Insistent earworms & audiobooks

Day 3 of earworm: Two Sisters by Clannad. They’re all guilty. Johnny was a schmuck. Sing aye dum, sing aye day. I’ll be true to my love if he’ll be true to me… Make it stop! I was driving down the road listening to an audiobook, The Girl on the Train, when suddenly this folksong began to interject itself right into the monologues. True, murder most foul is at the epicenter of the story, as told from several perspectives, but I had to turn off the audiobook. 

OK, so the intense monologues are tedious, I want to beat up the character for being twits and twats, but the storyline is also hypnotically poetic in the vein of The Time Traveler’s Wife. But back to the rude interjection of the folksong. I really don’t think the miller did it, and Johnny was a schmuck.

Just listened to Girl by Edna O’Brien. Devastating. Does anyone know of a cheap way to get used CD audiobooks? I’m on my last one. I listen to them in my car when I’m driving. James Patterson, Lee Child, Robert Grisham, Jonathan Kellerman, Kathy Reich, Philip Dick, etc.

I’m working my way through the oeuvre of John Grisham: I loved Jake Brigance in The Client. looking for part two, Sycamore Row. There were four CD books in one, and now I can’t remember them all. Ak! The Firm, Client, Summons, and? Long ago I read The Pelican Brief, but I don’t remember it. Or the movie. Maybe I need to begin at the beginning.

Listening to books on tape with my iPad versus the car stereo is not great, but it will do in a pinch. No aux port. Using the empty FM channel device is useless but it does give me a USB port so I can keep my iPad charged.

2022 A recap: last year, I discovered that through Libby and Hoopla, that I could download audiobooks to my iPad. A game changer. You can also download e-books too, but I found during sequestration, I had the mental acuity of a newt, or maybe a frog, and I could not concentrate. 

I normally hated audiobooks. I hated being read to. So the voiceover actor who reads the stories aloud is as important as the author. I can safely say that a bad reader can ruin a good author’s story.

I have gone through the entire catalog of Alexander McCall Smith and James Lee Burke, as well as many other crime writers. Libby carries titles that Hoopla doesn’t, so you should have both apps. And also when you run out of monthly download credits on Hoopla, you can switch over to Libby.

The more library cards you have, the more books you can download in a given month. Definitely a case of the more, the merrier. Library card wealth is a thing. Also, one county library system may not have all the titles of the given author, but you can mix and match with various library systems. Thank you Glenn Ingersoll for cluing me in.

ODE TO VICTORIA

ODE TO VICTORIA

Above Victoria‘s head, the gilded fan,
like a golden bird, graces the wall.
She twirls and twists her long dark hair up in a knot.
It becomes a comb holding up a mantilla to the sky.
We cannot escape the confines of our rooms, 

but she time travels across the universe anyway.
She has a field of virtual stars behind her.
The fan is painted with cypress trees 

or perhaps willow, I can’t tell from this distance.
She tells me There is a bird nests in their branches.
It is a poem referring back to the ancient past,

perhaps by Wu Wei, a deep canyon, 

that faint promise of spring.
She combs and brushes her hair,

a wave, or a river singing of sorrow and hope.

She is like a Chinese princess of olden times

softly singing in the garden, 

while the birds come to listen.

3/9/21

ACROSS A BLIND SEA

ACROSS A BLIND SEA

Across a turbulent sea,
the waves quail and argue
about who goes first.
It’s a desert of thought in my mind.
They roar and toss the boats
loosened from their moorings,
lost on stormy seas,
and the blindness is deafening
against the rocks.

3/9/21

Cleveland Elementary School Day 5 teaching notes: Chain poems, 4th Grade, Oakland, journal

Day five, hump week. It’s four weeks until spring break. We chitchat and discuss the origin of April Fool’s Day, it falls on a Thursday. Ms. Loser tells us a story of how she once sent a memo out to her colleagues saying that there was no school on April Fools’ Day, and because they didn’t read to the end of the letter that said April Fool’s! everybody believed her and didn’t come to school. And then someone piped up, Don’t you have to wear green on April Fools’ Day? That made me laugh and then that was my entrance que, as I was waiting in the wings. I said you have to wear green on St. Patrick’s Day. It represents freedom. It would be fun to do something with customs and aphorisms. I say, Thank you Connor, for the poetry lesson idea. He chuffs.

We go over last week’s work which were based on acrostics, and India reads a poem about a sparrow. Because I can see the document on the screen, I say make it look like a poem too. And so we add commas and line breaks. Atziri read a poem about sunflowers. Some of her lines are very long and we talk about indenting three spaces, or using the tab key when a line continues past the confines of the page. 

Today is a little bit more shoptalk, we are delving further into the revisioning and editing process. We focus on how to make it look like a poem. And whether or not it needs punctuation and/or commas. I say one line, one idea. I often make line breaks at commas. I say, one unit of breath, one idea. We talk of personal choices whether or not to punctuate. I mention that like with Emily Dickinson changing the face of poetry, e.e. cummings, who eschewed capitalization and punctuation, also changed the shape of poetry. 

Emily reads a poem from last week, then Natalie—her ocean poem has a lot of potential. I tell her, make it also look like a poem. Again, we reiterate the process of line breaks. We also discuss using strong verbs versus weak verbs. I tell her that I cannot see the word fun. I cannot see the word get. I cannot see the word go. Are there stronger verbs we can use to make our poems really sing? We look at the worksheets, lists of verbs and feelings, words for invoking the senses. I tell them, these worksheets in your Google folder are resources for you to use when you get stuck.

Freewrite time—we can revisit old poetry lessons, or write new work. The only thing I am looking for are comparisons. I make the comparison sign—two fists, or two ideas, crashing headlong into each other to create similes and metaphors. 

We breathe deep, we make vroom vroom noises, we shake out our hands, we become race cars, we grab the proverbial steering wheel, and screech out, making our words fly across the page. We drive them around dangerous curves, not braking for what lies ahead. It’s all out, flat out, drag racing through the back roads of memory. Dead man’s curve coming up, the twists and turns in the road become sinuous as snakes. We don’t know where we’re going, or where we’ll end up, but we’re going there, fast as we can, pedal to the metal, across the finish line. But a writer’s work is never done.

Insomnia, roosters, mistletoe and Agnès Varda

 I still haven’t gone to sleep & now the freaking roosters are up—gossiping with the waning moon & some guy is arguing with me about Agnès Varda. Really? Varda’s niece, a Hungarian filmmaker used to stay with her uncle Jean on the Charles van Damme ferry in Sausalito. I had posted on someone’s site a video clip, that I was at one of those famous Jean Varda parties as a child, and it seemed familiar, and one of them must’ve been Agnès—as she was familiar too. This guy decided to argue with me saying that it wasn’t possible. I said, I beg to differ, it was MY MEMORY...and I went from there, growling. We worked it out but it sure made me hopping mad. How typical of a guy to mansplain and attempt to erase or negate someone’s comment. Well, as you well know, I’ll have none o’ that, now.

Meanwhile, the chickens were already up and crowing. No hope of retrieving lost sleep. Whenever the chickens see me near my car they come galumphing, listing from side to side like drunken sots, especially if I melodiously croon Chickens! and say BuckBucks. Because, well, food. Handsome Pele and his girls. Alpha flock. Except for the dingbat silkie who doesn’t know the front end of the chicken from the back end. No danger there of him passing on his genes.

A lot of people were up at 3 AM, it was a virtual Facebook pajama party. Gary Glazner, Margaret Maughan, and on the other side of the world, my Irish cousins were even chiming in. It was quite the night. Meanwhile Ken Bullock was also up, but then, he’s my resident nightowl, and we were trading Cornish insults as our wont because it was, and still is St. Piran’s Day. Gool Piran da dheugh why oll!

