Coyote Hills

"the" monarch

 I spent a lovely Sunday noontime up at Coyote Hills Regional Park. I hadn't been up there, I think, since Jeffrey's fourth grade field trip! It was the day after the first big rain of the season.
Noelle, Matt, Channah, Nathan and I went to the Visitor Center (a spot of great significance in Noelle's family history), the Butterfly Garden (where Nathan reunited with a butterfly he swore was the caterpillar he'd seen on his last visit) and we also watched swarming winged ants lose their wings and run around in little tandem pairs.

a monarch caterpillar

I've forgotten the name of this plant already -- it's a relative of milkweed, the monarchs' favorite.

Then we participated in the Stone Age Olympics: fire starting by twirling a stick (no success) flint-knapping (just watched) spearing targets and mammoth using an atlatl, flinging a bola, and playing throw the spear through the hoop -- all skills that early Native tribes needed to survive. 

The only one of us who wouldn't have starved to death was Noelle -- her 1/8? native blood and years of experience helped her! 

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Matt retrieves spears from mammoth hunt

Channah lets loose the spear!

Noelle poses next to her spear through the mammoth's heart (Matt hit its hoof)

Meanwhile, back in the twenty-first century, I'm getting ready for my trip to the ancient pueblo ruins in Arizona and New Mexico -- so all this Indian lore is very a propos.

Assorted sunsets

 I've always loved sunsets, but it's really hard to capture the moments in photos: I guess because it's dynamic, changing so subtly but relentlessly, and also because it's a surround-experience, not just one-directional.  The eye is so much more than a camera!

Usually I think I need to be at a beautiful place to see a beautiful sunset -- the beach, of course! or the mountains, but these pictures show that the spectacle is lovely from my own neighborhood, in the case of the first two photos, my own backyard. It's an effort to get out of my recliner and find my i-phone, and go outside.

Taking a sunset walk is another option, although these hot days it doesn't really get cool enough until it's too late. These virga-like streaks were almost impossible to capture. I wished I could levitate into them!
Usually an hour or so before sunset you can tell by the clouds that  it's going to be a good one, but then the breeze blows the clouds away, or the fog sets in. Or I lose track of time!

The silhouettes of the trees are another factor.
Seasonal changes and angles make a big difference in the photos. I don't take nearly enough shots. I haven't gotten used to the idea that digital photography never runs out of film! (Of course, I do have to keep my batteries charged, and I just broke another camera by dropping it one too many times).

This is my street -- the cypresses on the left side are my trees, and the light pole is in front of my house.  If I live to be 90, I'll see around 8000 more sunsets. WATCH THIS SPACE!

Another Funeral

Another funeral today. For a member of our Dementia support group (the caregiver, not the spouse). 
This man had several siblings, seven kids, 20 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren, none of whom I knew. But having such a large family seemed to me a kind of legacy I'll never have. That made me sadder for myself than for him.

The music was lovely -- gorgeous soprano pianist/singer. The priest was Asian, and his voice was soft and difficult to comprehend -- of course it could be my hearing is going downhill -- but I didn't feel he had anything uplifting to say outside of the Catholic ritual itself. I guess what I like to hear at such services is more about the person himself. Perhaps that was done at the rosary last night, I don't know. My faith in an afterlife is pretty dim, and I believe memories are the main way we live on. I need to get out there and make more memories!

Last week's funeral/memorial service, for the mom of one of my fellow teachers, was held in a Quaker Meeting House. We sang music the woman loved, and her family and friends shared memories of her. There was lots of potluck food afterwards. I felt flashbacks of when my mom died, 15 years ago now. This woman was the same age as my mom would have been, yet she had 15 more years of life and love. I wish she and my kids and I could have had that time.

A few months ago there was another funeral. This one was for the husband of one of the caregivers support group members. It was held at the Santa Clara Mission Church where Greg and I were married, and the reception was in the Faculty Club, where our reception was. It felt like a big spiral was whirling through my life. The widow has already found a new male friend, which seems to me to be an act of amazing courage and optimism. I can't imagine it. I can't even imagine wanting to.

Crab walk

Down at Rio del Mar State Beach yesterday morning, there were hundreds of crabs, largest about palm-sized, washed up on the beach, stranded on their backs when the tide went out. Some of them were still struggling to right themselves; some had died or given up. Oddly, the gulls weren't swooping in for the crab feed. Maybe they'd already eaten their fill before we came? So, one by one, Margee and I used our toes to turn them over, so they could scoot back to the sea. We didn't notice that they actually did that, but at least they didn't look so helpless. 

