WHY OUR NEIGHBORS THINK WE'RE WEIRD

We have just finished laying 4 mil black plastic in the lower backyard, leaving plenty of space around the wine barrels so that when we water the vegies the area under the plastic stays dry.
If that's enough, we had to completely empty our courtyard so the house painters can start powerwashing first thing Monday morning. So a variety of objects, from artwork to funky furniture to gardening supplies, are randomly strewn about the black plastic. You can click on the photos to see the full size version.

The vegies are coming in nicely: the black garbanzos have little purple flowers that are turning into fuzzy pods (photo at bottom), tonight we will have our third picking of filet beans, and the peppers and tomatoes are growing well. The sticky yellow traps are getting a lot of the whitefly (plus lots of other bugs). This evening I'll also be spraying the plants with a cottonseed oil based spray that is nontoxic.

My Japanese pickle press arrived this week. We have a green cabbage, some sweet onions and carrots from the farmer's market and I'll be putting up a batch of "quick pickle" which is essentially a variety of cole slaw, meant to be eaten within a week. As more vegies come in, I'll be trying other fresh, quick jardiniere types of salads.

FAMILY PICTURES

I have been slowly digitizing old photographs. Since there will be no future generations from my nuclear family to pass them along to, it seems a good thing to get them out there, tagged, so that friends and relatives can find them.

I just added a bunch more this evening, so go enjoy.

This photo is, as far as I know, the earliest photo of me with a punk haircut and buried in a book!

COLOR, COLOR, COLOR

I don't know WHY I don't feel like painting, but I really don't. It's not inertia, because there is plenty of energy for gardening, aikido, cooking, and I've gotten back to sewing. There is a very strong urge to work with color, but for the life of me I find the thought of setting up the palette and mixing paint totally unappealing.

But I've been thinking about pastels ever since seeing the wonderful Carl Sammons show at the Grace Hudson Museum. The colors are so wonderful - and I always loved Degas' pastels of dancers. I went back and forth on the subject of traditional dry versus good quality oil and finally last night decided to order a set of 24 landscape palette oil pastels by Sennelier. I have never liked charcoal or other "dusty" media, so it seems silly to work against a longstanding prejudice.
Today I looked at the half finished acrylic on canvas landscape languishing on my easel, and got excited thinking about applying the oil pastel directly onto it.

The urge to play with color did get me back to fabric. A few days ago I changed out settings on the sewing machine to accommodate metallic threads, and I've done the quilting on the central diamond motif of the Autumn in Ukiah pieced quilt I started last fall, quilted the small (7" x 12/5") quiltscape I started over the winter in preparation for finishing the edges, and prepped fabric for a summer skirt.

Color is posing a challenge outside. Next week I have to tell the painter what colors we want for the outside of the house. I brought home a few quart samples. Today I painted large paper swatches to tape up. Stu and I have decided on the main color, but neither of the trim colors quite cut it. (sigh) Back to the paint store tomorrow.

Finally, nature continues to provide the best color. The farewell to spring is STILL blooming in the front yard, along with our roses, rockroses, bee plant, salvia, yarrow (white and rosy) and beach aster. The bush beans in the backyard are wonderful lush green things, with small filet beans just forming, the tomatoes and peppers are just forming fruit, the apples are getting bigger, and the blackberries and grapes in the wild patch at the back are developing beautifully.

HERE COMES THE SUMMER!

Aikido dojo, the other evening. I hold the bokken in a familiar grip, aiming at the base of my partner's throat. My instructor says "there are terms for the positions," and without any conscious thought my right hand leaves the bokken to point to three spots as I say "jodan, chudan, gedan."

It's been a long time.

I'm a natural born tool user. Little matter if it's an oxhair filbert paintbrush, a wire whisk, an iaito, a cordless drill, a sewing machine, a pitchfork, a pistol or a crowquill pen. Place a tool in my hand and point me to the task or kata and I'm a happy camper.

Solo weapons kata are great fun, and have the advantage of being the perfect homework. But for me there is nothing like the intensity and feedback of paired partner practice with a bokken or jo.

It turns out that Ukiah Aikido had been doing Nishio-style iaido for quite some time, and sensei has decided we will do some weapons work over the summer.

Most of the time, working adults like me look at you funny when you ask about "plans for the summer" as if we were still in high school. But I'm sure looking forward to the summer now!

AN INTENSE URBAN WEEKEND

My sister, Judi, and her husband, Howie, arrived in San Francisco late Friday night. I called them early Saturday morning to figure out how we would meet up. They wanted to take advantage of the cool, sunny weather to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge, but were iffy about doing it both ways. My suggestion was that they park on the San Francisco side, walk across, and meet us at the vista point on the Marin side. I warned Judi that if we happened to see them on the bridge, we were NOT going to stop and pick them up!

(Traveler’s alert: the Marin side parking area/vista point is not accessible from southbound 101. You have to drive across the bridge to San Francisco, paying the toll, then circle under the toll plaza and drive back across the bridge to Marin) Wouldn’t you know, just as we came down Waldo grade and onto the bridge southbound, there were Judi and Howie just walking off the north end of the bridge to enter the vista point area.

Ten minutes later we were hugging in the parking lot, laughing over our impeccable timing. We drove down into Sausalito for a bit of lunch and a walk along the waterfront, during which we saw innumerable crabs scuttling over the rocks and feeding, and then watched rapt as Bill Dan patiently made a series of temporary sculptures. We rounded out the afternoon with a driving tour of the Headlands, ending up at the beach at Rodeo Lagoon to stretch our legs.

