Apocalypse, September 9th

It’s Wednesday, an all-out exercise day. Ted comes up at 6:30, we walk up the middle of Rugby, Yale, and Beloit (no traffic) to Grizzly Peak, down through the Olde School trail and up over the hills past the Boy Scout Camp, then down and back through Hilltop School and home, a little more than five miles. It takes us about an hour and a half, and we walk and talk together every Wednesday. We headed up Beloit this morning waiting for the darkness to melt away and the smoky sun to emerge, but lo, it got darker. Ted suggested that we walk downhill towards his house, where he assured me, “the air is clearer.” We did. It wasn’t. We headed home after an hour, and it was darker forty minutes after the sun rose than when we left. Winds had blown the smoke from northern California fires to the Bay Area. Once here the winds were tired, took a lunch break, lay down for a nap, and abandoned us with these skies.

Our deck at 8:50. Unretouched.

I walked the half mile from 330 Rugby to Upper Kensington, the little village where we can find groceries, gas, imported cheese, wine, and deposit money. In the one and one-half hours between these two images the sky darkened.

Kensington’s Exxon station at 10:15 am. 10:15 am!!!!!

The air is cleaner than the sky. The smoke had settled high overhead, and the air was actually acceptable, if not pure. I brought my tripod down to our little village of Kensington and took the following four images:

Arlington Avenue, looking north.

Arlington Avenue again. And yes, it’s a red flag day, which means that we have to prepare ourselves for immediate evacuation because of extreme fire hazard.

Drew, taking a takeout order at the Inn Kensington. His business is down 75%, and the Inn, which has been a Kensington Institution since long before we moved here, is “barely hanging on.” Jadyne and I ordered lamb and jambalaya for dinner tonight, planning to wash dinner down with a bottle of Oxford Landing, our favorite cheap-o Chardonnay.

Looking down Yale Avenue past the Ace Hardware Shop, the Exxon Station, and straight into the fires of Hell.

The sky has turned from the morning glow of orange into a muddy yellow, the color of baby shit. And it’s 3:30. Can’t wait for tomorrow.

2nd Grade Education 2020/The Pod

So here we are, August 19, 2020, in the midst of the worst global pandemic in one hundred years. Some schools have reopened for students; most haven’t. Madera elementary, where in a normal year, Isla and Ella would be in class today. But today, they’re here. In PauPau and Granddads’s pod. We set up a card table with their names on it to make them feel welcome. Here’s Isla arriving for the first class of the day.

Paupau is a Chinese word for “grandmother.” And the pod consists of Isla and her friend Ella.

Jadyne, of course, made name tags. And added stickers.

And so it began. Or, so we thought. Jadyne and I stayed, waiting for them to connect to Ms. Reyes, their teacher.

From 10:00 to 10:25 was roll call, that is, if you knew or remembered how to connect.

They didn’t. We didn’t either. We missed Roll Call, frantically trying to find out why the gear icon was spinning and the message appeared, “your meeting will start in a few seconds”, all accompanied by the spinning gear. Once Ella figured it out we connected and were off to the races. Jadyne and I were amazed that these were the first vocabulary words for the day. Remember, these are second graders.

Synchronous: happening at the same time. They are learning synchronously when all the Chromebook cameras are on, all twenty-five reside in a virtual classroom. Photos of students surround the text.

Asynchronous: one-on-one communication between student and teacher.

The next half hour the teacher explained all the apps and icons that the students needed to understand. Those of us who use Word and Photoshop shouldn’t have any trouble with Zoom, Flipgrid, Epic, Clever, and Raz Kids, but we did.

It’s 12:46. Lunch is over. Before reading aloud time, Ms Reyes led them into “mindful moments.” (I was in my sixties before I ever experienced a mindful moment.)

I caught Ella at the moment when she and the mindful moment parted company. Isla stayed a mindful moment longer.

It’s now 1:30. They’re reading quietly. At 2:00 we’ll listen for the school bell. It rang. Everybody in their class said “Goodbye!” Or were told to.

School’s out.

No more pencils, No more books, No more teachers’ dirty looks. Or any looks, except through a Chromebook camera. Sad.

2/3 of 2020

OK, I cheated. There are still two weeks left of the second third of the year. I cheated, too, in that the story begins on December 22, 2019. That was the day that Greg, comatose, was airlifted to a Denver hospital. Sean stood on the ground, watching the helicopter leave Glenwood Springs, not knowing if she’d ever see her husband alive again. I wrote about it two weeks later in this blog

Greg recovered. Jadyne rode with him four hours in the ambulance that brought him back to a rehab center. He improved enough after a couple of weeks to come home. But he’s not there now. He and Sean are currently staying in the Hotel Denver, a $250 a night hotel by the hot pool in downtown Glenwood Springs. I took this image two years ago of the hot pool and the pure. blue, sunny sky above Glenwood Springs, a view looking towards No Name. The Hotel Denver is off to the left but not shown.

That was then. This is now.

The brownish building off to the left is the same building in the first photograph, but the pool is closed, as is everything else.

Last Monday someone saw smoke in the median of I-70, the main thoroughfare through Glenwood Canyon, a major artery for east-west traffic of any kind. The Grizzly Creek Fire began just east of No Name and grew quickly on national forest land, not threatening any structures, but expanding dramatically in the hot dry August heat. It’s six days later, and the fire has consumed 26,000 acres and is 0% contained. Firefighters are protecting people and structures. One of Greg’s neighbors in No Name took this photograph one-half hour after the fire started, packed his bag and left his house.

Before Greg and Sean were evacuated Greg took this image from his driveway.

For three or four days Sean and Greg, then living with friends in Glenwood Springs, read reports as the fire spread towards No Name, the smallish community that they and about two hundred other neighbors, call "home.” They tried to prepare themselves for the very real possibility of losing their house and their entire neighborhood. They knew that firefighters, unable to stop the flames in the forest around them, would do everything they could to save structures. The fire advanced to the edge of No Name, stopping on the eastern side of No Name Creek, a few hundred yards from their house. There firefighters made a stand. Although the fire has burned right up to the edge of No Name and has jumped the Colorado River, their house still stands.

