Category Archives: Around home

Happy Birthday Michele Part IV

Around home, Local events

photo (6)

(iPhone photo by Michele)

For the  final part – presumably – of Michele’s 2013 Birthday Extravaganza, we went to see Anne-Sophie Mutter at the, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill designed, Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco.

Before the performance, we went to a new – for us – Thai Restaurant,  Lers Ros. It was a little bit of a shock with tastes and textures that were new to both of us (atleast with Thai food). I think the restaurant is the Thai equivalent of the introduction of new Hunan Chinese food into our cultural cuisinescape about 50! years ago. Up until last night, every Thai restaurant we have been to – even in Hong Kong – have been pretty much the same. Some were better than others, but all were rifts on an established theme. The food here is hotter and had more pickled veggies than we are used to in Thai food. It was more interesting than the satisfying comfort of the familiar and we want to go back.

Anne-Sophie Mutter is a German violinist we both love from her – our? – CD’s and she was accompanied by the pianist, Lambert Orkis. But, for Michele and me, Mutter was the reason we were there and she didn’t disappoint. We sat in the $15 seats behind and above the stage and, I think, they were better than most of the seats in the house (except that they are benches and they did get harder over time). We had a great time – Anne-Sophie Mutter was great, Lambert Orkis was a more than pleasant surprise, and the Skidmore, Owings & Merrill building just gets better with age –   and, because we do stuff like this so infrequently, it felt very celebratory.

Damp jeans

Around home

Portrait-1-4

The other day I was meeting a friend for lunch, and I was planning on wearing a pair of jeans that I had just washed for the occasion. But, when I had to leave, my jeans – in the drier – were still damp around the edges. They were warm so I decided to put them on and let them finish drying in situ.

Driving to lunch, in the car, in my damp jeans, I started thinking about my Uncle Wilhelm von Borstel, my maternal grandmother’s younger brother. He was 6’6″ tall  and was known as Little Bill because his father’s name was also Wilhelm and stood 6’3″. He was Big Bill and, of course his son became Little Bill even when he grew taller than his father. To me, uncle Wilhelm was more myth than real person.

Typically, around an hundred and twenty years ago, European monarchs had special guards. Wilhelm II, the emperor of Germany – Kaiser in German – had a group of bodyguards called the Garde du Corps Potsdam. To be in Corps, one had to be – at least minor – royalty and over six feet tall.  My Uncle Wilhelm qualified and, as his family was impoverished as well as royal, he ended up in the the Potsdam Guards (as my family called it).

One of the stories  that I heard growing up was that while Uncle Wilhelm was in the Potsdam Guards, he had to get up at four or five – AM – to put his uniform on. Still damp! The uniform was white suede and – as it dried – it became form fitting. Driving in the car, it didn’t seem like a great way to start the day. Maybe occasionally, in the middle of the day, like I was doing, but not every day. Not at five in the morning. On the other hand, at 6’6″ tall with  black-over the knee-boots and a black leather breastplate over the tight, white-suede, cat-suit, Little Bill must have cut an imposing figure. Especially when he was wearing his gold helmet with an eagle on top.

I think that my mother was slightly in love. She was certainly in love with the image: the strikingly good looking young man in the even more impressive uniform. When I turned 16, we took a trip to see him. I think it was a trip in which my mother – who didn’t graduate from highschool – planned to  show off her heritage. Uncle Wilhelm had come to the United States after World war I and even though I had met him a couple of times when I was very young, I really didn’t remember him. He was now living in Alturas, about as far north and as far east as we could drive and still be in California.

When we got to Alturas, he didn’t really live in town, but in a trailer, alongside the highway, a little out of town. Oh! and with a huge hole between his trailer and the highway. It turned out that the State was enlarging the highway and he had dug a hole and moved the dirt to a pile behind his trailer. His plan was to sell the dirt back to the State to augment his day job which was, apparently,  poaching geese. When we got there, Uncle Wilhelm von Borstel greeted us wearing a pair of loose overalls with the fly unbuttoned and he didn’t change for our afternoon get together. It turned out that he didn’t really like to get up early to put on those damp clothes afterall.

(The picture is Wilhelm looking dashing in his uniform, I don’t think my mother kept any pictures of him, in overalls.)

