Close Up

Linda Davick

On the beach this afternoon.

Our Pal Sal

Sal's in town for the Macworld Conference. Having a cappuccino with her at the Clift Hotel last night, I thought: This is exactly how it must feel to hang around with Eloise at the Plaza Hotel.

Les Miserables Awards

Congratulations, Miserables Tude! For your award, you may choose one of the four prizes shown above. Free shipping is included. If not claimed within 48 hours, prize will go to Nina, who came in right behind you. Note: When you squish the shark's stomach, his mouth lights up in red.

The Devil And His Wife

This afternoon, Tom and I zoomed over to the Legion Of Honor. I had been dying to see the Howard Finster show. This was my favorite piece in it, called The Devil And His Wife. But Sal, I don't know if you should try to see it or not. It was a tiny show in a dark, tiny room.










One of the best things about the Legion Of Honor is the view.

Les Miserables

© Linda Davick
Be the first to find the bad-tempered character among all the happy creatures, and win a wretched prize.

I was googling Les Miserables to make sure I spelled it correctly, and ran across this quote by Victor Hugo. It made me think of the psychic:

"Algebra applies to the clouds; the radiance of the star benefits the rose; no thinker would dare to say that the perfume of the hawthorn is useless to the constellations. Who could ever calculate the path of a molecule? How do we know that the creations of worlds are not determined by falling grains of sand? Who can understand the reciprocal ebb and flow of the infinitely great and the infinitely small, the echoing of causes in the abyss of being and the avalanches of creation? A mite has value; the small is great, the great is small, all is balanced in necessity; frightening vision for the mind. There are marvelous relations between beings and things; in this inexhaustible whole, from sun to grub, there is no scorn; each needs the other."

No Clouds

Linda Davick
This evening I tried out my new running shoes. I jogged 3 miles and walked 1/2 mile, and my knees feel fine. I forgot to stretch beforehand, though.

At the same time I was jogging, I thought about doing what the psychic had suggested: to take note of how the ocean moved and how the clouds moved. But there were no clouds. Brother. This sounds like some kind of Yoko Ono song.

Who has seen the wind
Neither you nor I
But when the trees bow down their heads
The wind is passing by.

from Aggles: Honey, if it wasn’t me it’s gonna be another one of your blog readers. The “Who has seen the wind” poem is by Christina Rossetti.

Podiatrist vs Psychic

© Linda Davick

Today I went to On The Run on 9th Avenue. I needed some new running shoes. I've been having slight knee and heel problems–nothing serious. But I wanted to make sure I got the right kind of shoes, as opposed to buying the inexpensive stylish-looking ones at Nordstrom Rack. A podiatrist, Dr. Kemp, comes to the store every other Saturday. You can call and sign up for a time to talk to her, so I went in today at 11:10. I spent about an hour there, and came out wearing a dreary-looking pair of expensive running shoes along with Stable Spur inserts.

Dr. Kemp told me to stretch before jogging as well as after jogging, and to use ice after jogging. (No way.) She also said that if my heel is hurting right now, to rest it today. I said, "You mean, don't walk or jog today?" She said, "Yes. And maybe longer." (No way.)

As I was walking back to the car, I noticed a sign:

San Francisco Psychic Fair
Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.
Drop by for a free healing and/or a reading. Readings are on various topics ranging from relationships, spirit guides, money, family, career, pets, spiritual path etc. Readings are $12 each or $30 for 3.

Location: Golden Gate Park at the Hall of Flowers

The Hall of Flowers was right across Lincoln! I had never been to a fortune teller or a palm reader. And for once I had a roll of quarters. So I loaded up the meter, and walked across the street to the Psychic Fair.

First I had a free aura healing. I sat with my new running shoes flat on the floor, and hands unclasped. My healer said that I might feel a tingling sensation, or heat or cold or even anger. I did feel a tingling sensation in my hands, but I think it might have been because they were freezing. She stood to the side, then in front, and then in back, and kind of smoothed down my aura.

When I asked her what color my aura was, and she said that all healers would experience a different color, so it would depend on who I was asking. She seemed to be avoiding the question; I'm not sure she liked my aura. I noticed a guy set up in the corner who would photograph your aura, but it cost $12; and I had decided to spend my $12 ticket on a reading.

I walked over to a guide, who matched me up with a reader. Her name was Janet. I told Janet I wondered what she had to say about my relationships. She closed her eyes. She talked. She had lots of teeth. She opened her eyes about halfway through, and they were flashing blue. She said things that were true, and things that I didn't want to hear, and things that I loved hearing. She was very focused. There was a little boy who wouldn't quit slamming a toy metal car down on the floor over and over, and she simply ignored the noise.

