365 True Things: 357/Comics

Somehow, I missed the comic book craze when I was growing up. Very occasionally I'd walk the six blocks to the Brentwood Country Mart's news stand and buy an Archie comic book—which, I am half amused, half horrified to see, are still being published, under various series titles, including "New Riverdale," "Archie Action" (Archie action? seriously?), and "Archie Horror" (horror???? this does horrify me)—but I never even knew about the DC and Marvel Comic series.

That is, of course I knew about Superman and Batman, for example: they were TV shows. But I didn't know they started out life as comic book characters. And only recently have I learned how very many comic book superheroes there in fact were. It's mind-boggling!

Comics came up the other day when my howler buddies and I decided to read the first volume in Neil Gaiman's Sandman graphic novels together—and discuss. And it got us to reminiscing a bit about what we read as kids. Archie was all I could come up with.


Though I'd argue that MAD magazine counts in a certain sort of way as comics. Certainly "Spy vs. Spy" was a comic. But more appropriately, MAD was a humor magazine. Even my father liked MAD. He often jokingly parroted the magazine's mascot, Alfred E. Neuman: "What, me worry?"


More recently, I was a huge fan of the newspaper comic strips Calvin and Hobbes and The Far Side, both sorely missed. Though of course I have a few of the compilation books of each. (Currently packed away in boxes. I really need to finish going through the garage, if for no other reason than to be able to spend a few odd moments now and then visiting with my old pals.)

For now, though, I'm looking forward to the visual, intellectual, and storytelling pleasure and challenge of reading Sandman: Preludes & Nocturnes. What little Gaiman I've read, I've greatly enjoyed. And with this excursion, I'll finally have my own personal entree into DC Comics. Better late than never.

365 True Things: 356/Cats III

What to say about sweet Jolie?

We got her at the SPCA, in March 2009, after having lost our black cats Java and Jamaica a year-plus before to a coyote. We needed to get some feline energy back in our lives.

Her particular energy spoke to us immediately: so calm and regal. She was a little over a year old, and her ear had been clipped, signaling that she was "feral." As if. She was the least feral kitty on the planet.

She was also the prettiest thing: so we called her Jolie, continuing the J tradition.

She liked to climb trees.

She also liked to go for walks with us. Seriously! Whenever we'd head out of the house and down the street, if she was sitting in the front yard and happened to notice, she'd run after us and trot along happily—as far as the park a few blocks down. There she'd wait until, half an hour or an hour later, we returned, and she'd run out of the bush she'd been hiding under and accompany us back home.

She loved to lounge on the scratching post she inherited from our first cat, Tisiphone.

She liked to smell the flowers.

She did not especially like the whippersnapper puppy Milo when he showed up. But she got used to him.

When we were building the house, she moved to my studio apartment in Carmel Valley with me. I didn't like to let her out because I was afraid she'd get lost or hit by a car, but she occasionally escaped. She loved being outdoors.

She also loved climbing up into the warm loft and sleeping on my bed. Which involved scaling a vertical ladder. At first, I carried her up with me, and then down again. But she soon decided that she could handle the ladder herself. And she did! (Though I tried to help her down. It was a pretty long jump.)

She settled happily back into the new house: she especially liked to hang out by the bird feeders. Yes, unfortunately, she also liked to catch said birds. Bad kitty. Though she was even better at catching gophers, which she sequestered in the bathtub: her private abattoir. We often found gopher bits and blood decorating the white plastic. Good kitty!

Sadly, she vanished on November 19, 2013. I remember the last time I saw her. I had just had a new easy chair delivered to my upstairs loft, and for some reason I'd closed the nearby window that she often used to leave or come into the house, climbing down or up the nearby oak tree, and going her merry way. So she couldn't access the house as usual. I saw her outside near the front door around noon. And that was the last time.

We put up signs along the street, but they didn't help. Jolie was gone. It could have been a coyote again, sadly. But who knows?

I can't believe we only had her four and a half years. It seems much longer. She had many adventures and, I believe, a good, if short, life. 

I still miss her. Just looking at the chair—not always, but sometimes—causes a twinge of sadness. She was a sweet, sweet kitty.

365 True Things: 355/Sushi

Tonight we went out for sushi, and predictably, I got ika, tako, and tobiko, but for a change of pace I made my fish hirame, halibut. I got to trade a piece of hirame for my usual hamachi, though, so all was good.

