MeFites on DW

So, the last few months.

First of all, shortly after that last entry I went to Bloomington. It's hard to explain but that felt strangely dangerous, like going down to the crossroads. Matt Laird picked me up at the airport, drove me to Bloomington, and treated me to breakfast at the Runcible Spoon. This was like having a guardian angel from the present escort me safely to the past. The event itself, especially seeing some of the people there, was pretty devastating. I was snuffling back tears on the flight back.

Then my dad came out here. That was sweet and awful. Regular walks around the neighborhood with Betty: during the second half, Dad grim and resolved, clearly uncomfortable, tapping with his cane. I eventually bought a rubber tip for it. Seven or eight from Dad's first 25 years, strangely sanitized, on constant repeat. All roads, all conversations lead to Sunnyside. (If you aren't familiar with New York, look up "Sunnyside Gardens" -- that's more or less my ancestral home. Marti grew up there too.) And yes, we visited her too, letting the car drive itself most of the way to Calistoga.

Lunch excursions: the Burmese place; Mosley's, which was lovely; Firebrand, followed by a long drive around the NAS, stopped to stretch and look at saildrones.

At the end, so he wouldn't have to fly back solo, a flash visit to Montreal. Embedded in that trip was a quick jaunt to Bill and Julie's place in Huntingdon, Vermont. (Featuring Alita and Ian and their helicopter-parented golden retriever Ted, as well as Sam and Annie. Sam has written a kids' book about mushrooms. I need to find and give him the mushroom book by a friend of Louise's -- Dorothy Sterling?) On the way we spotted a car show in Swanton and impulsively stopped. Overheard: "Shit, that's a Pinto station wagon. Shit, I didn't know they made them! Shit!" "Yeah, that's an 81 but I made it look like an 80."

I didn't get in touch with anyone: not Lucy from Warren Wilson in Vermont, not even Kate in Montreal. I wish I'd been able to but scheduling was difficult and imprecise, and I flew right back.

After that there was a former Nominum people gathering down at the Alpine Inn. (Ashley S says she basically grew up there and still calls it Zott's.) Pierre's UCSD-bound daughter Giselle was the surprise hit, and it was also really good to talk with Dana, who was in a great mood. He showed me his Kobo, but I couldn't show him mine. Plus Carol. I always liked her but we never got close in the old days. I hope she comes along the next time April and I meet up for lunch.

We had yet another tsunami warning. No tsunami, no surprise.

And in the background of all this, the bookcases. More on this later.

Reading: my Warren Wilson friends have something a bit like a book group going on, and there was some interest in Iris Murdoch. Lucy wanted us to look at The Bell. I read it.

My mom loved Iris Murdoch. She had all her books, in both old orange Penguin paperback editions and, later, in hardcover. I read the lot as a teenager and young adult. I'd picked the odd one up since then, and remember vaguely thinking that they hadn't aged well, just insufferable people from the heyday of psychoanalysis fretting endlessly about themselves.

But I found, especially after the Bloomington trip prompted some reflection, that I wanted to look at them again. I had a (correct) hunch that I'd figure out something useful about myself. So The Bell prompted a binge. After that I started with her first, Under the Net. It was much funnier than I'd remembered, as if Bertie Wooster had intellectual friends. A few pages in, I found the following and felt so seen:

"At that time I naively imagined that there was no reason why one should not attempt to write anything that one felt inclined to write. But nothing is more paralysing than a sense of historical perspective, especially in literary matters. At a certain point perhaps one ought simply to stop reflecting."

The binge continues. I'm now up to An Unofficial Rose, but there are fifteen or sixteen more to go, she spewed out books at a downright Konrathian pace. Meanwhile, the Warren Wilson people also put me on to Per Petterson's Out Stealing Horses. I enjoyed that but will be in France while they're talking about it.

