365 True Things: 39/Bucket

I do not have a bucket list per se.

There are places I'd like to go, things I'd like to do, but they mostly simmer as possibilities in my mind. Nothing so formal as a list.

The other month on Facebook, though, I jokingly started collecting a "bucket of birds." It began with kingfishers—the goal being to see as many kingfisher species as possible (there are ninety, distributed widely—such as the above white-breasted kingfisher, Halcyon smyrmensis, common in Southeast Asia). And . . . the list keeps expanding, largely thanks to Frans de Waal, who posts gorgeous photos of all sorts of living creatures (like the wacky beetle with the Romulan ears). If I see an amazing bird, into the bucket it goes! I recently added the whiskered treeswift (Hemiproche comata), below, who looks like a Renaissance papal guard. And how could anyone resist the Malay barred eagle owl (Bubo sumatranus) or Taiwan's national bird, the blue-tailed mountain lady (a.k.a. Taiwan blue magpie, Urocissa caerulea)?

All the above birds live in Southeast or East Asia, and I think it would be a blast to arrange a dedicated bird-watching trip to, say, Vietnam or Thailand. I have been on one such trip in the past, to Ecuador, and even if I wasn't as bird-crazy as many of my co-travelers, I greatly enjoyed the ritual of early risings and stealthy hikes, ears and binoculars poised, followed by the evening list-ticking.

This morning Frans de Waal published a photo of an old friend, and reminded me that I have in fact had a bucket list—of one—for quite some time now. If I never get to Asia to see fancy owls and magpies, I would dearly love, just once, to see the hoopoe (Upupa epops—even its Latin name is fun!) in the wild. This crazy bird first captured my imagination when I saw it painted on a cabinet door in the Vatican library. I have since learned that it is the king of birds in Aristophanes' comedy The Birds; the national bird of Israel, having beaten out the white-spectacled bulbul in a 2008 poll; and the mascot of sports at the University of Johannesburg. And yes: both Israel and South Africa would be on my bucket list, if I had one—so there's that.

(Photos: White-breasted kingfisher by Graeme Guy; Cicadae parasite beetle by Nicky Day; Whiskered treeswift unattributed; Malay eagle owl by Shunda Lee; Malay blue magpies unattributed; Botbotik [hoopoe] by Dûrvan Cîrano)

365 True Things: 38/Names

When I go to a Starbucks and they ask me my name, usually they don't ask if it's Anne with an E; they just write down either Ann or Anne. I'm always surprised when they get it right. I assume it's because they have an Anne in their own life.

Though maybe it's because of Anne Frank or Anne Hathaway or Anne Boleyn or Anne of Green Gables.

I was named after my grandmother, Annie Hooten Skinner. She hated the name Annie and forbade my father to call me that—which of course he did. But I like the name Annie: it's less serious than Anne (or, even more so, Ann).

No one today, however, ever calls me Annie. Nor do I feel like an Annie. I am serious. I wish I was more fun, but I'm just not.

My father actually wanted to call me Gretchen. Gretchen Geissman. Can you imagine? Thank goodness my mother won out.

My middle name was Elizabeth—after my father's sister. Now I use my maiden name as my middle name. It reminds me better who I am. (It also means "goatherd," and I happen to love goats.)

When David and I traveled in Japan for our honeymoon, students would practice their English on us. The girls would ask my name, then nod eagerly and exclaim: "Ah, Green Gables of Anne!" It was endearing. The boys would yell, "This is a pen!"—which wasn't.

Asparagus

Tonight we made a green bean, mushroom, asparagus, roasted tofu stir fry—one of our favorites. (The vegetables vary, but the tofu and ginger sauce remain the same.)

Just now, I had to pee. And there was that sweet/stinky asparagus aroma.

Which got me wondering (not for the first time, but I never remember the answer): do we all smell that sweet/stinky scent?

Do you?

I am hereby conducting a scientific study.

Tell me!

(If it's not too personal.)

365 True Things: 37/Writing

Joan Didion said, "Keepers of private notebooks are a different
breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss."

I beg to differ.

I have kept a personal journal. Usually when things were off-kilter: sitting down and writing through confusion or pain somehow helped. These thoughts were meant for my eyes alone. In that sense they were "private notebooks" (though I tend to compose on the keyboard). And true, I may have been writing out of anxiety or unhappiness. That did not make me an anxious malcontent, however. A puzzled seeker, more like.

These days, I don't journal. Not exactly. After all, this blog is sort of a journal, a way of making sense, of discovering. I also write an occasional "15"—at least fifteen minutes (usually more like an hour) of whatever, which may be more or less coherent or may be a random spilling of thoughts: no rules, beyond "at least fifteen minutes"—which I share with my sister-in-law, also a writer. Each of these is potentially for eyes other than my own, which of course puts limits on what I will say. I'm not going to reveal all my secrets.

So what are all the journals pictured here? They're a mishmash: daily lists; gratitude journals; scribblings on poetic form or fiction technique; notes from Wilderness First Responder training or photography workshops; expressions looked up while struggling with a Norwegian or German book; research. In sum, they're my writers journals: a wealth of information, odd thoughts, attempts, words. Possibilities.

