Windy night after best bird…

November 27, 2009

The bird was delicious, and so were all the other dishes, so everyone, including the vegetarians, were sated and happy. Of special note were the pies – pumpkin (one made with wheat flour, non-hydrogenated shortening, the other more “traditional”) and pecan made by my sisters-in-law Lorene and Pam, and the apple pies made by Alan’s mother Alice. Wow, we’ve been eating them for breakfast. The sweet potatoes were the BEST ever – Alan tried a recipe with fresh oranges, too, and topped them with pecans he had harvested right here in Village Homes and shelled.

And then there was the “chrain” made by my Uncle Davie - a potent potion of horseradish, vinegar, sugar and a little grated beet for color. Pam also made the rolls and ambrosia salad. Alan and I made the stuffing, green beans, peas-and-onions and veggie trays, which worked well this year in place of a green salad. Davie rightly suggested the veggie trays instead of a salad because the salads tend to get wilted. “Wilt not” in this house!

My personal delight was the fact that both Mom and Davie made it up from Santa Monica and Beverly Hills. April and Gary were responsible for that – no mean feat to get two post-87-year-olds 400 miles north. The cold weather really surprised them, even though it’s not horrendous (40 degrees at night, and up to 65 mid-day) and they knew it was coming. It’s just different in Northern California compared to Southern California. They both delighted in the crispy weather when they were wearing enough sweaters.

Davie, April, Gary and Jeff stayed in our friend and neighbor Virginia Thigpen’s house. Now that is a special vacation in itself.

Off to bed!

[That's Uncle Davie smiling in our comfortable chair, with my father-in-law Fred behind the plant.]

Through my eyes

Nov. 25, 2009

Sometimes happiness is simply reflected in my eyes. I am grateful for so much.

My mom, Saralee Konigsberg Halprin, in my house, thoroughly enjoying my (freshly tuned) Yamaha upright. Thrilling 1 minute video courtesy my new phone. As my mom’s mother Anne would have said, “America, it’s wonderful!”
video-2009-11-24-16-49-12

Unbelievable red red flaming maple trees at Shanghai Bend on the Feather River last week right where the levee broke in 1955 on our M.A. Halprin Ranch.

Taj playing in the Feather River at Shanghai Bend.

World Diabetes Day at the California State Capitol building in Sacramento--blue lights lit up the Capitol and we gathered under a blue balloon arch. We’re raising awareness (& research funds!) to cure this stupid disease so my Julia can throw away the needles

Lucky 13th brings crimson & solar

Nov. 13, 2009 – Friday the 13th

I remember when I was going into labor with Josh on May 12, I said to Alan, “I hope he’s born tonight so his birthday isn’t the 13.”

Alan said, “What’s wrong with the 13th?” and I suddenly remembered his birthday is December 13th. That’s when I started loving the Number 13. I have a thing about numbers and colors and especially birthdays, and Alan’s comment started another thread in my odd brain weavings of families, numbers, dates and colors. Sometimes I even wish Josh HAD been born on the 13th, so everyone in our family would have a Prime Number of their own (mine is 3, Julia’s is 31). And it would have cemented our “3” and “!” number lock.

So I love Friday the 13th. Today was a solar 13th for us – the guys from Yes! Solar Solutions started the installation of our photovoltaic system on the roof of our house that will help us be energy independent. Our little 2.8 kW (4 hp) “solar system” will produce all of our electric energy for most months out of the year.

One the way to and from Pilates today I got a good look at the flaming leaves of autumn. Beautiful pepper trees on the bike path have burst into crimson.

Photos: Friday the 13th crimson; Solar dog & Frisbee help the Yes! guys.

Atomic thoughts

Monday, Nov. 9, 2009

Pilates, walks, swimming, biking, letters, email, decluttering, blogging, and thinking – that’s how I’m filling my days now. When I bounded into the Pilates mat class at Physical Edge this morning, messy as all get out, packing enough crap to make “my spot” on the studio floor look like a camp site, my friend Jon Watterson said, “You are a poster child for retirement! It really agrees with you.” Made my day, let me tell you.

A big difference in me these days is that each action, activity, thought and even the things I see with my eyes are more separate, more deliberate. I’m not sure how, but each action seems to be broken down to its atomic parts: I pulled over on my bike near the campus HR office to paw through my bag and check my phone calendar to see if I was missing a retiree presentation on benefits. I could see each Kleenex in my bag, I noticed the peeling plastic coating on the bike basket liner, and the people biking by were individuals to my eyes. I found the phone and saw that, sure enough, the retiree meeting had started nine minutes before at the other end of campus. I resigned myself to signing up for another session of the same presentation (will I really go?), and finished the ride home. I love riding by the trees with changing leaf colors that line the bike path from the east to the west side of campus. I think they are pepper trees like the one in our common area.

