-ever shows, a movie review show, the name of which escapes me, that was one of the most impressive displays of knowledge, efficiency and poise I’ve ever seen).

I believe this is only our second — maybe third — series. The pandemic interrupted everything just as we were getting into a seasonal rhythm, but we’re back now and tonight was night one of the 2023 spring series.

This time around the theme is war comedies. I would NEVER think I’d enjoy such a thing, but you sorta can’t help it when Darrick plies you with the rich and interesting stories behind these films. They’re usually film titles you’re familiar with and certainly feature stars you feel like you should know. I’m always like, so THAT’S fill-in-the-blank-mega-star-from-the-olden-days.

I always walk out of the Odd Fellows hall with a feeling of improved cultural self esteem. Let’s hear it for cultural competency!

Tonight we saw this film from 1949:

It was long, it was a bit over the top silly, but I still enjoyed it. A huge part of that is about getting a look at the era. The attitudes, the sexism, the cigarettes, the humor, the dialogue. People were watching this movie almost 75 years ago! The characters in the film were somewhere in their twenties.. as were my parents when they saw it (presuming they did… probably date night while in college or grad school).

So yeah.. filling a cultural hole AND connecting with my parents. That’s a win.

I got nuthin. Which means I get to reach back into the archives for a random photo…. and…. I choose…. this!

This is so out of character for Jim, I question that it’s even him (it is). You can tell it’s a really long time ago because mom’s still got her signature brown cig in hand. Not to mention Jim’s hair is a deep, dark, rich brown. How ’bout that pose!

For some reason, I think this might have been the picnic before (or after) we scattered dad’s ashes in Carmel (Pt. Lobos), which would put this somewhere around the year 2000. Jim (about 47) and I are four years into our marriage, Peter’s two years old, mom’s about seven years from quitting smoking (and is 71).

I know it was a somber occasion, but apparently also had its lighter moments!

Wow wow wow.

Sally drove down from Railroad Flat to spend a few days with us in Davis. We saw Adam Schiff, had a nice Valentine’s dinner, took many walks, spent cafe time at Cloud Forest, had a couple of dinners out (Greek, Burmese), visited a few galleries, test drove a RAV4 (yup), even did some local politicking. Most of all talked a bunch and caught up on each others’ lives. All in all, a good friend visit!

So… let’s see… we’ve been friends for… 60 years. Met in second grade when she moved to Palos Verdes from Seattle. How ’bout that!

She took off this afternoon.

’til next time!

Jim and I hosted a candidate meet and greet for Donna Neville who’s running to fill the vacancy on the City Council left by Lucas Frerich’s ascension to the county board of supervisors in the November election. We’ve not done this before, but it was pretty fun, I must say: good turnout (somewhere between 32 and 35 folks), lots of neighbors (I’ll never remember everyone’s names), a great presentation by Donna, and a fairly lively Q&A. Satisfying all around.

Couldn’t resist this guy. I guess I decided that if I walk past something in a store and it makes me laugh out loud, and if looking at it sitting in some small corner of my house will bring a smile to my face, then… what the heck… buy it and put it in that small corner.

My mom was all about inanimate objects with personality. She had some truly goofy things in more than a few small corners of her house. They made her laugh, they brought her joy. So.. part of me was channeling her as I thought about and then bought this.

I believe it’s a bird. A fuzzy headed bird with bird legs. I love him.

And here he is tucked into a small corner of our house.

Look who I got to spend some time with tonight!

The UC Davis College Dems somehow managed to bring Adam Schiff to Davis tonight and we got to walk on down to the I-House where a standing room only crowd got up close to a real hero in the democratic party. This was pretty thrilling. Adam Schiff is a powerhouse intellect, a constitutional expert, a democracy warrior and just nails it every single time he comments on what’s going on in Washington. He is incredibly articulate. He spoke eloquently and knowledgeably about issues I care about.. so you know, I was a happy camper. I could have listened to him for hours. Bummed they cut the Q&A short in favor of doing photos. I’d have been delighted to stay and watch, and even shake his hand or pose for a pic (!) but we had a Valentines Dinner to prepare and consume. So took off as the picture taking was commencing.

Back to his comments: He was far more optimistic about the state of our government than I usually feel. He says, “this too shall pass,” and we will get to the other side of the many crises we are in. (Reeeeally?!) He talked about how he worked well with Nunes on the Intelligence Committee (a committee he’s now been removed from, thanks to petty Kevin McCarthy who’s now beholden to the nutcase wing of his party and has to do truly stupid things to appease them). They agree on little, but could work effectively together to get the work of the committee done. That was interesting to me. I’d have loved to hear more about the inner workings of congress, as we don’t see that side the story. And I’d have loved to hear more about where his optimism comes from. I would welcome optimism over the despair I usually feel.

