The Black Cat Rant

I haven't read any Martha Grimes mysteries in years. She's an American writer who sets her mysteries in England. Her Richard Jury series are titled after and centered around various British pubs. I liked the first few I read, which was twenty years ago, but then I got tired of them. I picked up the latest one at the library yesterday for lack of anything better to read. I did find it readable, even charming. The Black Cat, it's called, after a pub. She dedicated the book to her recently deceased cat.

OK, people, remember back in the day when you prefaced your critical remarks of a gender, religion, or ethnicity with "It's not that I have anything against --" (Fill in the blank) followed by "Some of my best friends are --" Again, fill in the blank. Well, these days, it's come around to animals, a touchy subject for besotted pet-owners who are sensitive to any criticism of the animal kingdom so I'll just repeat, "It's not that I have anything against dogs or cats, but really, a mystery written from their point of view? Isn't that a little absurd, not to mention too sickeningly cute?" And yet that has become a popular subgenre of the mystery genre, if you can believe it. Never has the form sunk so low. Literally low, a dog or cat's point of view coming from ground-level.

Well, Martha Grimes has sunk that low. Most of the book is written from a human point of view, but a couple of sections are written in the voice of a dog, Mungo, who engages in dialogue and shenanigans with (you guessed it) a black cat named Morris. After my rant, here's my humiliating confession: I actually enjoyed reading those bits. I liked the animals' personalities, their antics and their conversations.

An American Theme

After 911, I made a series of collages having to do with flag and country. I scanned them and then did nothing with them so they've been sitting on my computer for the last decade. Yesterday, Bob printed them for me so that I could glue them in the pages of my new notebook. I'm toying with the idea of leaving blank pages in between so that I could write something. But what? That is the question.

Summer Feasts

I love the Focaccia pizza shells made by The Breadwork Shop in Berkeley. For the last three days, I've been making small pizzas with them. I brush some olive oil on the shell, spread thin slices of Mozzarella over it and then scatter ripe, juicy Heirloom tomato slices over the top. I bake the pizza for about eight minutes. When it emerges from the oven, I scatter fresh basil leaves over it and we eat. Nothing could be more simple and delicious.

Last night Bob excelled himself with a wonderful dinner. It was both wonderful to taste and to look at. He poached some cod with fruit, celery and onions and made an elaborately beautiful lettuce salad decorated with fruit, cheese and various crunchy vegetables. There was also a side of steamed asparagus. Voila! A beautiful meal. Before dinner, I made myself an appetizer of Trader Joe's raisin rosemary crisps. I spread them with eggplant dip and goat cheese. I munched on fresh cherries and dried apricots while I crunched on the crisps and sipped some chilled white wine. It was a hedonistic high.

Good-night, all.

I completed my art journal a few days ago. Time to start another.

Memoirs of a Humdrum Life

When my life becomes boring, I read memoirs of other peoples' lives. E.M. Delafield's Diary of a Provincial Lady (published in 1930) purports to be the diary of a British housewife's humdrum life. In reality, E.M. Delafield is a highly educated lady of the British upper class whose life compared to mine seems far from humdrum. I enjoy her entertaining satires of family life, village characters, and in a subsequent diary, London literary and fashionable society. Her accounts of scraping by with not enough new evening gowns for dinner parties and her constant overdrafts at the bank, of unruly children, ill-behaved pets and a monosyllabic husband tucked behind the Times amuse me, but I also note with astonishment that though she worries constantly about money, she employs several housemaids, a cook, a gardener, a French nanny and sends her son to boarding school.

In her second diary, The Provincial Lady Goes Further, the family takes a vacation in France. As a matter of course, they bring along their son's tutor. When they return to England, the provincial lady rents a London flat. There she leads a life filled with literary luncheons and nightly cocktail parties as opposed to her quiet life in the country. I am fascinated with all these details of her privileged lifestyle, much of it having to do with keeping up appearances, the servant problem and the weight of familial and societal obligations.

Poi

Bob and I took a walk by Lake Merritt. As we turned the curve, we saw a young man perched on a ledge who was whirling balls on strings. The balls were encased in socks.

"What is he doing?" asked Bob.

"Looks like juggling."

"Looks like, but isn't."

"Baton twirling?" I suggested.

"No."

So when we got within speaking range, I asked the twirler. "Poi," he replied.

"What's poi?"

"It's a tribal thing.  New Zealand. The Maoris do it."

"Really? " We watched with admiration as he whizzed the balls in intricate patterns with his wrists. "That's cool."

"Yeah, " he said. "Maori women practice it to increase their strength and flexibility for weaving. Maori men learn it as part of their warrior training."

"Really? How did you learn the skill? Did someone teach you?"

"Naw. I just picked it up on my own."

As we walked away, he yelled out,"You can light them on fire, too. I have some that are designed for that. Poi looks really cool in the dark."

The Front Porch Salon

Bob held his Front Porch Salon yesterday, a discussion group that's been going on for over twenty years. Our conversation wandered from topic to topic, but finally settled on the cultural differences in food. We all agreed that the diet you grow up eating is what you prefer when you're an adult, but Marty and Carol said that in their cases, the generalization didn't apply. Carol is an American married to Wu who grew up in China during Mao's Cultural Revolution and Marty is married to Eugenie who is Chinese-American. Their diet has changed 80% since their respective Chinese spouses cook for them. They were quite happy with the change.

