Squadrons and squadrons of pelicans

There were dozens of brown pelicans flying in squadrons low over the bay this morning.

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Leftovers

Okay, I had some leftovers from that tagging exercise, and am told I should have included some of these.
What, you didn’t like my idiosyncratic corporeal musings?

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Tagged and ‘taggering along

I logged on to check my site yesterday and found out I’d been tagged – hmm, well, maybe this will shake out my summer lethargy. I kept jotting down little notes on what to write. Then I asked a friend about this tagging business and she said the eight things I’m to write about myself are supposed to be true.

Veracity. Well, that took some of the spice out of what I had so far.

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Summer Solstice

About a dozen years ago I got together to celebrate the winter solstice with a good friend and former housemate of mine. We went to Sol y Luna restaurant in downtown SF, and I decided to drink Tequila Sunrises to celebrate the lengthening days.

I only made that mistake once.

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The Ringing Push-Button Plymouth

We all know of towel-snapping lockerroom behavior, the kind of horseplay you get with a surfeit of testosterone and spare time. The military also gets its share of jokers, coupled with access to better hardware for their jokes, and this last weekend I heard a new one, albeit from long ago.

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Life out of balance

When I first got to San Francisco, one could often ascertain who the unbalanced people were. Their clothes were often in tatters, and they spoke aloud to themselves.

Now, when I walk up Market street from the ferry building to the civic center in the morning, I see all kinds of people talking to themselves. There are the street people, still, although statistically there are fewer homeless now than there were in the past.

But I also see better-dressed, comparatively sane looking people out walking by themselves and inanely jabbering away like jaybirds.

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Of dreaming, and dogs, and bewitchment

It’s hot out here lately, which means our upstairs bedroom, with a large western window, soaks up the heat all afternoon. We open the windows further when we get home, and the prevailing winds off the bay will cool the room somewhat, but there has been little breeze and no fog lately, so that even with the levelers closed against the sun our room stays hot at night, so hot we lay on top of the sheets, and only during the course of the short nights do we work our way under the covers.

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Summer Doldrums

I feel like my brain has locked up.

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No relief for the Giants

My fears about the Giants are gradually being realized. I was afraid their bullpen problems would come back to bite them in the butt, and it’s happening. Tuesday night the bullpen once again gave up the game in extra innings.

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Kingsolver – and more porcine flights of fancy

While up in Inverness, I read Barbara Kingsolver’s Pigs in Heaven to see how she had put it together. First I read through about a third of the book, then I went back and put boxes around the names of recurring characters, underlined good metaphors, drew a vertical line next to key passages that moved the plot, etc. Then I read some more, and kept going: reading, then going back and marking.

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