There was also a bonanza of sand dollars (mostly dead) on the beach, including lots and lots of tiny ones -- sand nickels and dimes? I've collected a few of these before, but they're so delicate, they don't last. I wonder if there is a way to preserve them? I can imagine them adorning my greeting cards or becoming jewelry.

It's still amazing to me how much the beaches change day to day, week to week. In the spring the caves at Davenport were wide open, you could stand up in them, then last month they were all filled with sand. Pescadero Beach rocks were covered with anemones and multicolored starfish last year, then the next time I went, the beach was almost sand-less with rounded ping pong ball sized rocks and no starfish to be seen. The Beach at the Santa Cruz Wharf was rotten with seaweed the week before Fourth of July. Almost no seaweed a couple of weeks later. 

I'm beginning to think I need to move to a beachside community!

The Biscuit Palace,
French Quarter, New Orleans

This was a quaint old (1820) guest house 

a block off 

Bourbon Street, walking distance to  everything.

(For some reason I couldn't get these photos to stay in order -- everytime I added a new one all the other ones jumped around)

Welcome to my room -- third floor up 44 winding steps which provided me with my daily workout. My brother and his wife and her daughter stayed on the first floor! Note the tin ceilings. Nothing mass produced about this place.

The view out my kitchen window -- houses are on Bourbon Street, which provided lots of background noise, but not the jazzy music we expected.

My bed, comfortable despite its evident age.

Murals and faux finishes everywhere -- these lizards were on the kitchen counter tops.

The little kitchen area had a window to provide cross breezes and a view out over the rooftops of Bourbon Street.

Self-portrait

Murals on the medicine cabinet/mirror

Peach orchards and cotton fields on the walls in the bathroom, and a clawfooted tub it was a challenge to climb in and out of.

Sunrise from my balcony

Steve watching t.v.  in their ground-floor room

Steve  and Donna's room, complete with twelve foot ceilings (tin) bath en suite

My balcony (shared with another room)

Unusual murals in their kitchen area!

The inner courtyard of the establishment, complete with koi pond!

They moved me to another room the last night there -- just as elegant but not as funky.

Faux marble finish on the fireplace.

New Orleans trip

Here I go again trying to post photos -- why does it never seem to work the same way twice? Tomorrow I'll try the same thing with the photos from my iPhone.

Me by the riverfront -- it was so cold I had to buy a sweatshirt to add under my windbreaker and over my sweater and socks to keep my toes warm!

Art everywhere -- Donna and Julie admiring local art near Jackson Square. Julie bought a lot. I restrained myself, but somehow spent all my money anyway!

It is required to have coffee and beignets here, but once is enough. 

My most interesting breakfast was a baked sweet potato with pecan syrup and powdered chocolate at the French Market.

Lots of walking. These are Donna's and my happy shadows on the moonwalk near the Cafe du Monde.

Steve and I went on a Eco Swamp Tour -- saw gators, wild canaries, snakes, turtles, a giant spider and a great blue heron, but you had to be pretty fast to get a picture of any of them.

This fishing boat was blown up  the Pearl River from the Gulf by Hurricane Katrina, and is still there seven years later. We also toured the lower Ninth Ward, but it was too depressing to take pictures.

Shrimp boat -- I ate a lot of seafood: shrimp, crawfish, crab, and a fish called Drumm, and tasted mussels -- I wasn't quite brave enough to try turtle or gator sausage.

We were told this was near the place where they filmed Beasts of the Southern Wild, athough it looked pretty tame!

Swamp wildflowers. We learned the difference between a swamp and a marsh and a bayou and a slough. It was beautiful and creepy and mysterious.

I'm glad I didn't have to find my way around.

Cypress trees and their "knees" (actually part of the roots.)

This great blue heron was called George by the boat captain, totally unfazed by passing tourists.

April weekend

Rio Del Mar Beach with Margee and Joey -- a beautiful day, not crowded despite the fact that it is Spring Break week. 

There were a few shells and bits of beach glass, if you were willing to wade out a bit to get them. but the biggest surprise was a ladybug on the beach!

 

The cats are happy to have warm sunshine, and I discovered all of them taking advantage of the chaise lounges and cat beds in the backyard, which smells of a bumper crop of wisteria blossoms. 

Looking down at Alameda Creek from the bridge

Little Yosemite -- not much water, but a lot of rocks, and yes, those are people down there!

Another successful hike.

I went on a short hike to the Little Yosemite area of Sunol Regional Wilderness with the Singleaires. 

There were lots of wildflowers, given the fact that it has been a dry year: California poppies, several varieties of lupines, johnny jump-ups, popcorn flowers, sticky monkey flowers, virgin's bower, wild hyacinths, globe lilies, yarrow, and something my expert companions assured me were called blue dicks!