Happiness is...........

 Happiness is finding my missing valet blade.  At last I can again scrape dry paint off my easel. 

I have no idea why I still have a valet blade, or where it came from.  Does anyone recognise them?  I remember my mother used them in South Africa to sharpen pencils.  One side is blunt.  I don't even know whether it is still possible to buy or find them.

I found one still in its packet a couple of years ago and have used it to scrape paint off my easel, as I stated before.  But just about a month ago I didn't see it in the box of brushes.  I searched high and low, to no avail.  I scraped paint off with makeshift items, a steel emery board, a blunt knife.  Nothing as good as my trusted valet blade.  This morning I sat down to my coffee and began clearing my table  for tomorrow's art class.  I have a small cart of art supplies which I pushed aside to make room for more tins and what have you's  when, to my unbridled joy, I saw the valet blade on the mesh surface of the table.  Such happiness!

It doesn't take much to bring me joy in these strange new times.  I am wondering what Mari Kondo would say to that!  I experience joy finding a missing sock in my basket of masks.  I am unreasonably happy to discover a pair pliers that I had misplaced.

I suppose it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks of this, joy is joy after all.

A Slurry of Unfortunate Mishaps

This latest string of mishaps began last Saturday.  Hopefully now that this week is over, the string has been cut.  I am writing about personal mishaps, NOT what is going on in the larger world around us, because unfortunate mishaps would be a gross understatement.

Last Saturday a friend and I went for a hike.  We walked for two hours in an Oakgrove Forest not far from where I live.  

At the end of the hike we bought beverages from the neighborhood cafe.    Paper cups in hand we proceeded to walk up Stockton.  She was ahead of me.   I saw her foot catch on a section of pavement that jutted upwards, pushed by a tree root.  In slow motion I saw her stumble then fall, arms outstretched, head to the side as she landed face first, with a small cry, on to the unforgiving pavement.  Her sunglasses clattered to the ground as did the cup of tea she was holding.  It fell not too far from her and drop by drop the tea spilled out.  

In 2019 my sister, brother-in-law and a guide hiked around a glacial lake in Torres de Pines in Chili.  The winds were fierce and gusted from every direction. A sudden fierce gust sent my sister toppling face forward onto sharp rocks.

To see my friend fall face down was a deja-vu.  Fortunately in both cases, no limbs were broken, no concussion.  Just stunned participants with cuts on their noses and blood dripping down.  Grazes, bruises, etc.

The night after this I sat on my couch at 6 to watch the news, when - total blackness.  A power outage - the second in a couple of weeks. NOT a dreadful thing - just an inconvenience without of course any idea of how long it would continue.  Power returned after an hour.  

The very next morning when I went to make my cup of coffee I saw droppings -  the same place they had been before when I insisted to myself that it was cumin seeds.  This time I could not deny what I saw, and this is a sight that really sets me on edge - of what - a cliff that is high.  I called a friend who said she had bought an electric rodent zapper. I wanted to buy one.  She generously told me I could borrow hers.  I went to her house and brought the zapper back and set it.  Well, strange to say, but since then, no droppings, no you-know-whats.  Who knows what is going on - ours is not to reason why. The trap is set just in case.

The next day I drove to meet a friend at the Berkeley Marina.  I waited for the light to turn green at the junction of Stockton and  San Pablo Avenues so I could make a left hand turn.  Yet again I experiened a disconnect between seeing and hearing things.  I kind of saw a grey car coming out of the strip mall to my left. Then I heard a crash and I realised something, that car, had crashed into me. I turned my head to the right expecting the car would stop at the side of the road and we would exchange information or something. Instead I saw the car pass me on my right and it turned right on San Pablo Avenue.  I registered it was a grey Pontiac - I couldn't see the license plate, but I then turned right and drove after it as it was not going to stop. I followed it down San Pablo, it turned right on Waldo Avenue. In hot pursuit I made a right, lost sight of it and realised what I was doing was insane. Thoughts, time, movement coalesced back into so called normal.  I drove toward the Marina and then thought I should check my car - a serious ding on the rear seat, no hubcap - scratches.

So - severely shaken up.  Thank the lord no injuries, and thanks for the help of a friend who helped ferry me back from the body shop, and to rent a car.  

Lets hope that is it.

Bye 2020

 Farewell to the dying embers of 2020.

and to all - a gentler 2021

         Do not go gentle into that good night.

        Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

      

        The words of Dylan Thomas come to mind today as I walk through the     cemetery with its unimpeded views and socially distanced, unobtrusive     inhabitants.  The very old, the very young , the soldiers, the everyday     citizens - mothers, fathers, grandparents, great grandparents. The Asians, the Christians, the Muslims, the Jews, those without denominations but whose names reveal their ethnicities if not their religions.

