The local hole-in-the-wall liquor store, as seen on a late-birthday-night walk with The Dog.
Red, White, and Blue (and Green)
The city of Berkeley has planted new street trees around our neighborhood. We’ve seen a variety in the past, from scrubby, less-than-robust-looking Chinese pistaches, liquidambars, and this-one-with-rough-bark-that’s-quite-beautiful-in-the-autumn. There’s a stout-looking eastern oak across the street from us, right next door to a lot where the former residents planted a couple maples in the curb strip. The maples are OK, but since they’re growing into the power lines, they’ve had great big aggressive V’s pruned into their crowns.
The newer trees are maples, too. A dying camphor tree was removed from the curb strip next-door about six or seven years ago, I’m guessing, and a maple took its place. Our former neighbor took great care of the young tree (meaning it got plenty of water during our six-month annual drought), and it’s taken off–it’s already getting close to 15 or 18 feet high. It’s already pushing out its leaves (and a healthy crop of seeds, too, it looks like–not sure it’s done that before).
Local and Regional Weather, Part 2
The day began with rain, and with rain it ends. A sort of anemic late-season storm arrived before dawn and then parked. Even a weak little storm will get you wet when it decides not to move on. I can hear rain on the roof and running down the drainpipes. At the other end of the house, I can hear the TV weather guy talking about the rain continuing. I’m thankful for a dry space to sit and listen.
Birthday Celebration
It was raining hard last night when I left work, so instead of hiking over to the ferry as usual, I walked over to the 16th Street BART station, and rode downtown. I strolled across the rainswept plaza to the Ferry Building. Inside, I stopped to fiddle with some important matter on my phone. After a couple minutes, I was approached by someone and without looking knew I was about to get hit up for some change.
“Sir, it’s my birthday and I just need 50 cents so I can celebrate” was the gaff, delivered by a guy a little younger than me. He was wearing a black watch cap and sweatshirt and some other foul-weather gear and looked like he lived outside.
“What kind of celebration are you going to have for 50 cents?” I asked. Really. And I realized I probably did have 50 cents in my jeans pocket.
“Well, actually I could use any kind of change at all,” he said. I looked at the coins I’d dug out of my pocket–two quarters, a dime, a nickel. Then I thought about how much money I had on me. A coworker had needed to borrow twenty bucks earlier in the week and had just repaid me. I had another twenty in there, too, which I was going to use to buy our customary Friday night drinks–a beer for me, a white wine for Kate–on the boat.
What the hell, I thought. I took out my wallet, took out one of the twenties, and handed it to the guy. “Don’t celebrate too hard, I said.”
He thanked me, then looked down at the bill. And then he grabbed my hand and really thanked me. He had an urgent, almost shocked look in his eyes. “Take care of yourself,” I said. “It’s wet out there.” I thought: “Is it your birthday? Doesn’t matter. How much difference can that cash really make?”
If I’d really been thinking, I would have asked his name.
Berkeley Earthquake Report
Woke up to some shaking at 5:33 a.m. The technical details are here at the U.S. Geological Survey website: Magnitude 4.0.
The experience: I was lying in bed awake. First, a distant rumble, then a good sharp jolt. A pause of a couple of seconds, and then another stronger jolt, followed by five to ten seconds of light shaking.
It’s always the seconds after the first shaking sensation that I kind of dread. How bad is this thing going to be? Is it going to intensify, or is that it?
Here’s the Google map of the epicenter locaction, about two, two and a half miles north of us:
View Larger Map
And with that, I’m going to follow a colleague’s advice and go back to bed.
A New Mini-Project: ‘Posted in Berkeley’
Pretty soon after I came to Berkeley in the mid-70s, I noticed that people here like to communicate via wall and telephone pole. Usually, they’ve lost something and are hoping a poster will help their lost dog, cat, earring, belt buckle, notebook, or laptop computer come home.
Why do they catch my eye? Sometimes they’re a kind of found poetry. Sometimes there’s some news there. Sometimes the postings are poignant or tell a story. Sometimes they’re funny, and sometimes unintentionally so. Sometimes there’s a bit of unhinged emotion or alarm on display (see above).
Anyway, after occasionally shooting these things for the past few years, I’m collecting them in one place, a Tumblr I’ve set up called Posted in Berkeley. I’ve put up about a dozen postings from the past year or two. It’s set up to allow others to submit posts, too. (Non-Berkeley-ites, feel free to submit. Maybe I’ll come up with a name that’s more inclusive/expansive than “Posted in Berkeley.” My first thought, “Post No Bills,” is already taken.)
