final note for the day

With full color guard, flags flying in arrears, the sun set sail for the western horizon, on her way to a rendezvous. She had warmed the air nicely and found herself wheeling through the day unopposed by the wind or fog. She was very pleased by this and had an extra spring in her step. She began to practice her scales, starting with a low contralto range and saving the high notes for later. She tossed her skirts, even flounced them a bit, very sassy and full of herself. It was going to be a good trip west beyond the horizon, and she anticipated a lingering conversation with the Pacific, wanted to catch up on the details of the night disappearing before her.

I stood on the bluffs near Asilomar and watched her go, felt the moist salt air cooling in her wake and heard the shushing gossip coming up to me from the confusion of currents below. The horizon was broad, stretching from Pt. Joe north to Santa Cruz and beyond. A silly, happy little breeze danced around, teasing skirts, lifting hats, twirling and spinning. Once in a while you can see dolphins offshore or, at the right time of year, a whale spout, but you're never too sure because the wind likes to send up imitating splashes of white from the tops of swells coming ashore.

You may arrive at the shore full of something. Worry, for instance, or confusion. You stand there and feel smaller and smaller, ant-like, but something grows larger inside you at the same time. You see the rocks that the waves have been harassing for centuries, who knows how long, and you feel your life is very short, that you have a lot to be thankful for, that for all our intelligence we know precious little about it all. You get everything back into perspective again and you are refreshed, relaxed and revived.

I watched the sun flick her amber scarves over her shoulder and they flew in gossamer shreds. Then, aware of her audience, she paused dramatically, savoring her moment, before stepping down below the horizon. "You've still got it, girl. Yes, you do!" she sang. Then she breathed deeply, hit a rich round E major and disappeared.

A Bird Eats It

I had popcorn for lunch today. Well, there you go.

As I was sitting on the back porch, bare feet warming in the sunlight and distant clouds going through their slow tai chi, I noticed that I had been noticed. Urban birds were gathering in box hedges and rain gutters, wherever they could land and get a peek at me and my fragrant food. Aware of their intent to steal, I pulled my bowl in closer to myself and acted nonchalant. I wondered if any of them would be so emboldened as to attempt some popcorn theft.

Scrub jays, crows, English sparrows, pigeons and starlings are the urban bullies. The gentle native birds are long gone I think. Some migrate through in the spring and sing their little hearts out, telling wild stories of their travels, hoping for some notice and their chance at stardom. None of our urban trash birds have pretty songs. Not even close. Instead, they have loud voices, pointed elbows, and an abrasive manner. They throw beer cans around and bully the local weaklings, kick dirt in their faces.

I thought about this as I was munching the popcorn. Rather than seeing the gathering mob, I heard them. Crows made a hoarse rasping call. They bashed around, rustling and shifting restlessly, their talons scrabbling on the rooftop of my neighbor's garage beyond the nearby wall. To tease them I rustled the popcorn in the bowl and munched as loudly as I could. They rustled again themselves and one cocked his head over the top of the wall, sizing me up it seemed. I quickly made a mental inventory of my defenses. I believed I could hold my own against him, but his beak was very pointed and his eye was dark and glittered evily. Alfred Hitchcock must at one time have been munching popcorn in the vicinity of this sort of bird, heard their tuneless cackles and thought of what I now imagined: Hordes of birds attacking mercilessly, insanely, horribly.

All of a sudden, the beady-eyed rustler disappeared. Pfffft, gone out of sight. More rustling, coarse caws, thudding and flapping. Then several squawks resounded followed by the most gutteral and resoundingly garbled choking-on-a-hairball GLAAAAAACK that could possiby be imagined. It echoed off the surrounding rooftops and windows. The breeze stopped blowing. I stopped chewing and waited, holding very still. Nothing else. Silence fell with a long hush and a single feather drifted slowly to the ground.

Yes, it was odd all right, just the oddest thing. I hadn't hired the local cat, but I don't know that it was a cat. Coulda been a racoon, but the chances are very slim. I suppose the bird could have been vaccumed up by an alien; it sounded that weird. The bird got whacked is what it sure seemed like. Most emphatically deader than a doornail, but I couldn't see it, only heard that GLAAAAAAK and made my inference, you know. Somehow nature took its course in a rather dramatic, sudden, gizzard-squeezing, eyeball-popping way and I was saved. The breeze started up again slowly and a distant bit of music from a passing car wafted to me.

Popcorn is not my usual lunch, but it was good. When you're in the Groove, it will do just fine.

Last night I watched a gorgeously photographed film about The Entire Natural Planet. It's a pretty big subject, you know, but they filmed it with spectacular cinematographic techniques, panning left and then right across vast areas. Snowy plains in Siberia, grassy plains in Africa, ice fields in the Arctic.

Wow, the earth is beautiful and wow are we ever trashing it. We are just trashing the bejabbers out of it, and there is nothing stopping us from doing it except us, we 10 billion farting, burping greedy slobs.

I am not happy nor do I feel blithe about this at all. It's just so huge I don't know where to start. The ice is melting away. Way away, downstream to the ocean, and all the shores are getting swamped. Number after depressing number was quoted by the articulate-sounding narrator.

So, I got up from the couch where I had been for the previous two hours, and I turned off all the remaining lights, put my plastic bottle carefully in the recycling bin by my back door and tiptoed off to bed.