I also I had a long, if busy, day yesterday. I edited several month’s worth of photos, and then made small photo albums for the California Native Plant Society, with several needing IDs from its sister group, California Invasive Plants. So my mind was going like a race car. My daffodil post came from this planty intersection, as did the pond turtle story. I thought I was done for the day. But like Steve Jobs saying, wait, there’s one more thing....

The most astonishing post of all was of some mistletoe I had taken a photo of, still attached to a branch with leaves, and a Cazadero biologist was more interested in the attached oak leaves than the mistletoe. He said the oak was a hybrid, an Oracle oak. 

Unfortunately some mistletoe was an invasive legacy introduced by Luther Burbank. But I was gobsmacked. Hybrid oracle oaks are rare, and are usually not a coastal phenomenon. 

Suddenly I cold actually see what he was talking about—the leaves were hybrid, not deeply lobed like a black oak, but with little spines like a live oak, but the leaf was not cupped or curled like a live oak Why didn’t I notice this when I first found the mistletoe? I was too busy looking at the mistletoe and not the oak. Well, it was December.

Understand that I am a ballpark amateur in the realm of native plant ID. I can a get close ID, but I can’t tell the difference between subspecies. I can’t really hone in like the pros. Why I joined the group in the first place was to learn. I was expecting a simple answer. The universe did not comply. 

Once I was content with knowing if an oak tree was a Coast Live Oak, or if it was a deciduous one. My mind stopped there. End of story. Sure I could say valley oak, or black oak, and I knew that there are nine kinds of oak trees in California—but did I know the difference?  Not really. I barely knew all the interior oaks.

Well, this has certainly been an interesting and productive twinned goosechase, curtesy of Luther Burbank, and apparently, the wind. Expecting a simple ID, I got way more than I bargained for. Steep learning curves. And I guess I needed to post my mistletoe find under invasive plants vs native ones. interior live oak.

And suddenly I’ve entered the realm of multitudes of oaks that can hybridize with each other. My mind is reeling. My grandmother once told me that the word for door comes from the Irish duire, simultaneously meaning both door and druid, aka fios, or knowledge. You can’t ever shut that door once it opens.

And Geoffrey Davis, also enter into this conversation, obliquely, for he was always pointing out the black oaks in the valley...whereas I was only aware of our coast live oak, because that was the extent of my entire ecosystem on Arroyo Road. I think of him each time I pass a stand of black oaks. Then, of course, there was the Black Oak restaurant...

I can see where this is going....

SILVER LINING photos

 

As I approached the old stock pond to take a photo of a gaudy wooden decoy duck surrounded by visiting canvasbacks, mallards, and mudhens, I was startled by a stacatto of splashing—it was too much for the ducks who burst into flight. Was someone skimming handfuls of rocks from the levee? No one there. Ghosts? Then I realized those stepping stones lining the shore were dozens of pond turtles—a bale of pond turtles had launched themselves into the murky depths of the water. Though I was far away, I was a threat. In years past, I might’ve considered myself lucky to see a turtle or two, and here were dozens of turtles sunning themselves along the embankment. I thought of the story of Turtle Island. Were they always there in such great numbers and I didn’t know how to see them? Sometimes the oblique glance from the corner of the eye sees far more than what’s right in front of you. I suddenly felt rich, as if I had found a cache of unexpected change hidden in a hole in my pocket.

• NOTE: THIS POST ALONG WITH 12 OTHER POSTS WAS ERRONEOUSLY REMOVED BY BLOGGER FOR VIOLATING COMMUNITY STANDARDS ON 5/14/21. It was reinstated as a draft the next day. I am still pissed off.

IN EMILY’S GARDEN

Imagine Emily alone in a white room 

wrestling with words still in their nightshirts.
Sunlight seeps in through lace curtains
The garden beckons, spring unfurls its finery,
seeking the warmth of the hesitant sun.
Emily tends to her garden and her words take root
in the depths of the soul, to offer solace
and nourishment during these darkest of times.

Here, amidst the pale greenery of midwinter,
Orange blossoms struggle to reach
     the secret heart of the sun.
Poppies remind the sun of its filial duty to return
every year, relentless time. The wheel of the year.

3/2/21

Cleveland Elementary School Day 4 teaching notes: HOPE, Acrostix 3/2/21 Journal

3/2 We begin class with housekeeping: I remind my students that they need to use only one Google document with their full name at the top of the page, not several documents. They also need to date each day’s work. I expect at least two poems per day.  I still cannot open any of their documents, nor do I have permission. We are working on it. But for now, the only way I can observe their work is if they screenshare their document when they read.

I remind them that they have two writing times. 1. during freewrite, when we review and share last week’s work. A freewrite could also be brand new work. It’s a good chance to revisit some of the previous week’s poetry lessons and redo them, but you don’t have to. The only thing I am looking for is strong images, and comparisons. The worksheets are there to help you if you need starter lines. During freewrite, I tell them you can write about anything you want, you do not have to revisit an old poetry lesson. Make sure you use comparisons. 2. The new day’s poetry lesson.

Last week we looked at a poem by Emily Dickinson. I tell the students the story of Emily, who was a recluse in her own home, she, who had only 10 poems published during her lifetime, changed the shape of poetry, especially American poetry. And here we are, all of us recluses, we are all Emily, alone in our secret gardens of the mind. I repeat a line, Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul. We hear poems from India, Justin, and Connor, who share their work from last week.

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus! A daffodil for Dewi Sant, photos

I'm not sure how the tradition first began, but about 40 years ago, daffodils, sold at a buck a bulb, were planted along Sonoma County roadsides to raise money for cancer research (the tradition may have begun in Canada as early as1965.) However it started, it was a wild success story. And daffodils have been used to raise money and promote cancer awareness ever since. Because daffodils have a chemical, esemastine, that kills breast cancer cells, they have become an international symbol of hope. (Narcissus pseudonarcissus, Amaryllidaceae family, are native to Northern Europe). 

In Sonoma County it has become a tradition that when someone dies of cancer, family and friends plant daffodils in remembrance—like the transplanted Mexican tradition of roadside memorials for car crash victims. The two traditions are beginning to merge in West Marin—shrines with la virgin de Guadalupe, trinkets and toys—even baby shoes—now include a stand of daffodils or narcissi. Most North Bay county roadsides are a riot of daffodils—a living reminder for those who have died. 

Old maps of California depicting remnants of lakes Tulare, Kern, Buena Vista, and Goose Lakes

Tulare Lake, once the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi, was destroyed by the prodigious thirst of farmers, in particular, a voracious cotton king—which led to the destruction of an entire ecosystem. 

Facebook’s California Geology Forum moderator reposted an “imagined map” from another site, Simon shows you maps. Aussie map collector Simon, who was riffing off a 2012 “Big Think” article, said, “The map imagines a satellite view of California is (sic) 1851.” Simon had the poor map imagining itself as being viewed by a “satellite” which had me doubting both its sentience and its veracity, as well as wondering about Simon’s grasp on the English language. Research was required.

I was on a roll. After consulting several old California maps from the 1830s to the 1890s, I can safely say that the fake Google satellite flyby didn’t happen in 1851—perhaps would depict the state of the lake ca. 1875. In 1851, the lake was much, much larger. No, seriously, folks, all that silly steampunking aside, geographer Mark Clark’s imaginary map, though very cool, seems to represent a much later version of the Tule/Tulare Lake(s)—more like something out of the 1880s or ‘90s, when it was being drained. All of which led me on a merry snow goosechase hunting down some of the backstory of Tulare Lake, and co., by way of old maps. The maps and storyline posted below are presented more or less in chronological order. 

