Robert and I had a wonderful, and enlightening, cruise in December to Barcelona, Rome, Crete, Alexandria (plus an inland trip to Cairo and the Pyramids), and Malta.

If you are interested to see some scenes, we have posted a slide show--it's 9 minutes.  Enjoy!

The viewable cruise video of the trip....

  Well, tragedy struck on Wednesday night.  Our two darling fish in the back pond, Willy and  Wonka fell prey to the raccoon during the night.  We had inadvertently left the hose on, which raised the water level.  We suspect that the fish couldn't hide fast enough under the screen.  Wonka disappeared, and we found Willy dead in the grotto.  He probably got injured in escaping the raccoon, and died alone from his wounds.  We really loved to watch these little fish swim so quickly in and out.  

Auggie and Anders happened to be here when we discovered Willy.  Auggie took this picture of him in an incense box, just before we buried him in our fish graveyard.  We were all surprised at how large Willy had grown (about 4 1/2 inches long!)  We almost didn't think it was him. They died on November 17th, which is Robert's and my 10th anniversary of meeting each other.

Anders and Auggie came over for a sleepover on Friday evening.  We had planned to do a "campout" on my deck.  Which amounted to grilling hotdogs, pineapple kabobs, and marshmallows on the hibachi. They were way clear that they didn't intend to actually sleep outside.

First I set Auggie up to peel a cucumber (which took about 20 minutes) and then slice it.  He loves to make a sesame oil, rice vinegar, soy sauce, and garlic dressing for the cucumbers. 

Anders put together the pineapple kabobs.  He also went off on a tangent, pureeing some pineapple and mixing it with Splenda and trying to insert it into straws.  He had some idea about making a sweet straw snack.  Didn't really work, but it kept him busy for awhile.

Around six o'clock, we decided to start our cooking.  Robert had set up the hibachi with briquets on the deck table for me before he left in the afternoon.  The boys settled in on the loveseat with blankets, and we watched the hibachi coals begin to glow red and turn gray. 

While they tended their hotdogs on sticks, I read them a picture book about endangered animals, who create an event with a dinosaur to bring attention to their plight.  It involves making a big fake dinosaur, with instructions on how to make a paper dinosaur.  You leave holes on the dinosaur and put your fingers through the holes to make the legs. 

Anders was immediately excited about the idea of making one.  The next morning, he showed his mom, Eliza, the instructions.  This pure enthusiasm so warms my heart.  Anders, Auggie, and probably Chloe are all still young enough to get excited about making a paper dinosaur with finger holes. My guess is that Trevor-- being all grown-up at nine-- may not have gone for the finger-hole thing.

A lovely week of Indian Summer days.

I was so pleased on Thursday afternoon to witness Auggie (6 years, first grade) reading a library book, Bark, George by Jules Feiffer, all the way through.  He sounded out every word!  How thrilling to watch someone begin to read--and like doing it!  

A week ago, after school on Thursday, I took Anders and Auggie to the Berkeley Public Library, Central branch.  We were hoping to meet Mrs. Susa, who is the mother of Anders' third grade teacher, but she was out that day! 

I sat with Anders as he did his homework--first time doing it in a library--full of distractions.  It was so much fun just to spend some time there.  Since their after-school program of Junior Detectives was not happening that day, we checked out books with a detective theme.  The librarian searched them out for us.  What a lovely service!

Today is the Harding School Carnival, which my son, Gunther Rohrer, has been actively involved in.  I'll go down with Eliza and the boys at noon, and see the stilt-walker, uni-cyclist, magician, games, and other stuff! It's going to be hot!

Confession time.

For the past few weeks I've become addicted to reading crime thriller/action/mystery/espionage/assassin novels.  My friend, Candice Fuhrman turned me on to Lee Child.  His writing really "reaches" me! I am bent on reading through every one of his books.

Child's character, Jack Reacher, is an ex-military policeman.  He somehow always falls into nefarious adventures, in which he must use his natural physical strength, feral wits, and military know-how to bring the bad guys to a just dessert.  He shows restraint and a qualified compassion by sometimes only smashing the arm and hand of some bad guy to disengage their trigger finger instead of killing them. Reacher wanders without a settled place to live; owns no possessions beyond a fold-up toothbrush. Manages to operate without a cell phone or credit card or driver's license.  Keeps him under the radar. Always a useful position for a guy prone to deep cover living.

