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fun, and complaints
2003-03-14 - 8:54 a.m. I'm preparing to go help serve luch at Nora's school. I warned her ahead of time, and promised to try to remain invisible. It's actually sort of fun -- kind of like being a spy. I had fun yesterday. We took a coworker out for coffee and pastries, which was very fun to begin with. We went to Masse's, which has lovely, over-the-top pastries (like decorated with gold leaf) and cozy little spots to sit in. Actually, I had to go to the nursery first, to get her a present, which was also fun. I got her a poppy, and a love in the mist, and a bright orange ceramic mushroom to stick in her garden. I can't actually describe it right, but it is a big red-orange mushroom, with sort of yellowy drizzled spots. We have one, and it cheers me up everytime I look at it. It's not a cheesey thing -- it's more like a big marble. It's pretty. Anyway -- so nursery, pastries, pleasant chatter. We've been going out for coffee for 8 years now, we realized. So that was nice. But then, I had an hour or so until I had to pick the kids up -- so instead of rushing to work and then back again, I puttered around in shops. I got some new stationary, plus some for Kevin's mother, whose birthday is coming up. I got her some excellent socks in an olive green, with palm trees and zebras. I ran into the mother of a friend of Maddy's and discussed summer camps. I went to the bookstore and bought a ton of excellent books. It's a bookstore (Black Oak) that has great, obscure travel books -- like the one I got about a woman who took her ocean going shell down to the south pole. !! I could do that -- Plus a book by that guy -- David Mas Masimoto? -- who writes so deliciously about peaches, and farming a small farm in the central valley. Plus the deliciously lurid Fall of Kings, by Ellen Kushner and Delia something. Which I'm reading first. It was a completely lovely afternoon. Then I picked Nora up, because she had some huge English project to finish up -- a scrapbook or something about the characters in Romeo and Juliet, which she knows really really well. Maddy wanted to stay and play with her friends, so I picked her up later. Talked to the contractor. The garage is almost almost finished, and really nice. Now we will never ever see Kevin again, though. And -- That's about it, but it was a quite pleasant day. We didn't eat dinner, either. I was full of pastries. The kids were full of yogurt. (Shhh!) I can see the value of dinner, and I actually enjoy it most nights, but I really like not having it upon occasion. Such a production. Two more things -- I noticed yesterday that all kinds of planes were flying over our house. They don't usually. Naturally, I imagined that it was some kind of terrorism thing. I guess we're on orange alert again, which means that Maddy's field trip to the local civil war fort was again postponed. (Like some terrorist is going to come and blow up our local civil war fort. Absurd. I think they should just bring some duct tape and go anyway, but apparently the national park service is obliged to take this nonsense more seriously. Bah.) But -- with the planes -- it turns out (my neighbor knew) that it was weather related. They come this way when there's a storm. They did look ominous, though, scuttling under the clouds. Secondly, I have to figure out a way to leave California. Intellectually, I can appreciate it. Tempermentally, it just doesn't suit. I need seasons -- seasons demarcated by big weather changes. I can't remember when my neighbor's car was stolen -- was it a year ago? Was it five? If we had seasons, I would remember which season it happened in, and would be able to work out from there when it happened. Also, looking at that David Mas Masimoto book, I can see that he is really attached to this landscape in a way that I am attached to other landscapes, like Minnesota, or New England. It's a gut thing. It just is or it isn't. So, for me it isn't. Also, there was an article in the New Yorker about cemetaries which are sort of land preserves. Essentially, I guess, you rot, and the landscape goes on. It sounds really appealing, actually. But so far there's one in the South somewhere, and they're thinking about California. If there was one in New England, I'd sign up. So -- there you have it. --Bye
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