Bob and I eat quite a bit of Asian food when we're out since that's what's available and affordable in the Bay Area, except for Mexican. Sometimes we miss the food we ate as children, but that kind of food is hard to find here unless you're willing to pay the price. Even then, you don't get the food you grew up with (which, in some cases, might be just as well.) You get hand-crafted pasta and the latest food fad, like pork belly with organic greens.

Marty told us about the great Chinese restaurants he frequents in his San Francisco neighborhood. There are all varieties, including one Halal. That abundance of choice made us homesick for the City. Oakland is full of new stylish restaurants, but they're too expensive for us. Besides, most of them feature bars with trendy cocktails and we don't drink. We all sighed with longing at Marty's culinary descriptions so he promised to invite the entire group across the Bay for a Chinese meal. I hope it really happens!

Excursion to Emeryville

Bob and I love office supplies so we made a trip to Office Max in Emeryville. We're both very happy when surrounded by aisles of notebooks and folders. He has a weakness for the folders while I surrender to the allure of the notebooks, but this time I managed to resist them. Bob succumbed to a few folders, but all in all, we were remarkably restrained.

Afterwards, we had tacos at the Emeryville Public Market. The Market used to be a farmer's market, but was converted some years ago to a hall filled with ethnic food stands. I remember when it was all bright and shiny, newly opened and getting lots of foot traffic from the Borders next door. We used to go to the Market for Korean or Mexican food, then wander through the bookstore on our way back to the car.

Now that there's a gaping presence where Borders used to be, the Market has a run-down look. The customers were distinctly odd. One middle-aged woman with bleached blonde hair stood out. She wore thigh-high black suede boots with impossibly high heels and a frou-frou mini-skirt beneath a black blouse studded with metal. One boob hung out. Her companion was a quiet looking older man. Go figure.

On the way out of the Mall, a boozy street guy (on a bicycle, no less) asked us if we knew where a liquor store was. When we said no, he yelled out, "What's the matter? Are you tourists?"

Ridiculous Rabbits

We had our monthly collage party yesterday. One of our longtime members dropped out and Katherine couldn't come so we were in flux. I invited my friend Robert to take her place, but he got the day wrong and didn't show up. That left Bob, Christina, Chris and me so at the last minute I invited Joy-Lily. Fortunately, she showed up. With her book on quilting about to be published, naturally enough she played with quilt patterns. I urged her to try something more collage-like. She replied that quilts were collages.

Bob constructed several small books featuring Ralph's Rabbit Tarot. Ralph McNeill was a dear friend of mine and a talented painter. I used to model for him at his Saturday afternoon life drawing sessions. One day I talked him into designing a Tarot deck for me. Though he knew nothing about the Tarot, he agreed. I'd give him the barest of outlines as to the deck's structure and the cards' meanings and he'd go home and make some. Each week he'd return with a few until at last we had an entire deck -- an entire deck of ridiculous rabbit cards, that is.

Rosy Crisp

Bob and I made a nectarine and raspberry crisp last night. He sliced the nectarines while I made the topping, a mixture of rolled oats, walnuts, whole wheat flour, brown sugar and sinful butter. We baked it for a half hour and then out of the oven it came in all its succulent glory. I loved the sight of our confection, the rosy blush that the burst raspberries gave to the nectarines' fragrant white flesh, but I loved eating it even more.

Safe Landing

I started out drenching my art journal in somber black paint. I intended it to have a fatalistic tone. The imagery was mostly of fire, dangerous blazes against a dark background. As the book progressed, water imagery began to douse the fire. The orange blazes faded into velvety red against purple and gray; then the grays melted into liquid silver. Aquatic creatures began to swim through the pages. They dove under water for a while. Submerged in this new element, it looked like they were going to drown, but then they unexpectedly came up for air. They started to swim toward the beach. As you can see, they made a safe landing.

A Sensuous Summer

Forgive the break. I needed to take one, a vacation away from home, at home. How does one do that without actually going away? In one's head, of course, and in the body, too. I've been enjoying the weather: cool and foggy in the mornings, warm and sunny in the afternoons and cool again at night. Perfect!

Of course, Bob and I have taken a few trips away from the house, but we haven't ventured far. One day we went to the beach in Alameda with our friend Deborah. The three of us sat on a bench and let the gentle wind and sun play over our skins as we took in the seascape. The cloudless blue sky above the bay lulled us into a companionable silence.

Another day I had a massage at my gym. I've been having trouble sleeping, but Hilda's magic hands lulled me into drowsiness as her voice floated over me, recommending Chamomile tea and Melatonin for my insomnia. That night I slept.

A couple of times, Bob and I visited our gym for water-walking. We moved through the water serenely, limbs floating almost weightless as we passed others who were walking in the opposite direction, old folks steady and determined in spite of their hip and knee replacements. In the middle lane, swimmers did their laps. Some noisily splashed as they swam, others were smooth and soundless. This morning parents stood in a circle in the far lane as they sang a lullaby to their infants. Later, one of the instructors led a train of toddlers in a line behind him. The row of little bodies encased in plastic inner tubes reminded me of rubber ducks.

One day, I lived inside a book: Shakespeare, World as Stage by Bill Bryson. It's worth reading. That evening I watched the third episode of the Aurelio Zen series on Masterpiece Mystery. I savored the characters' stylish clothes as much as the plot -- what I could make of it, that is. Rufus Sewell as Zen still mutters his lines and Caterina Murino has such a heavy Italian accent that she might as well be speaking in Italian. No matter. It's all good.