For starters, I learned that the depiction that Clark used to represent an imaginary 1851 Google map of Tulare Lake was far too small, as Tulare Lake(s) was something like 8 times larger than Tahoe, at 800 square miles (later 687 mi².) it was shallow, with an average depth of about 40 to 50 feet, but deeper in winter. It was massive. After the demise of archaic Lake Cahuilla (Salton Sea) in the 1700s, Tulare Lake was the largest baddass lake and wetlands West of the Mississippi. It was king.

Tulare Lake 1875 —Wiki

I discovered that prehistoric Tulare Lake—remnant of vast Pleistocene Lake Corcoran—dried up within living memory, after all its tributary rivers were diverted for agriculture in the 1920s and 1930s. The 81-mile-long lake, named for the vast sea of tule rushes (Schoenoplectus acutus) lining its marshes and sloughs, with three other remnant lakes, Buena Vista, Kern, and Goose lakes, was part of one of the largest wetlands in North America. 

The term la ciénaga (or cienaga) has several meanings besides swamp. It was a Spanish Colonial term for spring, or wetlands, in the Am SW. It also meant "drowned land." The Yokuts Tachi name of the lake is Pa'ashi which translates to big water, not exactly a swamp term, and it’s the eponym of the tribe as well. 

 Some Yokuts subtribes called Tulare Lake Pah-ah-see for the way it grew and shrank with the seasons. Pah- is the universal Shoshone word for water. The vast lake ecosystem supported about 60 Yokuts subtribes so there were probably more lake names lost to history.

Tulare Lake also had an archipelago of sand islands, home to the densest population of Native Peoples in California. The Tulare basin, at 16,400 to 20,000 square miles, depending on who’s counting, was so vast, that the lake’s fisheries fed all the major cities of California. It was a major pathway for migrating birds, and also home to the southernmost range of the Chinook salmon on the West Coast. 

There was so much seasonal snowmelt water from the Sierra Nevada Mountains that farmers built dams, levees and canals in the 1880s and 1890s to tame it, in order to farm its rich bottomlands. Check out this 1830s Mexican map of California's Central Valley submerged beneath a 300-mile long, 30-mile wide seasonal lake. There’s a reason why so many Central Valley towns had the word Ferry embedded in their names. I remember reading early pioneer accounts of how the Central Valley turned into a vast inland sea. You can also see a flooded Tulare Lake in this map.

In 1830, the Central Valley was a vast inland sea 30 miles wide & 300 miles long.

Tulare Lake, which wasn’t seasonal, not only supplied fresh fish to San Francisco, it also served as a major water road for paddlewheel ferries during the 1880s-90s. No one ever imagined that the lake would disappear forever.

Apparently, during the 1920s, a southern farmer, JG Boswell, in an act of extreme hubris, drained one of the largest lakes in America to build the biggest little ole cotton empire in the world. It was the coup de la mort, the final blow—even the canals and levees constructed during the 1890s did nowhere near the damage Boswell did in the name of cotton. Look away, Dixieland. California cotton was king. it took a Texan to bring down California’s biggest lake.

That headline is so problematic, it made my eyeteeth hurt. Hysterical juxtaposition. The map itself can’t imagine what happened, no matter how hard it tries. No matter how sentient it thinks it is. The cartographer, Clark, whom we hope is sentient, could, and did imagine it, however, Simon still needs an editor. Let's move on, shall we? But what about the maps?

I just so happened to have a motley collection of old maps on my iPad from the 1830s to the 1860s—they depicted significantly larger bodies of inland water than in Clark’s “imagined” 1851 map. Maybe it was a drought year. Note that the 1873 map is similar to the imagined map.

FULL SNOW MOON haiku

FULL SNOW MOON

A grey fox crossed the road
in front of my headlights—
his tail erasing his shadow.

2/28/21

Links to some of my foodie bloggies

I was compiling a bloglist of foodways for my latest food blog, expecting to find a mere handful. Instead, I found 25 blog posts, and when I compiled a growing list, for some inexplicable reason, Blogger erratically erased the correct links. I had to redo this list too many times to count. I no sooner fixed three dead links, then when I reformatted it, other links went wonky. And so on. For every step forward, I retreated two steps. It took me most of the day to undo the damage. Shame on you Blogger for once again making what once was a relatively simple task into a logistical nightmare. Ditto that with your dogged changing of spelling in the search window. Foodways is a real word. The links are in no particular order, but are mostly chronological in nature. I'm sure I missed a few.

A note on native foodways in the British Isles vs. foods introduced by Romans
Wild Apples

Defiant Fruitcakes

A note on Medieval spices

A note on Medieval turnspit dogs

Folklore: Foodways, saying, a food thief/ house sprite
Folklore: Foodways/ How to make Irish Soda Bread

Folklore: Irish Soda Bread Recipe
Corned beef & cabbage came out of Hell's Kitchen

Groundcherries by any other name 

On Jack O Lanterns and squashes 
Lemon Meringue Merengue
Elderberry Whine

Baking a Cake on Bastille Day

Writing down the bone soup

Recipe for bone broth
Tea vs Chai—if by Land, or Sea
Tapping trees: a soggy story
Arbutus, Madroño, or a Strawberry Tree by any other name
Irish salmon
Naked man in a filbert bush, and spotted dick

Shrove Tuesday Pancakes

Fat Tuesday pancakes

Huckleberries

MY AMERICA haiku

My America 

is a hummingbird hovering 

at an empty feeder 

crawling with ants.

2/23/21

Cleveland Elementary School Days 1-3 teaching notes: LOVE IS LIKE, IF/THEN, MY, HOPE, Ms. Loeser’s 4th Grade, Journal

2/9 Well, this is a first, I came late to my own class, thinking it began on Thursdays, not Tuesdays. Oops! This pandemic messes with my sense of time. It took me quite some time to get into the Zoom meeting as well, which made me even later yet. Egg on my face. What a funny saying. First you have to be eating eggs for breakfast, second you have to be eating them so fast that they’re all over your face. Then you need to be in such a hurry that you don’t even have the time to wipe your mouth. That about sums it up. I never quite caught my breath the entire class. Wipe your mouth!

I am a great one for over-preparing, but this time I had to teach ad hoc, off the top of my head. Luckily the poem I chose was a phrase by William Butler Yeats, Love is like a lion’s tooth as a starter place. Mary did not receive my PDF handouts, so I had to teach, and simultaneously send her the lesson plan via email, talk about multitasking. But we did it.

I did a brief intro—who I am, my relationship with poetry, why I write. How dyslexia, feeling mute, and the urge to share all these feelings shaped my poetic persona. How I arrived late to this class, and also to poetry, I was turning 30 before I wrote a poem, I was late, all out of breath. 

During independent study, or while they were waiting for me to show up for class, students wrote a short bio on Google Docs. A great use of time.

We opened our class with comparisons. I read Yeats’ fragment, Love is like a lion’s tooth. I asked students what they thought it meant. There were some interesting comments, I asked them to write their own version. And there were some great examples. We expanded our ideas into longer poems. Kids are eager to share their poems in this crazy cyber world.

During recess, we had a breakout room. A first. Paloma shared her screen, so we worked on line breaks, a rarity. One thing that came up several times was how to deepen our images. How do we make something generic versus specific? I told her I can’t see the word “bad,” can you give me an example so I can see it? How do we deepen? How do we create a picture that the audience too can see? I tell them, Poetry is a picture made with words. 

Kids wrote in their journals but will transfer their poems to Google Docs which Mary will share with me later. I did not get a chance to record some of the examples that we spontaneously made up, and they were good. Next time. 

I designed a quickie heart card and shared it, saying that since Sunday was Valentine’s Day, they should consider taking one of their love comparisons and putting it inside a valentine card to give to someone. I also mentioned the presidential inauguration youth poet Amanda Gorman was a CPITS student. Kids were sufficiently shocked. They liked the idea that poetry can travel well beyond the boundaries of this classroom.