So now they’re in downtown Glenwood Springs. The owner of the Hotel Denver lives in No Name, and with no tourists in a heavily touristed town, he has provided their room free of charge. They have no cooking facilities, and we believe that the local restaurants are closed, perhaps open to the 625 firefighters that have made Glenwood Springs their home for the indefinite future. We gave them a gift card to the hotel coffee shop. The air is so smoky that even with an N95 mask Sean couldn’t make it two blocks to the grocery store, turning back to escape the smoke. They don’t know when they’ll be able to return to their house or when the interstate will open. Electricity has been out for four or five days, so opening the refrigerator will be an unpleasant task. Knowing them, though, they’ll be so delighted to know that they still have a refrigerator to open.

When we first told Jason about the fire, he, in the middle of a divorce, forced because of the pandemic to live under the same roof as his soon-to-be single spouse, responded “Fuck this year.” We second that.

Oh, did I mention that after Greg returned from Denver last winter he was told that the drugs he’s taking leave his immune system compromised? That we couldn’t visit? That he shouldn’t leave home? Oh yes, and there’s also that nasty Covid-19 thing. Fuck this year.

Cousin Camp/Forty-Eight Hours

We met John, Lilly, and Kennedy in the Scandia parking lot in Cordelia. A half hour later we were at Rosalind, picking up Isla and Susanto for cousin camp, a two-day adventure with four kids we’ve hardly seen at all over the past six months. Had to be back on Rugby in time for Kennedy’s Zoom martial arts lesson.

Here’s Kennedy at the end of the lesson. He calls his instructor “Sir!” and bows deferentially at the end of the half hour lesson.

Up Seaview…with hiking sticks.

Isla reading to Kennedy

Four kids, four bowls of Costco Ramen, a pitcher of water, a half hour on our deck under the new umbrella, just before we headed out to Tilden Park’s Seaview trail, a four mile loop that takes hikers up a steep incline to a bench that overlooks San Francisco to the West and Mt. Diablo to the East.

Lillian, in the “bonus room”, choosing to sleep alone, a good decision that I hope she’ll do for a long time.

Day 2. We headed to Limantour Beach at Point Reyes only to find the road closed. Chose North Beach on the other side of Point Reyes. Were delighted by sunshine and spectacular waves.

We miss time with these four. And they miss each other, too.

Isla and Lilly use a kelp for a jump rope. Fail.

The obligatory stop in Inverness to visit the Point Reyes, a photographer’s hot spot..

Isla and Lilly love to spend time with Hazel, and vice-versa.

And of course, Hazel wanted to show off how fast she could run. She started up the path, then headed down to me and Jason, clutching Bun-Bun (sp?), hair flying, concentrating on keeping herself vertical.

I grilled sausages. Jadyne made broccoli. We had leftover Mountain Mike’s pizza, and all reminded us of what we’ve been missing.

Memorable conversation from this morning. Someone woke up early and went into the bathroom. Jadyne asked, “Who’s in there?” The answer: “I am.” Jadyne asked, “Who are you?” The answer: “Me.”

What we’ve been missing for so many months.

Apocalypse Now

Tiny little Sturgis, South Dakota hosts a motorcycle rally during the second week of August, an event that brings the town as much as 800 million dollars over the week. Although many townspeople were opposed to Sturgis’ hosting the event this year, local businesses pressured the city council to extend the invitation. Over 250,000 bikers have come in the past. Although fewer are expected this year the photo below will probably typify the first day, August 7th.

Welcome to Sturgis…and Covid-19

Schools in one county in Georgia opened today. The hallway.

Who are those two masked ladies?

Enough anecdotal evidence exists to support that young people are susceptible to Covid-19 and die. Others may contract the virus but be asymptomatic. They have parents, grandparents, and siblings. After school they go home. _______________________ Fill in the blank.

Our friends Tracy and Al have two children, one living in Santa Cruz, the other in Davis. Tracy and Al visit once every two weeks. They wear masks. They stay outside. They don’t touch their grandchildren. Jadyne’s cousin Terry has two grandchildren who live in San Francisco. Although Terry babysat the older one three times a week she hasn’t seen him since March. Her mother Hazel who will turn 101 this year has seen her great grandson once. She held him. A photo was taken. Our friends Chris and Dave have met us for dinner and drinks on our deck. When they come inside the house they wear masks to protect us. Our friend Gail lives alone. We have seen her on a couple of occasions. She always wears a mask and stays at least six feet away from either of us. She knows that if she gets Covid-19 there is no one to take care of her.

Two alternate realities.

An irresistble force and an immovable object.

The Edmund Pettus Bridge

Just who was Edmund Pettus? According to Wikipedia, “Edmund Winston Pettus (born July 6, 1821 – July 27, 1907) was an American politician who represented Alabama in the United States Senate from 1897 to 1907. He previously served as a senior officer of the Confederate States Army who commanded infantry in the Western Theater of the American Civil War . And from the Smithsonian, “ Pettus served as chairman of the state delegation to the Democratic National Convention for more than two decades, and was Grand Dragon of the Alabama Klan during the final year of Reconstruction.”

In future years Pettus will doubtless be no more than a forgotten footnote, as it wasn’t Pettus that took center stage in our history. It was the bridge.

Fifty-five years ago John Lewis and Martin Luther King set off across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, headed for Montgomery, Alabama. Beside them hundreds of white and black freedom marchers joined hands only to be met by Alabama State troopers on what became known as “Bloody Sunday.”

I never intended my blog to be a history lesson. However, I have learned a bit of history about the Edmund Pettus bridge firsthand. In 2017 Jadyne and I followed the San Francisco Gay Men’s Choir and the Oakland interfaith Gospel Choir on a Red State tour, an attempt to meet, talk to, and entertain people that we otherwise would never meet, people who held widely different views.

In Selma, we massed at the Brown Chapel where King, Lewis, and the other marches had gathered more than fifty years earlier before heading out on the freedom march. We joined both choirs singing “We Shall Overcome” an extraordinary moment.

Below are three minutes of two wonderful choirs joining in on “We Shall Overcome”

We left the chapel and gathered at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. We were joined by two of the original marchers, a gentleman whose name is unknown to me, and Linda Lowery, the youngest of the original marchers, the author of the book Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom.

Jadyne and Linda. Linda pulled back her hair over her left eye to reveal the scars left by the batons of the Alabama State Troopers.

