Bouquet. Placed on exterior window sill of the Edible Schoolyard toolshed, perhaps for the enjoyment of the residents of the adjacent chicken coop (not all chickens, by the way). This beats any creative impulse or accomplishment I could take credit for this weekend.
Posted in Berkeley: Beware
From a walk this afternoon up to the top of Virginia Street. This is at the dead of Hilgard Avenue, above La Vereda Road. The turkeys–I hear tell they can be mean.
Berkeley Luminaria: 2010 Edition
Welcome to live coverage of the 19th Annual Holly Street Luminaria and Festival of Wonders.
No, I won’t keep that up for long. But it is the 19th year we’ve done the luminaria here. And unlike that first year (1992, for the historically minded), dozens of blocks surrounding us and many in other neighborhoods are having their own light celebrations tonight.
So, here’s a running account (below the slideshow):
[Christmas night: So much for the live blog. What happened was we set up our table in the driveway, as usual, to serve hot cider (and treats from many neighbors), and that was that. I spent the next three hours or so out there. Dozens of people came by, and we ladled up about three gallons of cider.
After that, I came inside and posted some pictures. And after that, we drove around North Berkeley with the Martinuccis, our long-ago co-conspirators in the luminaria game, to see where we might find them. We saw some as far north as Solano Avenue and Tulare Street, as far south as Ohlone Park at McGee and Grant streets, as far east as Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Vine Street, and as far west as Stannage Street between Hopkins and Page. The extreme northern and western points were not connected to our neighborhood, but someone out there has ideas about this.
When we were finished with the drive, a couple people in the van were nodding out. Kate and I came home, wrapped some presents while a Season Five episode of “Lost” played, then went to bed. This morning, there was nothing to do but pick up bags from the street, then go on with our holiday.]
6: 20 p.m. The first sign of the luminaria was reported this morning by Kate, who saw a block on California Street, around the corner from us, marked at 7 a.m. That was somebody getting a very early start. And tonight, bags are out and lit already on Cedar and California streets. Our street? Well, across the way, the Martinuccis and other neighbors are folding bags. We’re getting our cider ready, and have the table set up in the driveway. The sidewalks are marked.
Longest Nights
With a dry day and an early shift at work, and inspired by seeing our across-the-street neighbors hanging lights in their big front-yard oak, the pieces fell into place for me to put up our Christmas lights late this afternoon and this evening. Yes, the job was stretched by having to run to the store to replace a couple of strands of dead or mostly dead lights.
After dark, another neighbor was stringing lights along her porch. And some friends across the street had their full holiday show on. And just in time for the first nights of winter and the longest nights of the year.
Vanishing Moon
It’s been cloudy most of the day here, creating some minor suspense about whether tonight’s eclipse will be visible.
Well, at least the start of it is–despite appearances, the shot above is through some high clouds. No telling when the thicker cloud cover will return. The shot immediately below: a few minutes later, as the clouds got a little thicker. And the last, about an hour after the first, and just a few minutes before the eclipse was supposed to enter it’s “total” stage. Thing is–down here in the Berkeley flatlands, anyway, that’s when the clouds really moved in. I have to be up early, so no late-night moongazing to see if it re-emerges.
The Impeded Stream
The Sunday morning walk with the dog talk us through the rain to University Avenue (coffee stop) then to Strawberry Creek Park, just to the south of University along the old Santa Fe Railroad right of way. When I first visited the neighborhood, back in the mid-1970s, the former rail route was just a flat, brushy expanse. Then the city came up with the money to turn it into a park. Part of the project was to daylight Strawberry Creek, which tumbles down from the hills above the University of California, through the campus, then (for the most part) under central Berkeley. When the park was new, it seemed kind of barren. When the creek was freed from its culvert, it was engineered with a couple of nice aesthetic bends and short drops, though the banks were lined with unaesthetic slabs of broken concrete. All this time later, trees and shrubs have grown up and the place has a nice, green, lived-in air about (maybe a little too lived-in, to be honest–not everything’s pristinely maintained).
Anyway, there we were by the creek, listening to the water spill down the channel. From nowhere, Kate come out with: “The impeded stream is the one that sings.” She has a great memory for poetry and lyrics and still surprises me with her ability to produce the apt quotation.
” ‘The impeded stream is the one that sings,’ ” I said. “Who said that?” Kate didn’t know, but I offered that it sounds like Thoreau. She didn’t think so, and looked it up when we got home. It’s from Wendell Berry, a poem called “The Real Work”:
“It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.”
Berkeley Journal: December Morning
More than a day of a sort of strange, dripping-down rain. It reminded me of a long-ago hitch-hiking trip down the coast side of the Olympic Peninsula in the middle of winter, but warmer, and with no rain forest. Kate drove off to work in the fog. I went outside to snap a couple of pictures and ran into a couple of neighbors. All of us had some variation on the same thing to say: “What a beautiful morning.” Gray. Foggy. Drippy. And yes, beautiful.
Stinkhorn
On our Saturday morning walk, which takes us through the school garden at King Middle School, Kate spotted the apparition above pictured. We’ve seen this sort in our neighborhood before. It’s a latticed stinkhorn, also known as Clathrus ruber. (Why stinkhorn? The organism reportedly smells like rotting flesh. “Reportedly”–I haven’t had the pleasure myself). The orange fungi apparently emerge from the white objects you can see on the ground nearby. (Here’s a nice collection of pictures from that shows the stinkhorn in various stages of development. Note the plea for advice on how to eradicate them.)
Rosy-Fingered Black Friday
Dawn in Berkeley. Temperature: 38 degrees. Somewhere or other, the malls are thronged. Me, I’m in sweatpants and a flannel shirt, blogging. (But don’t get the wrong idea: Headed into the office now).
Posted in Berkeley: Lost Belt & Buckle
Spotted during our Thanksgiving morning gambole with The Dog (what’s open in Berkeley this morning: Peet’s Coffee, where we bought a couple of pounds of beans; the CVS drug store (formerly Long’s, even more formerly Bill’s), Masa’s pastry emporium, Safeway, Andronico’s, a stray cafe or two).
The best “lost” posters give you a story. This is an elite example of the species:
LOST
Belt & Buckle
Brass Buckle with Worn Plating & Rusted Prong
I found the buckle on an abandoned farm in New Brunswick during a trans-continental bike trip in 1971. It was attached to a rotting harness meant for a plow horse. It has great sentimental as well as practical value. (It holds my pants up.) I think it fell out of my car parked near here last Thursday night (Nov. 4). Please contact Jaye Cook @ (707) 888-2978 or (707) 944-9704 or drop it in the mailbox by the door at 1303 M.L.K.
REWARD