My favorite place: an update

This is where I've been spending as much time as possible lately. It's a tiny little beach but because you have to hike a bit to get there, and probably for other reasons too, it's never all that crowded. I've been swimming as much as I can, just floating and diving and letting myself be carried by the waves. We saw dolphins doing the same thing a couple of weeks ago ... probably they were hunting too, I suppose ... anyway, it was cool to see them.

I appear to be entering perimenopause. The infamous fuzzy thinking has definitely taken hold, and I'm considering it one of the blessings of this time of my life that I'm not presently encumbered with a job that would make fuzzy thinking a detriment. When it takes over, I'm mostly able to just go with it. Which is not to say that I'm not getting anything useful done, just that I'm doing it at my own pace and timing rather than feeling bound to work by someone else's guidelines. It's actually pretty great. The hot flashes, not so much. I'm fine tuning my diet this month though and am expecting to be able to continue just riding them out when they happen. So far they've been few and far between, and uncomfortable, but not unbearable.

We missed the window of opportunity to live outdoors for a month or two while redoing the entire house, so have been focusing instead on doing other stuff that doesn't require emptying all the furniture out into the yard. The carpets have been shampooed and re-shampooed to within an inch of their lives, and amazingly, they look almost new again – so much so that I'm a little embarrassed at having waited to so long to do them. I really thought they were beyond hope. We now have the whole winter to look at flooring, cabinets, lighting and fixtures and make some well-considered decisions about what will work for the rest of our lives – since I never want to have to do this again – instead of rushing into a quick choice that may or may not end up making us (meaning, me) happy.

I've been looking at pictures of places I used to live in, and remembering things I liked and didn't like. The good news is, I still like a lot of the same stuff I've always liked, like unpainted solid wood doors, wood floors, checkered tile in the kitchen, certain colors and patterns ... If I've already liked it for 45 years, it's a good bet I will continue to like it. So we'll probably end up going with that. With some variations just for fun, of course.

Yoga is going great. I love, love, love my practice and my teacher. I'm riding my bike a lot more again now too, now that Bea is old enough to be left alone for more than just a few hours at a time. That's been really wonderful. Mr. A took me to test ride a few full-suspension mountain bikes and I'm thinking maybe I'll get into some off-road riding this year, in addition to my usual riding-for-transportation. It was amazing to ride off a curb on a bike so springy I hardly felt the bump. Also, I've started running, very tentatively, and swimming at the gym every once in awhile. And walking the dogs two to four miles a day. For all the work I've been doing, strangely, I haven't lost much weight ... I still look about the same as I always have. I feel good though. The depression seems to be fading too, for which I'm very grateful.

Not much is happening on the job front, though I am starting to look more seriously again. I sent several resumes last week, including one where an old friend is at least partly in charge of hiring (so, fingers crossed for at least an interview), and received a rejection notice from a barista position at Whole Foods. Hrmph. I've been working 10-20 hours a week on various web projects, and starting this week will be working one day a week at my friend's froufy home furnishings shop again, the same one I worked at last time I was grievously underemployed. She is sweet and the shop is beautiful, and I'm looking forward to getting out of the house and interacting with actual human beings on a more regular basis again.

As for school, I'm contemplating whether I want to reapply to that program now or not. I still don't have the experience they want, and not really any prospect of obtaining it, so it seems kind of pointless. There are other programs, though. In the meantime I'm looking for a place to start learning Spanish. Seems like a good thing for anyone living and working in California to know, and I've got the time. And I like languages. So there's that.

The dogs are great. They're a huge part of my life right now. Is that pathetic, or wonderful? I choose to think of it as wonderful. Bea is 45 lbs now and won first prize in the games at her graduation from puppy school, for mastering and demonstrating the most tricks and commands. She has several puppy friends that we meet at the dog park every once in awhile, and is turning out to be a complete and utter sweetie pie. She's still breaking in her big girl teeth on everything she can get a hold of, and she loves to dig in her water bowl, but the incessant frantic barking is finished and she's finally starting to enjoy snuggling and snoozing without constantly chewing on our hands and faces.