The unknown marcher.

And we, too, shut down the bridge. Only this was 2017, not 1965, and the Alabama State Troopers were only present for traffic control. And there were hundreds of us, just as there were in 1965. This time the bridge was not shut down by freedom marchers, but by hundreds of gay and lesbian activists, each of whom was as active in pursuing freedom three years ago as the freedom marchers were in 1965.

Limantour

Knowing how much I love photographing birds Andrew said, “After you get to Limantour beach, turn right and head north for about an hour. So many birds.” So on an early Saturday morning, masked and jacketed, Jadyne and I headed up the beach.

You can’t see our destination, three miles up the beach on the windy and cold July morning.

I saw these first. I have no idea what they are. Not comfortable with me being close they took off soon after they saw me.

Jadyne discovered several large snail-like creatures burrowed in the sand.

This one was alive. The yellow and blue is his shell; the mottled brown and white to the left is the homeowner out for a little morning exercise.

Jadyne found several more abandoned homes. We brought two of them home. This one is more than 4” wide.

Finally, three miles up the beach we came across an inlet with a small spit of land on which there were dozens of birds, mostly pelicans, cormorants, and gulls.

To their right was a small island where less active marine life slept, safe from predators known to cruise through the waters of Drake’s Bay, so named from the theory that Sir Francis Drake discovered the new world here.

Upon our return we saw many more pelicans, some flying solo, others in V formations. I wondered how the leader is chosen. Are there Type A dominant pelicans?

Solo

In formation.

Heading east.

One tree had washed up years ago and was made beautiful by years of wind and water.

One area was roped off to protect the breeding plover. There were few people who ventured out as far as we did, but as we returned we saw dozens of visitors, blankets, picnic baskets, coolers, and footballs. And masks. We saw masks. I had lost mine, so as I passed the beachgoers headed to the water I looked down, raised my handkerchief, and kept moving.

Normalcy in Five Parts (2020 Edition)

Part I

In a “normal year” baseball’s all-star game would be history. This year baseball hasn’t even begun. But it will. Sort of. At Oracle Park a masked Dave Flemming will sit in the KNBR booth, Duane Kuiper in the NBC sports booth, Jon Miller in the visitors’ TV booth, and Mike Krukow in the late Willie McCovey’s booth. They will call the game from a bank of TV monitors showing the action on the field, regardless of where the game is played. And in the stands? Cardboard cutouts of fans. With the blessing of the Giants management even deceased fans might attend. Krukow said, “You could have a section with Hank Greenwald sitting with Carol Doda, Herb Caen and Robin Williams. What’s more San Francisco than that?” Some fans have paid to have their images turned into cardboard cutouts and placed in their season-ticket holding seats.

Writer Ann Killian reflects, “The concern about the entertainment value in watching this bogus baseball season doesn’t even extend to competitive aspect of play. What is the point of playing out a meaningless string in a pandemic, where your loved ones could be put at risk?” She concludes, “But the winner will be the coronavirus. As we’ve already found out the hard way, it always is.”

Part II

A 63 year old asthmatic store clerk politely asks customers to wear a mask when they walk through the front door. If they don’t have one, she offers them one, even though they cost the store a dollar each. Although many people comply, she is faced with this:

“Some of them would see our signs, open the front door, and just yell: “F--- masks. F--- you.” Or they would walk in, refuse to wear a mask and then dump their merchandise all over the counter. I had a guy come in with no mask and a pistol on his hip and stare me down. I had a guy who took his T-shirt off and put it over his mouth so I could see his whole stomach. “There. A mask. Are you happy?” I had a lady who tried to tape a pamphlet on the front window about the ADA mask exemption, which is a totally fake thing. It’s a conspiracy theory, but it’s become popular here. She kept saying we were discriminating against people with disabilities. What? Why? How? None of what they say sounds logical. I can’t make sense of half the names they call me. They say I’m uneducated — uh, that’s kind of ironic. They say I’m a sheep. I’ve been brainwashed. I’m pushing government propaganda. I’m suffocating them. I’m a part of the deep state. I’m an agent for the World Health Organization. “How do you like your muzzle?” “Is this going to become sharia law?” “Are you prepping us to wear burqas?” “What’s next? Mind control?”

Part III

Tulsa.

While a black pastor with a megaphone lobbied for reparations to descendants of black people killed a century ago in Tulsa in the Greenwood massacre, crowds of white anti-mask protestors abused him, poured water on him, screamed at him, pushed him, mocked him, and one claimed that he was “the sign of the beast.”

“I won’t get any reparations from the race massacre,” Turner explained. “I’m not from Tulsa. I’m from Alabama. It’s not for me. It’s for the people in this community, who have seen so much damage and suffering. And then for people to call you ‘boy’ and ‘Get out of here you, liar.’ And then the look in their eyes was just so hateful.”

Part IV

Carl Nolte, a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle had this to say this morning about San Francisco’s biggest industry, tourism, “I miss the crowds at the cable car turntable at Powell and Market. I miss the slap and rattle of the cable under the street as well, especially at Powell and Geary where the cable runs close to the surface like a steel snake.

The streets around Union Square are nearly empty, as if they were abandoned because of a plague. Which is close to the truth.

I walked through Chinatown. Grant Avenue was as empty as I have ever seen it. There were red lanterns spanning the street, and about half the souvenir shops were open. You can tell tourists when you see them. I counted four between Pine Street and Broadway.

I went on to Fisherman’s Wharf. There wasn’t a soul at the crab stands and restaurants at the heart of the wharf on Taylor Street. No pots of boiling hot water to steam crabs. There were no street musicians either, no old-time Muni streetcars, no jugglers, no man painted all in silver standing like a statue. The Bushman, who hides in some foliage and jumps out to scare tourists, was nowhere to be seen. I always thought he was a pain in the neck, but now that he’s gone, I miss him.

I always thought you had to be nuts to buy one of those Alcatraz Psycho Ward T-shirts, but they added a certain gaudiness to the scene, and I miss them.”

Fisherman’s Wharf

Part V

Our son-in-law, Andrew, teaches second grade. Since the year will begin online Jadyne suggested that he go to the school and meet with each student, one at a time, so that they know he’s a real person, and that he recognizes that each of them is a real person, too. How long will schools open without really opening? We have volunteered to host a small pod of third-graders at our house one or two days a week while the children work on lessons from their teacher (who will be working from home. She has a first-grader, too).

