The December Post

My root canal specialist reminded me of the saying, if you don't like the weather in New England, just wait five minutes! So a few nights back I woke up to Quiet. That's how I would describe it. Only one inch of snow, but it was like a blanket over everything. So of course I got out my camera. Good thing, too, because the snow was almost all gone by the next day. And today, just a few days later, it's 60 degrees!

December is starting out well. Bill had a nice visit in Buffalo with the kids, got to attend Clare's 4th birthday party. Breakwater Books in town is carrying my book on consignment. Jane and I attended the Christmas tree lighting on the Guilford Green. And the turkeys are back! I guess they thought it was safe to show up around here after Thanksgiving. What do our turkeys look like? Well, I would describe them as looking like an oversized pheasant. They were milling around our front door on the snow day--left their huge feetprints in the snow, like some sci-fi mutant movie. And I spotted some deer in our woods recently.

We spent Thanksgiving week first in Boston (Bill playing bridge in a duplicate tournament), then in Gilmanton. Got Drew Farm ready for its winter slumber, making sure all the windows were tight, bringing Christmas ornaments down from the attic, shining up the kitchen floor. Good news, our teenage hoodlum "visitors" had been apprehended by the police, so we hope Drew Farm will be left in peace. The day after Thanksgiving there was a light snow there, also, gone the next day. Here's what it looked like up at Drew Farm in early morning:

Six Oh Obama

My present for my sixtieth birthday came one week late, an Obama victory! October was a lovely month here in Connecticut. I've come to enjoy the Guilford Poets Guild workshops, and I have new material to write about. For Columbus Day weekend we went up to Gilmanton, saw our good friends there, gawked at the colorful leaves. If here in Connecticut the colors might be rated an "8," in New Hampshire everywhere is a "10." 

Towards the end of the month we went north again to Boston for a few days. Attended a Jordi Savall-Hesperion XXI concert in the very beautiful Saunders Hall on the Harvard Campus. We stayed at the Hyatt Harborside, had fun getting around town on the T, walking through East Boston (great breakfast place, 303), and taking the ferry across the bay. We had brunch with Vicki and Steve in Back Bay, and they took us to the top of the Prudential Center for a birthday flan.

My new poetry friend and neighbor, Jane, is going to whip me into shape. Yesterday morning we played tennis with two guys she had arranged to join us. Since I hadn't played in probably five years or so, it took me awhile to get warmed up. And my serve is still iffy. But my net play was pretty darned good. I'm going to think about continuing this line of exercise, but I think I'd rather just rally with Jane. Going through the humiliation of playing actual games, and having to actually get serves in, is too much pressure. On election day I walked up Long Hill Road two miles to our voting place. Then Bill drove up the hill, I took the car home, and he walked back! We're trying "enforced marches" as an exercise routine. Of course, when we get in shape, we'll just walk the 4 or 5 miles, to town and back together for instance. Steve and Vicki can be our inspiration. They already cover 4 miles about 3 times a week, so I'm sure we can do it. In the meantime, we pass all these lovely streets of Guilford on our walks. Makes you want to break into song:

                        Guilford Song 

The birds all knew the local language—

two short bursts, and then a moment of silence

step stone

A pairing of adjective-noun, as if the subject

could not be left unattended

flag marsh

The frogs tossed out all sorts of ideas

but kept to the code

still meadow

The cemetery didn’t wish to limit itself

to just one name

Foote-Ward

A rhythmic two-step along the shoreline

salt marsh

Her Puritan forebears wouldn’t have known

anything more complicated

flat meadow

tangling forbidden anyway

nut plains

two friends, a quickening of the pulse,

you lay down a card and I’ll tell you what it is

red queen   fox glove   hearts ease

saw mill   red coat   long hill 

All's well at Stony Creek

The Guilford harbor has a parking lot and a nice view. And the beach nearby is decent, but not as long and white as Madison's. Swimming in Lake Quonnipaug is great, though, but the season is now over. Moving here to the coast I had in mind being able to drive to a harbor town, where there would be a nice place to stop for lunch (and you could stay a long time with no one hassling you), enjoying, say, a tuna melt at an outdoor table, looking out to the boats. Enter...Stony Creek! Has all the above amenities, even the place with the good tuna melt (Stony Creek Market). A shorter drive, for sure, than from Palo Alto to Half Moon Bay. The really exciting thing is its location near a lovely branch library, and between two fabulous Branford walks.

