Go Outside

Bob and I went out for a walk today before lunch.  The air was rated “Good” for the first time in more than a week.  It was very good to be outside again after the week of extreme heat followed by a week of unhealthy air due to all the fires in N. California.  Thank goodness for an on-shore breeze today.  We went on a nearby loop we’ve been on before numerous times.  I’m always amazed to see beautiful things I’ve missed on previous walks.  It makes me wonder how many amazing, incredible things I overlook in my daily life.  There was a hand-painted sign giving excellent pandemic advice:  Go outside; Eat well;  Read good books and Be happy.  There was an amazing metal-work gate we’ve walked by more than a dozen times without noticing it.  Bob, who is really into metal-working marveled over the craftsmanship of the gate.  The gardens are mostly dried up already waiting for the winter rains to come, which won’t happen until November.  But this month the magnolias are in bloom.  Today there was a large creamy waxy blossom low enough to photograph but not to smell.  This is surely the time to notice and appreciate all the simple pleasures in our daily lives.  It’s time to remember to be grateful for them.

Smoke

First came the pandemic and sheltering in place, taking away our freedom to go anywhere.  Bob and I managed by going on long walks in the neighborhood.  Then a couple of weeks ago, came the extreme heat and we managed to keep cool by huddling in the downstairs and cooling off the house by opening up the windows at night.  It was too hot to walk.  Now there is terrible smoke from the 560 fires in California.   We can’t open the windows any more.  Thank goodness there aren’t any fires in our neighborhood!  The Garden has been closed to everyone, volunteers, staff and public for 4 days now due to unhealthy air.  I can smell smoke in our house and when I wiped the kitchen counter, I could see the fine gray ash that had settled on it.   Today’s photo is from a couple of days ago, showing the setting sun through layers of smoke.  Light peeking through reminding me that there are better days ahead.  Joe Biden promised hope and light in his acceptance speech.  Yes!!

And It Goes On and On

Last Sunday morning very early, around 4 am, I woke up suddenly with bright lights shining in my eyes.  In my half awake state, I remember wondering why police were in our garden rummaging around and shining their lights through our bedroom window.  Then I realized that can’t be the case, we’re on the second floor.  Just then, I saw more flashes and I began to watch the most amazing lightning show I’ve seen in a long time.  Flashes went across the sky making nets across the whole of our view stretching from south of San Francisco to way north in Marin County.  I stood at the open window and gawked.  Lightning shows are one of the grandest spectacles of Nature.  I can understand how stories of angry gods throwing spears of light and fire at each other arise watching these jaggedly lines of light suddenly zapping the earth.  After a half hour, I lay back down and dozed off until morning.  It was a dry lightning storm from a high energy humid air mass coming up from a tropical storm 1000 miles south.  The intense heat had created unusual weather conditions that drew the energized air here and created the lightning.  We wondered whether any fires were started in our nearby dry hills by the lightning but didn’t smell any smoke or hear any sirens.  The storm passed and soon it heated up again into the 90’s.   Now on Wednesday, the air is smoky, unhealthy,  from fires started by continued lightning strikes in mountains of N. California.  California declared a state of emergency because of the 10,000 lightning strikes that have started more than 300 fires.  And the heat wave just goes on and on.  These last days, I succumbed to extreme torpor that had me hiding out in our bedroom where it is a few degrees cooler with a fan blowing on me.  The on-going heat makes me feel bad and I think is dangerous for me.  The walls and ceilings of our house have heated up and so it stays hotter than the outside air.  After a week of high temperatures, there is no end yet in sight.

Heat Wave

 Yesterday morning I went to the Garden in my assigned shift hours to re-stock the plant deck with our plants to sell and to tend and water the plants in our section.  It was hot the day before and there’s a serious heat advisory for the Bay Area until Sunday and beyond.  As I looked over the plants, I decided the first thing to do was to water them because they looked droopy.  I found two of the tall bushy Salvia roscida plants had badly wilted.  Just then Lew, the Director of Garden, came by as he always does at 9 AM and asked how the plants were.  I said, “A couple are pot-bound, meaning their roots had overgrown the pot and they are susceptible to wilting,” and he answered without second to think about it, “We’re all pot-bound these days.”  Indeed we’re all stuck in our places sheltering in place as we enter the 6th month of the pandemic and now there’s a 7-10 day heat wave with extreme heat.  Yesterday it was 97 in Berkeley at 8 pm and 92 degrees in our living room!  Berkeley houses are designed to maximize the west-facing view not to stay cool.  Very few have air conditioning or fans.  We rely on the summer fog and sea breezes to keep cool.  With none of those in sight, we dealt with the heat yesterday by hiding downstairs where it was only 77 degrees.  It’s too hot to go walking.  The beaches and parks will be jam packed this weekend with folks trying to cool off.  And now if all that isn’t enough, the newspaper this morning announced rolling blackouts.  Global warming has arrived in the Bay Area and this pot-bound girl doesn’t like it one bit.  

