Book Report: I See You've Called in Dead

16. John Kenney, I See You've Called in Dead (2025) (8/2/25)

After the last book—which continues to stick with me, so perhaps I liked it better than I thought (if "like" is the operative word)—I needed something light. A FB friend, in her daily status post, had mentioned this book, said it was delightful. Sold!

It's the story of a lost-his-way obituary writer who accidentally one drunken night publishes a mock obit—for himself: "Bud Stanley, forty-four, former Mr. Universe, failed porn star, and mediocre obituary writer, is dead." His employer, the largest wire service news organization in the world, is not amused.  

From there the story doesn't really do much, except meander through New York City with, mostly, Bud's landlord, a paraplegic named Tim, and Clara, a woman he encounters at his ex-mother-in-law's funeral and whom he starts meeting at other funerals, of strangers. He has conversations with his boss, Howard, and a young neighbor boy, Leo. And he waits for word on whether he will be fired—and if so, what then? He's hardly employable.

It's a bit of sentimental fluff, really—but it was just what I needed. Nothing heavy; on the contrary, Kenney (who writes regularly for the New Yorker's "Shouts & Murmurs" humor column) is very funny and gives the self-deprecating Bud some great lines. The other characters are mostly foils, helping Bud to find the joy in life again. (Clara, perhaps, especially: yes, they fall in love—though at the end of the book she's off to Bhutan for a year; still, you know they'll come together again. Love is love.)

The passages I flagged, though, weren't the funny bits, but the "Life is a gift" bits of wisdom. Schmaltzy, maybe. But no less important for all that. I flagged six. I'll just go ahead and quote them here, though I'll start with a one-liner, the last thing I flagged: "How many days do you experience something for the first time?" The occasion being a helicopter ride that Bud has gifted to Tim. "We banked right over the Bronx, over Yankee Stadium, to the East River. The city small and quiet below. We should be required to take flight from time to time, to see anew, to see how small and fragile we are."

But let's go back to the beginning—straight to the set-up for Bud's disaster:

I took down a bottle of sixteen-year-old Lagavulin from a shelf in the kitchen. My boss, Howard, gave it to me at our company Christmas party a few years ago.
     On occasion—a damp, cold evening, the house too quiet—I pour myself a glass, give it a gentle swirl, inhale the heady, fiery aroma, and imagine my ancestors in Ireland a long time ago, in a cottage, by a peat fire, rough hands, so tired, so much labor, wondering, perhaps, if there was something else out there, a better life, if they had the courage to find it, knowing they would, that they had to, that they owed it to themselves and their family, afraid, excited, eternally hopeful, dreaming of possibility for their children, their children's children, for me, this person sitting here now. Surely that was worth a toast.
     I sat on the couch with my computer and got lost, aimlessly clicking through cnn.com and tmz.com, nytimes.com. YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, the algorithms knowing my tastes, pulling me in deeper, mindlessly following every new link. A Nick Drake video, a Stephen Fry talk, a Fry & Laurie skit, The Two Ronnies' "Fork Handles" skit, great catches in baseball, vintage wristwatches, yoga women of Malibu, Bill Maher, news anchor bloopers, a garbage truck that bursts into flames, Norman Mailer drunk on The Dick Cavett Show, squirrels dancing.
     The videos—half watch, click, half watch, skip ad, click—alternatingly intrigued and annoyed me, engaged me, sucked life from me. It was after eleven. Go to sleep, Bud. But Bud wasn't listening. Bud had pushed past tired into numbness, the brain buzz of too little sleep, the mistake of topping off his drink. What's the worst that could happen?

See, nothing deep here, but also something most of us can perhaps identify with. Not these specific details, perhaps, but our bad habit of seeking to escape, to entertain ourselves to death, to avoid what's right in front of us. Next up: a bit about Howard and their relationship:

Something happened after his wife's death, me being there, that drive to the hospital. I saw behind a door normally closed to others, these things in our personal lives that coworkers never know about. How well do we know a colleague? The ebb and flow of workdays, weeks, years. We might notice a new suit, a haircut, a bit of weight put on. We talk of work, a bit about life, we have drinks at office parties. But something changed in a way I couldn't quite explain. We had inched closer. How can you not, standing in the doorway of a hospital room as this man I had known for so long—this man I barely knew at all—wailed and sobbed over the body of his dead wife?
     I wondered how I could ever put that in an obituary. 

And here Bud and Howard meet up after the disastrous obit:

"The world changed," Howard said to his glass. "Broke in a way. I see things, read things, watch things, and I think . . . I don't understand that. The inanity, the vulgarity, the cruelty." He turned to look at me. "Is it just me, getting older?"
     "I think something has changed."
     "Something fundamental, perhaps. And so we retreat. Sure, we do our jobs, provide for our families. But then we seek cover. I subscribe to a channel on YouTube called Relaxing Mowing. It's speeded-up footage of people mowing their lawns, trimming their hedges. The world made clean and perfect. They put classical music over it. If someone described that to me five months ago, I would say that person was insane. Now, I love it. I watch these in bed at night. I watch videos of Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse dancing. The elegance and grace. Where has that gone? Now we have twerking."

The book is full of details like this, of wisdom like this, of regret but also hope. Tim, too, is full of wisdom, earned from being in a wheelchair—a bit heavyhanded, okay, but still. Here, at their first meeting, when Bud comes to interview for an apartment to let in Tim's brownstone, Tim has just asked Bud if he's ever sat with someone as they died. Yeah, not your typical first encounter, and also heavyhanded, but still.

