Zombie Squirrels

Apparently there exists a culture of  bike hackers. I cannot yet count myself a member, but I do like squirrels.

That time of year

Wake me when winter’s over….

 

 

 

Squirrelled

I've been out and about, and now I'm back. If I can figure out how to use Pinterest, and so far I can't, I may well start a page devoted to print advertisements including squirrels. Like this one.

EXORCISMS: Cheap Prices

Watched the last half of The Exorcist Sunday night, my first viewing (in B&W) since 1973. Still exquisitely scary. I couldn’t quite remember the policeman’s name. Knew it wasn’t Lee Remick. Lee Lee Lee. Had to ask “The Brain.” Of course, Lee J. Cobb. Still, so very glad I know where to get exorcisms at cheap prices.

What are some things that money can't buy?

We live in the shadow of a reservoir and the water pressure is good but we still have to pay extra in property taxes for something or other related to this. I'm just happy to be able to turn a tap and clear goodness emerges. What are some things that money can't buy? TOP ANSWERS ON QUORA | AUGUST 29, 2012 http://pulse.me/s/cK9QI Here's one thing that most people probably won't realize money can't buy: **natively high water pressure.** I am pretty well off, and my family live... read more --- http://pulse.me Sent from Yahoo! Mail on Android

Be Safe

SomaFM: your source for brain music to get you through repetitive tasks. Today's selection:

 

Ambient music mixed with the sounds of San Francisco public safety radio traffic. 

 

The first day of the fair

We anxiously await the flowing gowns, especially the guy at the end of the runway.

Guess Who

At the Dairy Barn, I worked one summer during vacation from high school,making grilled cheese for the Guess Who. No, don't guess.

Kitties upset because they didn't win.

 

Three Graces and Serendipity

This week I’ve been looking at sculptures and paintings of the “Three Graces” (I’m on a mythology kick) and came across a bursting-forth version by Niki de Saint Phalle, whom I know very little about and think of never.  Then, in noontime class, today, Sally hands me a postcard I sent her 10/14/93 from Paris. “Sally: Well, I made it. Now I’m sitting in a café, the sound of pinball and murmuring help me muse over a glass of wine, as I watch the rain and people pass by. Phrase book and map are barely getting me along. So far, all I can remember is “Je voudrais…” (I would like) and merci merci merci. I flew from Dublin to London yesterday, then took an all night bus to here, so I’m fairly out of it. Every time I get someplace new all I want to do is go home but in a day all I want to do is explore. My walking shoes are sopped; soon I’ll return to my shoebox-sized room and collapse and write. Yes, you have to smoke here. And in Dublin, too. I'l clean out driving back across Arizona in a few weeks. For dinner? The best bread, a pear, and some goat cheese. This wandering has its fun moments.”  So who’s on the front but an elephant, “Sculptures animees de Tinguely et Nicky de St Phalle.”  So I have a Niki thing going on. And I am so overdue for a long solitary trip.

Poem of the Day

Messenger

By Mary Oliver

My work is loving the world.

Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird— equal seekers of sweetness.

Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.

Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?

Am I no longer young, and still half-perfect? Let me keep my mind on

what matters, which is my work, which is mostly standing still and

learning to be astonished.

The phoebe, the delphinium.

The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.

Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here, which

is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart and these body-clothes, a

mouth with which to give shouts of joy to the moth and the wren, to

the sleepy dug-up clam, telling them all, over and over, how it is

that we live forever.

 

 

Riffling in the morning

I was taking the casual commute to San Francisco this morning (2 people jump in a driver’s car, and speed across the bridge in carpool lane), and Eric (“The derrick”—so I remember his name) said his rider yesterday gave him $1 (standard), then in minutes riffled her purse to give him change equaling a dollar. “But you already gave me a dollar.” “Oh God,” she said, “It’s that kind of day. I put oatmeal in the cat’s bowl this morning.” I’m not that bad, yet, but of course the day is young….

Hot Water and Wrestling

Anniversary, wrestling masks, good friends, hot water, flowers, who could ask for more!?

Eclipse light

Not the transit of Venus. Rocket 89....uh make that, Rocket Number 9, take off for the planet....

The Mermaid and the Wrestler

Only in Indiana.

 

 

At long last

My chance to create  wallpaper from certain of my photos now seems possible:

 

http://www.designyourwall.com

 

 

 

I didn't take it

From our junk mail alias: “If anyone has accidentally borrowed a purple mug with the letters [redacted]  written across the entirety of the mug for the past week and a half, I’d greatly appreciate its return in the near future. It generally resides in the cupboard in the fourth floor kitchen until about 8:00 am Monday through Friday, which is where it can be returned. Sooner rather than later would be great, as this is the mug my mother gave to me when I left for college 30 years ago, that I generally use every morning so that I can tell her I still use it every morning, when I talk to her every week…which I didn’t do last week because I couldn’t actually tell her I used it last week. Or this week. Hopefully I can tell her on Saturday that I used it on Thursday. So, if you could just do a quick check to see if it’s sitting on your desk it would be greatly appreciated.”  UPDATE: Michael found his mug, within minutes. It wasn't my mug. I just liked the message.

Stripey

Well, I did not know one could purchase a zebra. Perhaps over the weekend I will wander down the nasturtium-strewn path, followed by grey boys, open to possibility, to see if there's room in the back 40, by the girl's clubhouse.