Yesterday we found out she's now tall enough to reach things on the kitchen counters – for example, the 3/4 lb steak that was cooling on a plate, waiting to be sliced over salads. I thought Mr. A had put it in the fridge, and he though I had, so it took us awhile to realize that the puppy snoring away on her back in the middle of the floor was not just sleepy from playing all morning, but from the aftereffects of a very large protein snack. I still don't know how she did it without pulling the plate off the counter, or leaving some tell-tale greasy mess somewhere ... But I know it wasn't me who ate it, and it wasn't Mr. A, and Tater can't stand up on his hind legs like that anymore, even if he wanted to – which he never has done in his life, anyway. What with him being the world's most perfect dog and all.

It was actually pretty cool to imagine her enjoying that steak though. I wish I could have seen her. Especially because it will (must) never happen again. I'm working with her now to make sure she understands the counter is not a place for dogs to eat, ever, ever, ever. Kind of sad, in a way, but probably best for everyone.

In other news, I just looked into a little mirror I have here on my desk and saw that I seem to be growing some new little nose hairs I never noticed before. Oh dear.

And finally, fall is time to dream of boots ... I haven't decided yet if I'm going to spend any money on boots this winter. It turns out I don't really love the ones I got last year, and have hardly worn them. Possibly I will sell them on eBay ... they're seriously almost brand new. I even still have the box. Anyway, in closing, here are a few that I've been looking at for 2010-11.




What are you wearing on your feet lately?

In search of cherry blossoms

I know I am as usual woefully behind the times (by several hundred years, in this case) but lately I've become obsessed with the Japanese custom of hanami, or cherry blossom watching. Maybe because I've been sick, or maybe for a number of other reasons I won't go into here, I've been feeling kind of negative and depressed for the last few weeks or so, and the idea of inviting a small group of friends to join me in the park for an afternoon tea party under blossoming cherry trees has taken hold of my imagination in a very pleasant way.

There are certain trees that I keep track of in this town, including two almonds and two different kinds of flowering plum that I took especially loving care of at my last house (which I've been secretly missing a lot this winter, for some reason). The thought of those four trees being neglected and unappreciated by the house's new tenants – a pair of antique dealers who only use it for storage – really breaks my heart. The almonds will be putting out their sweet little delicate white flowers sometime in the next month and the plums will blossom shortly after that, first the pink one, and then the white one. It was a modest display but something I used to look forward to with great anticipation every year.

There was (is) also at that house a large thicket of quinces, which have fabulous pink and white flowers that bloom forever when you cut a branch to bring inside. And also, a tall sort of prickly tree outside the kitchen window that had (has) thousands of huge clusters of dark pink flowers that look great on the tree, in a vase, in a jar, in a bowl, in your hair, in a travel mug in the car – anywhere. I loved that tree, too.

At Mr. A's house there are apple, peach and pear trees that have beautiful flowers, as well as about a dozen other fruit and nut trees that offer smaller, less conspicuous blooms (walnuts, persimmons, figs), plus several potted Meyer lemons with little clusters of waxy, pinkish flowers that smell like heaven .... The apple trees are my special favorite – that's why I'm building my alleged studio in front of them – but I'm realizing right now that what I really want, in the middle of a cold, dark, rainy winter, is the knowledge that before February is through I'll have branches full of almond blossoms to look forward to, followed by those gorgeous pinky plum blossoms.

Is it too late to get bare-root fruit trees? I will have to find out. In the meantime, I've set myself the task of scouring the valley in search of soon-to-be flowering cherry and/or plum trees, so that I can start planning my hanami party. I want to do a simple little woodcut print for the invitation, and order a few special kinds of tea and treats, and make some little origami things for the gift bag. Other ideas are percolating as well.

Suddenly, I feel a lot better about this being (in spite of the official beginning on Dec. 21) the real start of winter. One of the best things about winter, to me, has always been planning for spring. And actually, even winter itself isn't all that bad around here. This morning on my way to work I noticed a striking scene – a 30-acre hayfield dotted with ancient oaks, the bright green grass still sparkling with frost, with a very thin but very dense layer of pure white fog blanketing the ground, under an utterly clear, cloudless and intensely vivid blue sky ... With the sun shining on all this, it almost looked like snow. But not. It was a purely Northern California image.