Impressions

    New Year's eve day, Robert and I drove out to Pt. Reyes National Park and walked on the vast long, pristine, gray beach of North Beach.  I made a tiny few seconds of video of the surf on my Lumix digital camera.  You can't capture the roar of the surf on a small camera!  

    We made a great NY's eve dinner at home with Fumiko and her friend Joe. Grillend flank steak, tomato and basil bruschetta, olive and mushroom crostini, sourdough bread, oyster stuffing (my grandmother, Dessie Pearl Bear's, recipe) and had Trader Joes' Lava cakes (chocolate) for dessert with some sparkling wine.  Then we watched a Bollywood movie about an Indian family with girls who wanted to get married, based on Sense and Sensibility.

    New Year's day was wonderful.  We visited Zenobia and Tyler, who had invited a bunch of their neighbors.  They had food on the balcony, as the weather turned warm for the day.  It was such fun.  I talked to a great guy who is a lawyer in Oakland, and his whole mission is to help get young black kids into education--to show them the world and to excite them about trying new things.  He's very inspiring.

    Yesterday, Robert and  I went into San Francisco and spent a couple of hours at the Asian Art museum.  I listened to several demo CD's of world music--I loved the Senegalese drum music the best!  Tempted to get some Sufi music, but I have CD's that I don't listen to, so should get out the ones I already have!

    I start working with clients again today.  It's a new year!  A new list of things to do!  Places to go.   

Went for a lovely walk with Rainey.  Clear and frosty here in California.  

I'm answering all emails this morning.  Received one from MoveOn.org.  I feel compelled to post their message this morning to help us stimulate action in the US Congress to do something effective about global warming (beyond debating it forever while the ice cap drips and roars away)  I'm speaking to those of you who came to read the blog today...

Subject: Help Al Gore Send a Message to Congress

Al Gore is ready to build on the success of "An Inconvenient Truth" and start organizing to solve the climate crisis. He's working to get hundreds of thousands of messages to Congress demanding real action to stop global warming. And he's asking for our help.

Can you help out by signing the petition at the link below? If you do, Al Gore will personally deliver our comments to Congress. I just did it myself and it only takes a second.

http://pol.moveon.org/climatecrisis/

Thanks!

Yesterday I went over to the house of my oldest and dearest friend, Zenobia.  We had soup and salad for lunch with her husband, Tyler (whose daughter is Aiesha Tyler, Talk Soup host on TV).  We drew some Tarot cards and chatted about our plans for the New Year.  Zenobia always tempts me with talk of going to Morocco and visits to oases. This time she spoke of the Fez Festival of Sacred World Music next June.  She knows my favorite music is world music. Hmmm

As I sat on her couch, I could see into the tiny sunroom she had built off an unused door of her living room.  It's only about three feet wide and about seven feet long, but it has windows on two sides.  The window ledges are lined with clear glass olive oil bottles, holding rooting leaves, later to be planted. 

Two rattan chairs sit conversationally side by side. Sitting inside feels feels fresh, and the limpid light is beautiful, soothing, and inspiring.  The high shelves hold begonias in eleven green pots.  The blooms are pink.  As we talked of Fez and sacred music, a fat bloom fell to the floor, plunk!

The sun room holds heat during the day and helps warm the house. It has an environmental impact.  It has an emotional and esthetic impact.  It's only 3 feet by 7 feet.

Later we took the train into San Francisco to visit Zenobia's step daughter Rema, and her child, Ivy--almost-two. We met her husband, Jason, at Colibri (the wonderful Mexican restaurant that my friend Karla Nagel's friends own),  Jason is attending a world conference on the environment.  He is meeting scientists who work in Greenland, and his job is to supply the scientific research stations.  Al Gore is going to speak tomorrow. 

Robert and I had watched the video (my second time to see the movie) an Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore.  It's so compelling.   Robert and I love watching the Discovery Channel.  Last weekend we saw a sperm whale, lost and trying to find a way out of the melting undersea tunnels from the melting icecap in order to breathe oxygen.  We have seen the scientists extracting ice core samples.  "You can see in the ice core samples the exact year, that we passed the Clean Air act," I told Jason at dinner.  He didn't seem that impressed with my layman's report.

Monday morning showers.  A walk with Robert--almost 4 miles.  We had left over potato soup with chard and garlic sausages for lunch.  Gunther and Eliza and Anders and Auggie came over for supper last night, so it was warm and cozy at my house (I had on my samll gas fireplace as the weather has turned the inside of our houses very cold.)

The day before Thanksgiving, both Gunther and Sigrid had called me to ask me how I made  turkey dressing.  That was a wonderful high point for me--to have both of my kids call for advice!  This year was a little different as Jim and Sigrid, Trevor and Chloe had dinner with his mom, Gina (who just moved out here this summer from Detroit.)  Then they went camping with a group of friends they know from Jim's old coffeeshop hangout, Jennifer's in Studio City.  They all went to Canyon Country in Santa Barbara.

So we had G & E, A & A, their friends Marion and Stephen and their two little ones, Claire and Luke (they were the friends who spent six months doing research in India this year).  Of course we had Fumiko and Robert.  We baked gingerbread men for the kids to decorate before dinner to keep them amused, but they all played very well.

 A very satisfying day.  And now back to work this week.  I want to do some writing!