The true thing I want to point out here, however, is that whenever I go out for sushi, the first thing I do is remove the chopsticks from their paper cover and make a chopstick rest. This was tonight's:

I usually do this accordion fold, but sometimes I just tie a simple knot.

This reminds me that we brought some chopstick rests home with us from Japan. But do we use them? No. Maybe we should? Yes! They are vegetables: mushroom, pea, pepper (?), asparagus, and eggplant. So lovely.

We also have some pretty swell chopsticks that we likewise never use. Something's gotta change around here. Maybe it's time to find my Japanese cookbook. It's in the garage, in one of those boxes, somewhere. . . .

365 True Things: 354/Jerky

Yesterday as we got in the truck to drive back up the coast, I realized that I was hungry: I'd forgotten to eat lunch! A teammate pulled out a package of TJ dried mango and another of teriyaki turkey jerky. I went straight for the jerky. It was tasty, but it reminded me how much better jerky that I make myself is.

I have a food dehydrator—which I have only ever used for jerky, and then, not all that often. I'd like to change that, though. There's a great website, BackpackingChef.com, with tons of tasty-looking recipes that tell you step-by-step how to make such meals as unstuffed peppers or enchilada bean bark stew. I may have to try some of those as I get closer to a weeklong backpack in the Sierra this September.

But right now, what interests me is jerky. Of which there are of course myriad types. But basic beef jerky? Here's a recipe that I might even try this week. Just to have the pleasure of a jerky snack once in a while. Without the little desiccator packet that always makes me wonder how wholesome the store-bought variety is.

Basic Beef Jerky

• 2 lb. beef round or flank steak
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 2 Tb liquid smoke
• 2 Tb Worcestershire sauce
• 2 Tb brown sugar
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp meat tenderizer
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp paprika

1. Place the beef in the freezer for 30 minutes to an hour. This makes it easier to cut.
2. Slice the beef into thin (1/8 to 1/4-inch strips). Try for even thickness.
3. Combine the rest of the ingredients.
4. Place beef and marinade in a large Ziploc bag. Shake to coat the meat. Refrigerate for 8 hours or overnight.
5. Arrange meat strips on dehydrator trays. Cook at highest setting for 4 hours or according to your dehydrator's directions. 

365 True Things: 353/SAR

An abandoned property = attractant

Last July, and a couple times more since then, I've remarked in these posts that it's too long since I've been on a SAR call-out. Well, today broke the long dry spell.

I won't go into the details of the case, but it involves a hundred- foot fall off a cliff into a small surgy inlet backed by sea caves. Last week, members of my SAR team came out and searched as well they could. Today, the Sheriff's Office dive team finally had decent enough conditions to do a more thorough in-water search.

Looking south from our search site;
that's Bixby Bridge in the middle

One of the dive team told me on Monday that this joint effort was coming up, so I had time to prepare, mentally and physically (by packing my pack with harnesses, helmet, gloves, munchies, headlamp, water). When the page came yesterday, for an all-day effort today starting at 8 a.m., I responded immediately with a yes.

I really enjoy going on searches and rescues, but my participation has been so low this last year (i.e., nonexistent) that I feel like I've forgotten whatever skills I once had. In a way, I'm a beginner again. Which of course is okay—except the team leaders don't really get just how regressed I am. And so I worry that I'll be given some complicated task that I just don't know how to do. And someone will die as a result.

So rather than that happening, I've just been staying away.

Until today.

Alain spotting; I took his place

And of course, today, everything turned out fine.

What I too often forget is, we're a team. And my leaders actually do pay attention. And it's okay (one might even say preferable) for me to speak up if I'm uncomfortable with a task. (Even if I'm supposed to know how to do it.)

In the event, today's mission involved a fairly sophisticated "high-line" system that just a few of us understand really well (indeed, half our number today were newbies who know far less than even me), so there was plenty of direction. My tasks involved making anchors—tying webbing around trees, wrap-three-pull-two—pulling on ropes, and "spotting": perching at the cliff edge and making sure the divers were inserted and extricated okay, and communicating with Control. This last job was a bit challenging, but I had help across the gap—another pair of eyes. We were a team.

Diver descending

I also forget that, even if when the page comes I feel resistance, if I do respond, I'm always glad. Each mission is a unique opportunity for problem solving, cooperation, exertion, learning, and service—service to my team, but also to the community. And I love my team. Why do I keep losing sight of all that?

Now that I've broken the ice again, I'm going to try to be more responsive.

