More thoughts in the time of COVID-19 …
Well, it was a white Christmas … between 2” and 3” with fierce winds from all directions. There was snow on every window … all four sides of the house.
Saturday we were still getting snow, but no wind and light fall. Total at sundown about 3” after a bit of settling.
Sunday cold and overcast. No new snow.
Monday and tuesday cold and clear. No new snow.
Today is cold with the expectation of rain. We are also having wind but it is capricious. George built this house so secure that wind has to be nearly hurricane force before we hear it indoors. As a result, we mostly see rather than hear wind. And seeing it is interesting. Often the wind is specific to a certain level … i.e. treetops may be whipping around but at ground level all is calm. This morning it was the other way around… limbs at ground level were dancing and the treetops were watching.
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Paul got a drum set among his Christmas gifts. Fortunately it is not acoustic and came with earphones so no one else is aware of the “practice” time.
You, who have been with me for any amount of time, know I have always had a thing for drummers. The difference between that situation and this is the practice time was all before I met those others or heard them.
I still have sets of drumsticks which were George’s. Were he still here, Paul would be learning street beats as well as club trio rhythms. I wonder if he will ever approach the “Wipeout” level. Probably not since his attention span for any project is truncated by the many options available.
Oh well …
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I have finished reading the final book in the Gateway Trilogy. I looked at the due date last night and was interested (there’s that word again) to see the due date is 6 January 2020. Boy, when I have a book overdue I do it up royally.
These three books are followed by another series in the same settings. I think I’ll wait a bit before I start those.
In the meantime, I plan to spend time in Venice, California in 1949, in turn of the 20th century San Francisco, on a res with a Crow Keeper, learning magick with Alice Hoffman, and ???
How about you?
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Learned a new gift guide this holiday. Give gifts in batches of four… one that they want, one that they need, one they can wear, and one they can read.
Sounds overwhelming, but you can adjust to fit your budget … They want a pet = a stuffed animal; need food = crackers and cheese; to wear = socks; to read = a paperback. Shouldn’t be too costly. Upscale from there.
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Tyler will be moving into his new digs over the next few days. He found a place in town with his own bathroom and room for his animals.
In the past, when the family lived down in the barn, there were four of us and a cow to help moderate the temperatures. We talked about securing that area as a guest apartment, but never got around to the work involved. And the distance over dirt roads makes it hard for full time workers. So this move will be a good one for Tyler.
I will miss seeing him but this will be great for him.
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My trip to 1949 Venice, California has begun as of last monday evening. I have no idea why I recently put Ray Bradbury’s “Death is a Lonely Business” on my reading list. I thought I’d read all of Bradbury. Wrong.
And this has been a strange meeting. I feel so in-tune. Bradbury writes about the beach area in southern California between Redondo Beach and Santa Monica the way I remember it …
No LAX but a small air field called Mines Field surrounded by hog farms and bean fields. A small seaside village built to imitate the canals in Italy’s Venice, in 1949 slipping from Hollywood chic to trashy despair but before being refound by the hippies. A beloved wooden thriller ride being torn down. A mud slough where my Daddy took me with him to fish for bottom feeders like catfish. Red cars running north and south along the beach and east into downtown LA through Culver City. Oil wells in El Segundo backyards and parks. A drug store (Converse’s) on the corner where they served egg salad sandwiches with lattice potato chips and lime phosphates at the ice cream counter and where there were pulp magazines with wonderful stories like “The Moon Pool” and stuff about outer space and fantasy worlds which left me breathless. Cousins up a block and three houses north and others west of the high school and only three blocks from the beach dunes. An empty lot across from Nana’s house on Concord Street where there had been barrage balloons and exciting boy-men stationed during the war. A beach just over the sand dunes but without a sewage plant. A telephone exchange (where my mother’s aunt worked) down the block from the City Hall (where my Nana worked) where live women answered saying “Number Please” when you lifted the receiver. A natatorium to the south with multiple pools of all temperatures, depths, and sizes, and with both clear and salt water. An oil refinery immediately adjacent to the south with a recognizable odor when the wind was incoming from the southwest.
And so much more …
After eighty years I can still hear, see, and smell it.
I wonder what kept me from reading this book a long time ago.
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COVID deaths in California are up … we have had nine so far in Siskiyou County. We are a small county so nine is a lot.
Following his two weeks of intense “work” (six to twelve hours at a stretch) to produce the Christmas Eve video for his church, and the necessary filming of musicians with whom he is not usually in contact, Mark began feeling ill. He and Kamille were tested last sunday and we will get the results in a day or so. In the meantime, we are all staying out of circulation.
So far, no one else feels ill.
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Ever since Yule and Christmas, evenings and mornings out my window have been loverly with the waxing Moon on the crest of the new fallen snow …
Dan Rather said it well …
I hope. I mourn. I pray. I love. I listen. I share. I resolve. I waver.
Life is complicated.
So … ‘til next week …