unwashed old woman

I haven't showered since Thursday. I caught a whiff of myself as I was walking around Bernal this afternoon, wearing the huge Waubonsie hoodie David gave me. Looking, no doubt, like a woman who doesn't much care what she looks (or smells) like. I walked up the hill and back down, and did some grocery shopping. Also bought wine and whiskey at the bevmo.

Over the weekend I rediscovered Dean and Britta -- the CD Nola burned for me is playing now, as the sky clouds up. It might rain soon.

On xmas afternoon I walked to Heron's Head with Alka. Brad drove over with the dogs and all of us walked out to the end of the spit. These photos are from a solo walk a couple of weeks ago. It has been cold these past few days, which means I don't smell as unwashed as I might otherwise. I'm happy to be home. Happy to be able to turn on the heater and sit close to it. Happy to think that my kitchen and bedroom and the back room will be warmer when there are new windows and insulation. These past few mornings there has been condensation blocking my view out those windows.

holiday chill

I am sitting next to the fireplace and the heater is on. I think it's colder here than in the midwest or the northeast. Strange weather. The sun is out and the sky is blue. I have made my christmas call to mom and dad. I am thinking about going to see a movie. But somehow that doesn't seem like a good idea. I just want to do nothing. Except that it's chilly, and movement warms a body up. Well, so I will have the heat on until I get ready to do something. Like, for example, walking to Heron's Head.

Charlito, the world is chillier without you.

asking too much

When I was young I asked more of people than they could give: everlasting friendship, endless feeling. Now I know to ask less of them than they can give: a straightforward companionship. And their feelings, their friendship, their generous actions seem in my eyes to be wholly miraculous: a consequence of grace alone.

--Albert Camus, The First Man 

If love

If I felt loved by someone I might feel beautiful. Maybe, maybe not. I feel pretty good, most of the time, but I don't have access to the very particular joy of loving and being loved. It's something I think about at this time of year when the daylight is limited and it begins to rain -- if we are lucky we get rain, and we have been getting rain so far this winter. Beautiful, pelting rain! And enormous clouds. A little lightning and thunder on Friday, in the very early morning.

Anyway, I try to love as many and as much as I can. It helps, a lot. I'm still a weasel sometimes, and I let my fear get in control. It also helps to forgive yourself, and others.

attention

I was happy to read this:

Existential loneliness and a sense that one’s life is inconsequential, both of which are hallmarks of modern civilizations, seem to me to derive in part from our abandoning a belief in the therapeutic dimensions of a relationship with place. A continually refreshed sense of the unplumbable complexity of patterns in the natural world, patterns that are ever present and discernible, and which incorporate the observer, undermine the feeling that one is alone in the world, or meaningless in it. The effort to know a place deeply is, ultimately, an expression of the human desire to belong, to fit somewhere.

The determination to know a particular place, in my experience, is consistently rewarded. And every natural place, to my mind, is open to being known. And somewhere in this process a person begins to sense that they themselves are becoming known, so that when they are absent from that place they know that place misses them. And this reciprocity, to know and be known, reinforces a sense that one is necessary in the world.

--Barry Lopez, "The Invitation"

saturday before thanksgiving

thursday night

I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy, and to make plans.
-E. Hemingway

fall is here

I am eternally, devastatingly romantic, and I thought people would see it because ‘romantic’ doesn’t mean ‘sugary.’ It’s dark and tormented — the furor of passion, the despair of an idealism that you can’t attain.

-- Catherine Breillat

I can't get enough of the beauty in the sunsets. My photos--taken with my phone from my front steps--are mere approximations, but they do at least remind me of the way the sky looked for five or ten minutes. I am amazed several times a week and I wish everyone else felt the same way. Who knows, maybe they do.

The quote above reminds me of the shock I felt when M said, in passing, as if it were obvious, that I am not emotional. That was the turning point in getting over our friendship -- I finally realized that she didn't know me and never had. I had no choice but to accept it, because there was no point in feeling hurt by it.

could we

Could we tone it down a bit without the whole thing collapsing? Would it be impossible to face up to at least part of the truth? Is the whole thing held together by delusions and lies? Can't we  acknowledge that we've done some people wrong and try to make it right?

sweltering sunday

It is hot; I'm in my purple tank top, thinking about fleeing to the back of the house where it is at least ten degrees cooler. I finished Preparation for the Next Life this morning, because I could not stop reading until I got to the end. I hit a few snags here and there -- syntax that I would've like to have tweaked, and a few sudden, brief narratorial intrusions -- but overall it is lovely, horrible, heartbreaking, and alive. As I was reading, I could hear the singing and some of the preaching going on in the church across the street.