The day I was at Stony Creek I heard someone call my name. Hard to believe, since we hardly know anyone around here! Two fellow poets, of course. It's a poetic place, the Thimble Islands a short distance away. After lunch I found the TrolleyTrail, perfect for duffers like us, straight as an arrow and almost entirely flat, at least the part I walked. Landed me in the center of a salt marsh, a nest for ospreys nearby. You can sit on a bench and look out to sea, or sit on the other bench and look inland towards the marshes. A fellow there was delighted to learn my husband and I had moved here from California. He's from Branford, lived here all his life, went to California once, pronounced it very scenic but prefers New England. I think I'm learning to.

I've printed off some maps of the Guilford Westwoods trail system. Compared to the

 simplicity of the Branford trails, the Westwoods circuit looks like a de Kooning. I'm sure we'll get the hang of it, the white circle trails, the red triangles, the blue thingamajig. And what to do when a cross is on top of the circle, or an arrow. We could be circling for a long time, like the Leather Man, only he knew where he was going. He was featured in the Litchfield Hills magazine

of 1952. He had suffered some misfortune in his native France, had ruined his future father-in-law's business, lost the woman he would marry and fled to Connecticut, where he donned heavy leather clothes as a sort of penance, and lived in the woods, fed by strangers, a mysterious figure of his time.

On vacation from moving

It was so hard tearing ourselves away from those boxes...even though we had tackled almost all of them before we went on vacation. Hugs from Frano, Clare and the sometimes standoffish Lucy (15 mos. into the world) awaited us in Gilmanton, as did the black satin water of Loon Pond. The loons made almost a daily appearance this year. There was too much rain (helping take care of the grandchildren indoors always seems more daunting!). But the sun shone bright for the Rock Party, Mark Mallory's annual party high up in the blueberry fields above the Beaver Pond. Don and Luann's party on the deck at Green Pastures was going strong until a sudden thunderstorm, but there was room for all indoors. Much wrangling ensued at the annual Hottel Listening Party. The subject was "Madame Butterfly," and I made such a good case for Renata Tebaldi's rendition of Un Bel Di over Maria Callas' I managed to convince our group to swing to her side. When we joined the parlor group imagine our surprise they were all going for Victoria de los Angeles!

I have to announce here the stunning victory of my spouse William in the annual croquet match beside Faculty Glade at the Wight House. Tasty hors d'oeuvres (salmon smoked in Alaska by Josh Onion!) and various liquid refreshments helped keep us on track as the light was dimming.

Last night we helped Wendy and Allan Berlind celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary at Jordan's Ice Creamery in Belmont. And tonight we'll be joining Roger and Liz Clark for dinner in Meredith. Tomorrow, on to Albany, and Thursday--Saratoga!!

Then we'll go home on Friday, to Guilford, that is. I think we own a home there. With some boxes in it.

Two months later...

July 9th. For our last night in Palo Alto, the temperature was in the mid-90's. During the day we had emptied the house of all of its contents, piece by piece, into the arms of our movers, who finished around 2 p.m., but then had to come back again because we opened our hall closet and discovered our 2 vacuum cleaners were still there! We tried to sleep in our second-floor room at the Cowper Bed and Breakfast, the fan valiantly trying to cool us off.

July 10. The next day, off to LA. Dinner at Fraiche in Culver City, a French place with excellent food. We arrived at the Fair Oaks Pharmacy in South Pasadena just in time to be served ice cream by great-nephew Riley, at his summer job. His parents joined us, Melinda trying hard not to say embarrassing things to her son, calling him by endearing names, etc.

July 11. Killing time, trying not to go anywhere where we thought my sister and her husband might be. Stayed in hiding, ready for the surprise for their 50th wedding annivesary. At 4 p.m. we joined 100+ well-wishers at San Marino Community Church, waiting for Kathleen to arrive with her parents. They were given a quick choice--be blessed or renew your vows (Janet: "What's a blessing?"--tough choice, it was), but they chose to do the vows, and headed down the aisle. I gave a short little speech and Riley showed the fantastic photo show he had assembled. Then hors d'oeuvres and drinks at the Artist's Inn, a nice way for all of Janet's friends to finally see her bed and breakfast.

