Thursday Afternoon Trail Run

An automobile carrier (roll-on/roll-off) ship passes Point Benicia in the Carquinez Straight on its way to the AMPORTS dock 25 July 2013.

 

 

The base of an ancient bay tree has become ten or so trunks along the arroyo.

Looking up in a grove of old bay trees

About 500 feet higher than the spot where the picture of the boat was taken, we're looking northwest along the fire trail that locals call "the wall" -- that last quarter mile has most of the elevation gain!

And here we stand at the top of the ridge, looking southeast toward Mount Wanda.  John Muir hiked these very hills more than a hundred years ago!

My Dad used to listen to this stuff!

Firehouse Five Plus Two! 

That time I set a hummingbird free

One afternoon thirty years ago or so, at my previous place of employment, I heard a strange sound out in the warehouse.  A kind of buzzing noise seemed to be coming from the ceiling.  As I walked out and looked up, I expected to see some kind of electrical short-circuit.  What I saw was not what I expected!

Up in one of the skylights, I saw a hummingbird -- caught in spider webs!

The little thing was completely bound in silky webs.  It must have flown in through one of the roll-up doors, and gotten confused about the exit by the light coming in through the overhead. 

I managed to get a ladder that extended high enough that I could snag bird and mass of web with the end of a broom. 

I got down and carefully unwound the sticky spiderweb coating that had gotten wound around the bird. 

The hummingbird seemed to weigh precisely nothing.  As gently as possible I held it and walked outside.  Its tiny heartbeat felt like a vibration against my hands.  Out at the curb, I lifted and opened my hands.  The little creature stood for one second, then flew up and away into the sky. 

Writer's bottleneck

Some people talk about writer's block.  The idea is that you have a clean slate and can't seem to form any thought about what to put down onto it. 

For me, writer's block is more like what happens when you try to pour mayonnaise down a small funnel.  Or pour potato chips out of a bag with too small an opening at the top.  There is plenty of material in the queue, but it won't get in line and go with the flow. 

I started to write a post about grief a few weeks ago.  The words poured out at first.  I had all these things to say...  then I didn't. 

Have you ever mixed paint colors?  There is more technique than theory involved.  The result you get depends on the brand of paint, etc.  Last time I tried getting a creative palette with acrylics, everything ended up looking like mud.  Same thing with writing, I'm afraid: I poured a bunch of thoughts out into the open, and it did anything but clarify. 

Anyway. 

So maybe some day I will go back to those thoughts.  When I have thought funnel with a bigger nozzle. 

Art Criticism

[a repost from June 2011 when crowndot.com was a Posterous (R.I.P.) blog]

So this little communication-challenged man comes up to the parts counter at work, and I am totally not understanding what he is trying to ask me.  Subject?  Verb?  Object?  -- He hasn't filled in any of the blanks for me.
"Eesss a, eess, uh . . .  khow you say?  Uh, you have pepper?," he asked.
"I'm sorry?  Pardon me?," I attempted to ask for clarification.
"Uh, you khave uh pen a pepper?"
I handed him a ball point pen and a clipboard loaded with copy paper.  This is his illustration:

That is an 8-1/2" x 11" piece of paper.  And that is his drawing.  Really.  This is what I deal with day after day.  For their own safety, people with this tenuous a grasp on reality should not be allowed to roam about unsupervised.  Let alone be allowed to work on large equipment.  He was trying to draw one of these:

Aha!  I see your are cleverly and playfully deconstructing the construction industry!  However I find this work menacing as well, in that the aura of tension created by the minisculization of the scribbled signifier seems very disturbing in light of the accessibility of the work.  With regard to the issue of content, the disjunctive transmutation of quasi-biomorphic forms threatens to disintegrate the inherent overspecificity.  In sum, the work verges on codifying our own participation in the critical dialogue of the last decade.  Or something.

Lo-o-o-ong Distance Phone Call

I had seen the movie "The Matrix" the weekend of 17 June 2000.  The idea of phones ringing might have been percolating around my brain.

I was having a midsummer night dream.

I am at a cafe in a downtown high-rise.  Looking out the window, I can see the glass front of another high-rise.  In that other building across a narrow street -- hey, I can see my Mom!  She is standing there with HER  mom (my grandmother, who died in 1981), and they are all dressed up.  My mom is holding a telephone, but she is not speaking.  Instead she is smiling, waving at me, and pointing.  Not pointing at ME but at  something BEHIND me.  I turn around, and see a pay phone on the wall.  I turn back to my mom, and I gesture toward the phone, as though to say, "What?  You want me to make a phone call?"  Mom nods, and she and Grammie smile and wave.  My Mom is still holding the phone, and she's pointing again.  Just then the phone rings.

The phone rings.

I wake up.  I can still hear the phone ringing.  "That's strange," I think, "I can still hear that phone."  Then I get it.  It's my REAL phone ringing.  I rise and pick up the phone, but I don't say anything.

It's 1:20 AM on 21 June 2000.

Finally, I say, "Hello?"

On the phone is my Dad, telling me Mom has been taken to the hospital  in an ambulance. He says slowly, "The prognosis not good."

Well, Mom had died very suddenly of a massive heart attack, and was perhaps dead by the time the ambulance showed up, but her pacemaker restarted part of her heart, so there was some question to the  paramedics.  I know sometimes dreams can create a context for a noise that is about to wake us up.  But I think that the dream was a real call from my Mom.  Lo-o-o-ong Distance and not only "Person to Person" but Soul to Soul.  Calling to give me one last hug, as it were.  It was my Mom, with my Grammie.  There they were, on the "other side" -- and happy.  To me, that is too much for coincidence.  That dream continues to be a source of some comfort, and of great hope.

Things I learned from my big brother

1.)  The water in the cup on the night stand turns into oil overnight, and if you drink it you turn into Frankenstein.

2.)  The last tablespoon of milk out of the carton -- the one with the all the bubbles in it -- is poison.

3.)  The potato chips with the green edges are poison.

4.)  Mom said he could have the last piece of cake. 

5.)  The brown crayons are made out of poop.