On being bullied in school

I read with interest a HuffPost article on someone who tracked down and interviewed the bullies she met in school. Coming to terms with your accusers without laying blame. going beyond, and discovering the reason why your tormentors were tormented. 

Few know that I was bullied in grade school and high school. I withdrew into my art, and kept my circle of friends small. At the time, I had no idea I was being bullied. I blamed myself. We did not have the words for it, and it wasn’t immediately obvious. I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t liked. We blamed different cliques and went on with our lives, not knowing that bullying behavior needs to be acknowledged and called out. 

In retrospect, I wish teachers had given us some social skills or tools to cope with that kind of behavior—rather than forcing us to take Home Ec. What on earth did those popular girls and cheerleader types have against me? It was the birth of hippiedom, the age of the Summer of Love. Grudges and differences fell by the wayside during the social revolution that ended the 1960s.

I came to terms with some of the bullying, or rather, I faced it, when I went to my 10th high school reunion, thanks to a high school friend friend Ken Bullock who enticed me to the after party picnic, and to old grade school friend, Dennis De La Montanya who welcomed me with open arms. That was the first snakeskin shedding. The first healing had begun. Poetry gave me back the world. 

By my 20th high school reunion I had left that old world far behind, having grown a thicker skin, and by my 30th reunion, the pain was barely recognizable—those days were an afterthought. But it was ossified. Writing had so completely become my world, my realm, that all was fodder for the gristwheel. But I couldn’t write about it. I think on some level, I had long since forgiven my tormentors, and moved on, but more importantly, I forgave myself. However, I was angry for such a very long time. The pain was still there.

Now facing my 50th, actually my 51st high school reunion since we missed our 50th due to COVID, it is interesting to revisit some of those old feelings. Those old stomping grounds had become a kind of fiction. But also they shaped my persona, and how I react to others bullying people is an indicator of what I experienced. I must admit that when I witness bullying now, I am all tooth and claw.

It comes as quite a shock to realize that you’ve carried that albatross for so long around your neck, like a holy relic, but it also informs your personality, makes you even more who you are. This constant process of becoming.

With thanks to Paula Friedman

YOUNG BOBCAT

YOUNG BOBCAT

1.A young bobcat, all tawny and golden, 

bounded in front of me at Nicasio Creek 

as I was driving towards the bridge at dusk. 

His undulating spots were mesmerizing

as his undersides flashed rufous and amber. 

The white tip at the end of his bobbed tail, 

was like a small searchlight or a shooting star.

I didn’t even attempt to reach for my camera.

Sometimes it’s OK to just let it go. 

Be in the present. My heart felt lighter for it.

2. Then there are those darker days 

when I don’t reach for my camera, 

I try to keep it close at hand,  

but I don’t always succeed 

at keeping the rough beast at bay.

My camera, a small beacon of hope 

on a treacherous coastline.

2/22/21

Remembering Chicken Bill, aka William Muller

Chicken Bill Mueller at the Rancho Nicasio

William “Chicken Bill” Mueller was born in 1946, a Chicago native, he said is background was of Polish heritage, his mother’s maiden name was Irlowski. He said he got out of the Windy City by running off to join the military—probably Vietnam. Something about his draft card number coming up.

When he first came to Marin in the 1970s, he worked in construction with his friend Mike Vinceleone who owned a construction business in Larkspur. Both he and Mike were very fond of LSD. Bill also worked on the Escalle Estate Vineyards, mending fences, and running the backhoe. He said that he built many of the houseboats along the Corte Madera Creek. He also worked at a YMCA camp, and for Gort Jewelers in San Rafael. Bill was a diamond duster and dated the jeweler’s daughter.

He said something about a pimp and a pink Cadillac, and it sounds like at one point he was pretty flush, as he had credit card with $23,000 on it. I don’t know if that was debt, or value.

He got his moniker when he worked on a chicken ranch. Packs of dogs would go after his chickens. He said at one point, he killed 77 dogs, and was arrested, sent to Atascadero, and while there, he was found mentally unstable, and was drugged.

While in the asylum, he said that he learned law, fought his case to get out of prison, and won. But circumstances had drastically changed for him. The world he knew no longer existed. He lost his place on Juarez (when?) due to back taxes, etc., when he was sent to prison.

While in Santa Rosa, in 2017, he was in the Tubbs fire zone and lost everything. He said, “They made me leave in the middle of the night and I lost all my possessions. I had no papers. Nothing. I had a small trust fund, about 15k but lost it all in a bad investment.” I think what he was trying to tell me what is this when you lose all your papers you can’t prove who you are

It sounds like he lived in Forest Knolls on Juarez or Montezuma off and on during the 1970s onward. In 1977, he had a pet pig named Francis he said that the sheriff came and confiscated him…. He said that he lost most of his investment money, and any money from the sale of his property, was long gone. He was a veteran, and lived on a small VA stipend and SSI. Sometimes he stayed in Barb’s back bedroom to dry out, and take a shower, but most of the time he lived in a little camp he had created deep in the woods.

It was not easy interviewing Bill because he would never finish the story and then jump into another story, and if I tried to get him to backtrack, he would get cranky, so I just let it flow.

Trying to get Barbara Scott, who knew him best, to clarify the story was equally challenging, if not downright impossible. When Covid came along, Chicken Bill was looking in on her, taking care of her most basic needs during her year+ of isolation. If she needed heavy, lifting done or soil moved, Chicken Bill was there. He built a solar panel array for her little shed on the side of the trailer, and helped her in the community garden. Barbara left us in July of 2021.

I lost touch with Chicken Bill after that. Barbara was our only connection. Sometimes I would see him on his bicycle headed towards the San Geronimo foodbank, and we would stop and say hello, but then it was as if he just disappeared, evaporated into thin air. I didn’t see him anymore. And now I fear that they are both gone.

Fragments: Don Yurian, shooting dogs, the Weavers. I always meant to write up the story, but somehow I got distracted and now I can’t remember the thread, or the bits that I did not write down. I’ve been too far and too long from it. I would love to collect any stories you have of him and see if we can wave together a piece. Perhaps Angel? In May of 1997, according to my blog, I was at the Rancho Nicasio bar and a drunk asked me if I knew Chicken Bill, so it sounds like he was still living in Forest Knolls at the time.

This was fleshed out from my Feb 19, 2021 notes, on March 19, 2023.

A note on native foodways in the British Isles vs. foods introduced by Romans

I read an interesting post in a Facebook group, British Medieval History, on foodways where someone said, “Introduced by the Romans to Britain: Apples, asparagus, turnips, peas, garlic, cabbages, onions, leeks, cucumbers, artichokes, figs, chestnuts, cherries, celery, wine, plums, etc...”

The list struck me as wrong. I was off and running when I saw that the thread commentor, Paul Davis had credited the Romans with bringing apples to the British Isles. I told him, I suspect if you dig deeper you’ll find that apples were not introduced by the Romans. 

Specific species of apples, cabbage and onions, probably were probably introduced, but apples, kales, and wild onions too were part of the northern European Neolithic landscape. And there were plenty of native brassicas as well. Don’t forget the color woad comes from a brassica. 

Cabbage was domesticated in Western Europe ca. 1000 BC, probably by the Celts. Brassica is from from bresic, a Celtic word for cabbage. Whether native or feral, brassica species favored the white limestone cliffs of Dover, and the Isle of Wight. Brassica oleracea has successfully crossed with native brassica species so it’s impossible to tell them apart. And then there’s another continental shared species, arbutus, or strawberry tree, native to Ireland, but curiously not to Britain. 

