Only at night and in the open air

Hell

is other people.

Pas besoin de gril: l'enfer, c'est les autres.

I wonder whether Sartre ever had a panic attack.

Edvard Munch - The Scream

Gavi

Charles Filius made a memory book and visited Gavi's grave in Texas. Here's what I wrote for her.
*********************

Fuck, Gavi, I loved ya.

Ya split the ship,
ya sunk the treasure
Damn. What the hell
were you thinking?

Flying high, laughing low
Redhead Bastard's
got to go.

A good stiff drink
of whisky red
like you, ya Loon
you offered me
at the airport.
I drank your health,
I drink your death,
Off to bed.

Mazel tov
my darling
in blue velvet
vixen croon.
See you one day
dancing, singing
on the moon.

Where are ya, Gav,
Where are ya?
Howling like a rabid
wolf or swaying
sweet with torchsong
trembles and a laugh.
A laugh gone dry
in the desert of
your last good bye.
Where are ya, Gav?

Fuck Gav, I loved you.
Have the decency to come
haunt us sometime.
You Bastard.

Your pal 4eva,

Damzy-wamz Plume
***************************

Here's Chaz's online tribute

Here's Gavi by Gavi. Gotta love that Bastard.

10/30

You know you're living in California when Halloween is around the corner and they're predicting high fire danger for your area. I wish it would frickin rain already. This has been some month. I wasted the first 3 weeks working on this evil graphic designer's website. Never again. I'm tempted to not do any more web development for private clients after this one.

Our Halloween party was fun but it had all but petered out by 10.30 pm. Next year we should just start in the afternoon. Gettin' old..

Plumpkins

My kids are cute.

Keeping the tide in its place

It didn't rain today. It was sunny and cool.

I stayed up until 2 in the morning and woke up at 5.30. I function better on more sleep but I'm on a roll. I need to drink chamomile and have warm milk and honey in the evening and be forced to go to bed at a decent time. I should be forced to soak in a bath.

Good Gawd - Chazbo found Shea's MySpace page. Fucking nutter. Mermadness indeed.

Bipinnately Compound

Ok, it rained. It properly rained. The dog got all wet, rolled in the mud, tracked it through the house and shook himself in the kitchen.

Today I went to lunch at Amanda's house. She is the mom of one of Alfred's friends and is very nice and interesting. She is originally from Nanjing, lived through the Cultural Revolution and now works translating ancient Chinese poems and inscriptions made on jade and bronze for her husband's business. She made me delicious homemade pork dumplings, asparagus, potatoes and the tastiest "Dragon Well" green tea. There was also a moon cake with a whole salted duck egg yolk, bean paste and nuts in it! I will have her over my place for lunch next week. Must figure out a nice menu. I think I'll give her sprats. Have to think what to make..

Besides the culinary delights, she was quite delightful to speak with. She is sensitive and talks about things I like to speak about, essential things, ideas, senses, family, culture, history. There is a lovely hill near her house which will go hike on next time I visit her.

Outside her house there is an unusual tree. It droops like a willow but has more delicate, bipinnately compound leaves with dark pink berries just forming now after an efflourescence of tiny white flowers. Maybe it's just plain old pinnately compound. I wonder what it is.

First Rain

Not enough rain for me though. When it rains, it pours and I want it to pour. Rain on me. It's lovely to get cool and refreshed outside and then to come in for the warm and cozies. The chimney needs a sweeping.

Work and general business are raining on. I have two nervy women who are trying to avoid paying me for my services rendered, one for a class her son is taking with me, the other for web development services. I don't know how some people live with themselves. They must make up some idiotic justification for trying to get another person's hard work for free. I can't imagine what it is since these people are certainly in no way my superiors. I'm glad to be older and wiser. Ain't no one taking advantage of me no more unless I want them to. Rain on!

Blowin' in the Breeze - Trees are Terrific

They promising that the weather will chill. They've even promised rain. Maybe tomorrow. Leaves are blowing all around.

Here is a fun website for the elementary school 1st and 4th grade buddies class.

Trees are Terrific (with Pierre!)