On Monday, July 14, we flew to Hartford. On the flight I happened to look over Bill's shoulder as he was reading the NY Times, an article about the early Dutch days in New Amsterdam. The picture of my ancestor Cornelius Melyn (see below posting of March 13th) illustrated the article but mon dieu, the caption said it was a picture of Peter Minuit buying Manhattan from the Indians. So I wrote in to the Times that night at our hotel near the airport, and they printed a correction a few days later. And they thanked me in a separate email. Nice of them. On Tuesday we drove down to see our new house. Already had received the news that the truck with all our belongings would be delayed in coming, something about it being the busy part of the moving season, a shortage of drivers. So we've been getting to know our new town of Guilford, and the nearby towns of Branford and Madison. We have our library cards, of course, and our beach pass. There are two town beaches, one on the Sound with a nice view of salt marshes, the other on a lake--the latter is especially nice to swim in, and it's open til 7 in the evening.

Will have more to report once we actually move in...that should be on Thursday, July 24th. We're sending good thoughts to our driver. His name is Mike.

Connecticut bound

It has been more than a month since the last post. Something to do with buying/selling houses, obtaining a loan. So the dream you read about in the last post is soon to become a reality. In a few months (or sooner!) we will be living in Guilford, Connecticut. And be Nutmeggers.

I believe I am truly lucky. As a child I was entranced with New England, whenever my family travelled there. And the electoral map, well, in those Republican landslides only New England and the SF Bay Area are depicted as blue. The place we are going to has a beautiful public library, excellent local independent bookstores, 2 town beaches, forest paths, and strong, local conservation
groups. A place to write, I think--about time!

This post will be brief. You don't want to hear about how many boxes we have packed so far, and many to come. We've never moved this far. The last time I moved it was...around the block. Please wish us luck. We'll keep in touch. Watch for the next post.

Dreaming of Connecticut

New Jersey does that for you. The scary speed the Jersey drivers take a right turn. The jug handles (and the need to memorize each intersection, whether to get over to the left to make a left turn, or over to the right because there's a jug handle). The varicose-vein map of roads. One can zero in on a Google New Jersey map and there are more roads the closer you look. So we're dreaming of Connecticut. More about that later.

Got to catch up the blog. After my poetry reading in Bridgewater, we took a whirlwind trip to Alexandria on the following weekend. My friend Peggy drove, and we actually arrived at our friend Susan's house in Alexandria almost exactly three-and-a-half hours after we left Princeton. Bill was already there, having taken the train with a daytime stop in Philly. We managed only one art museum in D.C., the Phillips, but it's one of our favorites. Saturday night Susan and Bob put on a nice spread for dinner. Peggy's two daughters, Alicia and Sarah, came along with two of Alicia's friends. And my niece Karen, her husband Fede, and little Elena and Marina came too! A great time was had by all. And on the way home we stopped off in Baltimore's Fells Point, had brunch at the Blue Moon Cafe.

Two days later Bill and I drove up to New England. Our first stop was Guilford, CT, to inspect a condo I had seen on the Internet. We really liked it. I mean we REALLY liked it. Our next stop was Brewster, Mass. on Cape Cod. Even though it was mostly rainy the two days we were there, we had a great time, especially our two dinners out at the Nauset Beach Club and the Brewster Fish House.

On Friday, March 21st, we picked up great nephew Tyler at Boston College, and then met Vicki and Steve Burris in Newton for lunch. Then Tyler came with us up to Gilmanton. The surprise was that we weren't able to stay at Drew Farm, which was surrounded by a fairly high pile of hard-packed snow and ice. We were able to get inside to see that it looked great, no evidence of intruders (the mice/squirrel crew). But we stayed with Bill's cousins, Mark and Nancy. We took Tyler to visit Joe and Lorian, and we also met our downhill neighbors at Drew Farm, a family who is tapping the maple trees at Drew Farm--they presented us with a jug of syrup from our own trees!

On Easter Sunday we attended the annual Easter brunch at Chris and Heather's house. We helped deliver some of the 57 decorated eggs (small egg-shaped cakes with icing on them) that Jo Anna, Nancy, Emily, and even Sharon labored over (I did 3). The food was wonderful, the day was sunny, and we got to talk to lots of family and friends.