I am no botanist or scientist, but I did extensive research on apples, because the information struck me as wrong that apples were introduced to the British Isles via Rome, via Kazakhstan. Also, apples, specifically crabapples, played a significant central role in Irish and Welsh mythology. Then there’s Avalon, the isle of apples. The reason being that certain plant species were circumpolar, such as the corylus, rosids, vaccinium, malus, prunus, brassicaceae and allium—sort of like reindeer/caribou, foxes, etc., so no one region can claim species origin. 

BEAUTY IS NOT ONLY SKIN DEEP

BEAUTY IS NOT ONLY SKIN DEEP 

What the mirror said
I learned the hard way
I was born a cygnet
and when I shed my baby teeth

not knowing I was a swan

I thought I was an ugly duckling

I looked away from the mirror
it always lied to me and told me big fibs
but I didn’t see that
the fowlish water was made of crocodile tears
and the rain fell in concentric circles
a stone skipped and danced
across the surface of the pond
I was mesmerized by a shattered reflection
I never learned the truth that
beauty comes from within.

(Now read it again from the bottom up).

2/16/21

Shrove Tuesday on the fly

Laissez les bons temps rouler!  I just realized it’s Shrove Tuesday! I made minimalist buckwheat pancakes on the fly—sans crêpe pan. Stuffed with Laurel Cheney’s cranberry goat cheese and drizzled with maple syrupl, they were divine, but too fragile to flip as I didn’t get a chance to let the batter rest. I forgot to flip mine, does that mean I’ll not be shriven? So they didn’t roll up as nicely as they should have, but they went down the hatch just fine. Burp. 

Somehow this post got lost in the shuffle, or flat out disappeared, when I was compiling a list of food blogs. I found it again on Facebook. So all is restored. Sort of. I don’t have the final rendition.

I used buckwheat pancake flour, an egg, some oil, a little sour cream and milk to thin the batter. Butter for the pan.

The ingredients for pancakes can be seen to symbolise four points of significance at this time of year:
Eggs ~ Creation
Flour ~ The staff of life
Salt ~ Wholesomeness
Milk ~ Purity 

See Pancake Day

San Geronimo! a school play, and Freedom School, Freedom Summer, Mississippi during the Civil Rights movement

This is a rather odd, convoluted story. I hardly know how to process it. Seemingly unrelated events converged at rhomboid angles when I tried to find the news clipping on a play I was in, called San Geronimo! in 1965. It was written by Barbara Scott and directed by Stu Rasmussen. The Marin County librarian had no luck finding it, so when Newspapers.com was free today, I slogged through a decade’s worth of newspapers. Sometimes finding what you aren’t looking for is the real story. Synchronicity works in mysterious ways. During Freedom Summer, the good folks of San Geronimo Valley had raised money and made a massive book drive to furnish Indianola Freedom School in Mississippi. Someone’s local son taught there. They needed books. We gave. We sent them 2000 books. I remember being asked to give up some of my books. I belong to Scholastic book services book club and every month I bought armloads of books for $.10 each—that’s where all my babysitting money went, was for books. The organizers included Harold Gregg of Forest Farm Camp, and the Greenbergers—Joan’s father was a guard at San Quentin. One night he took us kids out to dinner. Instant mashed potatoes and salisbury steak in the San Quentin mess hall. Weird. Understand that the San Geronimo Valley, an enclave of artists and musicians, was not mainstream Marin. More like the poverty pool. Jazz pianists Lenny Tristano and Ralf Sutton were fathers of our our classmates. Maurice del Mué painted our WPA school mural.  Meanwhile, during that Freedom Summer, many of Marin’s young folks rallied, they also joined Martin Luther King, marching from the San Francisco Theological Seminary to Selma. Ken Bullock remembers seeing the greyhound busses pull away from the seminary. Unrelated segue no. 1, I was part of that Marin City mounted entourage from the San Geronimo Valley. I played Joseph leading Mary on a donkey, Dec. 1964. Yeah, I was dressed in white bedsheets pulling a recalcitrant ass through the streets of Marin City. Equally weird. Unrelated segue no. 2. More of a prequel as it set everything in motion. Cathy Barbano who lived on our road, was killed in a car crash in Mexico in 1965. Then her grief-stricken father, Ed Barbano shot himself. Meanwhile, there was Selma Alabama. Bloody Sunday, March 1965. Well, Freedom School was razed to the ground, and Mississippi was burning. So SGV folks began raising money and collecting books all over again to help rebuild that school—and our play, San Geronimo! was a fundraiser. Why I had trouble finding the article was because the lead was buried. Literally. I kept seeing references to Freedom School. Curiosity finally got the better of me. I was so sure I would never find that article. Maddening. And lo, filed under the headline of Freedom Summer, there was the slippery article that had evaded detection for decades. Everything suddenly came together. Our fundraiser, the rebuilding of Freedom School was a memorial tribute to Cathy’s father and our playground teacher, Ed Barbano. See Harold Gregg’s rousing letter at the end. What spurred us into action? The abduction and murder of three civil rights leaders June 25, 1964, by the KKK may have been the galvanizing event. Synchronicity works in mysterious ways.

Mt Tam, stabilo drawing 5x7”

Yet another drawing of Iceland5x7” stabilo

Day 5, post vaccine blues, round 2

Day 5: So far, so good, but then, I’m still lolling in bed. I awoke at 6AM, bummed that I didn’t sleep in. I am both restless and exhausted, a lethal combination. I decided to wait out the side effects of the Moderna vaccine at a friend’s trailer, as I was feeling far too weird to drive home. I’m totally spaced out—like being high—without the munchies. I have no appetite at all, and I’m trippin’ without the Grateful Dead.

I’ve spent the past few days dozing while listening to audiobook CDs in my car; the warm winter sunlight amplified by all those windows is heavenly—I must be morphing into a cat. Barb’s cat is jealous of my new digs, she wants in. At least I'm not snoozing on the hood of my car in front of God and the neighbors who were already craning their necks as it was. 

Yesterday I slept in, which helped enormously. Nothing like a full-night’s sleep to make you right as rain, as my grandmother might say. But when I went to my care giver job, I was easily overwhelmed and distressed by mid-afternoon. Not quite ready to burst into tears, but close, I felt so out of sorts. Thickheaded.

The first few days after the vaccine I was freezing, cold as the morgue, a place I’m actively trying to avoid like the plague. I just couldn’t get warm. The first night I crawled out of bed and took a long hot shower to raise my body core. I was hovering at 97° flat. I was one cranky human popsicle. I took more showers during those first three days than the past month. If only I had access to a hot tub. I began to fantasize using a small horse trough as a hot tub. I even priced them out on Amazon. Totally doable.

It doesn’t help that I was born under the cranky sign. When I was a child, my granny said she couldn’t wait until I was old enough to drink coffee. Yesterday’s weak coffee didn’t help, it was limp-wristed milquetoast. I was still cranky as fuck. I needed a quad latte, only I wasn’t fit to drive over the hill into town. Driving while under the influence of Moderna is a real thing. The thought of double-clutching around wild curves, staying within the double yellow lines and avoiding entitled cyclists was too much. Stop signs and nuns didn’t count.

Multi-tasking was completely out of the question. Even mono-tasking was problematic, so attempting to do my caretaker job was painfully hilarious—especially the laundry. I was ADHD. Oh look, shiny. It took me three different attempts to finish one afternoon’s worth of work. The concept of pacing myself was not working out. I had no stamina, and it seemed as if my brain was having a three-martini lunch elsewhere, say, Victoria’s Station, ca. 1976, without me. Those everyday autopilot tasks were overwhelming as I had to actually think about how to do them. Sequential was not in my daily arsenal. My little gray cells were definitely on strike. For all I knew, they were probably calling their union rep for gross misrepresentation.

For example, I had three simple tasks, to check the laundry, maybe start a new load, and bring in the dry clothes. I managed to accomplish one task at a time, sequentially, replete with three separate trips to the laundry room, forgetting to carry over the new load twice. 