I also wanted to mention Lori Ostlund. She's a friend of Alec's. Back in May he introduced a reading at Mrs Dalloway's in Berkeley for her last book. It was a bizarre event, with people from so many times and places I knew showing up and knowing each other that it felt in itself like the conclusion of a novel. There was Alec; there was Sarah Stone, who was my last advisor at Warren Wilson; there was Lisa Morehouse, at whose house my parents stayed twice; there was the olive oil lady who knows Marti as well as Robin Sloan (who knows Sarah H); there was Cabrel, the Cameroonian guy. I met Sarah S a few weeks later in downtown Oakland, which was great and hilarious and sad. I'd like to talk with her again soon.

Languages. Spotify has Paul Noble's Mandarin and Michel Thomas's Egyptian Arabic. I've learned bits of both before and it's been fun bringing them back to life in a systematic way. Mandarin especially fun because Denise has been learning it too. She's far ahead of me, but happy to talk about it. And just yesterday I managed to hold a halting, awkward conversation with a neighbor I see most days. Her English is pretty terrible, but not as bad as my Mandarin. There was a lot of mutual incomprehension and laughing.

Food that's been good, both from the NYT:
- Pierre Franey's swordfish with coriander and cumin, strangely polarizing among the NYT Times cooking community.
- strawberry spoon cake, which I made in mini-cocottes with all sorts of different fruit. It's tolerant of approximate, eyeball measurements, but you do have to be careful not to add too much baking powder or it gets that nasty metallic taste. I eventually figured out that it's just as easy to use eggs instead and make tiny clafoutis. Eggs instead! (Speaking of egg catchphrases, Jon informs me that Salman Rushdie was responsible for "go to work on an egg" in his advertising days.)

Oh and I didn't mention Jon's citizenship situation. Back in February he realized that in the current climate, living here as a noncitizen isn't a good idea. He applied for citizenship in February, coincidentally on the same day that Zelensky underwent a chewing-out for "good television." Quite possibly Jon's was the only application submitted that day.

Compared to legal permanent residency, which is a long slog taking many years, the process was quick and relatively easy, even though there's an interview and test involved. We went down to the USCIS office two days in quick succession for the interview/test followed by the ceremony. It was a bit daunting to see huge portraits of DJT, JDV, and Kristi Noem all over the building, but on the other hand (as if to compensate) the federal agents were all really sweet and funny. Somehow they managed a casual, friendly, welcoming vibe. They handed out nice little editions of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. There was a long wait, so plenty of time to read through both of them, so practical in these times.

And on the second day, the ceremony was late. There was a looping slideshow threatening dire consequences for fraud, then a cheerier, upbeat one featuring spacious skies, amber waves of grain, &c. It was a relief to see such a wide range of enthusiastic, competent-looking people swearing to defend the Constitution. It'll need all the help it can get. (This is citizenship #4 for Jon, btw. He's missing NZ, otherwise he'd have all Five Eyes.)

Now I have to mention the bookcases, as promised.

They're built in, at the end of the big front room and former parts warehouse. The moulding and baseboards have been re-routed around them. There were months of sawing and routing and sanding and grit everywhere. This took every available moment, which is a big part of why I haven't written anything here in ages. The structure is 3/4" plywood, but the top layer is salvaged floorboards, so the bookcase seems to grow out of the floor: once the structure was done we then basically had to lay flooring, only oriented vertically rather than horizontally. Sand, fill, repeat. The main thing is that aside from the doors, which someone else will construct and we'll add later, they're done.

Betty's staying with Gail, the whale-watching tour biologist, right near the old Culver Street house. I took her up there last night.

And now, by which I mean in literally just a couple of hours, we're off to the airport. Ten hours to Heathrow, a night at Liz's in Reading, the Eurostar to Gare du Nord, a night near the Gare du Lyon, then the 8:15 am train to Chamonix. Then a couple of weeks trudging around Mont Blanc, mostly staying in mountain refuges. We're exhausted already from bookcase-building! When we get back we will be either wrecked or superpeople.