Lifeboat

Posted on my other blog: languageandarchitecture.blogspot.com

A Perfect Day

Jack London wrote 1000 words a day. Once he was done, he entertained guests, worked on his farm, invented cool stuff, soaked in whatever exotic locale he visited. Today, I attempted the same. I think I managed 1000 words, give or take, in about seven hours. I think Jack London had a lot more free time in his day than I did today. But, still. . . once I reached my allotment, I came back to life. The other life, which, if we get really creative, has it's exotic moments: Pick up Malcolm at the ferry. Drop books off at the library. Prepare dinner. Clean kitchen. Refill hummingbird feeder. Mix a margarita (they're back!). Return some phone calls. Not bad, in a day. But the highlight was the first hour of writing. I hike the fire roads on the ridges of Mt. Tamalpais, and for that first hour, I create the scenarios that will fill my pages later. Notebook in hand, I traipsed the trails. During that first hour today, I had the pleasure of hearing:

Wild turkey (gobble gobble gobble)
Two hawks (Screeeeeech! Screeeeeech)
Numerous hummingbirds (zzzft zzzft zzzft)
Stellar's Jays (one that cawed, another I swear mocked the call of a hawk)
Woodpecker (tatatatatatatatatat)
Nuthatches (tswit tswit tswit)
At least three deer loping through the leaves
Countless lizards scurrying through the leaves
A snake's slither through the leaves
(Each leaf dweller has it's own cadence)
Squirrels rustling among the oak branches
Countless unidentifiable song birds
My breath in between.

A simple day, uncluttered in its own way, yet lush in another way. Tomorrow, I spend the entire day at the new California Academy of Sciences. I've been waiting a long long time for this day. I invited no one. I plan to linger and absorb. My dream job is to write for the California Academy of Sciences publications. Science nerd, yup.

Summer's End

Brought Maggie to the airport this morning. International terminal, United Flight 954. Everything felt the season turn. Brian and Malcolm bid teary farewells by 7 and left the house without their usual banter, carrying more on their shoulders than backpacks. At 7:45, Kirk tipped back a last cup of coffee and departed for Ukiah. Their goodbye hug stretched well past where they normally leave off. It'll be a month til we see him again, which feels as long as the shadows stretching past the oaks near the driveway, but a blink compared to the three months she'll be gone. Did I mention the cat puked on the new doormat? And the dog snuck up on the couch? I didn't care; I could have used a good wretch and a soft spot to ease the emptying of what was a full and frantic summer. In the hour before we left, I showered and dressed as Maggie sipped her tea and read the comics, packed a few last minute items, put on her make-up, fashioned a couple of earrings out of bottle caps and wire, collected her stack of library book returns, arrayed dirty laundry and wardrobe rejects over her bedroom furniture and floor, printed out some sheet music, and emailed a few friends. That's Maggie; that's the tambourine she taps against her jeans as she moves through our lives. Hours have passed since I walked back into the house, which is now a cavern. The only sound I've heard all day is the occasional acorn plunk against the roof. Plunk! Plunk-plunk. Roll-roll-roll. And at the rooftop's edge, nobody hears my heartbeat stop. It is the sound of summer's end. Of children reaching the rooftop's edge. Of others fleeing to far-away-lands to find their way. Their acorns litter my sloping hillside. I've lost count. The temperature drops. The sun tilts back. And the treetops slouch against the fog's sigh.

Blog This!

Blog-worthy things that have crossed my path lately:

At Scala's Bistro on Union Square, our party of three entered the bar. No tables were available. Suddenly, my attention was caught by a kind-faced man waving at us. "Shouldn't waste a whole table on just one. I'll sit at the bar," he said as he scooped up his martini and cocktail napkin and took the seat at the end of the line. As a writer, I want to build my character by telling you this man was rather short, bald, and somewhat portly. But such descriptives fail me the most beautiful creature in sight. It wasn't that our dogs were tired or we were dying of thirst; we could have headed over to the Saint Francis for our booze. It was this: he was a good neighbor in a world that has lost touch with the concept. My friends are from a few neighborhoods over, a place called Reston, Virginia. I lifted my shoulders in pride at how grand, how escquisite my city looked under the tweed vest and wool trousers of this gentleman. This San Franciscan. Pay it forward.

The Hawks are coming! A red-tail's screech woke me out of my decadent Saturday morning slumber. I nearly tripped on the bed sheets as I leaped into my slippers and ran out to the street. There on the top of a lone redwood, a broad-shouldered commander surveyed the morning's smorgasbord of mice and moles below. It turned its head in my direction, and as if to say "you think this is swell. . . " lifted off and soared over the tree tops. Coming home from Muir woods the day before, just before we reached four corners, I spotted its cousin on a tall pine. "George, stop!" I yelled to my Reston-friend. And as he did, the raptor spread its majestic wings across the entire view of the distant foothills.

Speaking of birds, Jinx caught a hummingbird and ate it for lunch. Isn't that some kind of sin? Some sort of line crossed for which she is heading to cat hell? I wasn't home, but the sin is probably mine. I have pots full of trumpet-shaped flowers and a hummingbird feeder that lure them to our deck so that I can relish their luminescent beauty as I sip my morning coffee. One of these visitors, after gorging on the hibiscus, turned left instead of right and got trapped inside the house. Jinx made a meal of it and Malcolm hurried upstairs with the vacuum, following the trail of feathers before his mom got home. He knew. Cat hell, fraught with licking, scratching, feral felines, here I come.

Come a little closer, girlie!

When I first saw her, I thought she looked familiar. With the naked eye (and my glasses) and at a safe distance, though, I didn't see any markings. Whew! A black widow would really throw off my day. Ah, but this beauty is such a gorgeous specimen. So still, so sleek, so peaceful. She'd make an easy close-up nature photo for the blog. I grabbed the camera and took a macro photo. You know, way up close. Nose to nose with nature. Only when I magnified it on the image viewer did I spy the red hourglass on her belly. Talk about a close call!