I saw my friend Susy Arriaga and her reddish-brown border collie Brodie in the fields near the path; they were finishing their walk and I found out how to get to the campus sheep barns from Susy. Had to take Taj on a walk after seeing them. We didn’t make it to the sheep barns but instead made the rounds of interesting UC Davis ag fields and I got photos of the group of amazing chestnut trees (are six trees an orchard?), and some luscious fat olives. Each day I feel blessed to live here.

[Top photo: Chestnut nestled in sticker-covered pod. Bottom photo: Olives ripening.]

Style makes the world go round

Nov. 4, 2009

Today my Great Aunt Ida Goldberg would have been 109. (O.K., yesterday - I wrote this at 11:30 p.m.) Don’t know why, but I enjoy clicking off birth dates in my head, and hers was a good one – November 4, 1900. She was such a talented woman – could design anything, from apparel to picture frames, hats and clothes dryers. She was known as “Ida of Hollywood” at one point in her career. She was a freelance pattern designer and sold patterns to firms like Butterick, McCall's, Simplicity and Vogue. I saw letters she wrote to the companies and the original patterns carefully cut out and stored in custom envelopes she made. I still have several of her “cloche” style hats, and a box of feathers she used to decorate women’s hats. She was clever in the most interesting, useful and delightful sense of the word – I still have coasters she made out of the round, flat, tin lids of cottage cheese containers covered with cartoons from the New Yorker magazine. She varnished the lids to make them waterproof, and I still use and enjoy them today. She folded colored cardboard from tissue boxes into tiny stands for postcards or photos, two of which adorn my dresser.

Ida was my father’s mother’s half-sister; they had different mothers but the same father. My grandmother used her mother’s last name, Lamport. Ida’s mother left her for several years in the Jewish orphanage in New Orleans where she learned to sew. Eventually she made her way to New York where she was part of the arts community, and I’m guessing worked in the garment district.


Her style reminds me of Chris Gardner, who Alan and I heard tonight at the Mondavi Center. Gardner’s autobiography, The Pursuit of Happyness, inspired a film of the same name. The book and film detail his rise from a childhood of poverty and abuse to a successful career on Wall Street, with a pivotal year when he trained as a stockbroker and took care of his 14-month old son while homeless. He’s a charming and interesting man, about my age, who urges people to be dogged about their dreams. Some of his fierce philosophy seemed simplistic, but I could feel his hard work and rough life just below the surface. His real life authenticated his message and I found myself inspired and energized. Tonight he reached out to a young woman whose voice broke as she asked what to say to her parents who are struggling. Gardner is also a funny and adept speaker and his personal style was captivating – he was wearing a blue-grey suit with a long jacket and a blue and white striped shirt open at the collar, with a handkerchief that matched in the jacket pocket; I could see the spring green jacket lining and wanted to reach out and feel it (and get one for Alan).

Yesterday I hosted two friends from the university, Pam Kan-Rice and Brenda Dawson, both writers and much more. Pam is the assistant director of news and information outreach for the UC Agriculture and Natural Resources and has worked with communication people like me up and down the state for the last few years; it’s hard to know how things will be organized as the system is forced to downsize. Brenda is the communications coordinator of the UC Small Farm Program and Center, and will be officially laid off January 1 because the Small Farm Program will be eliminated. (I am hopeful that the wonderful work of the Small Farm Program will be absorbed by other UC programs, perhaps even my former Agricultural Sustainability Institute at UC Davis.) These two women, in different ways, made my work enjoyable. They are both funny and talented and were happy to share their insights and skills with me.

Brenda is at the beginning of her career and can look in many directions; Pam recently earned an MBA degree – would you call that “armed and dangerous”? The combination of their great humor, good laughs and fine personal style make them, what, unbeatable? I never realized that Pam was short until I noticed how tall her shoe heels tend to be. She favors brilliant colors like hot pink and turquoise and is fun to just look at. Brenda’s twinkle comes through in her infectious laugh and the way she celebrates. Last Halloween she memorably dressed as Holly Golightly from “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” in a little black dress with full-length white gloves. Style raises the spirits and adds energy to our souls. Viva, baby!

Eat well, save the world = my kind of diet

Nov. 2, 2009

Well, it’s a Low Carbon Diet, and food is not the only focus. I joined a team of 15 or so valiant Village Homes residents and folks who live nearby to figure out how each of us can reduce the carbon we use in our homes and lives. We’re part of a larger Davis city effort, which is part of a big state drive.

The best way to start meetings, and this is our fourth, is to eat well. Derek and Carl are on the team and they live in Sunwise Co-op in Village Homes, which is an offshoot of the original Davis Student Co-op that was once home to my sister April. Small world.