         I see people sitting in the grass visiting . Others stroll through the gentle rolling hills, masked.  We wave or otherwise acknowledge our mutual, still living presence.

        Almost all the trees have either shed their leaves or no longer display their vibrant autumn yellows, reds, russets, burnt sienna. Winter is here, even though I am perspiring.

        Tomorrow is the solstice.  And according to astronomers and astrologers there is a profound Jupiter-Saturn great conjunction that has not been seen for 800 years.  Apparently we are  moving from the age of Pisces into the age of Aquarius.  I am certainly no expert in any of these fields, but it is obvious we are in a profound time of death and rebirth.  Nature tells us all we have to know, but so does the entire state of our planet.  Old forms are dying, old ways struggle mightily and forcefully to continue.  And nothing and noone, it seems, is going gently into that good night.

    Our orange haired monster together with his Dracula counsel are certainly neither modelling grace nor dignity.

     The virus that changed our world at the beginning of the year seems to be getting worse all over our planet. It has the better of us.

    On top of it all, the air quality here in the East Bay is not good. 

    Still, I enjoyed my walk. Still I am in close touch with family and friends.

    Still the sun rises and sets.

    Still I enjoy spectacular sunsets every single evening.

Some Things

 Since the spider incident I have not posted.  I will attempt to post a few paintings I have done this year.

sunset over Mt. Tam - pastels

pastel of a friend's garden

Jess' garden in Cornwall, oil 

Oil of sunset over Mt. Tam - during fires

oil.  Hibiscus in my garden

watercolour  Sunset

oil - kitchen in Saxonwold

Many more pastels and watercolours of sunsets - just haven't posted them all.

This is what has sustained me during these covid times.

Yet Another Dreadful Incident

 And this one - two days before Thanksgiving.  I suppose this is in keeping with the general theme of this year.

The night before last  I opened my fridge for some inspiration.  I forgot I had purchased a bottle of organic vegetable mix.  Ahah - what a good idea I thought - a bloody Mary before dinner.  I haven't had one in years.  I poured some vodka into a glass and opened the bottle of organic vegetable mix, pleased with the healthy sounding ingredients.  I poured it into my glass and saw a kind of lump - small and dark, that plopped together with the juice into the glass.  Hmm, I thought - the juice is smooth and uniform - better check this out, maybe it is like an organic parsley leaf or some other of the many vegetables.  I used a spoon to take it out and - absolute horror of horrors - it looked like an insect - a spider or something.  OMG - this is unbelievable (back to my favorite overused word).  I put it into a small ziploc bag closing my eyes and poured out the juice, and sadly, the vodka.  Any desire for a bloody mary had dissipated swiftly. I placed the bottle and the creature into a bag which I would take back to Trader Joe's the next day.  

After standing in line I marched to customer service and placed the offensive items on the counter. When a smiling woman came to help she looked at the bottle and said, 'that's not ours.'  Then she looked at the critter and shuddered - 'that's a spider.'  

Oh my, apparently in the fog of everything I forgot where I bought it.  I apologised and went back to my car.  Ahh, I remembered, Luckys/Albertsons/Luckys. Must have bought it there.  Off to Luckys and along to customer service.  I took out the bottle and the offensive critter. The masked woman took one look, then looked away and said - 'do you want to replace the bottle?"

"No, I don't. I am scared." She gave me a refund and I asked whether I should leave the critter there so she could show it to whomever it needed to be shown.  She averted her gaze and said "take it away. Take a photo and send it to the makers of the juice. '  She gave me a number for customer support.

When I reached home I realised I had suppressed the name of the makers - it was irretrievable in my fog.This is my last mention of this most unfortunate occurrence.  I may never buy organic anything again.

Whatever

 I really don't know what title to give to this post.  I believe somewhere along the line during this year of 2020 I may have mentioned that I basically have a two word vocabulary - unbelievable and horrendous.

The other day while walking around the Marina with a friend we discussed the latest horror shows since the election.  The orange monster's refusal to concede, his Dracula-like lawyer making ridiculous claims, the populace who actually believe this nonsense.  She said it is 'unbelievable' and I responded saying that was my word of choice - sadly, no more.  I find it horrifyingly believable.  What for me is more unbelievable is that Biden did actually win, in other words, a few million more than the 70 + million who voted for the monster did vote for the voice of sanity and democracy.  Unbelievable that many people do wear masks and don't think Covid 19 is a hoax.  Unbelievable is the fact that there really are those who take precautions, who care about the people around them.  

All the other horrors that beset our every waking moment are now believable.

This is how democracy dwindles and vanishes.  Please, let us not allow it to happen.