 

 

Sweet Sunday in SF

OK, ended up using sigh, Facebook to post photos:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3116022100493.2126612.1262693524&type=1&l=546a170645

Gumps offered free dog portraits with the city's best dog portraitist. He was goooooooooooood. Cartier Bresson? Elliott Erwitt? Maybe. His portfolio is here:  http://jessefreidin.com/

My friend Leslie's lady, a rescue collie, was very photogenic and behaved very well. And I fell for an ethereal white standard poodle whose ears reminded me of Marianne Faithful, somehow. The dog works with Alzheimer's patients.

(sorry, embedding continues to elude me)

For the beauty of the earth.

And eggs...

 

 

I just vacuumed my office--all the dust shows so clearly in the sunlight. Blows forward, blows back. Next time I turned around, minutes later,  there was a pile of fluffy stuff on the floor, with Huey chewing. Ewwwwwwww he caught and ate a HUMMINGBIRD. It was gone except for a few feathers. Sorry, universe.I'll get the collar with bell...

I stepped aside to let a woman walking her big ole dog get by me, as I was meandering. She had on what looked like Tibetan skiwear (today's beautiful, but chilly). As she passed she said, "Ahhhhhh  it's like having a drunken sailor for a boyfriend, this dog. Wanders around bumping into things, drooliing." We were bumping into things too, the three of us lolling along for a few minutes.

Health Care

Bob's letter to the editor of the SF Chronicle was published March 30, 2012:

The choice: health vs. money

Debra J. Saunders succinctly sums up the Republican view of our medical care crisis in "Why Romneycare outdoes Obamacare," March 27).

It's never the fault of Big Pharma or the medical-industrial complex or the profit-driven machinations of private hospital groups. It's the fault of the people, who use too much so-called "unnecessary care," like the colonoscopy I had seven years ago that discovered and removed precancerous polyps.

Their solution: "cost-sharing" to encourage families to make "smart choices," healthwise and moneywise. The problem is that what is health-wise is not always money-wise. Is that a severe headache or a stroke I'm having? Indigestion or the onset of a heart attack? Can I afford to spend $100, $200, $300 or more to find out?

For all their rhetoric about "government rationing," they fail to point out that their plans will result in a different form of rationing. Many Americans and their families will be forced to self-ration. High deductibles and onerous co-pays will result in more sickness and deaths that could have been avoided.

Robert Madera, Oakland

Enjoy the wind

“An invisible, ancient source of energy surrounds us—energy that powered the first explorations of the world, and that may be a key to the future.” 

 

Talk about information mapping!  http://hint.fm/wind/

 

 

Foxes and camels

A colleague recounted a time when he and his brothers were kids, and his brother ordered a baby fox from an ad in a magazine. Mom didn’t know anything about it until the  call to pick up a small box, with an air tube sticking out, from the airport. They had it for years and years, and  that fox was part of the family. Could run like nobody’s business. Chase those boys. I sniffed around and found an ad from Billboard magazine, April 29, 1944, wherein one could indeed get a pair of fox kits for $10. The next ad was for a 2-year-old dromedary camel…

How to Stay On Plan

Fat David as a reminder to stay with healthy eating...

 

 

Sewing

Back in the day I would sew a lot. Dresses, cowboy shirts for my boyfriends. My father would shriek when he found one of my pins in the carpet with his feet. (Our house was pretty tiny and still is, as it hasn't changed much from 30 years ago). Sorry. Today I resumed a sewing project, the first in oh, about 30 years. Wait, 40. The needle hurts my finger because I was trying to make French seams and I can't quite remember how to and need to roll those over and hem by hand. And oh, the puckers. I was reminded of my Aunt Nancy  who would hand-sew pajamas while she watched the OJ trial, ensconced in her North Hollywood apartment. I'll tell you what:  I shall never be on Project Runway and I fear my days of Vogue tailoring (actually, a level I never quite reached) are but a dream. Making a few pillows here and there, placemats, and the like, maybe (being incredibly myopic makes it a little easier to thread the needle). I inherited from Louise Johnson about 10 cigar boxes of antique threads and odd buttons. If you can give me any suggestions for them, please advise.

 

Super bowl commercials

Personally, come game day (what game day, even tho’ it’s in my hometown and aren’t they excited), I’ll be taking a walk or fast-forwarding through the puppy bowl. Still, if I DO turn on the tube, I’ll be fast-forwarding to these….

 

http://offthebench.nbcsports.com/2012/01/31/super-bowl-ad-power-rankings-enter-the-soup-nazi/

 

 

 

 

 

Third post for Don

After work, I think I shall dig out all my old Funkadelic records, unless they have melted:  http://youtu.be/4supWXaFgbc.

A dance line

A dance line, for example: http://youtu.be/lJ5iuWotw3M

 

 

RIP Don Cornelius

RIP, Don.

 

He certainly enlivened many of my Saturday mornings over the years. Let’s all form a dance line this very second.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/01/don-cornelius-dead-soul-train_n_1246642.html

 

What's on your mind in a 3 am wake-up?

For me, last night: 1) coughing; 2) thinking left-field thoughts: of our Chemex from the 70s and the light reflecting in its curves, of my grandmother's soft inner upper arm (she must have been about my age now), of the flat fields of the farm; 3) then hearing the broken ice maker dumping its 12th daily load of filtered cubes—it won't turn off and seems too expensive to fix. So we have bowls and bowls of ice everywhere.

More photoshop, less plastic surgery.

Even though we had to work hard to get those wrinkles, right? Memento mori: Kodak at less than $1 share.