You know how when you retrace your steps to the last place you were, in order to retrieve an escaped thought? Well, I had to return to the kitchen three times in order to finish the laundry. I don’t think memory foam shoes with homing pigeon instincts would’ve helped much, I was willing to consider it after my third trip back to the kitchen to remember what I forgot. What is it with the kitchen anyway? Why does it becomes the hot thought spot in the universe of forgotten tasks? Please don’t tell me the answer is 42. That reminds me, I forgot to wash the towels.

The rest of the afternoon followed suit in a similar crazy pattern of random memory breaks. Clearly multi-tasking, something which I am particularly adept at—one might even say I was the reigning champion of multi-tasking—was simply not in my domestic arsenal. 

I was also easily fatigued which exacerbated the problem. And I was restless, niggling about like a homeward horse worried about the state of the barn. I couldn’t seem to rest. An odd combo of adrenaline rush compounded by fatigue and an absence of thought. Finishing sentences and following trains of thought was not on the agenda. I kept thinking, so this is what dementia is like, wanting to apologize to my dead grandmother for not understanding. 

I am rather dogged, and tend to finish my tasks—no matter what. But yesterday was a challenge. I left many things undone. Time was an odd, if fluid concept. I was in a quagmire located in the land of forever, so just to make chicken soup and do the dishes was like being caught up in a domestic Godot walkabout. I dumped the pot of chicken soup I was making on the floor.

Driving home to Sonoma Co. from W. Marin was a more of a challenge than I had anticipated, I just wanted to pull over and sleep by the side of the road. I did pull over by Nicasio Reservoir to gather my wits. It didn’t work. They were off with the fairies. I should’ve just stayed over another night in W. Marin, but I wanted to be in my own bed. It was too difficult to be a guest, in a strange bed not my own—especially when I felt so out of sorts. 

I fell asleep while listening to an audiobook, practically in my dinner plate. At least it was Blue Willow.  I have no idea what audiobook. TG I was already in bed. Dressing for dinner during these Covid times revolves around which flannel nightie to don. So I was battle ready, girding my loins with plaid flannel. But at least I’m vaccinated. If I can make it through the next two weeks, I’ll be home free. No more masks. But now the scuttle is that Covid is morphing ahead of the curve. Hello mask.

• Vaccines and blue horseshoe crab blood
• Post vaccine blues
• Waiting to be Moderna-ized

Second Covid shot

Second Covid shot, so far, so good. Better organized. I was injected within minutes. I medicated with Benadryl & aspirin. Need a nap.

As soon as I got my shot I took aspirin and Benadryl. I was told that same information to not take NSAIDs but I could not verify it, so to play it safe, I followed directions, only to find out it wasn’t even true. I think that sound bite about not taking NSAIDs is left over from the .45 bleach era. There is a lot of misinformation that is still floating around. My nurse practitioner was very clear on the subject. She said it was bullshit. There is no reason why you can’t aspirin or Advil beforehand. Bring a water bottle and aspirin or drug of choice, maybe Benadryl.

Seriously more organized this time around. My appointment was at 11:15 and I was done by 11:30. Then I had to wait till noon. Still no side effects. However Benadryl is probably working as well as the aspirin. I had to go up to my car and take a nap literally for an hour. I feel like I have been drinking for a week. And I don’t drink, not really. What a relief. Now we wait for two weeks before I am immune.

My synapses and my inability to finish thoughts and sentences, are definitely off kilter.  I’m sure much of it is stress, and some of it is Benadryl. I had a glass of wine to celebrate. It tasted so good. My speech did not improve.

I was also nauseous in the middle of the night. I couldn’t even raise my right arm it was so painful. I thought for a moment I was going to visit the porcelain god. Today I have a headache. And my hips hurt something fierce. All my old aches and wounds are lining up and taking turns.

Slept or dozed most of the day.  Still easily tired, fatigue, but at least my brain is back online. No more brain fog. Yesterday I spoke excellent qualude scrabble, almost all vowels. My arm still aches but it’s nowhere near as bad. No aspirin today—so far. Still seeking warmth like a heat-seeking cat. In my car, sort of like a sauna, or a sunporch.

Let’s just say last night was a very long cold night. Watched several episodes of the Queen’s Gambit. I don’t understand chess anyway. I was taking baby aspirin by the handful. I, who rarely take anything. Every old injury chimed in and said remember me? I have been beaten with small sticks, It’s a Thursday, but it isn’t Paris in the rain. Where is Cesar Vallejo when you need him?

OCCASIONAL POEM FOR PAMELA

OCCASIONAL POEM FOR PAMELA 

     —for Pamela Robertson-Pearce

If that is supposed to be yellow,

well then, I’m a monkey’s uncle.
Chartreuse by any other name

I’d say, with a tinge of ochre. 

Give me Naples yellow, or give me death.
Give me cream and sunshine.
Give me limoncello over ice
on a Mediterranean balcony
in deep summer with a long lost friend.
Or a newfound one.
Now, that is the secret heart of yellow.

Not mud passing for light.
Give me sunflowers and dandelions,
and Van Gogh enough for Pamela, 

she with the fiery halo of hair,
who resides in the snow country 

amidst the dreams of sheep.

2/2/21

Words from the Nahuatl

Someone mistook a Nahuatl word, tecolote, for a Spanish dialect, citing donkey, burro and ass as meaning the same thing in English. 

I replied, Nahuatl, an Uto-Aztecan language, is not even remotely related to Spanish, which is an Indo-European language related to Latin. Spanish could be considered a dialect of Latin, but Nahuatl is not even from the same language tree. 

However, you already speak some Nahuatl. Words from the Nahuatl that entered into English by way of Spanish include Asteka, cacahuatl (cacao), chocolātl (chocolate), chayotli, chictli (chicle), āhuacatl (avocado), āhuaca-mōlli (guacamole), xipoctli (chipotle), tomatl, chīlli, tamalli, nopalli, potzolli (pozole), xicamatl (jicama), Mexcalli, Tequila, poliuhqui (pulque), mizquitl (mesquite),peyotl, coyōtl, ōcēlōtl, tecolote (owl), and wueh-xōlō-tl, or guajolote is turkey. 

Had he said homonym, we could’ve agreed.

An adult in the White House

I didn’t let the overwhelming emotions in until I was getting ready for bed, then as I donned my flannel nightie, I burst into years. (Stet, that typo says it all). So much pent-up grief seeking release. I presume the elation will come in small doses, like a fine mist or dew gathering on the grass. Bit by bit. We drank vinho verde, the bubbles tickling our senses. Small hard-earned steps toward the process of recovery. But first, there is more work to do. Time to roll up our sleeves and get into good trouble. Hello Joe Biden. Goodnight, Moon.

CBS Biden’s first day on the job.

BLUEBIRD haiku

I was buzzed by a bluebird.
Is happiness on its way?
Woodpeckers laughing up a storm.

A real president elect

A lot of turbid water has flowed under burnt edifices and fallen bridges these past four years. The term shipwreck comes to mind. Marooned these past four years, we have all but shattered the vessel of democracy. But today, we will pick up those shattered pieces of democracy, we will mend our republic, and we will anoint that receptacle with truth and justice, and polish it with good humor and love. Then we will fill that vessel with good trouble. We will roll up our sleeves, there is much work to do in the days and months ahead. For four years we were repressed, ‘and still we rise.’ I presume the elation will come in small doses, like a fine mist gathering on the grass. We take mall hard-earned steps toward the process of recovery. But first, there is more work to do.

CBS Biden’s first day in office 

Madame Vice President

TONIGHT, THE WIND

 TONIGHT, THE WIND

Tonight the wind is fiercely raging, 

I gave up on the idea of sleep, 

or rather sleep gave up on me. 