How long will idiots like the woman pictured with the black pastor, the rude customers who insult the elderly store clerk, the anti-maskers, the anti-vaxxers, the pro-Trumpers, have sway over their cowardly Republican counterparts in the administration who have mismanaged the pandemic from day one? How long will Americans continue to be anti-American, failing to recognize that had they worn masks from day one, had they listened to the scientists instead of the conspiracy theorists, the National League, (my choice), would have won the All-Star game, and the Giants would have been well on their way to upsetting the Dodgers in the National League West?

But Where is the Joie de Vivre?

Brief getaway to one of our favorite places, Pacific Grove, on the Monterey Peninsula. Chris and Dave own a house on Ripple and Spray and they’ve made it available for friends. The house is just a couple of blocks away from the pelicans, none of whom seemed to know anything about Covid-19.

As close as the house is to the pelicans it’s even closer to the masked construction workers who are putting in a new sewer line. Concerned with laying the new line, this worker wore a mask but didn’t have a chance to think about Covid-19.

Other bay denizens competed for our attention—and food that tourists were willing to share.

And again nearby neighbors, the harbor seals, lounging on what appear to be most uncomfortable beds. No masks necessary.

Lots of joie de vivre in the sea life and in the squirrels.

Besides the miles I put in walking alongside the ocean I found a bit of joie de vivre just watching the power of the ocean itself. No mask.

We spent three hours hiking just east of Carmel Valley, before…

Lots of ups. My shoes were tired.

choosing to eat fajitas from Peppers restaurant at home rather than in their parking lot, eschewing our favorite restaurant, Passionfish, for the same reason, playing two or three games of Rummikub, watching two Monty Python reruns on Netflix, ignoring the comings and goings of our favorite psychopath in Washington, and just enjoying our first nights away from our house since October, not having any high expectations, not finding any disappointments nor any elation. The joie de vivre will have to wait.

The Kintsugi Craftspeople

“When a piece of pottery breaks, the Kintsugi craftspeople place powdered gold into each crack to emphasize the spot where the break occurred.  Exposed rather than concealed, these fractures and their repair occupy a central place in the history of the object.  By accentuating this memory, it is ennobled.  Something that has survived damage can be considered more valuable, more beautiful.”  Andres Neuman’ FRACTURE.

OK, Here’s the big question. I’m not pottery, but I’ve survived damage. Do the rules still apply? Am I still valuable? Beautiful? Was I ever? Damage starts…now.

A little confusing from the x-ray, but the dark piece in the center with the serrated edges is my titanium left hip. The mushroom cloud that is partly obscured in the upper left is part of it, too. It’s supposed to move around in the blob above it, and for the most part, it does. No powdered gold, but then you can only see this in an x-ray, so no waste of valuable gold, pleasing only to the beholder, either.

The Room Where I Happened

This is the part you can see, but only when I’m getting dressed. And no powdered gold here, either. After about eight or ten years the stitches remain. The incision runs down the railroad track of my hip and turns to the left. It’s a pretty short train, just a few inches long. No doubt I am “ennobled” by this repair.

And here’s another…

I could have used some gold powder in 2006 when a car ran into me while I was riding a bike. Instead I settled for some plastic surgery, a new helmet, and about $15,000 from the negligent driver.

2006

2020

Wow! Fourteen Years has done a whole lot more damage than the negligent driver. I see a little line (actually, several little lines), but the one from the accident is still visible. It runs from a bit above the two prominent horizontal lines in my forehead down to above my left eye. It’s not gold either. Does it lose value?

Septoplasty

Most of my life I had trouble breathing through my nose. Finally, an ear, nose and throat doctor diagnosed by problem as a deviated septum. Twelve years ago I went under the knife, and the kind doctors un-deviated my septum. For seventeen days after that I lived with two cotton inserts in my nose, each of which was the same size as a boxcar. After the operation I couldn’t breathe through my nose. I couldn’t smell. I felt tremendous pressure in my face, and my nose swelled to such a degree that I looked like, was it Mr. Magoo? Not until the cotton inserts were removed could I breathe comfortably again, and once again, since all of the breakage was on my inside, I didn’t get any gold powder, I didn’t feel ennobled. I didn’t feel valuable. I could just breathe freely through both nostrils, and that has made all the difference.

The unkindest cut of all

On March 12th of this year, just a couple of days before we were issued the shelter at home directive, I was pruning some bushes in the back yard. I reached down to hold a branch with my left hand, then delivered a four stitch slice with the pruning shears in my right hand. For six weeks I was unable to play guitar, as the pain when I touched the strings of the guitar was excruciating. The photo on the right is the finger this morning, July 6th. The crease in the tip of the finger isn’t from the cut; it’s an indentation from the guitar string. My finger has “survived damage”, and whether it’s “more beautiful” is not an issue. I’m simply grateful that I can play again.

I’ll edit this further when I find the photos of my face when I tripped over some bender board and required four stitches in my forehead. And again when I tripped trying to pick up a table and landed, once again, on my face. I’m on a first name basis with the doctors at Kaiser’s ER. They gave me a punch card. After nine visits the tenth is on Kaiser. Hoping not to use it, just looking back at all of the above, trying to feel ennobled, beautiful, and valuable.

November 3, 2020

Not content to watch the President commit political suicide Jadyne and I have joined a group committed to encourage people who haven’t voted to vote, an act that we hope will expedite the process. Here is an email I received from them today.

Every day Jadyne addresses ten envelopes slated to go to people who live in states like Florida and Arizona where the stakes are very much up in the air.

Here is a list of twenty from AZ. We are writing to each of them.

My favorites are Melina Molina and Ivory Wigfall. Someone in Florida lives on a street named “Dwellwell.”

No surprise. Not many white names here. And the addresses are from several cities and communities in Arizona.

Here’s s sample letter:

I write (print) the recipient’s name after “Dear,” then write a sentence of two after the word “because.” I like “my vote—and yours—matter,” and “without voting we lose our democracy.” I sign the bottom with the name “David B”, and Jadyne fills in an AZ return address on the envelope,

We pay for the envelopes, the paper, and the stamps. All go out in early October. We would be remiss if all we did was rant.