What I love about Lee Child's writing is his attention to detail (noting, for examle, that the drug dealer he just conked out dropped to the floor with a thud. "Conscious people always try to break their fall.") Persuader is particularly riveting.  He's undercover in a remote stone mansion on the edge of the Atlantic ocean, tracking a maniacal psychopath.  Child's observations put you right in the middle of the action and you never get out. 

"The cop climbed out of his car exactly four minutes before he got shot.  He moved like he knew his fate in advance.  He pushed the door against the resistance of a stiff hinge and swiveled slowly on the worn vinyl seat and planted both feet flat on the road.  Then he grasped the foor frame with both hands and heaved himself up and out.  He stood in the cold clear air for a second and then turned and pushed the door shut again behind him.  Held still for a second longer.  Then he stepped forward and leaned against the side of the hood up near the headlight.  

The car was a seven-year-old Chevy Caprice.  It was black and had no police markings.  But it had three radio antennas and plain chrome hubs.  Most cops you talk to swear the Caprice is the best police vehicle ever built.  This guy looked like he agreed with them."

You have to love this almost cinematic immediacy!(Child used to work in television.)

I checked Wikipedia to get a list of book titles for Lee Child, and found that his real name is James Grant.  Not only that but I discovered that he has a brother who also writes mystery novels under the name Lincoln Child.  I wondered why I kept seeing this author's name next to the Lee Child section on the shelf!  They are brothers--wow, I guess I'll have to start reading some of Lincoln's books as well.  It's fun finding out surprising facts about favorite authors.

I guess genres create a thirst for more.

Yesterday, Robert and I went to an afternoon matinee of George Clooney's new movie, The American.  Here's another sub-rosa character character, an assassin, with a troubled conscience. His love interest with the beautiful name, Violante Placido, is unbelievably gorgeous (so Italian!) It's worth seeing. The sometimes silent, moody photography evokes constant tension.  I had questions about how it ended, so maybe I missed something in the plot!  I often do.  I might read the book next by Martin Booth, A Very Private Gentleman.

My dear friend, Jane Straus has been fighting cancer of the brain for more than a year.  Some of you may have read one of her books, such as Enough is Enough!: Stop Enduring and Start Living Your Extraordinary Life or her world-best-seller, the Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation.

This week, Jane emailed her friends with this note.  I want to post it here, just in case others are suffering in similar or related ways.

As always, Jane's thoughts are focused on inspiring others.

Dearest Friends,
Well, I wish that I could have put in the Subject Line, "Another Bitchin' Report," but that wouldn't have been the truth. My July 28 MRI showed what UCSF interprets as new and rapid tumor growth. A few days later I lost the ability to swallow, necessitating a 3 AM ER trek to Marin General. I spent 3 days on IV, attempting to spit out the phlegm I could not swallow. This caused my lungs to fill up, an inability to speak, a constant cough, and difficulty catching my breath. Marin General felt that anything they did would simply be heroic measures and that I should call in hospice to give me morphine to calm my nerves as I lay dying.

HOWEVER, my alternative docs did not see the MRI or my difficulties the same way--they saw radiation necrosis, a phenomenon new to brain tumor patients who are surviving longer. Because western med. does not expect this, many deaths are blamed on recurrent tumor rather than successfully treated.

My docs had me start on Avastin, Decadron, and Hyperbaric chamber. Within minutes of the Decadron, I was able to breathe and swallow. The other treatments are more long term. So once again I have been pulled back from the brink, purely by my wonderful doctors' open mindedness and unwillingness to buy into the lowest thoughts. This time through, as the staff treated me like I was already past tense, I found myself both willing to accept my death yet not acquiescing to it. I could sense their limiting beliefs and not entirely buy into them.  This was a first for me; I think that the last 1 1/2 years of practice is serving me well.

I will have another MRI in two weeks. I will let you know how it reads. In the meantime, I wish for you that you trust yourself and your powers to heal as best you can. And thank you for your continued prayers and high thoughts for me. I take solace and am inspired by you.
Much love,
Jane
 

Today my granddaughter, Chloe, is 8 years old!  Happy Birthday, Chloe Matthews.

Yesterday, despite being total novices, Robert and I practiced paddling a two-man kayak in the Oakland Estuary.  California Canoe & Kayak is helping sponsor the Support Strokes event for Breast Cancer Fund, Breast Cancer Action, Women's Cancer Resource Center, and Charlotte Maxwell Complementary Clinic.