A Lovely Stroll

This afternoon Bob and I took a lovely stroll.  He wanted to walk up Panoramic Way, by the Cal Memorial Stadium, because there were 5 paths we had not yet walked.  In all of our years in Berkeley, I’d never been up that way, though I’ve driven by there thousands of times.  It is so interesting to get a feel for the different neighborhoods by walking the streets and paths.  This one had a feel of neglect and slow urban decay.  There were grand old houses with weedy gardens and torn window shades. The houses over-all were hodge-podge, only a few beautiful ones.  There were a few gardens behind tall fences.  There must be some spectacular views to be had to the West.  What I loved was the Orchard Steps described in a sign as “One of Berkeley’s romantic treasures.”  They were wide and grand concrete stairs with pillars, balustrades and concrete benches.  I could imagine another time when walking on these steps, a time when Berkeley was just being built at the beginning of last century.  Back at the car, we decided to go down and walk around the campus.  It was eerily quiet.  In a normal year, the fall semester would just be starting up this week.  There are many beautiful walks on the campus, through shady redwood glens by Strawberry Creek and by many grand old buildings.  We came to Sather Gate and were amazed again that nobody was there, not a student or faculty member to be seen.  The University is completely shut down but even without students, it is still a very beautiful campus.

Big Events

In the course of my life, there have been a few “big events” which are indelibley etched into my memory and the memory of most Americans alive at the time.  With such events one remembers clearly where we were when we heard of these happenings.  The Cuban Missle Crisis is one of these for me.  I was a senior at Colorado College, in the dorm and I remember Claudia, a classmate, running down the shadowy hall yelling, “The world is going to end.”  I shuddered and felt a deep horror.  The assassination of John F. Kennedy was another such event as was the Moon Landing on July 20, 1969.  The Moon Landing wasn’t a scary moment but one of great awe and wonder.  When Neil Armstrong stepped out of the lunar capsule and spoke, I was with Bob and his parents at their home in Lafayette, CA and Erik was a baby in his own “lunar module,” a baby seat that had a big shelf around it.  I remember it so very clearly.  9/11 is another such event.  Everyone remembers where they were when they heard about that.  We were suddenly vulnerable as a nation.  This morning, I feel the same horror and I shudder as I consider the horrible state of our country and its future.  Last night Bob and I watched a half hour long Axios interview of Trump.  He was so bad, it was chilling.  Yesterday’s newspaper headlines were “Trump Trying to Shut Down the Post Office.”  The Post Office!!!!  He wants to suppress mail in ballots so he can win the upcoming election.  I fear Trump might win the election, by hook and crook, using Russian election interference, voter suppression and fraud and just plain cheating and it chills me to my bone.  His undermining of so many of my deeply held values:  truth, goodness, justice for all, education fairness, makes me very afraid.  It’s not a single moment now but rather a coming together of many factors:  the barely checked and uncontrolled pandemic, the huge economic crisis, the Black Lives Matter movement about systemic racism and Trump.  We survived as a country from the other scary moments.  Will we survive this time in history?

A Happy Surprise

When we got home after a long 14 path walk up and down the Berkeley Hills late Friday afternoon, I was surprised to find a package for me in the mailbox.  It was from Erika!  After washing our hands and faces and cooling down a bit, I opened the box.  There was a present inside, tied with a royal blue satin ribbon with white stars on it and wrapped in crinkled turquoise tissue paper.  I couldn’t image what it could be.  All the July events had passed and it was almost August.  It is something special to get a present out of the blue.  As I tore off the paper (yes, I did tear it without a thought to save the paper I was so excited), I saw a gray tee shirt embroidered with a bouquet of California poppies.  The initials ERS were tastefully placed under the right side of the bouquet.  WOW!!!!  I shouted to Bob, “I LOVE IT!!!”  I was so surprised and pleased.  I love hand made gifts and have done handwork myself since the 3rd Grade when my teacher, Mrs. Coleman, told my mother she thought I’d pay better attention in math class if my hands were busy.  I remember doing many cross stitch pieces.  And now my clever granddaughter Erika has taught herself to embroider and made me a gorgeous shirt.  Throughout my life, I’ve learned new hardworking skills - counted cross stitching in Denmark, weaving in Tennessee, spinning in Foula and most recently here in Berkeley, needlepoint.  When doing all of them I’ve felt more connected to the women who through the ages have done handwork.  It’s practical and yet offers the possibility of making ordinary things more beautiful.  And now my lovely granddaughters enjoy doing handwork.  I’m so proud of Erika and also of Sonja who taught herself to crochet.  I hope they feel connected to me when they do handwork.  What a happy surprise I got on Friday that brightened up my life.!