I keep thinking about the difficulty of human interaction, the terrible loneliness and fear that sets people apart and sometimes puts them at odds. I wonder if cruelty and violence are as common or more common than the way I tend to experience the world -- as benign, or indifferent at the very least. I can't quite face up to the terrible unfairness of life. I often feel guilty in a useless sort of a way, especially at night when I am trying to sleep. I think about my old friend Michael Stortz, who used to sit on the El allowing a crazy woman in the seat behind him to pull his hair and poke him with something sharp -- he said he felt he owed it to her. I know I said that was crazy at the time but I have never been able to dismiss it, or forget it.

I am alone today, doing laundry and deciding not to go to the grocery store on the grounds that I don't want to move around much. I go back to work tomorrow, and that will be good. I don't know when the heat wave will subside.

sunday sunset

by myself

"How much better is silence; the coffee cup, the table. How much better to sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake. Let me sit here for ever with bare things, this coffee cup, this knife, this fork, things in themselves, myself being myself."

— Virginia Woolf, The Waves

I enjoyed my transbay bus ride to work on Friday -- I don't often get to sit and look out the window on the way across the bridge. It is so ridiculously beautiful. I was very, very tired but somehow when you are sleepless at someone else's house it doesn't seem so terrible. 

I'm in a bittersweet mood that is typical for me on a Sunday. I drank a little too much last night and had fun playing the movie synopsis game with Dave and Tanya and Greg and Chalon and Kate. Suddenly, as Kate was dropping me off at my car, my head started aching, and I was nervous about driving home. But I ended up enjoying the drive -- there wasn't much traffic on the bridge or in SF. I haven't done much with my sunday, so far. A load of laundry is hanging out back, no doubt drying very quickly in the heat and sun. I might be able to convince myself to get groceries and wine and stop by the building supply store.

waiting and forgetting

Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worst kind of suffering.

Paulo Coelho, “By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept” 

quite contrary

I don't know how to sleep. I am home today because last night was so rough. I can't blame the raccoons or my neighbors. I was thinking about B for a while but I can't blame him, either. I started thinking about him because I wasn't sleeping. Cat Power is singing "Please don't let me go." I feel it, I really do. But I don't believe in love at the moment.

Oh, poor, poor me. I had a wonderful weekend. Drank too much on Friday with A and E. Came home and felt lonely (poor, poor me). Went to Marin on Saturday, stayed overnight with J+K, hiked Estero trail with J+K, Dana, and Dave. Dropped Dana at the Caltrain station yesterday evening. Came home, could not sleep. Back to where I started.

Feelings come and go and I am getting older. Those are facts. I'm sure these lonesome feelings will fade away. But the underlying lack, or failure, or whatever you want to call it -- how best to deal with that? Should I sign up with match.com or some other service? Should I cut myself loose from the online personals and focus on other things?

II

It is not important, I know. But it feels very heavy, sometimes. Is it really just a trick of the mind? Can I switch it off if I really want to? I'm such a tiny dot on the fringes of the universe, I know this and yet of course I am the largest, most important thing in my little tiny world.

another beautiful sunset

I think it might mean that the air quality is bad, but the sunsets have been so lovely that I almost don't care. The second shot was taken about half an hour after the first one -- as the sun descended, the clouds lost their color.

I have been getting a little more serious about the remodel. I got quotes for caesarstone and neolith from Fox Marble -- the latter is about $900 more than the former. Worth it, I think. Des is going to look at the plan and give me a sense of how much the construction would cost. I'm bracing myself for the cost of dealing with dry rot and other "old house" issues. I owe the architect a few thousand dollars, so far. Can I afford this? It is interesting to be out on a limb, even if it's not life and death.

I'm losing my grip on okc. I looked at myself in the mirror yesterday and saw an older woman with a ring of fat around her midsection and a plainjane face. I'm interested in myself but I don't blame the men out there for not seeing anything all that interesting. Maybe it isn't the forum for me. I don't know if there's any other forum that would work. I can't see myself suddenly gaining dating skills. I could perhaps push myself to look out for opportunities. But what would that mean?

choice

He loved her, of course, but better than that, he chose her, day after day. Choice: that was the thing.