"It's quite something. Especially if they're ready . . . if  . . . if they lived. Do you know what I mean?"
     "Totally," I lied. "Sorry. I lied. I'm not sure I understand."
     He laughed. "I don't really know what I mean either. I guess I mean this. That at the end—and I've had the privilege to be in the room with a few people now, my parents, two friends—I think, and it's just a guess, but I think we let go of everything ad the true nature of experience falls over us. This . . . miracle that is existence. Which we layer with so much. With anxiety and fear and greed and smallness and what's next and hurry up and I've got a meeting and all the . . . stuff . . . that gets in the way. I'm not saying we should all go live like a monk. I'm saying that if you haven't lived the life you want, if you haven't loved life, then at the end, I think a deep and very sad regret comes over you. And if you have, if you've lived well . . . friends and family and . . . if you've lived . . . then just as true is the peace you feel. I've seen it. Does this make any sense or do I sound mad?"

No, not mad at all. And finally, here Tim and Bud are at the Frick Collection, looking at one of their two Vermeers, Officer and Laughing Girl. "Why is the girl laughing?" Tim asks. Bud says:

"It's a nervous laugh. He just made a bad joke, said something embarrassing."
     "Like what?"
     "He just showed her how he could burp the alphabet."
     "You don't deserve Vermeer. Look at the painting. Pretend you're not you. Let the picture speak to you. It wants to speak to you. It's speaking to you across hundreds of years. This is its power. It's trying to tell you something, a universal thing, a thing that has no boundary in time. Why is the girl laughing?"
     I stared at the painting. I waited. It seemed too obvious.
     "Because she's happy?" I said.
     Tim turned to me and smiled. "Yes."
     "That's it?"
     "What else is there?"

40. Another day

Another Friday, and another session with my English-learning friend. Today we worked on a dozen simple fill-in-the-blank exercises. Well, "simple" if you happen to already speak the language. One involved the words cope cop cup. The sentence: The _______ couldn't _______ with the bug he saw in his _______. I mean, if you speak English already, it's a no-brainer. But the more we worked on these sentences, the harder even I started to find them. 

So I was delighted when one of the fill-in words was am. There is only one context you will ever use am. I AM. Dammit. I am.

The last exercise included the word pen, which at first glance you would think would mean pluma, but in the case of this sentence, which also include pet and pep—a pet with too much pep needing to be put in a . . . —did not. I am a language person—I've studied, what, ten or more languages—and so I'm sure that if I were met with an exercise like this in any of those, I'd figure it out: it's a puzzle, a game. But my friend is not a language person. This is hard, it's challenging. And it's serious: she wants to stay in this country. She needs to speak the language.

But then she started laughing. She was having fun. It wasn't the sentences that she was finding fun, but our interaction, I think. Our connection, our friendship. As we parted she gave me a big hug. And out in the parking lot, she gave me an avocado. What more does a teacher need?

As I drove to our meeting, I noticed the parking lot near the local Russian Orthodox church filled with cars. As I drove home, I saw a hundred or more people spilling out onto the lawn, including a half dozen white-bearded men dressed in bright green chasubles wearing full-on crowns. All I find from googling is this: Престольный Праздник / Встреча Митрополита Николая: Parish Feast Day / Meeting Metropolitan Nikolai. This has nothing to do with my life, really, except that I noticed it: it's a part of the life of some of my neighbors, and that's meaningful. It was beautiful to see this crowd, and those bearded, crowned men in green.

In the afternoon, David and I headed to one of our favorite dog-walk spots, Carmel Meadows. We stopped awhile to watch the pelicans flomping their wings in the lagoon. (I took a short video, but it won't post, so here's a still shot.) The dog walks are getting shorter, but Milo, at almost 15, is still game. 

The way home ended up taking three times as long as it could/should have, but I'll spare the details. Road work; rush hour. Whatever. We got home.

And then had a lovely dinner at a new-to-us restaurant in the not-at-all-chic nextdoor town of Seaside, but the restaurant, Maligne, has made its way into the Michelin Guide, so we figured it was worth a try—and yeah. It was terrific. Halibut with corn and shishito peppers for me, pork belly and fancy rice for David, and a luscious peach and plum cobbler for dessert. The occasion: our 44th anniversary. 

We sure do hope to make it to 50. We'll see!

Finished the evening watching Tampopo. Delightful. 

What more can one ask of a day?  

 

39. Two and a half Instagram six-packs

Catching up here since my last IG post in May. I don't actually curate my Instagram feed. I just occasionally look at IG, then think, maybe it's time to post something. And I scroll back through my photos, find a shot or two, and there: posted. So, here: a recap of the latest posts.

My desk, my pens. A California buckeye blossom. Luna.
A wolf eel model. A Salinas mural. Milo.

A frog in Ontario. The view from our niece Jess's farm,
also in Ontario. July 4 on Monterey Bay. The cats.
The day we paid off our mortgage, huzzah! woohoo!
Luna again (the REAL tiger).

David and our friend Alastair, geocaching in Los Gatos.
David and a lovely little gopher snake.
Our nephew Aaron flinging the frisbee in Ontario.

A snapshot (or fifteen) of my life. So totally random it's silly. But silly is good. What would we do without silly?

Book Report: Night Watch

15. Jayne Anne Phillips, Night Watch (2023) (7/29/25)

That this book won the Pulitzer Prize surprises me—though maybe it just underscores the fact that the Pulitzer isn't a prize I should follow.* 

Why does it surprise me? Because the book is something of a mess. It begins in 1874 with a trio of characters arriving at a "lunatic asylum," introduces a few more, and then abruptly, on page 45, shifts scene and time, going back ten years and introducing several new characters—staying in those stories for another eighty pages. Wait, what happened to the asylum? What are we supposed to pay attention to here? When we finally return to 1874 (and ultimately 1883, in an epilogue), the story's threads gradually begin to weave together, though some remain dangling even at the end, and the climax, where (almost) all secrets are revealed, is breathtakingly abrupt.  

And the writing. Sometimes I enjoyed its lyricism, the rendering of habits of speech, but it often was just too much. Like this, which ends part IV:

He will leave here when time affords and feel no anguish but absence. A blank pulsing thud of heartbeat is the only key he possesses, and it fits no lock. But he's intensely relieved. He thinks of a kite, struggling along the ground, suddenly catching the wind, with the string let out very quickly. He can hear the whistle of air and feel a sensation of buoyancy, as though he gains height over raucous green hills that resound with pleas of mercy.