These writings all look outward—they're about learning, doing, expressing. Which isn't a bad thing. But what about my inner self? It feels like it's been quite some time since I've looked deeply inside. Do I even remember how?

Didion again: "I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear."

I would like to get better at that: finding out what I'm thinking; what I want and what I fear. I may explore that here, but it seems more suited to a 15. Or—a private notebook. Uncensored.

What about you? How do you find out what you're thinking?

365 True Things: 36/Travel (Ireland)

Twenty-nine years ago, in May 1986, David and I spent a month bicycling around Ireland. We'd brought our own bikes—packed them in large cardboard boxes and watched from the plane as they were blithely tossed around by luggage handlers.

"Wait! Those are fragile!"

When we landed at Shannon, sure enough, one of the bikes was missing the bolt that holds the skewer in place. It probably just vibrated off. Fortunately, our plan had been to take the train to Dublin anyway, and it was easy enough to find the proper part there.

Our itinerary took us south from Dublin and across the southern middle, then north along the west coast. We stayed at B&Bs, where each morning we'd fill up on a hearty breakfast of eggs, bacon, and lots of soda bread. That kept us going until a Mars bar break in the afternoon, at which time we would peruse the map and a B&B guide, find a phone box, and call to reserve a room for the night in a place two or three hours ahead. Each evening involved a visit to a pub; I remember frequent delicious salmon dinners. And Guinness, of course. Lots of Guinness. Not to mention Harp. Or my favorite: black and tans.

Rock of Cashel

We were lucky with the weather. On one of our first days out, a jaunt to the neolithic site of Newgrange, it started to rain. We stopped, pulled out our rain gear and put it on, and kept riding. Soon we realized we were just as wet inside our rain jackets as outside. Meanwhile, the squall passed and the sun came out. With the next shower, we bypassed the rain gear. We got wet. The sun came out. We dried off (good old polypropylene). It was actually quite refreshing. Only one day did we have miserable rainy weather all day long: the day we cycled the Dingle Peninsula, a thirty-mile loop. The cheery peat fire at the end of that journey was ever so welcome!

Cemetery adornment

We did cross into Northern Ireland from Donegal. Short of the border was a tall hill that we trudged up, standing on our pedals. I took many photos of the surrounding countryside—I remember fields of rape, brilliant yellow against the many greens. Zipping back down the hill was a treat. At the border, we showed our passports to the burly young soldiers, then continued a couple hundred yards. Not thinking, I turned and snapped a photo of the border crossing. "Oy! You there! Stop!" we heard, and saw the burly men chasing after us. They wanted to confiscate my camera. I think I started crying. They relented—though they probably shouldn't have. Thank you, boys.

Whereas the roads in the Republic of Ireland are narrow and hilly—up, down, up, down—the British-built roads in the North were wide and beautifully graded. Our pace picked up remarkably.

We visited the Bushmills distillery on a deeply foggy morning. Inside, a fire burned, and shots of whiskey—including Black Bush and the 10-, 16-, and 21-year-old single malts—were lined up on the bar. We were nicely warmed up once we staggered back onto the road and on our way toward Belfast. Coming into that city proved an adventure as the country road we'd started on gradually transformed into M5. We had a Michelin map, which doesn't show much detail—or point out the parts of town one might want to avoid. (This was during the "Troubles," mind you.) Somehow we found our way to downtown Belfast, but once there we learned we couldn't lock our bikes up and go explore. Any "abandoned" anything was treated with suspicion. So we climbed back on our bikes and continued south, toward the Republic.

There are other stories, but I'll leave my reminiscing there. It was a wonderful trip. Almost makes me want to do another one, lo these thirty years later. But first, I should probably start riding my bike around home. Without loaded panniers.

(The illustrating photos are the only three shots that I converted from slides to digital files. I'm sure I have many more slides where these came from. Maybe someday I'll get around to converting them too . . .)

365 True Things: 35/Books

I joined my book group in April 1990, at the invitation of a fellow Monterey Bay Aquarium volunteer. Once I came on board we were again a group of twelve women, the norm since the group was started way back in 1979. Since 2000 we've lost two, so for many years now we've been only ten. But we've been the same ten for over twenty years, and ten feels like just the right number now.

We meet for a potluck meal. It used to be dinner when everyone was working, now it is more often lunch (which I usually don't attend: it wrecks my day). Once or twice a year we meet at a restaurant, and over the years we've learned how to split the bill amicably--progress. After the meal, we have a discussion, always with some sort of presentation by the person who chose the book. The books themselves are farflung, but they tend to be novels rather than nonfiction. And in December (our business meeting) we usually do a children's book and always have buche de Noël.

I would not call myself a good book group member. I often don't finish the book. (Sometimes I don't even start it—but that's usually only if I know I'll be out of town for the meeting.) I have little patience for certain kinds of books. Like the entire year we did classics? Okay, it ended up not even being an entire year, but by the time we hit Moby-Dick, it sure felt like it. I'm not crazy about multigenerational family sagas either. One year we did all prize winners—Pulitzer, National Book Award, Booker. That year I quite liked. Unfortunately, only one other member enjoyed the book I selected for that year, Midnight's Children. So who am I to complain?