My atrial fibrillation is gone!

Around home, Bay Area Walks

I went to my ablationist, yesterday and he told me that my ablation procedure is a success and my heart is no longer fibrillating. I realize that I am having a hard time believing – accept may be more accurate – that my heart really has been repaired and I have no idea why (maybe I have become attached to the problem, I hope not). The header that I first wrote said My atrial fibrillation ablation seems to be a success and I had to force myself to make it more positive. Either way, I celebrated by going for a walk at one of my favorite walks, Russian Ridge.

Russian Ridge-1

I have been reading John McPhee’s Annals  of the Former World about his discovery of the new geology. Like me, he went to college before the plate tectonics revolution and bumped into it while reading about something else (in my case, I was reading about evolution). The last section of the book is Assembling California and, over the last 40 years, the understanding of California’s geological history has changed even more than California has.

Geologists now know that over the last 60 million years, or so, California has been assembled from a series of  island arcs (that once were parts of the ocean floor that had been uplifted and exposed above sea level). These island arcs – think Japan against Asia – are being swept  into the North American Plate and attaching themselves to North America. (In the process, the Sierra Nevadas got pushed up by the heat generated from the collision.) So, the land that I like to walk at Russian Ridge is the same layers of materials that make up the Pacific ocean floor. It is also to the east of the San Andreas fault, so I am walking on the Pacific Plate, not the North American Plate.

I like that.

I like the walk, too. It starts by slowly climbing around soft, grassy, hills. Last year’s grasses are dry and bent over in clumps in even patterns and this year’s grasses are green and growing between the clumps.

Russian Ridge-1-2

Russian Ridge-1-4

When I cross into the forested area, everything changes.

Russian Ridge-1-5

Russian Ridge-1-6

 

With the trees covered in moss – that is bright green and growing like crazy – and Spanish Moss which is really a member of the Pineapple family (Bromeliaceae). Then it is back into the sunlight and walking – with a view – back to, the car. An easy two and one half miles.

Russian Ridge-1-8

 

 

 

 

,

Happy Birthday Michele Part II

Around home, Local events, Photography

Napa Winetrain-1-3Michele’s birthday, this year, turned into a season that – sort of – bled into Super Sunday (not so super here on the left coast, however). On the day after Michele’s actual birthday, we went on the Napa WineTrain with Michele’s sister, Claudia, her stepdad, Jim, and her Mom. Like any train ride that doesn’t actually go anywhere, it is more of an  amusement park activity than a ride. In this case, the train runs the mid-Napa Valley from the City of Napa to somewhere near St. Helena at about 15 miles per hour. And then returns at 15 miles per hour. Inside, we tasted wine on the way out and had a very nice lunch on the way back.

From the time we arrive at the departure station, done in a sort of old-timey brothel  station temporary-building-decorated-for-New Years style, every effort is made to make sure we are having a memorable experience.

Napa Winetrain-1-5

And, by and large, they succeed.

Napa Winetrain-1-6

Napa Winetrain-1-13

 

Napa Winetrain-1-4

 

Napa Winetrain-1-21

The train goes up the center of the valley and it is a nice way to get a general lay of the land.

Napa Winetrain-1-9

For me it was a way to stake out some buildings that I would like to come back and photograph. The Opus One Winery, for example, which seems to be half buried in an artificial hill and the original Mondavi Winery building designed by Cliff May in 1966 (Cliff May is the designer credited with designing the California Ranch House). For all of us, it was a chance to watch the valley pass by.

Napa Winetrain-1-7

Napa Winetrain-1-11

Napa Winetrain-1-14

This being Napa – the same Napa that is becoming as much about food as wine – we finished the Napa part of the day at the nearby Fatted Calf. The Fatted Calf is an ordinary looking suburban butcher shop – well, maybe not ordinary any more because most butcher shops are in supermarkets and, then, only ordinary looking from the outside – that sells way upscale, organic, pasture raised, meat.

Napa Winetrain-1

Napa Winetrain-1-2

The cost is very high, but Michele sort of works around that by getting stew meat or pork scraps for stir fry. In this case she bought a marinaded pork shoulder for phase III of her birthday season. Then it was home, watching the sunset as we headed south.

Napa Winetrain-1-3