On our way home, Bill and I stopped at Guilford again to look at that condo. Hmmm...one could almost imagine living there. Bookcases in every room. A fireplace with Dutch tiles. Beautiful windows everywhere. A view towards woods. A pleasant and private deck. Three bathrooms! A kitchen with a gas stove and a view towards those woods. And the town of Guilford has a decent independent bookstore (the next town over has a fabulous one), a fair coffee place, a couple of really nice restaurants, a beautiful town green, old colonial houses, a town beach, lots of hiking trails, proximity to New Haven and Yale's cultural amenities, and one can get there by train (or bus when the commuter train times don't cooperate). Or get to NYC. Or Boston. And it's not too far from Gilmanton, either. Wendy and Allan Berlind are just up the road in Middletown. What's not to like?

No time to think. Jenny, Phil and the kids arrived in Princeton on Tuesday! A whirlwind of activities. Sharon stayed home one day while the rest of the family went off to Philly for the day. And what was she doing? Well, something to do with real estate, and loans. On Friday we drove up to Millburn with Jenny and Lucy (Phil and the other kids went in their car). Then Bill and I visited with my cousin Betsy Foster and her husband Steve in their home in Verona. It had been a long time since I had seen her--perhaps around 50 years?? The most exciting thing that happened was our stop at my mother's home on South Prospect. The last time we went there, in 2004, the place was delapidated, and we learned later a home for drug trade. The most wonderful surprise was that a young couple with small children have bought it and are fixing it up, making it a beautiful home again. The young wife is Irish, and we have corresponded already via email. I am telling her stories of the people who built the house, my Dutch great grandfather and his two sons.

Back to the Guilford house. It's a condo that's more like a house. Like our home in Palo Alto. But bigger (twice as big). And there are all those bookcases. Let's see what happens. Today as I write this, it is looking very promising. More later.

Catch-up, the blogging treadmill

It's even harder to catch up when you've let this blog go another month without all the highlights missing since the last post. We began our Princeton sojourn on January 16th, had Internet and our library cards by the second day. I started my participation in the poetry world here by attending the U.S. 1 poets reading at the Princeton Public Library on the 23rd, meeting my email friend Carolyn Foote Edelmann, who has put Bill and me in touch with an amazing array of friendly and interesting folks. Bill and I took our first mini-trip to New Brunswick on the 25th, discovered the free-open-to-everyone library there, was able to do some genealogical lookups. On the 29th we were off to NYC for AWP!

What I especially remember from our week in NY: dinners with Bill at 2 restaurants he discovered for us, Boqueria (lively tapas place) and The Little Owl (in Greenwich Village), the latter especially charming; Dan Bellm's wonderful reading at the 92nd St. Y with a stellar group of Jewish poets; a concert by the early music group Parthenia at the Corpus Christi Church on the Upper West side (also another restaurant, Community, nearby); the tiny but absolutely authentic Italian espresso bar, Zibetto, two blocks from the Hilton; and dinner with our friends in Brooklyn at Ozzie's. Oh, and AWP was wonderful, too! Readings by Galway Kinnell, Sharon Olds, Carolyn Forche, Alicia Ostriker, Robert Pinsky--and we sold lots of Rivers books too!

In early February we drove one day to Bryn Mawr and Ardmore, walked around the beautiful campus at Haverford, and attended a poetry reading given by J.C. Todd and Francine Sterle at Robin's Bookstore. Then we wheeled back to Philly that weekend, checked out Moorestown, NJ on the way down (of note is the Gelateria Dolce Crema Artisan Gelato...) and went to a lovely concert in the Old Pine St. Church played by the Philadelphia Ensemble.

The first really lovely snowfall in Princeton occured on Tuesday, Feb. 12. Bill and I walked around the campus, the snow crunchy and strangely silent under our feet. That night I showed up for a U.S. 1 Poets workshop but it seems that I, the Californian, was the only one to brave the "snowy" weather (it really wasn't that bad!). Other Princeton events that week: Philip Lopate on the 13th, and a Schubert concert that evening at the Westminster Choir College.

On Sunday, Feb. 17, after a scary tooth incident (my fragile lower molar attacked by a large nut, then set upon by dentists with silver mallets--does it hurt here? how about there?--luckily my tooth decided to calm down and behave), we headed off to Buffalo, but first we went to visit Joel and Susan in Brooklyn and attended with them a "concert of viols" at the Church of the Transfiguration in lower Manhattan, an amazing English-style church where Bill's parents were married.