The winds of change. 

Portent of things to come.

If the wind were the ocean, 

and the sky, its color, 

then the trees would be 

a forest of seaweed and kelp. 

A mad surf rages outside my window. 

Outside the window, against a rosy dawn, 

Douglas fir & redwoods sway in unison, 

their branches like frantic dervishes.

The Italian pine flips a bird to the sky.

The roosters are strangely silent. 

A determined raven braving the wind, 

is plummeted & bandied about,

as he tries to land on a branch 

& misses the tree completely. 

He banks hard against the wind,

does a flip, spirals out of control,

slides in at right angles, approaches

sideways in order to go forward. 

The wind before the storm.

1/18/21, rev. 12/21

Tonight, the wind

I don’t like this at all, the wind is blowing like a banshee and it’s unseasonably warm. Way too warm for January. Tonight the wind is fiercely raging, I gave up on the concept of sleep, or, rather, sleep gave up on me. The winds of change. Portent of things to come. 

Spellcheck thinks portent isn’t a word.

All I can say, is, that with all this wind, hopefully a little rain will come too. Otherwise, what’s the point? It’s the middle of the night, a particularly bad time to fly a kite. The wind is moaning, now a howling, raging beast outside the window. The wind rosins its bow on the perimeter of the eye of the storm. A nearby tree limb is singing its squeaky one note song. It moans and sighs and then moans some more. I don’t know what it wants but it’s an unhappy tree limb sobbing its sorrows in the wind. 

If the wind were the ocean, and the sky, it’s color, then, the trees would be forests of seaweed and kelp. Wow, it is seriously blowing now. Sounds like high surf raging outside my window

What I don’t get, is that PG&E has not turned off the power. These winds are just as fierce as those October winds that brought the fires. And we have not had enough rain to protect us from more fires. I’m surprised that we still have power. Of course there’s a fire at The Geysers Firefighters are on the scene. And the wind just kicked it up a few more notches. It was last clocked at 97 mph on the ridge tops.

Outside the window, dawn backdrop, the Douglas fir and the redwood sway in unison their branches moving like frantic hula dancers or dervishes. The non-native Italian pine looks like it’s flipping a finger to the sky.

Well, tomorrow is finally today. It’s 6 AM, tho I am unwilling to admit defeat to sleep, I’ve all but finished my flask of tea, and its still as dark as midnight out there. So much for the concept of morning. That one tree branch won’t give it up. I think it’s rubbing against the house, a complaining Cypress with a lot to say. Four years worth of complaints. Moans and shrieks like a banshee in distress.

During the brunt of the windstorm, the roosters were strangely silent. They’ve gotten a late start announcing the dawn. A lone raven braving the wind is plummeted and bandied about. He looks like he’s on speed. He attempts to land on a branch and misses the tree entirely. He zips off again banking against the northwestern wind, does a flip, then spirals out of control. Incoming, kamikaze moves. He slides at right angles to himself. He flies sideways in order to go forward. The wind before the storm.

Westron wynde, when wyll thow blow
The smalle rayne downe can rayne?
Cryst yf my love were in my armys,
And I yn my bed agayne!

• NOTE: THIS POST ALONG WITH 12 OTHER POSTS WAS ERRONEOUSLY REMOVED BY BLOGGER FOR VIOLATING COMMUNITY STANDARDS ON 5/14/21. It was reinstated as a draft the next day. I am still pissed off.

Unseasonable weather

We are already overly-sensitized to out of season warm weather and unseasonably warm winds, which usually are harbingers of wildfire or earthquakes. We did have a small earthquake today.

Vaccines and blue horseshoe crab blood

Still pondering the novel idea that I now have traces of rare blue horseshoe crab blood in my body. And that somehow, this primitive creature is offering me immunity from the coronavirus. It has begun to affect my dreams. The other night I dreamed that the crabs all rose up and marched along the liminal boundary of the shore and I could almost translate their primitive whisperings. 

After a week of symptoms, followed by another week of relative calm, today I’m running a low grade fever, my arm hurts, the headache is persistent. Nothing like before. My body is girding its loins, gearing up for battle. Soon I will return to receive even more indigo blood in my arm. I will dream of the color of the ocean. I am regressing back into the coral reefs of indigo colored time.

“Considered living fossils, horseshoe crabs trace back 445 million years, before the first animals crept onto land. Not a crab at all, but genetically closer to a spider, it’s a relic of the ocean insects that scuttled across prehistoric sea floors.

“They survived the catastrophe that killed off the dinosaurs; they survived the ice age, and the coming of man. These creatures changed so little that an Ohio church set out a 68-foot fiberglass horseshoe crab as testament to divine creation over evolution.”  How the Coronavirus vaccine relies upon Maryland’s strangest fishery, horseshoe crabs, Baltimore Sun

According to Wiki, at 244 million years old, horseshoe crabs are literally living fossils—their ancestors date back to the Ordovician period, ca. 450 million years ago. They are a sister group of “Ricinulei within Arachnida. Subphylum: Chelicerata, suborder Xiphosurida, and order Xiphosura, family Limulidae.” Wiki I learn that there are four species: like the four directions of the earth. Limulus polyphemus, the Atlantic horseshoe crab is oor man, the one extending our lives. Giving us hope in these darkest of times.

My friend Eric Painter said, Did you know that blue crab blood, lysate costs $60,000 per gallon? I learn that it’s not so much about their blood, which contains hemocyanine, which is cool in and of itself, but their unique immune cells which are used to detect and destroy deadly bacterial contaminants. 

Because the poor ugly buggers are a hot pharmaceutical commodity, with their copper-based blue blood, which contains a rare compound,  Limulus amebocyte lysate, they are now an endangered species. Fishermen need to make sure their cold-blooded patients don’t die of exsanguination. Sheesh. What a time to have a shellfish allergy. Poor noble-blooded limulus crabs. Their brains may be the size of a pencil tip, and technically they have no hearts, but that blue blood coursing through their open circulatory system offers us hope, and maybe even love.

I got my first vaccine shot on Jan 6. Moderna. A stormy day all round. My preemptive preparation for the next round will be to take aspirin and Benadryl beforehand. Have a water flask for the hour-long wait after the shot—my mouth got positively cottony and I was woozy, so the trips where I lurched to the water fountain were surreal journeys. I was afraid of falling over. Like a drunk in a swaying choir.

I had an epipen at the ready, there was no swelling. But it hurt like hell, I couldn’t even sleep on my left side for a week. Felt like someone, maybe The Hulk, had sucker-punched me repeatedly with brass knuckles. Strangely, there was no fever on my arm. How could it hurt that much, and yet have no fever? I had to lift my sore arm with my other arm in order to use it. My bones ached. All my old injuries coming home to roost.

I awoke with violent headaches for the next three days. However, during week two, my arm began to itch, there was a faint swelling, a light rash, and some heat at the injection site, and I had a low-grade temperature for a couple of days. Nothing to worry about. The fatigue is real. I spent the next few days in bed, resting and sleeping.

As far as reactions go, this shot was nowhere near as bad as the yellow fever vaccination I got in the late 1980s. Back then, the delivery base use was albumen, or eggwhite, hence the reaction, as I’m allergic to eggs. I also did not fare well with a flu shot, circa 2000. I haven’t had one since. My reactions to shots have been so extreme, that my Kaiser travel nurse suggested that I forgo booster shots if I could help it. I traveled through Latin America with only a half-vaccine for yellow fever, and no tetanus shot.

I have an iodine allergy too. Since horseshoe crabs are shellfish that are loaded with iodine, there is some cause for concern. Except only their rare blue blood is used. I once had a dramatic reaction to a barium iodine stain drip for a kidney x-ray. I got hives inside my throat. Also, my cough syrup with tincture of iodine worked great, except it always gave me an itchy throat. I didn’t realize that was an allergy in the making. 