Six years ago, two members compiled a list of every book the group has read, right back to the beginning, and presented it to each of us, in a pretty blue book tied with a yellow ribbon. That's how I know I joined in April 1990: I remember that month's book—a memoir, Life and Death in Shanghai, by Nien Cheng—because it's one I never would have chosen to read myself, but it ended up being very interesting and the discussion lively.

Here are the books I've led a discussion on (as best I can recall—even with a list in front of me, I'm not entirely sure of some of these!):
The Road from Coorain by Jill Kerr Conway
Parallel Lives by Phyllis Rose
Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro
Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula LeGuin
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
Old Bones by Stanley Elkins
Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell
The Sweet Hereafter by Russell Banks
Questions about Angels: Poems by Billy Collins
A Blessing on the Moon by Joseph Skibell
The Catastrophist by Ronan Bennett
If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino
Lying Awake by Mark Salzman
Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee
The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

That brings us to 2009, when the list ends. Since then, I do remember presenting these:
Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain
Running the Rift by Naomi Benaron
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
 . . . and there was one more, but it shall remain a mystery—unless I can coax our "secretary" to publish the lists for the last six years. We have a Facebook group; it would be the perfect place.

What prompted me to write this post today is the loss, yesterday, of one of our earliest members, Ann Priebe, 73—one of the two who departed the group in the past fifteen years; she moved to Seattle to be closer to her daughter. Many decades ago, before blood screening became the norm, she needed a transfusion; sadly, she contracted Hepatitis C— which is what cut her life short. I remember a lovely woman with fluffy silver-blonde hair and the most sparkling sky-blue eyes. She worked as a school nurse and could be sternly no-nonsense—moral, socially engaged (or, in some cases, enraged). But she also had a sweet sense of humor, big spirit, and beautiful laugh. I did not know her well, but I'm sad to know her light has been snuffed. And I know she will be missed by many people who loved her. She joined book group in March 1981.

[Update 5/3: My wish was granted, and the full list of all thirty-six years' worth of books—that's over four hundred—has now appeared on the Book Group Facebook page. My missing book? Atul Gawande's Complications.]

365 True Things: 34/Technology

Well, after all my foot-dragging yesterday, just as I was about to tackle the photo selection process—really!!!—what should happen but, my MacBook Pro . . . it didn't exactly die, but the screen (whose antics the last few days—occasional fields of blue, line patterns doing the jitterbug—I'd been ignoring . . . I am very good at denial) mounted some spectacular pyrotechnics and summarily shut down. When I tried to restart, I got a cute little message to the effect of, Forget it.

Although that's been my go-to computer lately, it's okay: I have another, an iMac—from maybe 2007, 2008?—that works just fine. [Rapping on wooden desktop.] In fact, it's the one connected to the printer, with the appropriate driver, so I was intending to turn to it anyway. It's got a big beautiful screen; it's in my pleasant office. I'm not even sure, come to think of it, just why I migrated to the kitchen counter with my laptop. But that's a question for another day.

So: Before getting down to photo selection, I decided to take the MacBook in for diagnostics. Turns out mine, from 2011, is one of the machines that Apple recently launched a replacement program on for faulty graphics cards. Well, that explained things! Or so the tech and I thought. But when we ran a video check, it came back clean: no problems. Weird, because when I first brought it into the store it did a little throat clearing and the tech could see exactly what I was experiencing. We both fully expected a big fat FAIL.

So I've left my MacBook at the shop. Maybe on a second diagnostic run-through it will fail, in which case Apple will replace my graphics card for free—or so I understand. It's not often that I hope for negative test results, but this time? Definitely. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Speaking of fingers: When I got home, I turned to photo selection. First I did a quick tour through my New Zealand photos, picked out a few possibilities—landscapes all—then started browsing my Maryland/Pennsylvania/New York State/Virginia shots from last year. And I ran across some hands: Lincoln's hands, Eleanor Roosevelt's; the smooth hands of a Giacometti statue in the National Gallery. And that reminded me that I've long wanted to do a series on that subject. I searched Flickr more carefully, cursing myself for not taking keywords more seriously, and lo and behold, I found exactly fifteen, plus a shot or two of feet. So. The show has taken shape.

I inventoried six 17x22 frames and ten 11x14, all ready to swap new prints into. Good. Then I checked my paper supply. One unopened box of 17x22 paper, check. But the three boxes of 11x17 Photo Rag I thought I had? Two turned out to be empty, and the third held exactly one sheet of paper. Dammit.

I had to call Charlene and ask for a week's extension. I then placed an order for two new boxes: one hundred sheets. They're scheduled to arrive between May 7 and May 11. Since we're hanging on the 10th, I am now keeping my fingers crossed on this too: that the earlier date is met.

And when the paper arrives, I still have the printer gods to appease. But I'll wait until next week to worry about that. Again.

[Update, later that same day: The test failed! I have a new motherboard! And I didn't pay a dime. I guess there will be no brand-new MacBook Air in my immediate future....]