Schiff said one the most insidious things trump did was to put all of his energy into dividing the country. This has always been my biggest resentment of the disgraced former so-called president. Schiff said trump woke up every day with new ways to gin up hate toward, and distrust of, the other side. For example he’d tell his followers that we elite dems thought they were stupid. By perpetuating that idea, he could ensure they’d never trust, never listen, never find common ground with us. trump came out of the election with hate in his little icy heart. He was never going to be the president of everyone, he was never going to try serve the whole country, he was never going to unify. His infamous line — he alone could fix it — flew in the face of unity, of the country working together to solve problems. His MO was disunity.

I truly hate him for that, and for what he did to our country. I will never get over it.

So listening to someone like Adam Schiff is like a balm. His calm demeanor, casual intellect, and decency are soothing. I trust his principles for governing. He nailed it on gun violence, he nailed it on the preservation of our planet being at the existential core of absolutely everything. I especially appreciated his comments about how to bridge the divides (listen and respect those on the other side). I also loved when he talked of an enduring democratic party that would serve and lift all corners of the country with justice, kindness and respect.

Now that’s a vision. No wonder trump and his ilk are afraid of Adam Schiff.

And with Dianne Feinstein announcing today that she will not seek reelection, his campaign to replace her in the Senate began, officially, tonight!

I’m in.

Triumph #1: a cauliflower casserole with a parmesan-“everything bagel” topping. I was at first seriously drawn to this recipe, then growingly dubious it would turn out, then pleasantly surprised and quite certain I’ll make it again.

The short of it: you make a roux with butter and flour, which always gives me anxiety. Garlic gets added just before the flour part, which I burned b/c the butter was too hot, but soldiered on anyway, which turned out fine. You add milk until you have this very thick base, into which you add the florets of cauliflower (and some chives and cayenne, s&p). It’s goopy. But after 20 minutes of baking, it browns up and looked pretty good.

Then you sprinkle a mix of grated parmesan, sesame seeds, poppy seeds and caraway seeds (I substituted flax b/c I dislike caraway) and put it back under the broiler for a couple minutes. It crisps up beautifully and the texture is fantastic. It was absolutely delicious!

It’s the center dish, accompanying an Ina Garten baked chicken and a beet, arugula, goat cheese salad. (It was Dining Divas night!).

Triumph #2: Martha Stewart’s heart-shaped brownies (for Valentines Day tomorrow, obvs!)

I made these last year, as well. May become an annual tradition, except that we’re not supposed to eat dark chocolate anymore, so says the heavy metal police. Not sure what to do about this latest health warning.. but maybe one little brownie heart won’t kill us? Let’s hope.

This is the block of brownie right out of the oven…

Then you do this….

Then you do this….

They’ll be served tomorrow with chocolate mint ice cream (mostly because I couldn’t find peppermint candy ice cream… hmm).

I think an incidence of riotous, flowering quince is a quincidence… don’t you?

I’m in love with this red madness.

I’m telling you.. our friend Phil just gets better and better. Jim and I can honestly say we knew him when. When being before he started painting. I can’t pinpoint that year, but I can say that he took up painting sometime in the last twenty years, but not a moment before. He’s been a lifelong artist, but in other media — ceramic, tile, dance, music, video… maybe other things I don’t know about.

We feel fortunate to have a few Phil Grosses around the house… like six of them, most from his very early days. We can’t afford to acquire them now, nor do we have wall space for these large pieces. But I do love his current work So photos of them on my blog will have to be good enough!

He’s having a show at the Artery this month, its opening was last night.

That is a remarkable likeness. (Phil’s the one on the left.)

The show had about 15-20 pieces. I loved most of them, but this was my favorite:

He’s been doing aerial views of our valley for a long time. The clouds are a new addition. Here is a bit of detail:

What the detail tells me is, there is a level of complexity that is way more than meets the eye. I’m fascinated by the detail of artists’ paintings. For example, the splashes of color on Phil’s self-portrait. I can guarantee it’d never occur to me, if I were to paint a self-portrait, to put green or yellow or blue or red lines in those places where he’s done that. If I didn’t zoom way in on that self-portrait, I’m sure I’d never have noticed ANY of those colors … I’d have only seen his likeness, his gross (as it were) features. Like Wayne Thiebaud (a mentor and inspiration to Phil), the color is what makes the paintings pop, but you kind of have to look to find it.