Huh? Especially toward the end of the book—when I started seeking out published reviews  (am I the only one who doesn't get what's going on?)—the gush of language was just too much. 

But what, you ask, is this book about? It takes place in West Virginia during and after the Civil War. The initial trio, a man, woman, and 12-year-old girl, are seen arriving at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum (which still exists as a National Historic Landmark, complete with ghost tours), and part I all takes place there as we learn about the asylum, its function, its personnel. The woman, Liza—now known as Miss Janet—and the girl, Liza's daughter but now known as her nurse, Liza Connolly, settle in, and Miss Janet begins to regain her strength. In part II we follow several characters, the grandmotherly Dearbhla, whose story takes us into her past, where we learn about Eliza and the boy Eliza fell in love with; the "Sharpshooter," who has taken the Union side and whom we see fighting in the war and getting gravely wounded, losing all memory of who he is; the backstory of the man in the initial trio, and how he entered the others' lives; and more. Part III brings us back to the asylum, as the story—all those threads—plays out. Or perhaps I should say, weave together. It's difficult to describe just what the plot is. The feeling I'm left with is more of having been smothered—or perhaps getting clobbered in the head and left for dead, like the Sharpshooter.

The chief physician of the asylum was a real person, and Phillips occasionally inserts a photo of the place that seems to be the basis for a surrounding description, and I appreciated that concreteness. 

All that said, there were some quite lovely passages, and the rather gothic nature of the story—a bad guy who is very bad, many potentially good actors who nevertheless remain ineffective, hidden gardens and stolen baubles, a fire and bloody murder, and in the last few pages, an interesting reveal—does draw you along. I guess I'm glad I read it. I also guess I wish it hadn't tried so hard.

*As opposed to what—the National Book Award (for which Night Watch was long-listed)? National Book Critics Circle Award? Booker Prize? Should I even care about book awards? Do they represent quality? I tend to think so, but as with so many awards, politics probably enters in as much as worthiness (not politics as in Washington politics, but... playing favorites, making up for past slights, celebrating the underdog, or diversity, etc.). (Here is a piece titled "Did the Pulitzer Prize Make a Mistake with Night Watch? A Pulitzer Prize Deep Dive," which addresses some of these issues.)

37. Plant families

Yesterday on FB, a friend posted this meme:

 To which he added, "There are many correct (& even more incorrect) answers."

He got a few responses:

Legumes and brassicas—or Fabaceae (Leguminosae, with 765 genera and nearly 20,000 species), aka beans, peas, chickpeas, and lentils, and Brassicaceae, the mustard family, including cabbage, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, bok choy, Napa cabbage, and even turnips and radishes, not to mention the plant that canola oil comes from. Alfalfa is a legume, as are beautiful lupines: food for cows, food for the eyes. According to Wikipedia, "Legumes are a significant source of protein, dietary fibre, carbohydrates, and dietary minerals; for example, a 100 gram serving of cooked chickpeas contains 18 percent of the Daily Value (DV) for protein, 30 percent DV for dietary fiber, 43 percent DV for folate, and 52 percent DV for manganese." As for the Brassicas, despite there being some 330 genera and 3,700 species, the most important genus for us is arguably Brassica, of which some 40 different species adorn our dinner tables on a regular basis. 

Others suggested one of those two families plus Poaceae (or Graminae): the grains and grasses, with 780 genera and 12,000 species. Wiki again: "The Poaceae are the most economically important plant family, including staple foods from domesticated cereal crops such as maize, wheat, rice, oats, barley, and millet for people and as feed for meat-producing animals. They provide, through direct human consumption, just over one-half (51%) of all dietary energy; rice provides 20%, wheat supplies 20%, maize (corn) 5.5%, and other grains 6%. Some members of the Poaceae are used as building materials (bamboo, thatch, and straw); others can provide a source of biofuel, primarily via the conversion of maize to ethanol."

And finally Solanaceae, the nightshade family, with 2,700 species—by which we generally mean tomatoes and eggplants, potatoes and peppers, as well as tobacco if you are so inclined, and even the cheery petunia. 

One person responded, "Definitely not Euphorbiaceae," which gives us cassava and castor oil (which in turn gives us ricin), as well as Christmas-time poinsettia and lots of ornamental plants. But yeah, not so good for sustenance.

Me, I responded simply, "No." Not gonna choose. To which my friend commented, "The best answer I’ve heard is 'Apiaceae & Ranunculaceae…because such a life is not worth living.'" Apiaceae—the Umbellifers, which includes carrots, celery, and fennel, caraway, cilantro, and dill; and Ranunculaceae—delphinium, ranunculus, nigella, columbine, anemone. I think this response may have been more about beauty than edibility. Because yes, beauty matters too. 

Some sort of Umbellifer

Pasqueflower (Pulsatilla alpina) achene

Nigella arvensis seed follicle

36. Generations

I'm just going to think out loud a little bit here. From my own very restricted brain-space. 

I saw a reference today to all the harm people of my generation are doing to the planet because we keep denying climate change. 

Well, okay. But people I personally know aren't denying climate change. People I know are installing solar panels and buying electric cars; they are deciding not to fly to farflung vacation spots because of carbon emissions; they're walking to the market to shop. No, no, of course not everybody I know. But enough people for me to say, seriously, is this a generational thing?

I see "boomers" attacked online for all the harm we've done to this country. I don't get it. For one thing, I'm not really seeing what GenXers and GenZers and Millennials, as a mass group, are doing for the country. I don't see young people out at the anti-Trump protests. (Not here in Monterey anyway. Maybe they're out en masse in bigger burgs. I hope so.)