Moonlight, Self-Portrait
The International Space Station was advertised to make a two-minute pass to the southwest and south tonight. When it showed up, it was actually visible for close to five minutes. I tried to take time exposures of it tracking across the sky, but those didn’t pan out. There was enough moonlight, though, to play with a long exposure of my shadow on the sidewalk.
Berkeley: The Neighborhood Files
When you tell Bay Area acquaintances that you live in Berkeley, usually they’ll ask, “Where?” I sometimes feel it’s a way of trying to get an idea of where you’re standing on the socioeconomic ladder. If you say “the Hills,” that conjures pictures of secluded streets, sweeping views, and steep home prices. If you say “West Berkeley” or “South Berkeley,” that may convey a picture of a flatlands neighborhood that’s less white than the rest of the city, maybe more affected by street crime, maybe a place you can find what passes in these parts for affordable housing. “Elmwood” to me says genteel, tree-lined streets studded with big, beautiful old houses.
Our area is North Berkeley, a comfortable part of the city, if not a rich one. An area known for its proximity to the Gourmet Ghetto, a good-food neighborhood that’s actually been institutionalized. We’ve got one of the best produce markets in the country here, and every block sports at least one Prius or electric car at the curb. We’ve got decent schools and parks nearby. We’re close to public transportation, and this is one of the places where the unique and wonderful casual carpool started.
But those generalities don’t do much to show you the particulars of life in the neighborhood. You don’t pick up on the block parties, the parents cajoling kids to get into, or out of, the car, the neighborhood feuds, the badly parked cars, the influx and outflow of commuters every day, the hired gardeners and dog walkers, the clipboard-toting solicitors for political and social causes, the dogs barking at the postal carriers, the local dogs and cats and their tendencies, the FedEx and the UPS drivers, the new neighbors up the block, the discarded TVs or settees on the curb with signs that say “free,” or the lost cat posters and announcements for yoga classes on the telephone poles.
You also don’t encounter the occasional house that seems, apart from neighboring structures, to be sinking into ruin. Maybe we notice that more now that The Dog has us on regular rounds on nearby streets, but there’s one block in particular that stands out for having a couple of spectacular wrecks. One of the buildings appears to be a duplex–there are side-by-side entrances. A couple of the window panes have been replaced by plywood. There’s no sign of anyone going in and out, and the curtains appear to be permanently drawn. Right next door is a sprawling two-story house that also looks like it’s in a losing battle with weather and gravity. There’s a collection of junk and old boxes on the porch and a big liquidambar tree in the front yard; right now, weedy spring growth is emerging from an autumnal carpet of dead leaves. I’ve seen someone at this place–a woman who on occasion suns herself on a green plastic chair in a clear patch of driveway. She barked at me once two or three years ago for walking the dog off-leash. Occasionally, there’s a battered early-’70s Chevy Impala parked on the curb. Evidently it’s a live-in vehicle, and you’lI see it cruising the area (top speed about 20 mph).
The overall effect: a sort of Berkeley-ized version of Miss Havisham’s place in “Great Expectations.” You wonder whether there’s someone just barely hanging on to these places.
Not all is ruin, though. Outside that first house, a couple of shrubs are flowering right now (the pictures up above). The one on the left is a kind of magnola. The one on the right I’m not sure about. Below is the second house mentioned above.
Left Only, Right Only
Wednesday evening, Milvia Street and Yolo Aveneu, as the sun set on an unbelievable February day: clear, temperature in the low 70s, the streets abloom (yes, after seeing winter afternoons like this for 35 years, I think they’re unbelievable–I guess I still have that much Chicago in me). Creeping into the quiet spaces of that reverie, the thought that the weather is eating away at the little bit of a snowpack that’s built up in the mountains. From here, the year ahead looks very dry.
Friday Night Ferry (and Train)
If the world of intermodal transportation entrances you–and few among us can resist the charms of cargo containers on ship, rail, and truck–then the area around the port of Oakland is for you. Upon disembarking from the ferry at Jack London Square on Friday night, we encountered a freight train stopped at the corner of Second and Clay streets. The crossing gates were down, but the train was at a dead stop, so it was safe to cross. Picture-taking ensued. After five minutes or so, the locomotive horn sounded, and the freight began to roll. Amazing to contemplate the power and energy required to get so much weight moving in such short order. One minor drama: As the train rolled across the intersection, a pedestrian decided to run across the street in front of it (see if you can spot that moment in the slide show below). It wasn’t really a close call, but you kind of wonder what (beyond pure ignorance of the consequences of stumbling and falling) would prompt somebody to try that.