OK, the menu tonight was amazing. It was Derek and [Andy!] Carl’s turn to cook anyway, so they invited our team to eat dinner with the Sunwise gang. Three of us took them up on the offer: me, Elizabeth Thigpen Hunt, our amazing team leader (and chef extraordinaire), and Virginia Thigpen, Lizzy’s mama and ground-breaking Davis green builder for more than 30 years. We thoroughly enjoyed the sweet potato soup with avocado, cilantro, tortilla chips and grated cheddar toppings, and the yummy lentil stew that was based on a Moroccan dish Derek said ended in “-ade.” The co-op garden is still producing terrific lettuce and other greens and the salad with walnuts, lettuce, cranberries and raisins was fabulous.

Oh, yeah – we also shared our carbon-reduction recipes for our homes and learned a few new things from each other. Virginia and Elizabeth gave their refrigerator a good workout today with a refrigerator coil brush they got at the hardware store; I’ve brought it home to give it a try. Derek and Carl have been experimenting with turning the gas pilots on their big stove off, and they’ve analyzed the co-op trash with some interesting findings: a good percentage of their trash is the aseptic cardboard containers for soy milk. They’re thinking of going to the refrigerated larger containers of soy milk or making their own almond milk. At the last meeting, which I missed, they talked about how separating all their trash carefully and composting the damp items allows them to put dry trash in a container without any bag (plastic or paper). An idea worth trying.

We’re working on details about our individual home and life carbon footprints, and will probably meet again for a celebration. I’ll be talking to Alan to set a personal home goal for carbon reduction, and dear sweet Lizzy will hold us to the fire.

I’m falling asleep at the wheel, so enjoy these photos of some of our team members with the Sunwise Co-op gang, the lentil stew, sweet potato soup, and the wonderful fresh salad.

Spirits to the right of me, spirits to the left

Nov. 1, 2009

Halloween started well with a wild swim workout at Civic Pool – goofy workout instructions from Coach Stu make the hour+ zip by. There’s no way I could stay in a pool that long by myself and without direction. When I’m trying to figure out what I’m supposed to be doing – counting lengths, breaths, arm strokes, pool buoy position – it becomes meditative as I block out the rest of the world. It is a spirit-soother like none other for me.

The locker room is the ultimate status/age/body “flattener” – we are just women with wet hair and skin. My purple-haired shrunken head earrings that April bought me years ago (“I’d never wear them, but I knew you would”) always bring a smile, both to me and observers. Raises the spirits!

I zipped over to the farmers market with my shopping cart that has extended handles – Josh did that for me, and painted it red, as a Hanukkah gift one year. All was fall glorious and Halloween-cheerful until I got to the Good Humus stand, and Annie Main came toward me, son Zach in tow. I could see tears were running down her face, which was contorted in sorrow.

“Did someone die?” was the first thing out of my mouth. “Chè,” she said. “Chè Barnes was in the Coast Guard plane that went down during a rescue last night.” We hugged. “He was like one of my kids,” Annie wept. Zach hugged me, too. Chè Barnes and his twin Noah, 35, were the oldest of the four Barnes/Barsotti boys, who run Capay Fruits and Vegetables (farmfreshtoyou.com) in our gorgeous Capay Valley. Their parents Martin Barnes and the late Kathy Barsotti started the small farm 33 years ago, and now the boys have more than 6,000 weekly subscribers to their vegetable and fruit boxes throughout the state. Chè always loved flying and preferred the Coast Guard to working on the farm, but he was still part of the operation and was close to his three brothers and their families.

Zach talked on about Chè, and the weekly dinners he and his fiancée Nicole shared with him and his girlfriend Kelly. He said they thought of canceling their Halloween party later in the day, but Chè’s sister-in-law Moyra hoped they wouldn’t.

I finished the market in a different mood, but thought of the Barnes/Barsotti boys’ love of local organic farming and the way it has brightened the economy and the health of the region, and celebrated by cruising the annual school gardens fundraiser “Avenue of the Scarecrows.” I bought a scarecrow made by second graders at Marguerite Montgomery Elementary School; the hilarious child vampire-on-a-stake is propped against the palm tree in front of our house.

After treating 25 small trick-or-treaters at our house, we headed to Esparto to Zach and Nicole’s new house and their Halloween party – Alan in his “alien escaping from his chest” t-shirt, me in my purple shrunken head earrings, and dog Taj in his “Witch and Famous” t-shirt and purple wizard cap. Annie and Jeff pulled themselves together enough to join the group of young firefighters, Zach’s co-workers, and us, and we enjoyed each others company, talking about Chè and his brothers.

May his vibrant spirit and the spirit of the youthful energy he represents always move us.