The one thing I didn't like was that the guide who matched me up with the reader kept hanging around right outside the booth. There wasn't a door. I wanted to ask the reader things that I didn't want the guide to overhear. So when the guide would drift away, I would pipe up.

After my reading was through, Janet said,
"Now would you like me to leave you with a next step?"
"Yes!" I love it when people leave me with a next step.
"Your color now seems to be a blue. A bluish ... green. Does the ocean mean a lot to you?"
"Yes."
"Take a long walk by the ocean today and notice the way the clouds move and notice how the water moves."

Now I'm conflicted. The podiatrist says not to walk. The psychic says to take a long walk. What should I do? I think I'll listen to my stomach and have a hamburger.

Your Own Personal Beach Bar

Linda Davick
It was freezing this evening. This guy was just sitting there in shorts as the tide came in around him. There was also a little makeshift table that you can't see by his stool. A great place to have a glass of champagne as the sun goes down, but bring a couple of blankets and some waders.

Aye Carumba: Under $10 Bottles #2 & #3

Matt Groening
Charamba (#2): A couple of nights ago we opened this Portuguese wine. If Margaret had been out front, she would have heard me exclaiming over and over, "Aye Caramba! Aye Caramba!"* Tom considered it a hearty wine. One that went well with the spicy tomato/portobello mushroom pasta he had prepared. Even though I love the smell of newly paved asphalt, I didn't appreciate the overtones of it in this wine.

If you don't always drink a whole bottle of wine at once, you might have a vacu-vin pump. If so, the rubber stopper won't fit this bottle. If you try to force it, the bottle will fly across the counter and the remaining wine will spill down in the crack between your stove and the cabinets right up against your stove.

*(pronounced [ˈaj | ka.ˈɾam.ba] ; from Spanish ¡ay! (interjection denoting surprise, but also used instead of "ouch") Ay, caramba! were the first words spoken by Bart on The Simpsons.

e-mail from Scott: Linda- I think you should advert that the Charumba is not a good wine under $10, but rather a good wine under $5- an increasingly rare and endangered species! Think I'll be back to buying Charumba by the case (I probably have consumed several hundred bottles of that wine in various vintages since first trying it 6-8 years ago, when the '94 was $2.99).

Vitiano 2004 Falesco (#3): We opened this bottle last night. It went well with dirty carrot ginger soup. To make dirty carrot ginger soup, pour 1 cup Trader Joe's carrot ginger soup into a bowl. Add one half cup of leftover tomato pasta with portobello mushroom bits. Microwave for 2 minutes. It will look dirty, but that's OK. It's only the mushroom bits and you can pick them out. I'm drinking a glass of Vitiano as I type, straining to taste subtle hints of anything, but to no avail. It's an unobtrusive wine. Not unpleasant. Certainly better than no wine at all.

Lucky Starfish

Linda Davick

This evening I found a starfish! It was dark and foggy–I used my flash.

When I got home I had an e-mail from Georgia: I'm having a good one here - I was told today that I am a cancer survivor. I am free and clear of that disease. Hooray! I went out and celebrated with 1 sister and 1 sister in law/caretakers afterwards and had a wonderful lunch.

I e-mailed right back. I had to get straight to the heart of the matter: Where did you go for lunch and what did you have????

Her reply: We went to Restaurant Lulu on 4th and Folsom. We shared a pear, carmelized onion and cheese pizza, a chicken, delicata squash, mashed potato's and gnocchi. The waitress asked what we were celebrating and the restaurant ended up giving us free desserts. Yum. We rolled out of there.

The Sun Also Rises

© Linda Davick
When we first moved here, Jamie and Vincent came to babysit Mabel for a week while Tom and I went to visit our parents over Christmas. When we returned, Jamie said: "Every morning we watched the sun rise over your backyard. It was beautiful."

I looked at him like he was crazy. "The sun rise? What do you mean?" I knew the sun set every day, but I had never gotten up early enough to see it rise until seven years later (today).

Under $10 A Bottle: Review #1

We uncorked the first bottle last night from Tom's recent case-of-wine splurge. It was the Cristalino sparkling wine from Spain. Have you ever opened a drawer full of old pencil erasers that hasn't seen the light of day in years? I found it evocative of that experience. Redolent of the horse barn at the polo field, it also brought to mind old rain boots. Subtle undertones of windshield wiper fluid. All in all, a truly delightful accompaniment to corn meal crust pizza, arugula, blue cheese, and olives.