Luckily horseshoe crabs are arachnids, or rather arthropoda, not even related to crabs, or most shellfish. But they do have a shell, ergo there very well could be a shellfish allergy reaction—which is usually the source of an iodine reaction. So, epipen at the ready too. Sea dreams to sea change. The future is nigh. This vaccine is a saline base. It is is of the ocean. My nightmares will dream in the language of blue horseshoe crabs. We are made of the ocean, and this archaic creature, a living fossil from the ocean will offer us immunity from this novel virus.

• Day 5, post vaccine

Post vaccine blues

Yesterday I awoke with massive headaches, and an unhappy GI tract, but I think I’m through the worst of it. I like to assume that’s my body working hard to produce antibodies. No Covidlike symptoms, not even a fever. Definitely plan for a few low key quiet time out days if you overreact negatively to vaccines the way I do. At least I can raise my arm with effort. It feels like I was bare knuckle slugged by The Hulk. Meanwhile, more mobile morgues have been dispatched to Sonoma County. Scary stuff. Shit’s getting real.

Nothing was worse than the Yellow Fever vaccine I got in the late 1980s. My arm swelled from shoulder to elbow; it was so hot, it was like a furnace—I was laid up for two weeks. When I received a flu shot in 2000, I had a similar reaction. The last tetanus booster did not go well. So I don’t take this vaccination process blithely. But so far, so good. Even the Kaiser travel nurse suggested that I abstain from future booster vaccinations. It was probably the delivery method, not the vaccine. So I sweat it out. Albumen, or egg whites were commonly used as a delivery vehicle. 

I have anaphylaxis to certain foods, specifically hazelnuts. Shellfish has added itself to my list—I can’t take glucosamine for my joints. I’ve experienced anaphylaxis when being tested for cedar and pine pollens at Kaiser. Yep, I know exactly what adrenaline shots feel like, every single muscle simultaneously contracting at once, including scalp muscles! So far, I do not have antibiotic reaction. I read the ingredients for Modena, no albumen, the big culprit is the delivery vehicle, not the drug. The things that may threatening my life may very well save my life.

Waiting to be Moderna-ized

I’m standing in line at the back offices of the Marin Civic Center waiting for my number to be called. Waiting to be Moderna-ized. It took a while to find the place. The Covid vaccination clinic is well hidden behind the back offices of the Civic Center. No signage. Nada. As if they don’t want anyone to know. 

A man in black, looking official walks by, carrying an empty black insulated package, I realize it’s an empty medical transport package. That many more people have been vaccinated. How many doses per package? 

We are greeted by a sprinkling of rain. A chain of lenticular clouds in the sky make an uneasy river, where it leads to, I don’t know—towards the east. I’m hoping to God it doesn’t rain any harder because I do not even have a jacket. This down vest is useless in a downpour. Lord knows we need the rain, but now? Really?

A real cloudburst. I run to the car, and grab my car screen shades for an umbrella, the laundry bag was too small to be of use. Small mercies, they move us to an unused auditorium, out of the rain. My car screen shade is a sensational hit, works better than an umbrella. When in doubt, think outside the box. Survival depends upon it. 

I am amazed by how everyone suddenly forgot to socially distance themselves while trying to squeeze inside the building. Rats entering a sinking ship. We are mostly all dressed in black. A somber purple. Midnight blue. Storm grey dots the crowd. 

We are a mixed mob, mostly older folks. Three nuns from Dominican huddle together. I am strangely comforted by their presence, thinking of the nine cloistered nuns who needlessly died of Covid. I am glad the sisters are proactively seeking protection.

We are now more than an hour behind, one woman with the same time appointment as me says, I’m gonna die of old age. We laugh. Someone quips, at least you won’t die of Covid. We laugh harder yet, what else is the, besides gallows humor? We are waiting in line to avoid a probable death sentence. I think, at least we have escaped the seditious politics of the day for a moment. But the bad news finds us. Armed protestors on the senate floor. The government is in a lockdown. We no longer live in a democracy. 

The guard calls out names for the 11 o’clock crowd. then 11:09. He yells Mary O’Sullivan, I look to see if it’s a relation. IDs out and at the ready, proclaiming our individuality. I realize that we’re all related. 

He yells out Padilla, Ortega, Sondheim, Sung. The guard tries alternate pronunciations hoping someone will recognize their name. He calls Magdalena. Another guard delivers bottles of hand sanitizers. The call guard resorts to first names, that humanizes us. Magdalena, where are you? he asks for the third time. His voice is hoarse. I imagine that he has been yelling out names for days. I hope that she won’t regret not showing up.

I worry that the guards won’t accept my application, and if they do, what if I react to the serum. There is always that risk. My ID is at the ready. I have to trust the process.  It’s well past my call time, but at least it’s dry. We’re up to 11:15, but it’s well past noon. I’d kill for a cuppa coffee. And still we wait. We have the rest of our lives to live, no matter what the outcome, it’s always finite.

Ok, I’m on the paramedic’s special watchlist. Got my shots. Woof! As Sinead Dinsmore says. Feeling a little lightheaded, spacy, but adrenaline is a funny thing. So far, so good. I still feel lightheaded, burping like a tree frog, mostly nerves, but I think I’ll live. Vaguely altered states. One guy is having a bad reaction, but for the most part, it’s pretty uneventful. Took a benadryl just in case. Lower lip is hot and reacting, it could be from the mask. I’m surrounded by paramedics and health care professionals on both sides of the equation. Now I’m getting chills, left (shot) arm is cold. Anxiety is not helping. Otherwise no real symptoms. 

I’m at risk because I have experienced anaphylaxis. Nurses conferred with doctors and paramedics, and had me wait longer than the proscribed time frame. I also had to tell the paramedic in charge that I was on the watchlist, so I had to sit up front where he could keep an eye on me. As it was, he had someone react negatively to the vaccine.

Five more minutes. The sun came out, the sky is angry. Ok, 40 minutes, I have left the building. The car is way more tranquil than being inside, people are ignoring social distance, they are huddled around cellphones getting the news. Politically, all hell is breaking loose. Trumpsters have taken the White House. 

I’m trying to stay calm. No anaphylaxis but definitely a small hot hive on my lower lip. Next time, bring a water bottle, and premedicate with both benadryl and aspirin. I need a coffee! Benadryl slowed down the lip hive. It’s no longer hot. I also took off my mask, which may be the source of the problem. Dare I drive Scary times all the way round.

• Day 5, post vaccine blues, round 2
• Vaccines and blue horseshoe crab blood
• Post vaccine blues
• Waiting to be Moderna-ized

Day of Sedition, and Darwin Awards

On the day I stand in line for my first COVID-19 vaccination, is also a Day of Sedition. It will go up in flames and it will go down in infamy. What have we come to, as a nation, that this could even happen? Traitors in our midst. Not from the Left, but from the Right. I grieve, I grieve.  

“Under U.S. federal law, sedition refers to the act of inciting revolt or violence against a lawful authority with the goal of destroying or overthrowing it. Sedition is a felony crime punishable with up to 20 years in prison.”

Stephen Gale wrote: “So I was sad when I heard a rioter died of a "heart attack.”  I was feeling something else today when I learned he was in the process of stealing a portrait of Tip O'Neil, when he accidentally tasered himself in the balls until his heart gave out. You just can't make this stuff up.”

I just snorted my proverbial tea through my nose. I felt guilty, it’s the first time I laughed since the national nightmare began. We are the laughingstock of the world. But the droll screenplay for 2021 is off to a surreal start, replete with real Darwin Awards. Scene two: a woman that got trampled to death had a Don't tread on me flag. Karma has spoken, dripping with irony.