Saturday, June 28, 2008

smoke

Just returned from celebrating my mother's 70th birthday in Graeagle, CA. My sisters and I had planned a surprise long weekend away with her and our families. However the state of California was hit with huge, unprecedented, wildfires in the days before. We arrived in the picturesque Sierra hamlet to find smoky skies and trees hazed with weird orange light. As an asthmatic who suffers after sitting around a campfire for too long I felt an almost instant physical response and as a chronic worrier about climate change I felt a deep emotional one. It was bizarre beyond belief to be sitting around celebrating as the state burned.Watching my children frolic in the strange grey air.

I still haven't seen any articles talking about the flooding in the midwest and the california fires being a result of climate change, though clearly this is what has been predicted....there seems to be a huge cloud of denial along with the smoke.

Friday, June 20, 2008

hot

Has it ever been this hot in June in the Bay Area? It is 9pm and 82 degrees inside my house. We have had more hot days than I can ever remember and fires are already starting up. The whirrr in my brain says "climate change, climate change, climate change" As I folded the dry warm laundry off the line this evening ( a benefit, shirts dried within minutes of being pinned up. I rotated through three loads on my two lines)the cat, Rosie mewed pitifully from the roof. Once more she had gotten herself up there but forgotten how to get down. Is this us, roasting in our fur on the roof, with no awareness of how to escape when in fact we just need to take a leap on to a rickety fence and balance back to the ground? I fan myself and hope....

Monday, June 16, 2008

blue rumbler


alas our biodiesel 1979 Mercedes aka the blue rumbler has some real issues, transmission is slipping, glow plugs are flickering, driver's door sticking. We're going to put her out to pasture...however hope springs eternal! We are buying a 1980 smaller (rumbler was a boat that putted up hills at 10 mph even with the pedal to the metal) version! Hoping to convert to straight veggie oil and have better luck in the repair department.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Father's Day

Here's a poem I wrote a few years ago...


First Period

my father brought me flowers,
cheerful in the vase as I cramped,

embarrassed by their public color,
his male mention of my new body,

Today when I bled
I remembered the cone of blossoms.

Now he is gone.
Now my shame is done.

All that remains is my memory
of petals and stems

and grant us this,
red bloom of truce.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

frogs


My daughter and I collected some pond scum this spring and have been watching the eggs turn to tadpoles and now to frogs. She is delighted and amazed, as am I. I find myself gazing into the tank several times a day to see what changes have happened and when the first pollywog emerged from the deep onto dry land I felt like I was seeing primordial evolution happen before my eyes!

Thursday, June 5, 2008

summer is a coming in

One of the wonderful things about teaching is, of course, summer vacation. In mid-May it feels like summer will never arrive and then there is the amazing rush of early June when it seems I will never get everything done that must be done before the year can end. There are the field days and graduations when I look at the students and think about what they were like 5 years ago when I met them. How tall they've grown, how they look like young men and women instead of kids. There is the sadness of saying goodbye to colleagues who are moving on or retiring. There is the deep appreciation of certain treasured colleagues who stay on. The regret for moments played poorly and pride in those pulled off. I feel moored in a slipstream of time, bobbing up and down on its currents and pulled by the deep tow of my own certain someday voyage on.

Transforming Kehilla Comunity Synagogue Sanctuary

I hope you will come celebrate and see the completed sanctuary on March 21st. There will be a service from 10-12 followed by a reception for...