trees and clouds

I am keeping track of the peach tree. Now there are vibrant green leaves undergirding the intensely pink blossoms, and I'm hopeful that the tree will survive at least another season. A said not to worry too much about the curling I saw last fall -- that peach trees crave dry heat and we don't really have that here.

I can see enormous clouds and patches of blue sky to the east and an undifferentiated mass of gray to the southwest. I guess it will rain later. The neighbors' bassline is coming through my bedroom walls a bit, so I've close the door. I wish I never had to hear anything from anyone but I know that's unrealistic. I'll look into the soundproofing options as soon as I feel a little more flush. That might not be for a while, what with upcoming payments: property taxes, heater, front windows. And I have to deal with the back windows sometime this year.

At the moment I am waiting for the drill to recharge so that I can put up a new coat rack on the front door.

Yesterday I drove down the peninsula to meet S and hike the Russian Ridge trail. We were thinking it might rain so we decided to start relatively early. But of course the sky went blue while we were out there. You couldn't quite see the bay but the clouds were stupendous. I got home around 2:30 and spent the rest of the day puttering -- washed the featherbed cover and some other white-ish items, picked a few flowers from the back yard and put them in small vases, read some blogs, wrote a long email to J.

On Friday Ivan came over to set me up with a remote for the heater. He asked if he should remove his very white shoes and I said no. And then he told me that he bought his shoes at a garage sale -- a woman whose boyfriend had left abruptly was selling off his things. His conversation is a bit jumpy but I think that's because he gets nervous. He invited me to get in touch if I ever feel like it, because he'd enjoy hanging out with me. He might have a crush on me but then again he might be a kind person who likes to collect friends.

After Ivan left I called Doug, who came over and sat in my green chair, smelling strongly of cigarettes. He wears silver bands on the fourth and fifth fingers of his left hand; his hands are large and chalky -- they have done a lot of work. He is not the least bit nervous and makes no secret of his fondness for women -- and for the woman who happens to be sitting across from him. He had no doubt that I should be interested in him. He said he's been single for seven months and he hates being alone. He doesn't understand what I do alone in my house, which makes him think I need to open myself up to excitement (which, apparently, means going to a casino and riding a horse and getting involved with him). I kept saying that I am fine as I am and I'm not interested in getting involved with anyone. I don't know if he believes me, because he doesn't want to believe me. He wants a girlfriend, and that's what matters. In some ways he reminds me of Dean -- he's got the same tendency to proclaim his undying interest in who you are and what you want and seize on whatever you say as evidence that you want, or should want, what he wants.

And now it is raining. 

morgan territory

Beautiful Saturday hike over those rolling hills. We encountered more cows than humans. Not much water flowing out there, unsurprisingly. We walked somewhere between six and seven miles, with a stop for lunch -- cheese, bread, tangerines, carrots and string beans, leftover segment of waffle, chocolate chip cookie.

On Sunday I walked up Bayview Hill with E and we encountered no one except one guy on a bike. When she dropped me off I saw that my garage had been tagged with purple paint. Agitating! (I called a Recology company I found online and they blasted it off yesterday.) A and B came over in the late afternoon for a drink and they brought delicious oozy cheese, pate, and bread from the fancy cheese shop in Dogpatch. It was a neighborly Sunday. 

neighborliness

I lazed around this morning, after being awakened around 3:00 by the sounds of the critter ripping off the wire screen. (Why don't I just fix the problem?) Eventually I got dressed and took the 23 to the farmers market, where I bought kumquats, garlic, sugar snap peas, Asian pears, and honey. On the way home I stopped by the library to return my Curbed DVD and see what else I could borrow. I ended up with season 1 of Game of Thrones (not exactly what I was looking for but I thought I'd give it a try) and a documentary about the rise and fall of Detroit. While I was checking those out I recognized Elizabeth and she recognized me. She educated me in the ways of the library -- showed me how to self-check-out, instructed me to go online and reserve DVDs, and so on. We walked homeward together and she ended up coming in to see my house. We discovered that we both know SN -- she has been in a poetry group with him for years. I am hoping she'll find time to take me on some neighborhood walks.