Greeting the sun again

Lo and behold, the sun came out today! So, I had a conversation with her as she idled overhead.

I was in the garden wrestling with the albuteron and eyeing the spent blooms of my roses when she first appeared. I asked her about her ongoing conflict with the fog and if it bothered her much. She looked a bit peeved when I asked. "That fog is a constant pain in my side," she sniffed. "I give him every opportunity to just be a normal cloud, but, no, he has to roll around on the coast and undo all that I've done all morning long. It's so hard to get good help these days."

The sun wears old crinoline skirts lined with gold and she adds sequins to them now and again, usually after the clouds give up their tantrums and wander off. I personally know that she loves garlic, especially in pesto, smiling more kindly on gardens where it grows. She's a diva. Anyone knows that. But, she has her moments when her confidence crumbles a bit.

I felt her warm caress on my back for the first time in days and told her how good it felt. She smiled with gleaming teeth. I squinted and worked at the weeds at the base of the roses. I asked her if she was planning to be out more this week, if we could expect a bit more warmth than we've been getting. She was glancing at herself in a sliding glass door, checking her pearls, straightening her crown. She touched her gold-gloved fingertip to the corner of her lip and thought for a moment. "Yes, well, I have my plans, but you'll need to see what the wind is up to. I can't control him, you know. He's taken a liking to Wagner again. He gets all worked up over it and just goes wild."

She played with the surface of a little fountain, splashing it, tossing a few glittering diamonds across its surface with a casual throw-away gesture. Then she breathed deeply. Reaching high overhead she stretched her arms grandly. A hesitant wisp of cloud hurried away. The sun idled away to the west, walking slowly, swaying her hips and fluffing her thick blonde hair. One strand fell on her shoulder. She just looked so lovely and fine that I had to smile. Her presence always commands attention even if the wind shows her so little respect. The day was her stage and she knew it.

After my garden chores were done and feeling quite satisfied with the day, I enjoyed the pleasure of sitting in my big blue chair out on the patio for a little while. The diva sun was long gone by then but not forgotten by any stretch of my imagination.

Monday is Market Day

For the first time in a few weeks, months probably, I went to the Pacific Grove Farmers Market. It materializes every Monday afternoon, generally after 3 PM. Officially it's 4-8 PM right downtown on Lighthouse Avenue.

The market is just completing its first year of business, and it has been a struggle. Basically Pacific Grove is a destination town, shouldered aside by Monterey and Pebble Beach, over the hill from Carmel. So, you get here because you intend to get here, not because you made a wrong turn off the freeway. Shoppers who want to save a few dollars get in their cars and drive 20 miles to Marina round trip or even over to Salinas to get to the Wal-Mart or Pennies, but they miss out on what's on offer here in our foggy little corner of the universe.

The market is about two blocks long, and vendors are from Monterey and Sen Benito Counties as well as a few determined souls from as far away as Fresno. Produce is all organic and, of course, just picked, plucked or pulled that day.

Starting my walk at Grove Market (voted best neighborhood market in Monterey County for the zillionth time this year), I picked up a few staples and a market bag to flaunt my allegiance to the store. Charlie Herrera has the magic touch and runs a fine business there. I am happy to say I am ferociously loyal to the place - mostly because he sells the best darned bacon you can ever hope to eat. Try it - you'll see what I mean. I am equally happy to say that my very long-time friend Leslie is one of the best grocery clerks in all of creation; we always have a little catching up to do when I visit the store.

I trotted on down to the market then and feasted my eyes on the tubs of gerbera daisies, spring flowers, and roses, but I was really more interested in finding some seasonal fruit and greens for the table. Strawberries, raspberries, some very early apricots and cherries glowed in the mid-afternoon light. "Sample? Sample?" A vendor held out plump, red strawberry temptation-on-a-plate. I found my best deal at three brimming basketsful for $5. Another farmer was just filling up bins with late citrus including Meyer lemons. "I just picked them for you," he said smiling, and I fell for it. I chose three weighty beauties. Just because I asked, he gave me tips on pruning my own little tree, warning about suckers which steal the moisture from the rest of the plant.

The wind was rather kind and meek, but it was cold - maybe 53 or so. It's June now, and everyone is still wearing fleece, scarves and even gloves though the sun shines in nearby towns. I saw a few birds wearing sweaters, I think. At least they were flying right-side up.

The mushroom farmer's portabellas, crimini and white mushrooms were dewy and tender with freshness. I bought a pound. Next, glossy zucchini with the blossoms attached and raspberries. A small boy walked by eating some of the berries like candy, his mom herding him away from the tubs of water holding flowers.

At the last strawberry stand, a woman strolled very slowly by and sighed, "Oh, those berries smell so fragrant!" She inhaled and closed her eyes, rhapsodising about the aroma. I thought she might begin a little pirouette and I gave her a bit of elbow room.

I met a new vendor, newly here from Michigan. She and her husband had wandered west a couple of years ago and decided PG should be their home and came to live. Being a good wholesome mom from Michigan with a three-year-old girl to raise, she decided to bake cupcakes for a living. Her husband bought her some fancy carriers ("I loved him that day!"), and her fate was sealed. Now she calls herself Mrs. Delish's and offers tender and light treats at the market now and again. $3 a pop and you get about four mouthfuls of homemade goodness.