San Francisco Bound

It's been a busy week. Family stuff. Real estate stuff. All that stuff of life. Today we are driving up to San Francisco to have dinner with Elena (Roger's youngest) and her partner Jimmy, and his WHOLE family, plus Roger's ex and her two wonderful children. Jimmy is graduating from San Francisco State this weekend, and Friday night's dinner is a celebration of that milestone.

Here's the cool thing about driving up to San Francisco for dinner: We get to drive up the coast. Seventy miles of beautiful country side. We'll pass Ano Nuevo where the elephant seals come to mate. We'll drive by at least three state parks. It's pretty the whole way.

When we get there, we're having dinner at Metro Katmandhu. Imagine that. A little piece of Nepal right there in the city.

Jimmy has been accepted to graduate school already. He's planning on studying to become a special education teacher. He's really quite a guy, and we're just so happy to be heading up to the city to drink a toast to his dreams.

Our Whole World, Little Though It May Be

The spring birds arrived.

Caspian Tern

Wilson's Warbler

Hooded Oriole (immature male)

American Kestrel on the roof next door.

(Not really migrator, but definitely a surprise in this residential neighborhood.)

A Sea Mammal Day

A lot has been happening in the bay lately. We've been watching from the side lines-- our windows-- binoculars and camera always ready on the sill. Mostly we see it all from this distance and know that running down to the wharf won't ever get the intended results. By the time we get there the action is over-- no otters, sea lions, terns, pelicans, or dolphins. So a chance close encounter when we are actually down there at the shoreline is just that-- sheer good fortune, luck, and timing.
We headed out for our daily walk Thursday. It's been warm and sunny, perfect spring weather. We always start our little local walk by heading down to the end of the wharf. Typically there are people fishing from both sides with a little crowd at the end. Thursday was no exception, except the usual fishing quiet was interrupted by a barking ruckus coming from the bay. Two sea lions were cavorting with wild exuberance on this sunny afternoon. It was the kind of stuff we always see from our window. But here they were, close to the wharf and carrying on like our presence didn't matter at all. It was grand to be utterly ignored. We hoped their enthusiastic displays meant that there was plenty of food around for everyone. There have been hundreds of cormorants and grebes hunting madly for food lately, but to no avail. We'd like to think that the sea lions' presence bodes well for all these hungry creatures.
Surprisingly, at the same time we saw this sea otter lunching on some crab. When we see pelicans, cormorants, grebes, and terns diving and fishing, the sea otters are typically not around. This seemed unusual. While I photographed the otter, Roger and I both noticed that we could hear it cracking hard shells with its powerful jaws and teeth. It was a sound we had never heard before. Between the barking and the cracking, we were in the midst of a wild sea mammal duet.

After the wharf, we walked up the hundred steps stairway to Depot Hill. Breathless at the top, we walk along the cliff, then down to the railroad trestle, across the creek, and back home. There I downloaded these photos and noticed that it looked like the sea otter had a crab in hand and one on its belly. We wonder, is it a sign the sea is producing riches for everyone? We really do hope so.

Twins In The Year 2009

That's my twin brother and me. I think you can pretty much tell how old we are now just by looking at this ancient photo. If your baby photos are in black and white, you come from era that has been eclipsed and saturated by color. Look at that TV. We were already mesmerized by the talking lightbox at such a young age. Now we stare at computer screens and will only turn our attention like that briefly, for someone with a camera. Well actually truth be told, these days if someone says, "Hey twins, turn around," like my father's cousin did more than a half a century ago, we'd both probably run the other way grumbling with our faces hidden. Well, really, me more so than Michael.

Today those babies are celebrating their 57th birthday. We are both avid birders, gardeners, lovers of nature. We are both progressive, liberal, peacenik, music-lovers. We both enjoy healthy diets full of organic locally grown produce and lots of tofu, rice, and beans. We both dream of perfect futures knowing that such a thing will never really happen in our lifetimes. Do we have hope? Probably not, in the biggest sense. Do we laugh like hyenas on the phone when talking about the current state of affairs? Yes, we actually do. Do we cry the same way over all the inequities in the world? Yes, we do that too. We were born two minutes apart; we live less than a mile apart. We are now gray-haired twins. Still hanging out in the world together.

Hey twins, turn around!

Home Alone Together

We're trying to resume our very lazy, laid-back dharma lives. After my eight days back at the university filling in for my former supervisor, and Roger's week-long family reunion, we are not quite floating pelican-like in current synchronicity. On Mother's Day we spent long hours just staring out at the sea. The house was quiet. Quiet. No one needed our attention. Everyone was gone, a day early. A reprieve granted by the heavens.

It occurred to me over the past few days that I have some questions for you: For those of you who work and maintain blogs--how do you do it? Between work and the family reunion, I didn't just not have time to blog, I didn't even keep up with my favorite bloggers. How do you keep up? What's your secret? Also, I noticed that my RSS feed completely lied, convincing me there were no updated posts on a few blogs. What's up with that? And, why do I never have the camera with me when we walk across the train trestle and the Violet Green Swallows come to rest on the fencing wire? It just ain't fair.

Tired, and that hardly describes it.

guys and dolls

the clan, looking into the sun.

tres amigos

that's me, my brother darryl and my other brother darryl. yes, i am the visibly (and actually) oldest.

hawaii, california, and mexico, left to right, geographically.