All I really want to say here is, I really wonder how much of our woes are "generational." Yes, different people coming into the world are met with different challenges, and yes, perhaps the "boomers" had it relatively easy. I certainly had it easy compared to my parents, who were born before or during WWI, weathered the Great Depression, lived through WWII, and then got clobbered with the Vietnam War. 

And then there was the Civil Rights movement, which attempted to set things right in this country—and now we're seeing that it's not so easy... because of boomers? Or full-on bigotry.

What I mean to say here is, people are people. We, all of us, have various advantages and disadvantages as we enter the world. Yes, it seems to be harder to find good employment now than it did when I was coming up. But that's not "because of the boomers." It's economics—capitalism. It's the social milieu. It may be because of the billionaires, who knows? 

Workers have been devalued, owning things has been overvalued. Those that have, get more—and then leave it to their kids, who start out life entitled, privileged. 

Life is complicated. Centuries ago, most of us would have been living under some lord's domain. At least things are a bit better than that now. (I think?)

This "generations" thing is an invention of the late 20th century. It's another way of putting us into boxes. Race, check. Gender, check. Generation, check. We're all so different!

When really, shouldn't we be thinking of ourselves as all in this together? 

All human.

That said, "young people"—sure. "Old farts"—sure. Young people and old farts do see the world differently: it's a different world now than it was when I was young. It was a different world for my old-fart parents, too. Being young or old is itself objective: you can look at someone and it's obvious. It still doesn't mean that my take on how different the world is, or what that difference means, is the same as that of my 70-year-old neighbor down the street, who's as Republican as they come, listening to right-wing radio in his garage (we wave at each other in the afternoon, him sitting on his cushion-mediated hard wood chair, us walking our dog), flying his flag. We may be the same generation, but I identify more with our young-parent neighbors in the house behind us, who may be politically progressive, though I've never asked. 

As for climate change, whoever could be doing something to change our course—whatever generation—I don't see it happening. 

I don't see it happening.

Blame who you will.

Then again, maybe "blame" is not the best way forward.

P.S. I will say, maybe at least some of us "boomers" are in fact more outraged and traumatized by what the Trump administration is heaping on this country now than any other generation might be. Because we were educated to believe that this country was something great. Which it clearly is not anymore. And might I point out that those in Trump's inner circle are not, in fact, all boomers. Starting with Stephen Miller, who's all of 39. J. D. Vance is 40. What's wrong with that generation?

P.P.S. The cartoon here? It's definitely a fact that students today have it far, far harder than I did, so far as paying for an education goes. That should be addressed, and I hope one day very soon it will be. (Sure won't be during this administration, though.) As for Social Security, so far, since the 1930s, it's something most of us do: pay into a system, and trust we'll get to enjoy some of the benefits when our time comes. I wouldn't say anybody I know thinks that young people somehow owe it to us. If anything, the government owes it to us to keep the system running smoothly. Simply by lifting the cap on the SS tax, they could keep it solvent. The government—this government—just doesn't give a shit.

35. Ontario family reunion

Three years ago, many Canrights converged on a 100-some-acre farm in Ontario, Canada, up near Meaford on the shores of Georgian Bay, Lake Huron. Family reunion!

Last week, we did it again—a somewhat different assortment of people, but just as invigorating. Our superb hosts were Jess and John Zufferli—Jess being my husband's eldest brother's daughter (our niece), John her awesomely game husband. Hats off to the both of them for a wonderful time. 

We came from all over: two sets of us from central coast California; two sets from Washington state (Edmonds and Wenatchee); North Carolina; Atlanta; and Oslo, as in Norway (we are far-flung). Twenty-two of us in all, ranging in age from 13 to 78. Three generations.

The three remaining sibs:
David (the baby), Geoff, and Patty (the new eldest)

There should have been a couple from Cleveland, Ohio, but Jess's dad—David's big brother (formerly the eldest)—died in March, and his wife, Virge, wasn't up for the trip. We toasted them in their absence. There should also have been one or two from Texas—Jess's brother, David, and his wife, Jeannie—but they were traveled out from a recent trip to Japan. We missed them. 

I posted some photos on FB, which I link to here (click on the highlighted bits).  

Day 1 (Thursday): Arrival! We got to the farm around noon, after a red-eye flight, and had a delicious few hours on our own with Jess and John (and sweet Sadie the labradoodle). Also, a nap. Others started arriving in the evening, though the Washington contingent kept getting grounded in Cleveland—ironically enough. They finally reached us the next day.

The view from our window in the 165-year-old farm house

Day 2 (Friday): I took a morning walk on the loop through the fields and woods, which is where these pictures are from. Much of the day was spent hanging out, swimming, catching up, and waiting for the Cleveland folks to arrive. And when they did, David, Patty and I went for another loop walk!

Day 3 (Saturday): Today we all (but one) went on a hike through some lovely (if warm) woods, then for pizza, beer, and wine at Coffin Ridge Winery. After that we went various ways. David and I took the opportunity to do a little geocaching. We lost Kolya, Nicole, and Enon, who took off for Toronto to look around before heading in various directions.

And later on that evening, we played outdoors under a beautiful sky. Frisbee! Sparklers!

Day 4 (Sunday): Today’s hike took us through the woods to Inglis Falls, followed by a picnic and—for some (a couple of the Norwegians)—a visit to Walmart (not documented) while others ended the day with a visit to the lakeshore (Lake Huron’s Georgian Bay) (ditto). Beautiful day.

Yes, there was geocaching!

Day 5 (Monday): Departure day, beginning at 3 a.m. for the other central California contingent. The hubbub of connection and hugs, over and over, was beautiful. Our 7 p.m. flight was on time, and we were home to our Milo at just after midnight. 

What a great few days. I'm so glad to be part of this family.

34. Craig Childs, writer

I am totally copying a couple of things that the writer Craig Childs has posted on FB the past couple of days. Because I want to keep them around. 