Fifty

I still pinch myself about that, the whole passing of time thing.  I told Susanto yesterday, “If you took your life from the time you were born to where you are right now and did it four more times you would be as old as Paupau and I have been married.”

Susanto was one of six grandchildren who showed up at 2:00 yesterday, our fiftieth wedding anniversary.  We hadn’t seen Hawthorn for several months.  We’ve followed the social distancing, worn masks and kept apart from friends and family since March.  Even as restrictions ease we are keeping our distance in so many ways, avoiding groups, not volunteering at any of the many activities that kept us busy for the past years—tutoring, homeless shelter, food pantry, Meals on Wheels, the Turnabout shop, choosing instead to stay home, read, walk, and complain about the current administration. I recently got an A+ in that category). Yesterday was different, though.  We feel comfortable with all our family, as they have all been practicing social distancing.  (John and Kim have even been tested, too). 

We were told to stay home at 2:00. We didn’t ask why. But, here’s why.

We didn’t know what to expect.  Jadyne thought that we were in for another Zoom experience.  Kim told us yesterday that at the last day of Kennedy’s school he developed Zoom fatigue, left the Zoom portal and went away.  “What’s wrong?” Kim asked the weeping little boy.  “I miss the in-human part,” he said. The photo above was the human part.  We’ve missed it, too.  We were reminded just how much we missed it.  And even though we had arranged for a chef to bring Jadyne and me a wonderful dinner to spend together last night we thought that we would have just as much appreciated having Mountain Mike’s pizza and beer with the whole family and saving a couple of hundred bucks in the process.  But that might have meant sharing a bottle of Silver Oak cabernet with others.  Not a good trade.

We were gifted with this:

Ignacio, our once or twice a year landscape maintenance gardener-designer had put a hold on it weeks ago at the direction of some of the people in the photo above, and during the day yesterday came and planted it, a beautiful addition to our backyard.

We’ve forgotten the majority of our anniversaries.  This one, however, is one for the books.  Grateful as we are for each other, we are grateful for our families, for them, for their thoughtfulness, for their company, and for the fact that we didn’t have to share the Silver Oak Cabernet with them.

Thank you one and all.  We love you.  D and J.

George Floyd, R.I.P.

A week ago tonight, May 25th, George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis by four policemen, one of whom, by placing his knee on the neck of a handcuffed and prostrate black man for eight minutes and forty-six seconds, caused blood to cease to flow to his brain and thereby brought about his death. And that was just the beginning.

8 minutes and 46 seconds

Long after Floyd stopped breathing and bystanders begged the cop to let him go the cop left his knee on Floyd’s neck. Murder, flat out murder. Murder in broad daylight. Murder in front of many witnesses. Murder under the lens of a phone camera which recorded the whole scene. Murder by a policeman.

It’s now June 8th, two weeks after Floyd’s death. The cop who killed him isn’t a cop anymore. Faced with 2nd degree murder he faced a judge today. The three other cops who were with him aren’t cops anymore, either. They, too, have been arrested and charged.

And the world has changed in the last two weeks. Parades and demonstrations take place daily, not just in the US, but around the world. Police departments have come under fire, some defunded (whatever that means). In the course of the many demonstrations police have run the behavioral gamut, some beating protestors with batons, some taking knees to show their sympathy and support of the protestors.

In the meantime the President of the United States, having the opportunity to provide a healing message, instead called for law and order and directed the governors to “dominate the streets,” then ran to hide in a bunker in the White House. First, however, he protected himself by surrounding the White House with fencing, which, of course, has now become an unwelcome (by him) art display

But before Trump retreated to his little bunker he possibly committed one of the more bizarre acts of his Presidency. Thinking that he not only needed to show strength, but that the Evangelicals, who are slowly leaving the sinking Trump liner, need to be brought back into the fold and be reminded of what a great religious mind he has, did the unthinkable. After declaring himself the law and order president he and AG Barr, had Lafayette Park cleared of peaceful protestors by the military using pepper spray and rubber bullets so that he could stand in front of a church holding a Bible upside down in an ill-advised photo op.

A man holding a book he’d never read in front of a building he’s never visited.

Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, the Episcopal bishop, described the scene to CNN and The Washington Post as an "abuse of sacred symbols" amid "a backdrop for a message antithetical to the teachings of Jesus and everything that our churches stand for."

Budde told The Post that she "was not given even a courtesy call" that authorities would be clearing the area "with tear gas so they could use one of our churches as a prop."

Another Episcopal minister echoed the Bishop' and said, “This is an awful man, waving a book he hasn’t read, in front of a church he doesn’t attend, invoking laws he doesn’t understand, against fellow Americans he sees as enemies, wielding a military he dodged serving, to protect power he gained via accepting foreign interference, exploiting fear and anger he loves to stoke, after failing to address a pandemic he was warned about, and building it all on a bed of constant lies and childish inanity."

And when Friday came and went with a very favorable economic report, Trump said,

“We all saw what happened last week. We can't let that happen," Trump said of Floyd, who was killed as a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. "Hopefully, George is looking down right now and saying, 'This is a great thing that's happening for our country.’”

The dead man, killed by cops, is having a great day in Heaven because people are mourning him, and more important, there is a favorable jobs report. You can’t make this stuff up.

So here’s a synopsis. Floyd is murdered. Protests take place in every state and in many other countries. Trump, in gated seclusion, hides in a bunker except when he’s sending in the military to prevent lawful protestors from protesting. The mayor of Washington DC has renamed the streets in front of the White House as “Black Lives Matter” Plaza. All Trump’s former Secretaries of Defense have condemned Trump for using the military against the country’s own citizens.

Hey, it’s only been two weeks. More to come.

And indeed it has. In one of the protests a 75 year old man was pushed to the ground by police His head hit the sidewalk, and he was bleeding, requiring hospitalization. There’s a video. You can see it for yourself. Here’s the man on the pavement.

And what did the tweeter-in-chief have to say?

Whenever he has a chance to say something not stupid he doesn’t.

So Trump held a rally last Saturday in Tulsa, jubilant because his campaign had received well over a million ticket requests. After surveying the 6200 mindless souls in the arena, and realizing that he’d been scammed by teenagers who had requested tickets as a prank, he dissembled his way through a 103 minute disjointed monologue, spending a good part of it proving that he can walk down a ramp without falling and drink a glass of water with one hand.