Autumn Comes

Art and I were talking in bed this morning about how far we've come in our ability to feel happiness. When we first met we were both emotional basket cases, terrified of doom and bearing the scars of all the death, sickness, abuse and maladaptive behaviors we had experienced all around us in our youths. Stalwart in our determination to breed and create a better life, it still amazes me that we have perservered so long and that life has indeed improved. And yet, both of us are always, in the back of our minds, not even too far back, expecting utter disaster at any moment. A vestigial warrior exists in both of us, his more stoic than mine, but both willing to trudge onward through the obstacles.

It's now autumn proper. The leaves are thoroughly dried out, the branches reaching bravely in their thrist. This time of year reminds me of a movie I once saw about tribal tensions in Yugoslavia. It's called "Before the Rain".

Dropping Dry

At last, the end of the summer. High fire season begins. The creeks are down to a bare trickle and the trees are so dry that the leaves begin to fall. The hillsides have been beige since late May since our rainy season ends in early April. Who can afford to water things around here?

The fire season always precedes the rain. I'm excited just thinking about the rain. It's too hot here for me and we don't waste money watering the grounds. It's a habitat. A gopher, deer and quail habitat. It looks pretty to me.

Phantom dendrites

My fingers hurt.

for the trees

can't see the forest for the trees

surrounded by all these tall, tall trees and don't know whether to walk past, climb, run away or dig a hole and fall asleep

i do it to myself

that's how my life gets sometimes - i just overdo it, slosh away, waves up, into the deeps, riding the crest, crash, over the banks and into the shallows

skidding all the way out here into the woods

i do it to myself

computer tech, english teacher, mom, cello, arabic, cub scouts, house, tech teaching, bollywood, hindi - what the fuck am i doing? where am i going? if i can only keep my stress level down it can be ok. must keep whacking down the woods, must forge path, must move forward

i do it to myself

---

Dense forest, dusk. Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, USA
Photo by Q.T. Luong

Sturdy Oak, Flimsy Me

Then again, I'm pretty sturdy. I started work this week for real and have been obsessively throwing myself into it, doing more work than I'm getting paid to do and feeling pretty good because I am busy and appreciated and doing something others can't here on campus. In any case, I need to feed people now.

* & * & * & * & * & * & * & * & * & * & * & * & * &

They're fed and to bed. My sweet boys.

Even Older Beans

The pantry is mostly done. All that needs doing is the floor to be mopped. My hands are raw. There is a box of old canned beans that need to go to the food bank.

Photo credit Sara Heinrich

Old Lavender

Sounds rawther nostalgic, doesn't it? Looks rawther bland but it does still smell lovely, despite being over a year old. I don't know how long old lavender, dried lavender, keeps its fragrance. Leila gave me this crop to use in soap-making with the cub scouts, which we did last year. The rest is now in a nice round jar.

Today I started to tackle the pantry. I worked for 3 hours and am about a third done. There were napkins and cans of beans and plastic bags and boxes of pasta strewn all over the ground, making it difficult to reach the inner sanctum of the pantry, which was (is) all likewise chaotic and filthy. It has to be done. It is a big job. There are lots of big jobs to do around here.

Bamboozled

Granted, I was very excited about all the greenery when we first moved here, yea these 13 years ago. Many, many books on West Coast horticulture, composting and xeriscaping were read and the data duly assimilated. Sadly, the upshot resulted in my knowing the Latin names for all the plants in my gardens, and little inclination (or experience) to care for them. It makes me sad and yes, ashamed.

It's a little like my problem with the refrigerator and pantry and other neglected spaces - I have some sort of block to fixing the problem. Something so simple as throwing out some rotting tomato sauce becomes a pathological source of dread until it becomes so bad that someone else has to throw it out, to my shame and helplessness. It's very, very stupid and I don't understand it. I'd like to chalk it up to laziness, but I'm really not that lazy. I can study for many hours, organize and execute many projects, work like crazy when needed. But in the domestic sphere, I have a block. What can I do to overcome it? The house and grounds are deteriorating.