The first is from last week. He is visiting his son in Japan now, and they are traveling around. I loved this evocative passage he wrote, which yes, does capture the out-of-body-ness that travel can evoke. (The photo is his; it accompanied this post.)

There’s a point while traveling where I’ve run out of ink in a couple pens and misplaced a couple more, a point of feeling foreign enough I’m embarrassed to be walking around mispronouncing words for water or thank you like I didn’t have enough to do at home already, where my will starts feeling doughy and I’m reading signs in a language that appears to be written by people from a planet with more than one sun and many moons, not like my own language that looks like it was fashioned by kindergartners. I start feeling lost, purposeless, sucking gooey tapioca balls through a straw while sitting next to a rotating desk fan in the back of a shop that feels like an oven. This, I think, is why some people don’t travel. You forget for a moment who you were, if you were anyone to begin with, a feeling that I try to remember to savor because it, too, is why I came. Then, a sudden rain both brightens and darkens the streets at the same time. The sun sets and windows light up. I find myself walking slowly along a narrow space between buildings and it feels like I’ve stepped into a different room inside a dream where my travel companion urges me to stop and look down an alley glowing from rain and once again I’m swimming in possibilities. Standing on a bridge over a river I’ve never heard of, I feel coolness for the first time all day. A heron lands at the water’s edge and stalks just like the herons stalk at home, only its plumage is unfamiliar, as if the artist who makes the world ran out of ink in one color and started again with another.

And this from today, in response to a bit of hate-mongering by hateful Ann Coulter (her exact words: "We didn't kill enough Indians"). Thank you, Craig, for your loving heart:

We are being clouded by hate. Every one of us needs to check ourselves. I think of lines from a Joy Harjo poem:

Each stone of jealousy, each stone
Of fear, greed, envy, and hatred, put out the light.
No one was without a stone in his or her hand.
There we were,
Right back where we had started.
We were bumping into each other
In the dark.

Words are flying these days that need to be renounced, not with hatred, but a flat out no, this is not how we go forward.

Hear, hear. 

I have only read one of Craig's many books, which I reported on here. That one was about flash floods, and deaths—nothing approaching the horrific event of this July 4 on the Guadalupe River in Texas. He conveys well the power of that water, its destructiveness. I need to read more of him.

33. Quelea, with a bit of markhor thrown in

In my off-moments during the day, I sometimes turn to the phone and a quick game of Sudoku: the "hard" category—which isn't especially hard, though it requires a bit of focus. The app I use includes various contests: currently, a Daily Challenge, a First Try Challenge (which gets harder and harder—and believe me, the journey from "hard" to "expert" is no simple slide), and right now, an Independence Day "event." Also, always, an ongoing Tournament, which one enters simply by playing. 

Although I don't bother with any of these, I do sometimes check my (automatic) Tournament standing—because sure, I want to be a winner!—and get a little frisson of pleasure when I manage to make it (momentarily though it might be) into the top 10. Ten being as high as I've ever gotten, and then only on day 1, before the real players get going.

Rather winningly, all of us on the Tournament gameboard have monikers—the current top three being Busy Tiger, Fantastic Moth, and Unusual Moose. (What my moniker is, I have no clue: I'm simply identified as ME. But I hope it's something marvelous: Moonlit Mongoose perhaps, or Luminescent Flamingo.) Today when I checked, I was bemused by a couple of names in the top ten: Powerful Quelea and Alert Markhor (currently numbers 4 and 5). What are these creatures? 

Well, here I am to tell you (per Wikipedia):

Quelea /ˈkwiːliə/ is a genus of small passerine birds that belongs to the weaver family Ploceidae, confined to Africa. These are small-sized, sparrow- or finch-like gregarious birds, with bills adapted to eating seeds. Queleas may be nomadic over vast ranges. The red-billed quelea is said to be the most numerous bird species in the world. 

Until today, I'd never even heard of any kind of quelea, and turns out one of them is the most numerous bird species in the world? Well, knock me over with a (red-billed quelea) feather!

There are three species: the cardinal quelea (Quelea cardinalis), the red-headed quelea (Q. erythrops), and the red-billed quelea (Q. quelea). Though wouldn't you know it—its superabundance should be a clue—the last is a pest on small-grain cereal crops such as rice (corn being too big for its little beak) throughout Africa. Here they are in their abundance and beauty:

Okay, on to the markhor, aka Capra falconeri or "screw-horn goat," found mainly in Pakistan (of which it is the national animal), the Karakoram Range, parts of Afghanistan, and the Himalayas. It may be an ancestor of the domestic goat. Currently listed as near-endangered (its population was estimated at 5,800 in 2013), it has been aided by conservation efforts throughout its range; in 2024 the UN named May 24 as International Day of Markhor. It is featured in an Afghan puppetry tradition known as buz-baz. 

Every day, there's something new and amazing to learn about this world.

32. July 4

It's just tipped into July 4, Independence Day—the day after the deficit-exploding, basic needs–denying, ICE-magnifying MAGA bill (aka BBB) passed the House and headed to the Resolute Desk. David and I just watched Heather Cox Richardson talk about it, in her usual level-headed way. I guess it made me feel a little better—like, this depravity won't last forever. It may last longer than I do, but I can still hope that future generations of Americans manage to steer this ship back on course. Though with young people getting most of their messaging through TikTok and such bubbles, I really can only hope... But I'll be dead, so, to echo those MAGAts, who cares?

Here's the link to Heather's talk today: https://fb.watch/ADfzwPQnHT/.

As she said, misattributing the quote to Harriet Tubman (it was actually Robert Frost), "The only way out is through."

And of course I don't really want to echo anything MAGA folk say. I do care. I just feel powerless. And just maybe I should spend my last years (there may be twenty, even thirty more, there may be just a few: I'm past feeling immortal, though) living life to the fullest. 