By all accounts it has been a disastrous week for him. He topped it off a night or two ago in an interview with sycophant Sean Hannity which went like this:

The inmates have taken over the asylum.

People who have been told that this is a bona fide question and answer exchange have gone to Snopes to verify its authenticity. Yes, Hannity asked him about his priority items. Yes, Trump answered as is recorded above. in that same interview Trump added this, “a pal had told him he has to be “the most perfect person” because he was not brought down by the Russia investigation.

“Isn’t that true?” Trump asked a small audience packed with enthusiastic fans.

Trump did not name the friend. But the praise certainly sits up there with the president’s own previous self-aggrandizing descriptions of himself as “an extremely stable genius” and “really smart.”

Trump has also in the past compared himself to a king.”

So this is where we are on June 27, 2020.

And here’s how we’ll celebrate the Fourth of July. America is a pariah. Americans can’t even leave their own country, as no other country will have us. Thank you, Mr. President.

Hate

I can’t remember the last time I hated anything. Oh yes, I’ve hated lima beans my whole life. I’ve never cared for beets, either. I don’t like peas, but I don’t hate them. I don’t know if it’s the taste, the texture, or a combination of the two, but even if I don’t care for peas, I do eat them. I’ve even taken seconds, small seconds, that is.

My hating goes beyond foods. I hate being late. I hate it when others are late, too. I hate being talked down to. I hate having to say something only to find that no one is listening. I hate being criticized. So it’s foods, being ignored, and a few other social interactions that I hate.

I can’t remember the last time that I hated anyone, though. *I asked my neighbor Bob Frassetto if, after a neighbor-to-neighbor misunderstanding, he was ever going to talk to me again, and he sized me up and down, paused, and said, “you disgust me.” I didn’t hate him for that. I felt somewhat sorry for him for feeling that way, believing that it’s painful to carry around hate, much more for the hater than the hatee. Yes, we still don’t talk, but I would. He’s the one carrying the burden. Hating someone is an unwelcome affliction. Seneca said that anger (and hatred) is “an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.”

Why do we hate? We fear things that are different from us. My brother in law posted this on Facebook this morning:

Mind you, this is just a partial list.

We also hate because we reject what we don’t like about ourselves. Brad Reedy, a psychologist, describes this in the Freudian term “projection”, our need to be good, which causes us to project “badness’ outward and attack it. We think, he continues, that this is how one rids oneself of undesirable traits, but in reality it only perpetuates repression which leads to mental health issues.

I believe that this is at the heart of Donald Trump’s issues. He lashes out, criticizes, and attacks not only anyone who disagrees with him but is different from him. On Memorial Day he attacked a Democratic congressman, Conor Lamb, a Marine Corps veteran. It was only a small part of his attacks.

The headline read,

“On weekend dedicated to war dead, Trump tweets insults, promotes baseless claims and plays golf”

The problem isn’t that Trump hates. It’s been long established that he does, that he has no empathy for others, that his modus operandi is to lash out, attack, criticize, demean, and insult. It’s the only way he knows how to comport himself. He is also indifferent when his hating drags along innocent parties. In his tweetstorm on Memorial Day he referred to the death of a 29 year old intern of archenemy Joe Scarborough, suggesting that Scarborough might have murdered her, although he was nine hundred miles away when she died. Her widower is once again reliving the pain of her death because of the mindlessness of a brain that one person suggests is like “six fireflies blinking inside a bottle.” Without hating he would only expose the emptiness inside himself, the meaninglessness of his own existence. He would have to recognize what so many others have known for years, that as Gertrude Stein is reputed to have said about Oakland, “there’s no there there.”

No, the problem isn’t that Trump hates. The problem is more personal—that I hate him. *I began this essay by trying to remember the last time I hated another human being. I have hated him since before he was elected, and that hate has only grown in the years that he’s been in office. What’s crucial for me is to recognize something else that I mentioned earlier in this essay—that hatred is a burden, and that carrying it around weighs down the hater, not the hatee. Sometimes I wish Trump knew how much I (and so many others) hated him. I suspect that he might, though, because in the inner sanctum of his emptiness is the knowledge that he can never consciously confront that he will never be respected, never liked, never loved, that his predecessor was everything he wishes he could but never will be. And knowing that deep in his subconscious causes him to lash out. Again. And again.

And for me? I accept that the antidote to hate is forgiveness and compassion. Ultimately, forgiveness is about letting go, taking appropriate actions to protect oneself. I feel no compassion for Trump. I can’t forgive him, either. I am able, however, to “let go”, to protect myself, and in doing so, recognize that when there’s no there there, there’s nothing that prevents me from moving forward and living without the burden of hate.

Alone

“Behind the School and the Boy Scout Camp on Wednesday?” Ted asked last Friday as we finished our four mile Friday walk down Wildcat Canyon, past the Tilden Merry-Go-Round and back. “Sure,” I replied, using Ted’s nautical background for time-telling, “0700.” I walk a lot during the week, and several days Jadyne and I walk together. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday she runs. I can run, but the surgeon who performed hip surgery recommended that I not run, as the weight of running puts an extra load on the titanium. So I don’t.

What I treasure about those three days, though, is being by myself. Oh right, Ted walks with me on Friday, and we have spirited conversations about just about everything. Ted is a good friend, and we have a lot in common. He’s slightly to the right of me politically, but that’s nothing unusual. Almost everyone else is, too.

But on Monday and Wednesday I’ve treasured being by myself. When I walk through the trails of Tilden I often listen to the sounds around me; on Monday, climbing up Marin I’m pleasantly distracted by the thousand albums on my phone channeled through my Sony earbuds. Those two days give me ample time to think, to sort out the bits and pieces of my day and my life. But I like walking with Ted, even now, two days a week.

I also like being alone. I’m alone right now sitting by my computer upstairs while Jadyne struggles with yet another Liberty puzzle two floors below. I like playing my guitar, working on photographs, and reading, all solitary activities.

Two days ago I walked around Berkeley’s Aquatic Park and took this image:

I sent it to my friend Gail Bray and asked, “Have you ever been really alone?” She replied, “Yes, I have.” We all have. Being alone gives us time to think, solve problems, gather thoughts, sort out relationships, and to recognize and acknowledge all that surround us.