Here is a picture of Nandina, a type of ornamental bamboo that was planted in my backyard close to some citrus trees. It is like a weed to me. It chokes out the citrus and was planted there irresponsibly, in my opinion. I want to yank it out. I decapitated a very sick rhododenron in the front yard because it was depressing me with its stricken, shrivelled leaves and thwarted, dried-out buds. I tried to add iron and keep it watered earlier in the summer but it only withered. Art is upset. If he is so upset he should pay for a gardener. I think I will end up doing that once I start getting paid for my computer job. Please, Good, let me get my act together with the house and grounds. This poor nandina deserves to be transplanted rather than killed off. It really could be lovely and ornamental if only in the right place.

Summertime

I can't wait for summer to be over. Yes, the kids are home and I don't have to wake up as early most days, but I don't like the heat and there's really too much sun for my constitution altogether here in California. The garden needs watering and no one has gotten it together (certainly not myself) to initiate any sort of auto-watering. The idealized plan is for me to hire a landscaper/gardner once my salary starts coming in. Then, of course, the rains will also have begun and it will be less of an issue. But once it all cools down (usually sometime in late October) I have more energy too and so will be able to do more about the situation myself. Then comes Halloween when we don't care so much about the decrepitude of the house, the broken door, the peling paint, the rampant spider webs and drifts of dry leaves.

It must be a symptom of my agoraphobia. The first inclination is to sequester myself in my dark little office and occupy myself here, shuffling papers, studying Arabic, researching whatever strikes my fancy at the moment. I only venture outside when I have to, which is quite a bit, considering that I have to shop and shuttle children around. I go to my appointments, my cello lesson, I try to be social, but it is all an effort and certainly against my primary inclination. If it were entirely up to me, I would have the groceries delivered and minimize strangers coming to the house. Now I'm being idiotic.

Here's what I recently discovered: an amazing similarity between the folk culture of Bulgaria and a secluded pagan enclave in the Hindu Kush mountains of Pakistan. Both have similarities with British folk culture as well. All do mumming around the winter solstice. The similarities between the Bulgarian and the Kalasha are more striking as both have a very well-preserved and seemingly complete suite of seasonal pagan holidays.

http://www.site-shara.net/_kalasha/eflm-kalasha.html

http://www.ishipress.com/kalasha.htm

Mimosa

There was a mimosa tree in front of our neighbor's house when I was growing up. It's such a summery tree, all wispy, pink and feathery. It's a lovely summer drink too.

These days are very nice. I love my family so much.

Persephone and the Pomegranite Tree

Crappy books kill trees. No more crappy books for me. I'm tired of this idiotic mother's book club. It was a frivolous undertaking 2 years ago but enough is enough already. I've wasted untold time reading very badly written books and then have felt snooty and guilty for confessing at book club that I found them awful.

I've renewed my subscription to Persephone Books with a purchase of three more of their marvelous offerings. Today I started William - An Englishman by Cicely Hamilton. It is refreshing to hear someone so matter-of-factly describe the hypocritical inflexibility of many self-described progressive thinkers. In a time of impending war the message is all the more relevant.

It was well for them, therefore, that their creed, like their code of manners and morals, was identical or practically identical. It was a simple creed and they held to it loyally and faithfully. They believed in a large, vague and beautifully undefined identity, called by William the People, and by Griselda, Woman; who in the time to come was to accomplish much beautiful and undefined Good; and in whose service they were prepared meanwhile to suffer any amount of obloquy and talk any amount of nonsense. They believed that Society could be straightened and set right by the well-meaning efforts of well-meaning souls like themselves - aided by the Ballot, the Voice of the People, and Woman. They believed, in defiance of the teachings of history, that Democracy is another word for peace and goodwill towards men. They believed (quite rightly) in the purity of their own intentions; and concluded (quite wrongly) that the intentions of all persons who did not agree with them must therefore be evil and impure....They were, in short, very honest and devout sectarians - cocksure, contemptuous, intolerant, self-sacrificing after the manner of their kind.

Pretty cynical stuff coming from a feminist, a feminist who experienced first-hand the political strategies of the suffragettes in Britain, and who lived and worked through World War I.