—Sherman Alexie

Yesterday I spent a few hours with Brian, in the Mission. We spent a good while at Gracias Madre, a vegan Mexican place, talking and eating (very good food). I got up to go to the bathroom, and while I was gone Brian got to chatting with a couple at the other end of our communal table -- Alice and Jim, visiting from southern New Jersey. Alice is vegan and apparently it's not easy to be vegan in southern New Jersey. It was a sweet and amusing interaction -- Alice is beautiful in a "real housewives" kind of way (I hope that doesn't seem mean! I don't mean it that way), and Jim is a fairly well-preserved 50-something suburban guy, neither conservative nor liberal. He had a kind of sense of authority but he also talked about liking the Dead -- perhaps because he was talking to people who were not suburban or conservative. He was clearly very proud to be with Alice, in a way that I kinda liked. 

Anyway, at some point Alice asked us how we know each other, and after he deadpanned that I was his sister (and I interjected, wow, that's not a good sign), Brian told her the truth, and she made a show of being surprised that we barely knew each other. So, of course, I asked how long she and Jim had been together and she said four months -- which surprised me a little. And then Jim, a bit of an oversharer, told us how they met -- she was a nurse who took care of his mother (for god's sake), and at first he thought she was too young for him (yeah, right) but then he realized that she was older than she looks (actually, she looked right around 50 to me). She kept returning to the fact that we were on our second date and they were keeping us from it, so eventually we took our leave. After we were out on the street, Brian and I speculated about how long they'd last. He thought maybe another six months -- he did not have positive feelings about Jim -- but I was more optimistic. That may well have been the highlight of our afternoon. That and the fact that Brian came very close to buying a rug from Peace Industry. 

Of course, I am full of doubt about whether I'll see him again. Our interaction was uneven -- partly because this is a very weird way to get to know someone. And partly because I do like him, I think, and that makes me nervous (or shy?). And partly because he's a bit of an odd bird. I often feel like I'm not telling the truth, even though I'm trying to be honest. The trouble is that I don't feel like I know what is going on -- and really, how could I? I don't know if we are making an investment in one another. A lot of the time, this doesn't matter -- we're just having a conversation. But sometimes I get tangled up in the strangeness of our situation. I don't have good dating skills. 

So I'm going to be grateful that I had an interesting afternoon. I could probably write a short story about the encounter with the couple from New Jersey.

rationalize this

I've been alone for a long time and will probably always be alone -- it's very unlikely that l'll find anyone who has anywhere near as much interest in me as I do. But, obviously, part of me is not willing to accept that fate. I don't know if it takes courage to date blindly, but it is no small effort to meet people. You are constantly registering the way they look and move and sound, and the effect they are having on you. You are listening to what they are saying and trying to respond appropriately. And all the while you are trying to "be yourself." Which means, I guess, trying to be honest. And trying not to worry about how you're being perceived (that's a tough one). Last night I was marveling at the weirdness of these feelings -- they are real, but their source, or their object, is not. This is perfectly normal, I know, but it feels absurd in this context. I'm trying particularly hard on this go-round not to take it too seriously, to keep it at arm's length by finding it interesting.

house dreams

Ryan coming on Tuesday to measure. Loan approved. Des most likely available to be the contractor. Now I have to do it. Makes me feel itchy. Actually, I do feel itchy, and I'm not sure why. Too much sun, perhaps. I sat out in the back for a while yesterday afternoon, while the clothes were drying. I was reading the piano stories and trying to keep my face shaded. I was thinking that my right calf is oddly tan, because I roll up my pant leg when I'm riding my bike. I was thinking that I wish I could lose 5 or 10 pounds without trying. I was looking at the tangle of dead and unwanted plants in my back yard. And every once in a while I thought about the kitchen and the laundry room and what I want them to be when all the money has been spent.