Being alone and being lonely. On Saturday we met our Chinese conversational partners at Live Oak Park. One of them is returning in June to Beijing, flying first to Tokyo, then landing in Shanghai. Once he lands in China he will be taken by bus to a hotel where he’ll be locked in s room for fourteen days. (At his expense, of course, to the tune of $60 a night). All meals will be delivered to the room, and he’ll be tested daily for Covid-19. Needless to say, it’s two weeks of an unwelcome and looming loneliness that he’s thinking about.

Amid the pandemic there are more stories about loneliness. Here’s mine:

Senator Elizabeth Warren echoed that experience, too.

We have friends who have been living alone for the past two months. Gail has been especially cautious, choosing to have food delivered, rather than shopping for it herself. Her son Gabriel has recovered from Covid-19, and she has wondered how she would fare if she should be infected. “Who will take care of me?” It’s a level of fear that we didn’t really know or experience before the pandemic. We have other friends who live alone. Living alone brings whole new levels of meaning in the pandemic. No hugging, no touching, masks in public, six feet away from the nearest human being. Video calls, Zoom meetings, virtual touching, whatever that means.

A thesaurus gives us synonyms for alone—isolation, seclusion, confinement, lonesomeness, peace and quiet, solitude—some more welcoming than others. Take the comfort of “peace and quiet” and contrast it with “confinement.” Somewhere among these conventional definitions are feelings of unwelcome aloneness, one that accompanies the disappointment of failing to connect with someone when connecting is important to one of them.

I don’t believe that the two ships that perpetually pass each other in the night intend to do that. Last week I was one of those ships, and I didn’t just pass by one ship; I passed a dozen. During the pandemic I have spent hours upon hours photographing flowers. I’ve put them up on my website along with some thoughts about finding joy in the Pandemic, with images I’ve captured at Aquatic Park, with macro images of our dogwood tree. Gathering all of these together I sent them out in one email to my offspring, my brothers, Jadyne, my sisters-in-law, and to two friends, asking for any kind of comment, perhaps a question or two. My two Gail friends responded; my sister-in-law did, too, but that was it. Was I looking for praise? No, not really. I was simply excited about the project. I felt I had discovered a technique that I wanted to share with my family, to simply show them what had excited me and why. It would have been enough had they simply said “thanks for sending” so that I would at least know that even if words failed them that they had taken the time to look at the images. That’s all. So, I’m whining about it on my blog, wishing even for a minute alone on that darkened sea that I had seen even one small light.

Pandemic VIII (Finding Joy)

In the midst of this stay-at-home directive I have had to look beyond myself to find joy. On Mother’s Day Jason came by with Hazel. We had only seen her once in the past two months, and it was heart warming just to watch her run around the back yard. She paused for a moment, and looked up at me.

It’s a mixed bag. We’re fifty feet apart. Missing seeing her, her cousins, our kids, the rest of our family…missing hugs, hanging out, dining together, stuff like that.

So what else? I’ve found joy in gardening.

Jadyne and I spend a couple of hours a day grooming, cutting, trimming, pruning, and trying to maintain the yard.

I find joy in my photography. I’ve been photographing flowers from in and around our own garden, carrying a pair of clippers as I drive around Berkeley, bringing some home, then doing this…

The pink dogwood by our front door only blooms every couple of years. This spring we were gifted with only a handful of pink flowers. Still, I cut about ten or twelve of them from the tree, brought them inside, and turned them into a page on my website.

One of twelve

I find joy in playing my guitar. Almost two months ago I carelessly caught my finger in a pair of pruning shears and needed four stitches to sew up the finger. As the days passed and the wound healed I would try to play, give up, and put the guitar away. A couple of weeks ago it felt well enough to begin again. The finger looks like new; inside the nerves are damaged. I can play, but it isn’t the same. Still, I find joy in playing…

…and in just listening to music. My favorite companion on a long walk are my Sony earbuds.

Watching the sky. We are fortunate to live two minutes away from this view. I keep an eye on the sky, watching for dramatic sunsets, or a couple of days ago, a clearing storm.

Walking. Living in hills and among lakes. It’s about three miles around Berkeley’s Aquatic Park. That’s where I came across a family of geese and their goslings last week.

I’m taking the time to read again, having finished three books and several articles in The New Yorker. I also read a lot online, but this post was about finding joy, and there’s a shortage of joy online. I find joy in the downtime that is a regular part of my life now, recognizing that doing “nothing” is really doing something. I find joy in spending time with Jadyne, my wife and partner of the last five hundred and ninety-nine months. I find joy in talking with friends, even though I can’t see them. I find joy in Talavera’s camarones burrito, the Sechuan Restaurant’s spicy fish and soft tofu, the fresh Acme sourdough baguette, and the two cups of Peet’s Major Dickason''s freshly-ground coffee that starts my day. Someone said that there’s a pandemic going around…not part of my day.

My brother-in-law posted the following on Facebook: I’m on the same page,.

Pandemic VII (Why Trump is ill-equipped to get us out of this mess)

Here’s what the majority of anti-Trump voters honestly feel about Trump supporters en masse: The following are not my words, but they echo my feelings exactly. And when you finish, mind you, this is only a partial list.

That when you saw a man who had owned a fraudulent University, intent on scamming poor people, you thought, “Fine.”

That when you heard him proudly brag about his own history of sexual abuse, you said, “no problem.”

That when he made up stories about seeing Muslim-Americans in the thousands cheering the destruction of the World Trade Center, you said, "Not an issue."

That when you saw him brag that he could shoot a man on Fifth Avenue and you wouldn't care, you exclaimed, "He sure knows me."

That when you heard him relating a story of an elderly guest of his country club, an 80-year old man, who fell off a stage and hit his head, to Trump replied: “‘Oh my God, that’s disgusting,’ and I turned away. I couldn’t—you know, he was right in front of me, and I turned away. I didn’t want to touch him. He was bleeding all over the place. And I felt terrible, because it was a beautiful white marble floor, and now it had changed color. Became very red.” You said, "That's cool!"

That when you saw him mock the disabled, you thought it was the funniest thing you ever saw.