And not worrying about bullshit I have zero say over. I will vote. I will write or call my representatives. I will join my fellow dissidents at Window on the Bay to protest. But I can't do much more than that. I am powerless. And worrying doesn't do a damn thing.

Here's a picture of our cats, in a rare moment of mutual civility, having taken over the dog's bed (one of them—he's got others): 

Let them be a model for us going forward.

As they might remind us, the Constitution belongs to us all. And it's our responsibility to keep it intact. However we can.

Happy Independence Day.

31. Sigh

Today the Senate passed the "Big Beautiful Bill"—what a stupid name for something so tawdry coming out of our formerly stolid government. It's gotten me thinking, wondering, about, oh, time. Life. A quick study of history will tell you that upset is more common than peace in human history. Why is that? Why does humankind seem to thrive so on chaos? But it does. Obviously. Our time, right now, is another testament to that. 

I was born in the fifties, and came up during the civil rights movement, the Vietnam war. But I wasn't very aware of all that: I was just going to school, getting good grades. My parents didn't talk about those events. Now, I would love to be able to sit down with them and ask them what they were thinking. How it impacted them. 

My parents were born in 1908 and 1914, respectively, so they lived through WWI, the Depression, WWII. They never talked about all that. Of course, as children, WWI didn't really affect them. During the Depression, my father had found employment with Chevron as a chemical engineer, so he was okay. And then he was hired in the chemistry department at UCLA, arriving in 1939. During WWII he spent some time in Philadelphia on a research project, and was involved in a laboratory explosion that compromised his liver; he ended up in and out of hospital for ten years. 

So yes, my parents encountered more than a little bit of history's ins and outs. I really wish I could talk to them about what they experienced, what they thought.

My father ended his life on the Republican side of the spectrum; my mother remained a stolid FDR Democrat her entire life. I'd love to be able to talk to them about that too: what they believed was right, was necessary. In real terms. From both their perspectives.

I know a lot of people think this BBB is a good thing, though I don't know why. Everything about it is abstract: the people who will be losing health coverage, the billionaires who will be getting even more money, the children who will die from malnutrition. But somehow, people think it will improve their lives? Because, what, of a momentary tax break? 

I find the Republicans in Congress reprehensible. Maybe the Democrats aren't so great themselves—politics is a game, for sure—but at least they voted against this monstrous bill. 

At this point, I have no faith whatsoever in my "government." It is as corrupt as can be. 

I am looking at my life now, how it plays out. I have money enough to survive, even once David and his pension vanish. If we old folks lose Medicare (which I don't find implausible), I may try to seek refuge elsewhere—a medical immigrant.  

A good 344 million people are caught in this travesty. I am not alone in my outrage. Even those who voted for Trump may well feel it soon.

In the meantime, I'll continue to seek out the beauty in life. I do have that. Plenty of beauty. Maybe it will keep me healthy a little while longer.

Book Report: Stone Yard Devotional

14. Charlotte Wood, Stone Yard Devotional (2023) (6/22/25)

This quiet book is set somewhere in the countryside of New South Wales; the narrator, a woman of a certain age and an atheist, has left her husband and the big city to seek remove in a cloistered community near the town she grew up in. It begins as a few diary entries on the occasion of her first visit back, and part two becomes a series of observations and musings about life in the community upon her return and seemingly permanent residence (though she does not take vows) with the ten or so remaining sisters. 

A few events punctuate the otherwise quiet life there: a plague of mice, which becomes worse and worse, exacerbated by drought (climate change); and the return of the bones of a sister who left the community several decades before to work "in the world." The bones of Sister Jenny are accompanied by a social-activist sister, Helen Parry, not otherwise affiliated with the monastery, who also grew up in the neighboring town (and went to school with the narrator). The backdrop to all this is Covid, and the general shutdown—meaning Helen is obliged to stay on once she's returned the bones, and the community has few visitors. Helen mainly keeps to herself, but even that causes certain friction. Meanwhile, the sisters and our narrator do increasingly gruesome battle with the rodential hordes, as they wait (and wait) for permission to bury Sister Jenny. 

That's it! At the end, the mice have mostly disappeared, the interment takes place (without permission, but never mind), and Helen departs. 

Some readers might object that there's no story, but I enjoyed the slow pacing and the thoughtfulness as the narrator grapples with big questions: What is our purpose? Can we be forgiven for acts of callousness and neglect? Why are we here? We learn that the narrator was formerly an environmentalist, but she lost faith in the cause—indeed, upon the dissolution of her marriage, in everything. She may not find answers per se, but she begins to find some peace. 

Here is a sample chapter (in full), opening with a quote (a not too tediously frequent device):

'We have to try to cure our faults by attention and not by will . . . Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love. Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer. If we turn our mind towards the good, it is impossible that little by little the whole soul will not be attracted thereto in spite of itself.' Simone Weil    
     Our Simone [one of the sisters] once took me to task over my 'sneering' about prayer. My notion of prayer was juvenile: forget this telephone line to God bullshit, she snapped, hot with impatience. It wasn't even about God, she said, which I thought must surely be blasphemous. Praying was a way to interrupt your own habitual thinking, she told me. It's admitting yourself into otherness, cracking open your prejudices. It's not chitchat; it's hard labour. She spoke as if all this were obvious. I longed to understand her. It feels always that I am on the edge of some comprehension here but never breaking through to the other side.
     At night, just before sleep, is when I am closest to reaching it. In the morning, when the birds start, belief is as thin as the light.

And here's another quote, in a chapter that treats the idea that "if you don't life the life you are born for, it makes you ill," a remark made by Helen Parry at the breakfast table, to which one of the sisters, taking Helen's comment as condescending, responds quietly, "I was born for this life."