Howie has a limited food repertoire, so when he suggested Chinese food for dinner, we knew it was time for Old Mandarin Islamic halal restaurant out in the Sunset. It was prime dinner time on a Saturday night with no apparent open tables, so our visitors got the full Old Mandarin treatment: we were led though the dining room, across the bustling kitchen, into a half open-air foyer off the bathroom, and into the back room of the adjacent storefront. This is a small windowless room with two tables, the walls covered with framed displays of nautical knots and other fishing/boating related stuff. After our room was full, additional diners were led past into the front room of the adjacent storefront. On previous visits, this store’s window had displayed a sign proclaiming it the home of the Sunset Tile Company, and in addition to a few tables it had contained the accoutrements of a small day care center. We were just digging into our salt and pepper tofu, Mongolian shrimp, sesame chicken and fried rice when Judi got a call from her pet sitter that the air conditioner had broken and the temperature in the house was 94. The rest of us enjoyed dinner while she pecked at her’s during the course of a series of follow up phone calls.

By the time we’d eaten and things were sorted out Judi and Howie were ready to call it a night, so we all went back to the hotel and said goodnight. Then we waited for the call we were expecting: Mark and Sue Ann reporting that our mutual friends, Seth and Carolann, had arrived from Hawai’i. So at 10:15 Saturday night we were driving cross town to Bernal Heights for a late night visit that ended somewhere around 1 a.m.

Sunday morning, Stu and I rousted ourselves around 9 and staggered ‘round the block to a lovely little French patisserie I’d remembered from many years ago, Abigail, for muffins and mochas. Ready to face the day, we picked up Judi and Howie, and drove to the Stockton Sutter garage to start our walking tour at the gates to Chinatown. All were properly mesmerized by the opulently tacky chandeliers and sculptures at Farinelli and we happily chatted and strolled up Grant, through Chinatown to North Beach. The North Beach Festival was in full swing so we did a casual walk-through to peruse the arts and crafts booths and the sidewalk pastel artists.

There was a booth with cowboy style hats in unique fabrics, most with mesh inserts to help keep cool, made in the Santa Cruz area. I love hats but since I wear a small (6 7/8) and women’s hats are mostly “one size fits all” nowadays, I can rarely find a good fit. I tried on a hat and, griping that it was too big, grumble grumble, I put it down and was walking away when the boothperson accosted me in equally caustic tones, “Oh, so you think you can just try the first one you see, and that’s it?” When we finished laughing, she handed me a hat. I put it on, it fit absolutely perfectly as if it wasn’t there at all, it looked like a hundred bucks, and cost a buck less than that.

Before tackling Telegraph Hill, refreshments were called for. We went to our favorite North Beach bakery/café, Mara's Italian Pastries on Columbus just above Green, for espresso drinks and Italian treats like pignoli cookies, biscotti, florentines, and crunchy meringues with hazelnuts in them. Fortified, we walked straight up Filbert Street (with only mild complaining from our visitors) to share the delights of walking down the Filbert Street stairs. It was a glorious day for it. Besides temperatures in the mid 60 and a light breeze, besides all kinds of flowers blooming in the lush gardens along the steps, besides the parrots screaming and flying overhead and the hummingbirds doing aerial displays, besides the views, there were scores of dragonflies hovering and darting around and above us. It was as enchanting as ever.

With assorted middle-aged knee or hip aches and pains, we reached ground level at Levi Plaza and claimed a bench under the trees, by a meandering stream, to rest, chat, and watch a young couple playing with their dog. Then we limped along the Embarcadero so Judi and Howie could see the atrium of the Embarcadero Hyatt before we grabbed a cab to return to the Stockton Sutter Garage. Dinner was still hours away, so off we drove to Bi-Rite Ice Cream on 18th St. Unfortunately, the line went out the door, around the corner and halfway down the block on Dolores. So I did some swift mental navigation and Stu found us a parking spot on Church and 15th. It turns out there is now a lovely French boulangerie in the old Just Desserts spot, with a covered back garden area, perfect for light pastries and conversation.

We returned to the hotel for a rest, then drove over to Clement Street to meet Jill for dinner at Mescolanza ( I was startled to realize it ihas been twenty years that I’ve been eating there). After a lovely meal, we drove her home, dropped Judi and Howie off at the Coventry, and started off for home. We walked in the door, much to the cats’ relief, a little after 10 pm Sunday.

TANTOTORI

Thursday night we had a small class - three students plus the instructor - and no newbies, so after quickly warming up, doing some weapons kata, and pairing off to do eight basics, we played with tantotori for most of the class. Basically we did several of the eight basics, with uke attacking with the tanto: katatori ikkyo, katatori nikkyo, yokomenuchi shihonage, shomenuchi kokyunage (an iriminage variant, for those who train in Aikikai), and munetsuki kotegaishe. Ever since the first time a sempai came at me with a tanto ten or eleven years ago, I've loved the way this sharpens the training (written with no pun intended, but being kept in just the same): the attacks seem clearer and more committed, my posture and awareness seems more correct, my movements crisper and faster.

I would like to carry this over to empty hand practice but so far have been largely unsuccessful. Maybe it's too easy to forget about it by the next class...I think this will be my focus over the next few weeks.