Category Archives: California

Fire at Will

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Sea Nettle Jellyfish

Fire at will, free will, where there’s a will, there’s a way—Today, we had a party in our front yard. We invited Art and Caroline, our next door neighbors and some guy named Charlie. The water company’s road crew crashed our party. They were laying fresh asphalt. It kind of stunk. What was the occasion for all this frivolity? We were throwing a will signing party. Our neighbors were our witnesses, Charlie was the mobile notary and the road crew was just there. It was high time that we did this and while now might not have been the best time to do this, but if not now, when? There’s no moment like the last moment. 

Well the County is closing all of its parks today, like the sculpture one that we managed to visit on Monday. I enjoyed our outing to Laumeier. I imagine that the city will soon follow suit. We visited Forest Park yesterday, with its already restricted vehicle access, which was actually kind of nice. They had closed three main roads on the western end of the park that effectively closed our half of the park to cars. We drove close to the park and then walked into the park and then up and down these closed drives. Social distancing was not an issue. In fact, it was eerily empty. I’ve been in the park at five AM, in the dead of winter and there were more people about then than what we saw yesterday. I hope that they don’t close Forest Park. Eliminating golf carts has already made the park’s golf courses almost virtual, but I expect that our city’s crown jewel will soon be shuttered. I imagine that next week, like that British guy, we’ll be reduced to running marathons in our backyard and the week after that in our basement. 

Kubo Cherry Tree at Isazawa

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Kubo Cherry Tree at Isazawa, Namiki Hajime, 2001

Zoom-bombing is now a thing. Zoom is a video conferencing app that is now of course all the rage. Our school district is using it for online teaching and Anne uses it to do her virtual gyro classes. Speaking of which, while she was working out, I virtually virtual exercised, while playing Civilization in the next room. Anyway, on some of the more public uses of Zoom, internet trolls have hijacked the video feed and substituted objectional imagery. I think that more experience will halt this behavior, but this is the world that we now live in. 

I have placed my first delivery order for groceries with InstaCart. I have seen their green t-shirt clad shoppers in the store for months now. With one hand on their shopping cart and the other holding a cell phone, they ply the aisles looking for other people’s food. Their website seems up-to-date with what is still available and warns when an item selected is running low. Their surcharge is modest, but my order won’t be delivered until Thursday.

Well, it wasn’t just the rain that halted the water company from tearing up the street and more importantly, putting it back together again. I think that a week is plenty of time to cure concrete. Besides they still have the other half of the block to do. They worked last Tuesday. It rained (a lot) both Wednesday and Thursday. It didn’t rain of Friday, but they usually only work a half-day anyway. They never work weekends and there was no sign of them today. I’m afraid that a torn up street is now also part of the new normal, but as Anne pointed out to me, at least they are on the other side of the street. If this situation continues, I expect that our across the street neighbors, will first cut the yellow caution tape, so that they can start using their driveways again. Then the orange cone will get moved, allowing on street parking on that side too. Except for my across-the-street neighbor who was gifted with a gravel pile. Do you detect a little schadenfreude here? Well, let’s talk about sewer lines then. The shoe was on the other side of the foot back then, when all of the work was on our side of the street.

While the above artwork version of cherry blossoms is gorgeous, there is nothing quite like the real thing. Saturday was a beautiful day and Anne and I took advantage of this brief spell of nice weather and got out for a walk. Spring has sprung and there are many varieties of flowering trees in bloom.

Neighborhood Cherry Blossoms