What I could not tolerate was the 'falling in love with Jesus' talk that I knew would come next, and it did. I find it nauseating; surely this life should be composed of something more sober than that. Something austere, and momentous, and powerful. Close attention, hard thinking. A wrestling, to subdue . . . what? Ego. The self. Hatred. Pride. But no, instead we have Sissy, and also Carmel, simpering that they are here because I fell in love with Jesus and want to live with him in heaven. As if they're talking about some teen idol crush. I have learned not to roll my eyes but there are times it is nearly impossible. Right at that moment, forcing myself to stay at the table, I was surprised to find myself meeting Helen Parry's glance, and more surprised still that both she and I held each other's gaze. Then she gave a tiny movement of her head in microscopic mimicry of Sissy's and Carmel's simpering, and I had to turn away not to laugh, in the process most completely failing to subdue my ego, the self, pride. 

Wood has written seven works of fiction, three of non. I may seek her out again.  

 

30. Wind phone

Today on FB I ran across a mention by actress Jamie Lee Curtis of a "wind phone" that was recently installed in Joshua Tree. It is in memory of two teenagers, Ruby and Hart Campbell, 17 and 14, killed in 2019 in a car crash. The memorial was created by their parents, who were also in the accident but survived. Unimaginable.  

As it appears, it is a telephone, but unattached to any wires, so unworkable in the strict sense. As the parents, Gail Lerner and Colin Campbell, explain, the original wind phone "was created in Japan [in 2010] by Itaru Sasaki while he was grieving his cousin who died of cancer. He bought an old-fashioned phone booth, set it up in his garden, and installed an obsolete rotary phone that was not connected to . . . any 'earthly system.' He called it Kaze no Denwa (風の電話), which translates as the Wind Phone. Using it, Itaru felt a continued connection to his cousin and found comfort and solace amid his grief." Here is Sasaki's original:

"Because my thoughts couldn't be relayed over a regular phone line," Sasaki said, "I wanted them to be carried on the wind." After the Fukushima earthquake, Sasaki opened the wind phone to the general public, and it saw regular use. The original booth was replaced with a sturdier aluminum one in 2018. 

The concept has been re-created in various places over the years. And now, in Joshua Tree. I'd love to go visit it next time I'm down there. The coordinates may be 34° 07'22.4"N 116° 15'58.8"W (or try 34.122889, –116.266333). As Colin puts it in his Instagram post on the new installation, "Anyone in grief can visit, sit down in the privacy of the vast desert, pick up the rotary phone and call their loved one via the cosmic connection."

What a service.

 

Since I wrote this, the Campbells' wind phone has been featured in stories in the New York Times, Washington Post, and New Zealand Herald, including photos. And here's a CBS Sunday Morning piece from a few years ago about a wind phone in Olympia, Washington:

29. Another day

I seem to get the idea to make an entry about "my day" once a month, because its been just four weeks since my last such—four weeks to the day, and another four weeks to the one before that. I also seem to get that idea on Fridays, when I've met with my Oaxacan friend for a bit of English practice.

Today she showed up with a children's book she'd picked up from the Free shelf at the library entrance, about the voyage of the Mayflower in 1620. She seemed tickled that there were a bunch of free books (last week it wasn't books on the Free shelf, but a case of half-pint milks; another time, it was flaky pastries) just for the taking. And so we learned a little bit about the Pilgrims (Peregrinos) and their ship (barco), though before we got to the Mayflower we learned about the Speedwell, which was too small to take the 102 Pilgrims from Holland, so they had to make a deal with some businessmen (hombres de negocios) in England, who said they could provide a ship in exchange for seven years' worth of goods such as furs (pieles) and lumber (maderas). I happen to know a few descendants of one (or perhaps two) of those 102 migrants, so it tickled me to learn something about the Mayflower. And we talked a bit about Columbus, coming 128 years before, and about Henry the Navigator and the Portuguese going to Brazil, and Cortés got mentioned, and colonialism. And I wondered if my friend has Spanish blood, or if talking about "when we came" to this hemisphere has a very different meaning for her. 

When I got home, David and I headed to downtown Monterey and the Wells Fargo bank branch there—our goal: to pay off our mortgage! But when we got there, there was a line. And a single teller. And although there were at least three other people doing something at screens throughout the bank, no one raised their head to notice: oh, a line; we should attend to our clients. After waiting ten minutes, with one person getting their business taken care of in that time, I said I was going for a walk. (I am not the most patient person. I don't know if it's a fault. It's just a fact.) And David headed out after me—which turned out to be a good thing, because we had planned to stop by Paris Bakery downtown for a couple of overpriced pastries, and when we got there there was only one left of the kind I like (cinnamon raison roll, aka pain aux raisins). Just imagine if we'd stood in line another thirty minutes! I would have been mad at the wait and sad because someone, I'm sure, would have snapped up that last pastry. Win! So with pastries in hand, we drove to the Wells Fargo branch near our house, and okay, there, too, there was a line (just two people), but immediately a fellow came to talk to each of us, and shortly thereafter, another teller arrived. Now, that's customer service. So snick-snack, we paid off our mortgage, and within ten minutes were on our way home, to fresh coffee and our coveted flaky pastries. All that shaggy dogginess to say, our house is now our own. No more mortgage!

It's almost miraculous, after thirty-plus years. And it essentially means an extra few thousand dollars a month in our checking account. In these uncertain times, that makes me feel a bit easier.

In the afternoon, I alternated reading a novel, set in Australia, and editing a book of essays translated from Bengali. Not always so easy to follow: like, "Another person will employ his everything in this work whose company has remained steady amidst my sorrows and defeats for many days." Huh? There were quite a few queries asking the translator to "double-check and make sure the text is as clear as can be." My editing magic goes only so far.

And just as David and I were about to set out on a longish walk with the dog, followed by a stop at the market for ingredients for saumon en papillotte, I checked my email—and was reminded of a jigsaw puzzle competition I'd said I'd participate in, with pickup at 5:15. Good thing I checked! 