No, no: I'm going to be more responsive. Dammit. Today was a great day. I'm so glad I went.

(That said, a short while ago, at 7:26, a call came in for a cliff rescue at Mile Marker 22. No way I was going on that, after a long day, with a glass of wine at my elbow. Nine minutes later, the cancel page chimed through: MISSION CANCELLED SUBJ IS C4—meaning no further assistance needed. Praise the Lord, I say.)

As for the person we were searching for? All I can really say is, RIP. The other rubrics we have—"it's a shame," "too bad"—don't cover the tragedy of this case. So, Rest in Peace.

365 True Things: 352/Collecting

I'm not much of a collector, not in a strict sense. I have quite a few mugs, and several lovely Japanese tea cups, but I wouldn't say I formally collect them. Plus, I use them. (I think of "collecting" in terms of displaying.) I have one friend who collects vintage cameras, and another who collects little toad and frog statues (after his childhood nickname of Toad). But me? I'm not a collector.

Though I was for a brief year, 1965, when I was ten: I collected stamps and Japanese folk toys. (Actually, I may have gotten going with stamps a year or two before. I still remember opening the steamer trunk when it arrived at our apartment in Tokyo and feeling so glad when I saw my big stamp binder right on top.)

I was reminded of this the other day when someone posted a video on Facebook showing how a kokeshi doll is made:

I collected a fair assortment of traditional Japanese toys—among them the red cow, akabeko; papier-mâché tiger, hariko-no-tora; sea-bream on wheels, tai-guruma; daruma; Izumeko-doll, Izumeko-ningyō; straw horse, wara-uma; and of course kokeshi (all shown in the picture below, though these aren't mine).

I don't have the toys anymore. Well, a couple of them maybe, in the boxes of things I took from my mother's house. Anymore, they're just more stuff, and I don't need more stuff. But I certainly enjoyed collecting them at the time.

365 True Things: 351/Astronauts

Back on January 4, 2013, George Takei posted this  ☜ on Facebook, referring to a Twitter exchange the day before between "Captain Kirk" of the starship Enterprise and Commander Chris Hadfield of the International Space Station. Leonard Nimoy soon contributed to the conversation—"LLAP"—followed by Wil Wheaton (The Next Generation), and finally Buzz Aldrin (second man to walk on the moon) himself, who tweeted: "Neil [Armstrong] & I would've tweeted from the moon if we could have but I would prefer to tweet from Mars. Maybe by 2040."

I didn't actually see any of this. I'm not much of a Twitter user, and at that time I didn't follow George Takei—though it was possibly when I got wind of all this that I started to.

But somehow, several weeks later, this burst of Twittery marvelousness did come to my attention, and thus I was introduced to Col. Chris Hadfield, astronaut. I learned he was sharing amazing photographs and videos, experiences and thoughts, on his Facebook page. I started following him, riveted especially by his daily photos of the earth from space. For example (a random sampling):

Moose Jaw, SK, and the airport where I truly learned how to fly.
Home of the renowned RCAF Snowbirds aerobatic team.

Sometimes Mother Nature uses a protractor, like here in
New Zealand's South Island. [Waitaki River, natural
boundary between Otago and Canterbury]

Antwerp, Belgium, with the Scheldt river like lightning
sparking up the city.

Tonight's Finale: In proportion, our atmosphere is
no thicker than the varnish on a globe. Deceptively fragile.

His photos all still reside on Facebook, and it's wonderful to tour through them from time to time. Occasionally he would remark about a photo of a city from high above: "Two million of us live here." Reminding us that we all inhabit this amazing planet together.

Of course you've seen his "Space Oddity" video, right?

The reason I'm thinking about him today is a TED talk I watched this morning about fear. It's an interesting listen.

As for my first astronauts, I remember well sitting in the front lounge of my Bavarian boarding school residence on July 20, 1969, watching with amazement as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon. Conversely, I may be one of the few humans on this planet (or at least in this country) not to remember just where I was when news of the Challenger explosion hit. And I do enjoy movies about astronauts: the true ones like The Right Stuff and Apollo 13; and the fictional ones like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Space Cowboys, Gravity, Interstellar, The Martian. I'd like to see In the Shadow of the Moon, a documentary featuring all the surviving astronauts (except Armstrong).

I think astronauts are heroes. They are exquisitely trained, brave, intelligent, and often—as in the case of Col. Chris Hadfield—extremely generous (and pretty funny to boot!).