Davis

I walked past Davis, sitting in the shade of a small tree in his front yard, sipping from a plastic bottle of some kind of juice. He reached out a hand to shake mine -- long fingers, some of them permanently bent at the top knuckle. A dry, firm palm. His eyes look a little clouded and they are light -- like crescent moons. He nodded and told me that he has lived in his house for 40 years. I told him I had come from the farmers market and he repeated that, dreamily, with the emphasis on the third syllable -- "farmers market -- just the way Hank says it. I am always amazed and pleased by the kind of courtly affability he exudes -- I never seem to get used to it. It makes a woman of a certain age feel good.

beautiful name

Years ago someone I knew then was trying to remember the name of a town just east of Rockridge; he said it had a beautiful name. I've often wondered about that. Is there a town I don't know out there, or over there? I keep an eye out for it.

lonely tonight

Poor lonesome me. For someone as hypersensitive as I am, it's risky to get even a few hopes up.I can't tell if it's pleasurable pain or just plain old pain that I feel whenever I wonder if I will hear from him again. I don't know how people do it, this dating thing. I can hardly stand the uncertainty. Fortunately, I've managed to distance myself from it in the past few days, thanks to Linda and our daytrip to Bolinas.

Sometimes I'm tempted to believe I'm alone because there's something wrong with me. But I think it's better, all in all, to feel strongly. Better than not feeling. I just have to remember that I can't blame anyone else for the way I feel.

The bright side is that I feel like I've been roused from a stupor, and I didn't really know I was in one. Here's hoping I can stay awake for at least a little while. 

understanding

Do not try to understand things too quickly -- people, most of all.

Communication makes you laugh. 
-Lacan

doubt

and insecurity overtook me as I got out of the car. I was not prepared for the weirdness of the end of the date, if that's what it was. Near the beginning he said something about telling himself he would be himself and I said I had been telling myself the same thing, but then I realized I didn't even know what that meant. I mean, I wanted to be a certain version of myself, the one who felt like she was having a good conversation. But I caught myself worrying that I was boring the shit out of him. I can't stop the self-excoriation long enough to figure out whether he was boring me. I just know that my heart sank as soon as it was over. This is why the dating game is so hard.

scappoose

I am on a houseboat, sitting in a little patch of shade in the corner of the deck. I wish I could stay another night. But I will be getting in the car again in a couple of hours, so I can get to Jacqueline's place by evening. It is getting hot but I don't mind, as long as the shade remains. I am having a really good time, so far. Not without some stress, mostly from driving around places I don't know. But it was really good to see Linda, Isabel, Pamina, and Ed.

Yesterday Linda and I drove 90 miles to the coast -- to meet up with P and Ed but also to escape the heat in Portland. The beach was perfect. I did not apply enough sunscreen to avoid getting sunburn on my toes. P seems very calm -- granted, she had been on vacation for almost two weeks, and she was not looking forward to going back to work. But she wasn't at all restless or fretful.

I'm thinking often about B, whom I haven't met. We are becoming pen pals, of a sort. I am trying to restrain my imagination, with some success. When you meet in person for the first time, you realize that you are looking at a human being, a mere mortal. Granted, that moment is not necessarily the final word -- sometimes my platonic ideals are nudged aside by living, breathing reality.

Also: I have an architect! This is very exciting. When I get home I will sign the paperwork -- and I'm hoping that my mortgage refinance will be finalized.

odd moment

The other night someone banged on my door around 11 -- I'd almost gotten to sleep and had my white noise machine going, so I didn't quite know what was happening for a minute or two. When I got to the front door I saw a guy standing in in front of the house (at the top of the brick stairs) with his back to me, looking at his phone. He looked a little like Rand Paul -- a thinner, more citified Rand Paul. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt. I shouted (through the door with the plexiglas window) "What's going on?" He turned and said he was looking for Lillian. I said there was no such person here. He said OK and went slowly down the brick stairs, peering at his phone the whole time.

Weird. When somebody knocks on the door of a darkened house at 11 pm, you expect it to be an emergency of some kind.

stolen quote

She survived whatever happened;
she forgave; she became.

W.H. Auden, The Model 

Saw this quote on That Kind of Woman and liked it so much that I had to have it. 

Memorial Day come and gone. Unbelievable that we are nearing the end of May. I had a good conversation with Hank at the Alemany farmers market, and I hiked and dined with Julie and Nola (et al.), on separate days. It really is a wonderful life, most of the time.