The owner, Sammy, graciously gave us paddling pointers as we zig-zagged in circles!  We finally got the hang of it enough to go straight for about five minutes!  Seriously, though it was lots of fun, and we obviously need more practice.

The actual event happens September 25, 2010 8 am to 8 pm in Oakland.  For more information call 510-893-7833 or go to their web site above.  It's open to novices and experts, and they need volunteers, too! 

It's a wonderful, enjoyable way to support breast cancer research and treatment for women in need.

Yesterday, on Sunday, July 26, we held a memorial service in my garden for my dear friend of 33 years, Roy Tokuhichi Iwaki.  His nephew, Michio Valian, brought Roy's ashes (center) and constructed an altar commemorating Roy's unique sense of style and humor.  The centerpiece of my garden is the fountain that Roy designed and constructed about three years ago.  

 We had over fifty friends at the gathering to offer incense and share stories of our completely one-of-a-kind friend.  We all miss him terribly as the quirky, generous, thoughtful and soulful friend who was loyal, funny, wise, and self-deprecating. Many friends expressed how he loved nothing better than to give us a well-meaning and playful hard time over whatever we were currently taking so seriously!  

Roy, a second-generation Japanese, grew up in the poorer parts of Los Angeles in a hotel owned and run by his mother. At the age of ten he was placed in Manzanar internment camp along with his mother and siblings. 

 His experience which he described as "kind of fun because I had other kids to play with" left him with a life-long ability to live simply and seek value in things that were cast off.

As an adult Roy began to develop a unique kind of paper round folding that grew into an impressive array of paper sculpture.  

To read his biography as written by Michio, please refer to my column on this web site.

I am deeply grateful to everyone who came to send Roy off with love.

Two weeks ago I went to see the new movie, Exit Through the Gift Shop , a documentary on street art. I loved the movie.

The next day I had my 8-year-old grandson, Anders Rohrer, over at my house in the morning.  I told him about the movie and about what I learned about street art and some of the artists such as Banksy and Thierry Guetta (who was first obsessed with video-taping everything he saw.)  Of course, true to form, Anders became interested and so we looked up the trailer on youtube.  We decided to make our own street art.

I asked him to make his own design (he chose skull with dagger in head) and we made a stencil.  We put on our "hoodies" (I lent him one of mine and rolled up the sleeves.) Then we went out to my potting shed where I laid out the stencil on a large piece of cardboard.  I sprayed it for him (we wore masks).  

It became a week of street art!   My two grandchildren from Studio City, Trevor (9) and Chloe (7) Matthews were due to visit last week.  I took all four kids on BART (the local public transit, which is still fascinating to T and C.) into Berkeley to go the main Berkeley Public Libarary. They were impressed with its size and the wonderful 4th floor Children's Library.  The librarian taught Anders and Trevor how to find books on the computer, and we colleced a couple of great street art books.

In the afternoon each kid made his or her own stencil, I sprayed them and we had some great posters!  

Anders' and Auggie's Mom, Eliza and I took all four kids into San Francisco the next day and we did a street art day.  First we went to the Academy of Sciences to look at the fish and mammals there.  We then headed over to the Mission District, and had some great Mexican food at El Toro on Valencia and 17th, and then visited Clarion Alley which is "graffiti alley" --fabulous paintings the whole length of the alley.  We also walked Balmy Street off of 24th Street for a look at the murals there.

Everywhere we go now, one of the kids will spot something and yell out "Street art!"

Before Trevor and Chloe left, all four kids spent an afternoon making a bird house out of wood scraps--all by themselves!  The carpentry camp that T and C took last summer really helped them handle the tools and create their vision.

I am so very blessed to have these interesting and loving children in my life.

A dear friend of mine whom I've known for 33 years, Roy Iwaki, died in a bicycle accident on May 24th. 

Roy is being given the Florence Temko Award at the National Origami Conference in New York on Saturday June 26, 2010. The award is given to an accomplished folder who is not part of any orgiami group.Roy developed a completely original form of folding a flat sheet of paper, scored with lines, and folding it into shapes, or masks, representing the twelve animal signs of the Chinese zodiac. 

Roy's long-time devoted friend, Johnny Thorn, and I have the honor of accepting the award on his behalf.  We will also be present for the showing of the DVD of Roy's original and unique roundfolding technique, and hope to share a few memories of our time with this remarkable human being.  

I plan to write more about Roy here in the near future.