Toward Camelot by the service road.

Mastodon, after three weeks or so of playing with it( Read more... )

I was unreasonably pleased today when a friend texted me to ask what his mother should do with the cold-stunned kestrel she'd found in her backyard, texted again an hour later to say that my advice was exactly what ODFW had recommended when they'd called her back, and texted again a couple hours after that to say that the bird had recovered, after a couple hours in a warm box in the dark, and flown away.

Should you find a bird that's doing poorly in this weather, put it in a closed box with a towel under it and leave it alone for a couple of hours somewhere toasty (the darkness induces torpor and reduces stress on the animal, and the warmth just feels nice), then take the box outside and open it and see if the bird flies away (best outcome) or is dead (at least any mess is contained in the box and the animal was comfortable at the end). Probably best not to perform this operation in front of anyone with tender sensibilities, since they will find it upsetting if the bird isn't alive. Tough German immigrant women from rural Oregon will be fine either way.

My parents are now fully vaccinated. Mother spiked a fever the night after and they both felt pretty rough for about 24 hours, but they're doing better now.

Dear Diary,

Today I got a new presidential administration and some excellent time in the woods with people I like who engaged in rather a lot more post-colonial analysis than I was expecting. To celebrate I stopped at a burger stand for dinner and the bacon cheeseburger was super excellent! My faith in America's promise has been restored.

XOXO,

Sara

I was out walking the dog, and a black SUV pulled alongside me, slowed down, and the driver rolled down the window. Uh-oh, I thought, because my recent interactions with the general public have not been, ah, uniformly positive, and, like Adrienne Maree Brown, I feel like one's odds of experiencing Random Crazy Shit while out in the world right now are a lot higher than I personally enjoy.

"Do you know," said the driver, a sixtysomething woman with a heavy German accent, "that our new President has TWO German shepherds?"

I started grinning. OK, right. Actually most people are decent humans, it's important to remember that. "I did know that. And one of them is a rescue, like her," I said, pointing at my dog. "I think it will be very nice to have dogs in the White House again."

"I think so as well!" the woman said, smiling, and I could see a younger woman, in the passenger seat -- I'm guessing a daughter -- absolutely falling out. "I have also a rescued German Shepherd. They are the best."

"I -- I definitely agree," I told her. "I hope you have a very nice afternoon."

"I am!" she said, "I really am!" and she blew me and the dog a kiss and drove down the road.

I always come back to Allen Ginsburg, who reminds me that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Let's take the incremental wins.

On the day before the last presidential inauguration, I went outside and retired my flag (yeah, the one in the icon). It had flown over the U.S. Capitol; I'd ordered it through the office of my then-congressman, Rep. DeFazio (long may he be re-elected). I flew that flag off both my houses and on holidays through the Bush and Obama administrations, but I didn't feel I could possibly fly it -- except perhaps upside down -- during this administration.

I went tonight and ordered myself a new flag, from Patty Murray's office, so I will have one here for the next inauguration. The old one is pretty faded, and it's time for a new start.

I felt like a lot changed, both in the country and for me personally, that winter four years ago. Things suddenly went from bad-but-tolerable to completely unacceptable.

Today I feel like I did when I finalized the divorce: it was brutal and it was ugly and it was exhausting and I will never be who I was before I went through all that. It went on much longer than it should have. I wasn't always sure I could make it.

But I'm going to make it, and so are you.

We have won the popular vote in all but one election in the last twenty years (2004). We are not in the minority in this nation. It is very disappointing that as many people in this country supported a straight-up fascist as did, and we're going to have to keep working on that as a people. But there are more of us than there are of them, and we can fight fascists and win.

p.s. I have put both of Stacey Abrams' books on hold at the library because obviously this woman is a genius and if she has anything to teach I had better go learn it.

Finally found the thing that was making the noise that I hated that nobody else could hear AND I UNPLUGGED IT.

(Light timer.)

We went to Tacoma today and saw the Preston Singletary show at the Museum of Glass (it's one of the more important indigenous shows I've seen in the last while, you should check it out, the work is MUCH more impressive when seen en masse than it is when it's all alone in a vitrine, and that's saying something because Preston Singletary all alone in a vitrine is usually pretty impressive) and ate fish.

The train rolled by and framed itself in the gallery window -- it was definitely one of the better pieces of the afternoon.... I think that's parts of the Portland skyline, but it could be anywhere that's still a bit industrial.

ETA: Nope, I bet it's Montreal, see also. Not that I would know Montreal from a hole in the ground!

Went out tonight to hear the Maxwell Quartet at the Abbey church, which I haven't been to before and which I will definitely go back to again. The acoustics are fantastic and so was the quartet.