I am writing this as I polish off a glass of wine, after having wolfed down a BLAT -- tomatoes from the farmers market, bread fresh from Acme. It's the kind of happiness that counts. It almost makes me feel guilty -- I'm vulnerable to making that kind of connection between happiness and guilt. Why should I be the one who is happy, after all? It's not as if I've earned it. I know that it doesn't matter, in the end. whether I've deserved what I've gotten. And that it's much, much better to feel happy with whatever I've got going on, as long as I'm not actively harming anyone else. What does "actively" mean, you ask? I don't have an answer. 

Rodeo/Chronkite

Julie and I met at Rodeo Beach and hiked up the hill. It was sunny here at home, of course, but foggy in the headlands. We were happy with that. We talked about her trip to Boston and Germany, the thatching of the roof on the Lubeck house,  and other things. It was easy to get there but very difficult to get home. I had forgotten about the Cherry Blossom parade . . .

Oh, well. I kept telling myself to be grateful that I don't have to drive around SF very often. And I listened to the Giants game -- It wasn't a good one, but it was good to hear Jon Miller.

I stopped at Whole Foods and Building Resources and then, finally, I got home. I have been lounging on the couch when really I should be doing chores. My eyes are smarting from the sunscreen -- I could, at the very least, get up to wash my face. But I am not willing.

patriotism worth feeling

What is patriotism but the love of the good things we ate in our childhood.
-Lin Yutang

The upward redistribution of the last 35 years was overwhelmingly the result of government policies that structured the market to favor the wealthy.

-Dean Baker

wild horses

I've been listening to Pandora to drown out a phone conversation in the neighboring office. Wild Horses! Takes me straight back to my dorm room at Carleton. I can't remember which year it was or which boyfriend was upsetting me, but oh, the tears were streaming.

saturday at home

I am drinking red wine and watching the pastel sunset from the couch. It is difficult to imagine that later, when I'm trying to sleep, I will toss and turn and worry, because right now I am so content.

hooky hike

KW and I played hooky last Wednesday at Mt. Tam. We hiked from Pantoll to Stinson Beach, where we had lunch. I ate way too much corned beef hash, and then we headed back up (and up, and up!) via Matt Davis. It was great to go on a weekday, when we could walk without tripping over dozens of other people. Also lovely to have cool temperatures, especially on the uphill.

I have been feeling lonely lately, so I was happy to come across this Walcott poem on That Kind of Woman. It bucked me up. The idea of a man who isn't more trouble than he's worth calls up all sorts of longing and lamentation. But it's just an idea. There are other ideas that I can convert into reality much more easily. It's a beautiful day and I had a good afternoon with B+A and tomorrow I go hiking with nb and hh. What in the world is wrong with that?

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome
and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you have ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Derek Walcott, “Love After Love”  

international farmers market

I was buying apples from the young Russian woman with the short hair, and a Chinese woman, maybe around my age, was tasting the apple juice. I was thirsty so I picked up a dixie cup and tasted it, too. It was so delicious that I decided to buy half a gallon -- the Russian told me it was $7 for one and $12 for two. As I was getting my money out the Chinese woman tried to convince the Russian to sell each of us a half gallon for $6. I laughed and told her we should have colluded at a slight distance. The Chinese woman said she was just trying to make things more affordable, that this was the way things were done where she came from. The Russian said she had left a communist country and now she was a capitalist. The Chinese woman argued that it would be more profitable to sell two half gallons than just one. I said, I'm a rule follower, and now I'm going.

life until death

Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.

-MLKjr.

stormy sunset

I saw lightning and heard a little thunder but it did not rain over my house. As I was watching the sky I was talking to MM, here to spend a last little bit of time with her Aunt Sheila, who died yesterday. I drove up to Mill Valley on Sunday to take a walk and have lunch with MM, and I spent a little time in the room where Sheila was dying, breathing but not conscious. I "helped" MM and her mother sort through a box of photos and postcards from France and other places. Eventually, though, I felt like my purpose had been served and I should let them get back to their vigil.