The competition was fun. It was at a local library, and the conference room was packed with eager contestants: five (maybe six, maybe four) to a team, some fourteen teams. We all got the same 500-piece puzzle, with a cartoonish image of a carnival food court. Our team started out with three—Lynn (my walk-across-England friend) and Beth (a fellow wilderness ranger) and me—and then just before we got started we acquired two young women, Maddy and Nicole. Now we had some fighting power. We never talked strategy, we just got going: edge pieces, of course; pieces with stripes; pieces with orange or green leaves; pieces with words; pieces with pavement. Et cetera. It flowed organically. We didn't come first, not even close, but I think we all enjoyed the synergy. And it was lovely to be in a room with so many people so focused on something so lighthearted. (The photo here is from a puzzle I finished the other week, which took me months, and so I still have it on my drawing table so I can continue to admire all the hard work I put in. Maybe, though, now it's time to box it, and start another... I could even resolve to spend less than a year on it.)

In the evening, David and I watched the movie Mountainhead (meh), then a couple of episodes of the final season of The Righteous Gemstones—which I'm still hoping will have some redeeming value by the time it's done. 

Oh, and I should mention that before I went to the library to see my Oaxacan friend, I bade farewell to our great-nephew Nicola, who spent the night. We all had a sweet couple of hours yesterday evening catching up, chatting, reminiscing (he was on our recent far-northern Norwegian adventure). Nick graduated from Prescott College this spring in rocket science (or something similar!), and is now off to Torrance to start work as an engineer at Robinson Helicopter Company. It's heartening to see a talented, ambitious young man start off on his path. All the very best to him!

And there we go: another day in the life. This was a good one.

Book Report: Real Tigers

13. Mick Herron, Real Tigers (2016) (6/18/25)

The third in the Slow Horses series. Much of what I said in April about the second installment still holds: impossible to summarize, Herron's style—fast-paced, wryly humorous, great detail and characterization—super enjoyable, and I'm already eager to move on to the next in the series! Though I think I'll wait and try to fit in some more serious reading for at least a little while.

I had seen the TV version of this one and vaguely remembered how it went, including the kidnapping of a central Slough House denizen in order to stimulate a break-in into first one archives, then another—both of which, of course, went awry. I was actually kind of glad to have a visual memory of the final scenes; it made it less claustrophobic, gave more a sense of space, of physicality. And of course, to envision Gary Oldman as the curmudgeon Jackson Lamb: perfect.

But I had forgotten all the political machinations that ended up being behind the kidnapping and break-ins, and although at one point in the book I despaired of getting it straight (it doesn't help that the two main MI5 rivals have somewhat similar names—Diana Taverner and Ingrid Tearney, Taverner and Tearney), with enough deft retelling of various bits of backstory, in various contexts, I think I understand what was at stake. And just who, in the end—by handing over a coveted file that ends up containing nothing but a copy of the Angling Times—wins. At least for the moment. The Slow Horses may be screw-ups, but when called upon to fight for what's right, they deliver.

As usual with my reports on mysteries, I'm sure this report is more mysterious than anything else. But consider it a record for myself. Who knows, it's possible I'll be able to make sense of this in a few months' time. But not guaranteed.

I did flag one passage, the start of a chapter near the end. Again, it doesn't give much insight into the story per se, but it's a decent example of Herron's style:

The pub was off Great Portland Street, and she remembered being here once before, a wake for a dead agent, Dieter Hess. The usual pious utterances, when the truth was, like most doubles, you could trust the man as far as you could chuck a ten-pound note: where it fell, he'd be waiting. But that was the nature of the beast. A spook threw shadows like a monkey puzzle tree's; you could catch whiplash hearing one describe yesterday's weather.
     Diana Taverner was drinking Johnny Walker Black Label—a special occasion tipple—and trying to work out how special the occasion was.
     That Dame Ingrid had heard the sound of one big penny dropping was beyond dispute. Whether she'd heard it in time to catch the penny on the bounce was another matter. If she had, Taverner's career would probably not see out the week. It was one thing to plot and seethe in corners: that was what office life was about. But to actually set wheels in motion was a declaration of war, and the only war you could win against an enemy like Dame Ingrid was one that was over before the starting gun was fired.
     But it had been too good to miss, this opportunity . . . 

(A "double" being, no doubt, a double agent, and a spook being any kind of agent, double or no, but one adept at obfuscation.) 

Spook Street next. Though sadly, none of the local libraries have it. But I'm pretty sure I spotted it the other day at BookWorks in Pacfic Grove. I never complain about having to visit a bookstore. 

28. Covid and No Kings

David tested positive for Covid this morning, and as he turned in to bed tonight he had a 103° temperature. He says it needs to get to 104° before it's time to seek medical help. I hope he sleeps well, and that the fever begins to come down—or better, breaks. In the meantime, I feel like I'm living on borrowed time: will I succumb too? If so, when?

Sadly, this illness meant he couldn't participate in our town's No Kings demonstration, which was really well attended—they figure there were four or five thousand people. Lots of signs and applause and honking, crowds lining both sides of Del Monte Boulevard. I ran into various friends—David's oncology nurse, whom I know from wilderness rangering; my town's former mayor; another Del Rey Oaks neighbor; whale-watching captain Kate and her partner; and finally I found the people I was hoping to find, more wilderness rangers, and we hung out. It was inspiring. It felt like we were doing something. Though I know it won't have any immediate or real effect, the solidarity of so many voices was uplifting. Meanwhile, Trump apparently dozed off at his big expensive military parade. What a jerk. 

Here are a few photos from all over the country (thanks to the NYT and WaPo), with perhaps up to 11 million people showing up for our nation and our people:

Philadelphia: 100,000 strong!

Glendale, CA

Austin, TX

Atlanta

Houston

San Francisco

Midtown Manhattan

Sierra right here in Monterey

P.S. As of June 17, I have a cold—a stuffy nose; the scratchy throat from yesterday seems to have gone away. That's been my experience of Covid the only time(s) I've had it: cold symptoms. I'll take it.