Last night MG came over for dinner. I thought I would get home by 5:30 but I didn't leave work until after that. It didn't matter, really -- I had some nibbly food out and our chicken with prunes and olives were ready eventually. When she arrived we noticed a dark SUV in my driveway. I saw a couple of guys putting bags in the back and I felt like I needed to say something, so I went down and said hey, guys. Before I could get any further they started saying they were loading their bags and getting ready to leave. I realized that they had been visiting Tiffany's house, so I had an awkward moment because I didn't remember if I had met them or what their names were, and they were behaving as if I was the one being rude. I noticed that they had parked about a foot from my garage -- why do people in this neighborhood make their neighbors walk in the street? Unfortunately, I couldn't put that into words, so I just said OK and went back up to the house. 

spring forward

Listening to the Takacs playing Bartok quartets, with the windows open, the breeze rippling through the curtains, and the sun coming in. I thought I was going to do nothing today except maybe go out for a walk. Then I realized that it was 4:00 and I had been weeding, doing laundry, vacuuming, and cleaning for most of the afternoon. I tried re-potting the orchid plant -- the roots were draping themselves over the edges of the original pot. I don't know if it will survive. The peach tree is blooming. There is a very small lemon on what I thought was a lime tree (unless limes are yellow before they ripen? I should look that up). I tried to hang a painting on the wall opposite the couch but I think it's too high. Darn it.

I'm happy that we sprang forward, even though we all lost an hour of sleep. Yesterday after the seminar finally ended I got a ride from UC Berkeley to downtown SF (slow going over the bridge--I probably should have taken BART). I bought a bottle of wine at the Safeway and then retrieved my bike from the PPIC garage. Rode it home, zigzagging to get around clueless pedestrians and narrowly avoiding being flattened by a taco truck and then a minivan turning left in front of me. I was home for about 3 minutes before J and D and N arrived. JB and K showed up about half an hour later. It was my first attempt at making dinner for two or more in this house and it worked out pretty well, thanks to a fairly simple meal plan (beef stirfry and lemon bars that I made on Friday night), JB's freshly made bread, and large doses of gin and wine (not together in the same glass!). J and K discovered that they'd been members of the same SF chorus around the same time, in the 90s. I enjoyed that, among other things.

chickweed

[From Sunday 2/24:] N and I did the foraging walk in Redwood this morning, and then we hiked on the other side of Skyline.We learned the names of many weeds, including chickweed, which usually grows alongside miner's lettuce and which has an amazing "string" inside the green stem. I think it is a pretty sure bet that we would not gain weight if we were forced to forage after the zombie apocalypse. But we'd probably be able to feed ourselves, marginally, and we might be able to avoid eating anything toxic. And it is unlikely that we would be cited for foraging on public land.

Now it's Sunday 3/3 and I am sitting here enjoying a late afternoon on the couch, watching the fog move east -- the sun is now a blindingly white section of sky. There is a thin line of pale blue to the southeast, but it won't last long. I can't believe how beautiful it is. Here is an iphone picture that may or may not do it justice.

Today N and Sandy and LEN and Isabel came over and we walked to Flora Grubb, eventually, where I bought a few small succulents. We had lunch at the pizza place on the corner. I thought it was very nice of them all to visit and admire the windows.

Yesterday I spent hours in the back pulling up oxalis and other weeds, including a lot of overgrown parsley. I cut back the large succulent that presses up against the laundryroom window. The compost bin is pretty much full. Doug came across the street while I was pausing to pull oxalis out of the lower two terraces. He wants to have dinner tomorrow, which makes me a little nervous but in the end I think it will be OK. I was feeling extra cautious when I saw him because I had just discovered a bag with a few items in it at the top of my steps -- Dean had dropped it off, who knows when, probably when I was out back. He may even have knocked.

Anyway, all is well. The windows look good, even though I need to paint the insides. The fireplace heater seems to work fine -- though the weather warmed up last week, so I haven't really tested it. More about all that in another post.