I watered my ceanothus that morning. 

o california

I want to wake in the lagoon of the sky
where sunlight binds the mutilated palm-tree dawn
like duct tape, an aerial shot rolling and rolling
out of town in the muffled trunk of a brown panel van
along the death roads, the desert roads, the hairpin
turns, California, the desert silvering in my eye
like a coyote, I want to swim in the jewel jade pool
of your lonesome foothill vowels,
stretch out under the mirroring clouds
like a million rooftop deck chairs, feel
that blankness unfurl in my mind like luxury,
California, your beautiful blankness, your sheen.
O, shake me a basil gimlet at Silver Lake
and tell me about your tattoos, hermana, how death
is that bad tooth wobbling in my head,
in my head, California, that skyline that breaks
into backdrop hills I know like nostalgia, pink saguaro
and sumac, the ripe berries smashed like bodies,
each ragged cactus cross hoisting up against a silver
desert screen, California, and night that goes on like a drive-in,
palms exploding like napalm, fireworking over everything.
I want to ride the long smooth tan body
of California, I want to eat the bear of the flag
of California, I want to roll like a corpse off the highway
of your chase scenes, I want my perfect teeth
preserved, California, my teeth buried
in the earth like a curse, California, and won’t you show me
where the bodies are kept, California,
won’t you show me, show me, show me.

Sarah Holland-Batt

criminal justice?

There was a sense that, as police, they believed themselves to hold an unquantifiable power over elected officials. The idea seemed to be that there was a pact between law enforcement and politicians. Cops did the dirty work, they waded in the muck, keeping the poor and violent in check and monitoring the human detritus that is the result of inequities they'd had no hand in creating. In return, politicians turned a blind eye to the excessive use of force.

M. Greenberg, "The NY Police vs. the Mayor," NYRB (Feb. 5, 2015)

wise words

I realized that beauty was not a thing that I could acquire or consume. It was something that I just had to be. You can’t rely on beauty to sustain you.
What actually sustains us, what is fundamentally beautiful, is compassion for yourself and those around you. That kind of beauty inflames the heart and enchants the soul… We remember the beauty of her spirit even though the beauty of her body has faded away

-Lupita Nyong’o

I have had dinner and a big glass of red wine and am watching Empire. Taraji P. Henson. Enough said. 

How am I going to spend my last few decades, if I have that much time?

warm winter

It's 70+ and sunny, very warm out in the street. I have the windows open, but there isn't much of a breeze. I'm thinking about maybe tending to my tree cutout down by the curb -- the cacti and some of the jade I planted have been flattened, which pisses me off. I would like to erase that feeling.

It's too hot for that right now, though. I am sitting here drinking seltzer with lemon in it, and the neighbor with the shiny red car is finally driving off, with his baseline booming.


While I was walking over to the farmers market, several men wished me a happy valentines day. The contrast between the men in this neighborhood and the men in Bernal seemed particularly stark today. Over there, they rarely make eye contact or smile -- too busy and important for that. I never thought I'd say this but I really don't like those skinny white guys. But I do kinda like this mural, which was probably created by a skinny white guy.

I put off the kitchen/laundryroom redo so I can save more money. I had to have the flashing replaced on the dormer window -- after I came home from NC I discovered a brown stain on the living room ceiling. I got a good recommendation from Des -- Juan and Manolo Landeros. They are not certified but I think they did good work. They also put some flashing on the garage roof. And, of course, they didn't charge all that much. Now I need to see if Liam is willing to come over and repair/paint the siding, and maybe also the front steps.

Maybe I will get a nice raise this year? And that will help me, psychologically, when it comes to paying for the redo. Des came over earlier this week to measure and give me a very general sense of the cost, from her pov. It is less than what Christi was projecting. But, as Des said, it really depends on my "finishes." And on undiscovered "old house" problems.

Barnabe Peak

From my New Years (-ish) hike with J+K. We had been hoping to see salmon running but that particular trail was closed for maintenance. So we climbed up to the peak, about 1,400 feet. We encountered three comically clueless twenty-somethings who had ignored the many signs (not to mention the caution tape) and come up the closed trail. On our way down, we saw them again, sitting in the bed of a tiny truck (like the ones the parking meter checkers use). They flashed peace signs as they went past. We fogies disapproved.

Afterward we had dinner and played a new board game that K likes--I did not like it all that much, probably because I lost. The evening went late enough to convince me to stay over.

The next morning J and I took advantage of a closing sale at a garden supply store. And she donated two prickly succulents for my tree cutout, which I managed to plant that afternoon. One leaf has been bent but both plants are still in the ground.

I am getting a leak fixed on the roof, but after that happens it can and should rain some more.