On Monday, Feb. 18, we drove to Ithaca (short afternoon stop in Binghamton) and had dinner at the Moosewood Cafe. The next morning we had a lovely snowy walk around the Cornell campus, and especially enjoyed the Art Museum, which had an amazing view of the lake, town, and campus from its top floor. As our car got closer and closer to Buffalo, the weather got snowier and snowier. With Bill's superb snow navigation skills, we "glided" into downtown Buffalo, then managed the elevated highway to the south of town so we could arrive in time for dinner with Jenny, Phil and the kids. Phil escorted us back to our hotel at the end of the evening, which was much appreciated.

On Wednesday we got to see all the kids sledding on the hill next to the Conservatory in the Botanical Gardens. On Thursday Bill and I changed our quarters to the Roycroft Hotel in East Aurora, a lovely arts-and-crafts-style building that was the center of Elbert Hubbard's "Roycroft" experiment in the late 19th and early 20th century. Dinner in the library by the fire was very romantic. We went on a tour of the hotel the next morning, and then Jenny and the girls arrived, and then Phil's sister Annie with her girls and our Frano, and we all had a tasty dinner at Tantalus.

On Saturday, Feb. 23, we drove east to Corning, stopped in at the Corning Glass Museum, decided we HAD to come back the next morning, and did--actually spent another half day. Quite an amazing museum, everything very well displayed and labeled, and truly some miraculous creations in glass. That night we were back "home" in Princeton.

I could mention another trip to Philly for the day (March 2), spent at the Philadelphia Art Museum, mostly to see the very-well-attended (trans.: crowded) Frida Kahlo exhibit. And another visit to Brooklyn (Mar. 5), a tour of Grand Central Terminal with our friends Ruth and Ed, a long lunch at their favorite (and now one of ours...) French cafe on the Lower East Side, Lucien. And then the next day, a gorgeous, clear, sunny day, Bill and I rode the Staten Island ferry. In St. George we visited the Staten Island Borough Hall, saw the WPA murals that depicted scenes from SI history, including a portrait of my ancestor, Cornelius Melyn, who was a patroon of the island in the 1640s. I then walked over to the public library across the street and found lots of info about him I hadn't known before, all photocopied dutifully (80+ pages).

More highlights: attending the monologue The Mad 7, performed by Yehuda Hyman at the Rehearsal Room in the McCarter Theater. That was on March 7.

On March 12th I made my New Jersey debut, reading at the Somerset County Library in Bridgewater. A very nice group that meets to discuss poetry and hear invited poets like myself. Nine in attendance and I sold 3 books!

That should bring us up to date, are you satisfied??

Santa Fe, fever in the snow

This blog is not being kept in an orderly fashion. For instance, you'll notice that the day of posting is February 11, and that we are way behind. Our 3 nights in Santa Fe was like a dream, mostly because I had a 99-100 degree temperature most of the time, and the beginning of a flu-like cough that had the nasty habit of continuing on and on and on. So I would rest in our casita at the Santa Fe Motel and Inn and watch the snow coming down. Bill would show up with delicacies for lunch and dinner we would heat in our microwave. We managed about one major site a day, so we saw the Palace of the Governors and the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. And we hung out at Ecco Espresso and Gelato, where the hot chocolate was truly wonderful and everything else terrific as well.

Tues. morning, January 9, we drove down to Albuquerque where we would catch our train. I was sorry to miss seeing much of the town. Instead we found the Grove Cafe, which I would recommend to anyone, as the menu says, all coffee drinks made with a double shot. The train (Amtrak) was on time, actually it was early--how many times can one say that? We were finally off across the country. The scenery in Northeast New Mexico is stunning. At sunset we arrived at the stop for Raton, where my friend Janine grew up. A lighted star shone from the hill above the town. The next thing I knew it was morning and we were stopped outside Kansas City, which looked a lot like Pittsburgh at that time of day (another stop later on). We spent a few days with Jeanne and Bill in Sleepy Hollow, Illinois, a suburb far west of Chicago that seemed not to have a drop of Chicago blood.

Monday morning, January 14, we followed a beautiful river down through parts of Pennsylvania and West Virginia, stopped for a bit in Cumberland, MD, and then arrived in Wash. D.C. Had a nice dinner with Karen, Elena and Marina at a nearby cafe in Arlington (Whitlow's), also visited a little with Fede, who was preparing for his classes. The next morning we went to the Edward Hopper show at the National Gallery--and I remember one painting I had never seen before of a young couple preparing to go out for the evening, except the man had just gotten home and was catching up on the newspaper, and the women looked bored and ready to just-leave-the-house this minute, one of those Hopper paintings with a heavy plot.