They did us some Haydn and Beethoven, which was competent and well-interpreted but not earthshattering, because it's Haydn and Beethoven. This is some of their Beethoven (and very well-miked), but not the same piece I heard tonight, which was Opus 130 (this is 127):


I was much more excited about their arrangements of Scottish traditional stuff -- this is one of the few pieces I can find them doing online that they did tonight, and the acoustics in the church were better than they are on this video but I want you to watch how this arrangement uses the viola for the drone part rather than the cello, at the beginning, and how that frees up the cello to do other stuff -- it's a neat way to put it together:


They also played this piece, which I can't find a recording of Maxwell doing so here's the Rubens Quartet, which originated the piece. It was written by a Dutch composer, Joey Roukens, in 2011, apparently to commemorate the re-opening of the maritime museum in Amsterdam (yes, I had to google "Scheepvaartmuseum" but I am glad I did because BOATS). This will make sense when you have listened to it. It is FASCINATING STUFF particularly if you like (1) boats and (2) chamber music and (3) people riffing on history. AS YOU MIGHT.

...the other thing that happened at my hairdresser's last month was that he gave me advice on what kind of dye I should be using, and today I gave it a go (on the principle that a long weekend is a good time to color your hair, because if you really fuck it up you have some time to fix it and/or leave your stylist a woeful voicemail asking for an emergency appointment) and it turned out very well indeed.

(This is a sign on Interstate 5 in Lewis County, Washington, which regularly features a variety of right-wing slogans.)

After 8 1/2 years, three or four (depending on how you count) social networks, and about a kerjillion late-night email threads, I'm just going to crow FUCK YEAH and leave it at that.

I have just finished reading Michael Chabon's Telegraph Avenue, and it is charming and funny and incisive, all about race and gender and lowbrow culture and history and sexuality and urban redevelopment and small business management and parenthood. There is a lot in there about parenthood, and the ways we fail our parents and our children no matter how hard we try because, well, that's what people do.

Also there is a zeppelin, a Hammond organ, multiple ancient kung fu masters, and funeral home jokes. And Jews with swords -- again! -- sort of. And people resolving their problems like adults, which is to say with a lot of flailing but without resorting to violence. Much.

No, really: it's like the dude once again sat down and said, I know, I will write a novel Sara will get all gooshy about. If you share my narrative kinks, you should go read it so we can go dawwwwww at each other.

And in terms of my own personal navigation of place and time, I was able to read it without getting homesick, which feels like progress. I bought this back when it came out in September and it's been sitting under my nightstand since then, because I wasn't sure it wouldn't just make me sad (I have been known to weep into dog-eared copies of the lesser novels of Philip K. Dick, okay, I have to be really careful with stories that happen in the East Bay) but the other day, coming over the river on the freeway bridge, I thought, you know, I am not sad about that the way I used to be. And I read it, and I was okay!

I also want a novella about Julie Jaffe going to college. Let me just put that desire out into the universe. And maybe a short story in which Titus and his baby brother, like, go to the Berkeley Bowl. Nat discovers open source. Gwen kicks someone's ass during a particularly contentious Temescal Merchants Association meeting. I dunno, people, this was apparently originally written as the first season of a TV series and I can still see that in here. These are wonderful characters and I want to know what they do next. *sigh* But so far Chabon doesn't do sequels, so.

ETA: Also, there is Barack Obama RPF. I am not even kidding.

I know it's been a rough weekend for some of us, queridas, and should this have been the case for you, this is me shoving love and fond regards through the router in your direction, should I not have had the chance to do so individually just yet.

For me personally it was a nice long weekend -- I got Friday off too. I spent Saturday up in Portland, and managed miscellaneous errands and meetings (and a little holiday shopping) as well as a lovely dinner with sanguinity and grrlpup. It is always adorable to watch people who're not me doing the "we're very married indeed" thing, since usually that's my schtick.

Yesterday I lounged around and read the OTW hoo-bah and the second volume of the Finder compendium, which is fresh out and y'all should buy and read it pretty much yesterday. C. and I had tickets to that Dawes/Blitzen Trapper show for the evening, because it's my 35th birthday in a couple of days and I said I wanted songs and, um, indulgences of a personal nature to celebrate the occasion.

We mostly went in to see Dawes, and they did a good job with their material; it's mellow harmony-intensive stuff with an organ in the background and yeah, they're an LA band and they sound it. Which is charming, frankly, if that's the sort of thing you grew up with and like (they remind me of a slightly-more-retro version of the Wallflowers, to be honest -- it's that same westside sound).

But what blew us both away was Blitzen Trapper. Which, yeah, they're just fine on records, they're a Portland band so we hear them on local radio pretty regularly, and what's not to like about a group that sings about dragons and the Green River Killer and werewolves? Live, though, they are a lot better than they are recorded. They're confident and enthusiastic and comfortable together and everyone's playing lots of different instruments and...yeah, we were impressed by their musicianship. And also how much fun they seemed to be having. That's just great to watch.

Anyhow, if you get the chance to see them, you want to. I know we'll be there next time they're through here. Shoot, I even bought one of their very ugly t-shirts.

Cap'n D's back in the U.S. In Baltimore, of all places, and then he flies home tomorrow.

As I just said to Dad, after all those newspaper articles about people who get blown up two days before they're scheduled to go home, I've been biting my nails this past week. Whew. One less thing to worry about.

We've had plenty to worry about this week as-is.