That when the Central Park Five were compensated as innocent men convicted of a crime they didn't commit, and he angrily said that they should still be in prison, you said, "That makes sense."

That you have watched him remove expertise from all layers of government in favor of people who make money off of eliminating protections in the industries they're supposed to be regulating and you have said, "What a genius!"

That you have witnessed all the thousand and one other manifestations of corruption and low moral character and outright animalistic rudeness and contempt for you, the working American voter, and you still show up grinning and wearing your MAGA hats and threatening to beat up anybody who says otherwise.

What you don't get, Trump supporters, is that our succumbing to frustration and shaking our heads, thinking of you as stupid, may very well be wrong and unhelpful, but it's also...hear me...charitable.Because if you're NOT stupid, we must turn to other explanations, and most of them are less flattering.- Adam-Troy Castro

The Pandemic VI (Mourning in America)

In 1984 Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign produced a very successful television ad entitled “Morning in America” featuring happy couples marrying, families buying new homes, cars, and enjoying a life that was nothing short of paradise.

Fast forward to 2020. George Conway, the husband of White house advisor Kellyanne Conway, with a number of disenchanted Republican friends, produced an ad that draws on Reagan’s and is entitled “Mourning in America”, an exposé of all that has gone wrong under the “leadership” of the incompetent Donald Trump. Conway and friends are working to defeat Donald Trump in November under the guise of an organization called “The Lincoln Project.”

Strangely, Donald Trump seemed somewhat disenchanted in the Lincoln Project’s take on his leadership. He responded, “Their so-called Lincoln Project is a disgrace to Honest Abe," Trump added, referring to revered Civil War-era president Abraham Lincoln.

"I don't know what Kellyanne did to her deranged loser of a husband, Moonface, but it must have been really bad."

No, Don, she did nothing to George. George penned an op-ed piece in the Washington Post that read,

“It may strike you as deranged that a sitting president facing a pandemic has busied himself attacking journalists, political opponents, television news hosts and late-night comedians — even deriding a former president who merely called for empathy and unity in response to the virus. It may strike you as nuts that Trump bragged about his supposed Facebook ranking in the middle of a virus task-force briefing, asserted that millions would have died were it not for him, boasted that “the ‘Ratings’ of my News Conferences etc.” were driving “the Lamestream Media . . . CRAZY,” and floated bogus miracle cures, including suggesting that scientists consider injecting humans with household disinfectants such as Clorox.

“Now, it’s more obvious than ever. Trump’s narcissism deadens any ability he might otherwise have had to carry out the duties of a president in the manner the Constitution requires. He’s so self-obsessed, he can only act for himself, not for the nation,.”

The Pandemic is more than a war of words now. We hate each other. The Trumpies want the country back no matter the cost; the rest of us want to preserve our health. The Trumpies are willing to sacrifice lives of the elderly, the infirm, and the poor so that they can return to their shopping malls. The rest of us don’t buy it.

To call this a “troubling time” is to understate the very seriousness the pandemic and Trump’s sociopathy have on the country that we’ve known for three quarters of a century. Thousands have died. Untold thousands more will die. We can possibly hold out another six months before the 2020 election, but if Trump should win again in 2020 it could be the end of America.

Reagan’s ad concludes, “Why would we ever want to return to where we were four short years ago?” Oh, that we could.

The Pandemic V

At 8:00 last night we heard the howlers. In parts of the Bay Area residents howl for a few minutes to honor the first responders—the doctors, nurses, mailmen, “essential” workers (a security guard was shot and killed yesterday because the shoppers he insisted had to wear a mask felt he “disrespected” them). No insanity there. We missed the nightly dancers on Peralta Street. At 7:50 every night residents go out into the street and dance. Strange. We’re all in this together, and since we can’t touch or hug our neighbors we have our own ways of communicating, of sharing the very real, sad, and depressing news that thousands of us are dying every day, and that the “leader of the free world” isn’t leading.

He said, “Supposing you brought the light inside of the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. Sounds interesting. I see the disinfectant — where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning?” Within hours the Poison Control Center had fielded thirty calls from people who had ingested bleach. Later, Trump insisted that he was being “sarcastic.” He wasn’t.

Trump’s entire platform for leading is lying. Before the pandemic his lies were probably less onerous because they didn’t cause people to die. Now they do. The lies, the behavior, the blame game, the denial of science, the embrace of authoritarianism and those that support it. The inevitable comparisons between the USA of 2020 and German ninety years ago are accurate and not overstated. Michael Godwin cultivated the popular notion that “whoever is the first to mention Hitler in an argument, loses the argument,” in a 1990s meme that grew in strength over the years, right up until Donald Trump was elected president.” it’s called Godwin’s Law, and it’s no longer valid. Trump is Hitleresque in so many ways that to deny the comparison is to understate its validity.

So, where does that leave us today on Cinco de Mayo? In the good ol’ USA we have 1,213,010 cases, 69,925 deaths, and because many states are reopening the promise of an increase. It was the government’s position, even touted by Trump, that before states could reopen they would show that deaths and new cases had either flattened or reduced over a two week period. But that all ended when Trump’s ignorant base complained. Now, these “very good people”, who won’t wear masks, who endanger the lives of everyone they see, are pressuring governors to reopen states, and the governors, fearing a backlash from the great unwashed, are doing that. “Speaker Nancy Pelosi dismissed the guidelines even as she pushed for more testing. “The White House’s vague and inconsistent document does nothing to make up for the president’s failure to listen to the scientists and produce and distribute national rapid testing,” she said in a statement.

Meanwhile we’re out of bleach. Drank too much of it a week ago.

The Pandemic IV (Again, in Personal Terms)

Yesterday was Celine’s sixth birthday. Knowing that she couldn’t have a birthday party like other six year olds, her mother Farrah arranged for the party to come to her. The 1 PM parade down Rugby Avenue began with carloads of her friends, wishing her a happy birthday as they went by, each car festooned with banners acknowledging the day in capital letters. Finally, the Kensington Fire Department came down the street, with lights flashing and horns blaring. Neighbors lined the street carrying signs.

Final score. Community 1, Pandemic 0.

Celine, Farrah, and Nigel

Celine taking it all in

Kensington Fire Department…I mean, what have they got to do?

Neighbors lined the street.

The parade begins