That day we took the train to Philadelphia, stayed in the Alexander Inn, a nice "boutique" hotel right in the center of town [picture at the top of this entry is taken from our room], found Brew-Ha-Ha, now our favorite hangout for espresso in Philly, and hopped a bus to Melograno for dinner, temporarily forgot it was BYOB, so Bill hopped a bus to the nearest liquor store to buy some wine for his sweetheart (effort duly noted), and we proceeded to have a lovely dinner. My ravioli filled with short ribs in a heavenly jus were memorable.

The next morning we went to Morning Glory for breakfast, another regular stop, got the car, had lunch at Caribou, and headed off to Princeton. Well, slo took a short stop to see the condos at the Western Union building, actually I just saw the office which was in a "display" version of the condos, took away literature, head spinning, great neighborhood, is this us??

3rd leg of our cross-country trip: New Mexico

The cows were munching on pale grasses as we glided past them on the road from Deming to Hillsboro, New Mexico. A few times we had to slow down because cows were actually ON the road. After Hillsboro highway 152 narrows through a gorge, at the bottom of which is Percha Creek. We found the lodge where we would be holed up for a few days, The Black Range Lodge, with a group of geologists from the University of Wisconsin Eau Clair. We would have dinner with them and then early the next morning they would disappear, off with their heavy packs full of compasses and rock hammers and orienteering equipment of all types.

I decided it would be good for my brain to try to see how many of them I can still remember. There was Brian, the leader, then another Brian, a swimmer who was avoiding alcohol to keep in training, Herald (interesting story as to how he got the spelling of his name), Anna (formerly an art student, I told her about Judy Chicago), Heidi (a very earnest geologist), Liz (who could talk a mile a minute and we could almost follow her...!), Nathan (who had the cutest Simpsons lounging pants), Shane (whose birthday was celebrated the first night), then there was Aaron and Michelle and Greg, the T.A. from Canada but I can't remember his wife's name...if I think of any others I guess I will get extra credit.

When Bill and I drove to the Emory Pass vista point the sign described the Tertiary Volcanic layers we were looking at, which was nice to share with the students. Our hosts at the lodge were straw bale building enthusiasts. They knew Drew Hubbell, son of Jim Hubbell and friend of Janet and Bruce Richards (see San Diego post), so it was a nice circular connection.

After the 2nd night there, we headed north to Santa Fe.

2nd leg of our cross-country trip: Arizona

Boulders lay on top of each other in surreal piles. Our rented car snaked around bends that the wagon trains once traversed. Outside Yuma helmeted children of all ages surfed down the dune hillsides in dune buggies of all sizes, and there were RV's as far as the eye could see. From Yuma we drove east to Gila Bend for lunch at the Space Age restaurant. Then southeast to Ajo, a delightful and surprising town with arcades on three sides of a grassy plaza. At sunset we were gliding across the Tohono O'odham Indian reservation, stopped at the Shell station in Sells, the colors of the mountains and sky purple against electric blue.



The next day in Tucson we walked around the downtown civic center, St. Augustine Cathedral, the Pima County Courthouse, City Hall and the Federal Building. The latter structure's glass entryway served up a luscious photo op.

1st leg of our cross-country trip: California

On December 24th we drove straight down 5 (not "the 5" as they say in So Cal), and sometimes on 33 (the Busy Bee Bakery fellow made us nice sandwiches in Coalinga: white bread, squirted-on mayonnaise, triangles of American cheese, turkey, lettuce, peppers, tomato). We arrived at San Marino Community Church just in time to see a determined angel rushing up the aisle (the others were gliding or otherwise drifting angel-like)--the determined one was my great-niece Elena, she did a great job.

On Christmas Day the family took the traditional Christmas Day walk. And the day after, William and I headed out to Santa Anita for opening day at the track. Had a great time, beautiful horses, the mariachi bands, none of the beautiful horses won for us so neither of us could gloat.

On Saturday we took the Surfliner down to San Diego and arrived in Point Loma to visit with our friend Janet Richards. At 90+ she took the lead on our walk on Shelter Island. The sky at sunset was lovely, Jim Hubbell's sculptures gleamed, a hulking cruise ship edged its way in the harbor, symbols of danger and waste side by side with Hubbell's gates of peace.