walked to evergreen cemetery today. it's so lovely. the last time i was there i didn't get a chance to really look over the graves. this time i went slowly through each section. i took many photos too. i was a little disappointed with the light though. i thought i had gone at a good time but the sun was sinking behind the hills by the time i arrived. on the way home when i emerged from the gully which houses the cemetery the light was perfect! but of course not for taking pictures in the cemetery. i suppose morning would be the best time for that. in any case it was a wonderful walk. there are ripe blackberries in the cemetery and surrounding woods! whoot! i stood browsing for quite a while. i don't reckon the dead folks will mind my foraging. the best part of the walk however was when i discovered wild hazelnut and thimbleberry growing on a hillside! i was made so happy by the discovery! none of the thimbleberries were any good though. they were quite shriveled up. one of the little hazel trees had set a nut but when i reached for it it dropped from the branch and tumbled down a ravine. i want to electroform the wee things (among others) for my etsy shop. the good news is the branches are loaded with tiny green catkins*! so. eventually there will be nuts. bay fruit littered the ground. it was mostly chewed up. there must be some very fat and contented squirrels living in that wood. i had wanted to gather some bay fruit for my father so that he could start more seedlings but i couldn't find any ripe ones within reach. darn. i did find clusters of bigleaf maple samara. the squirrels looked to have been nibbling on those a great deal too. i gathered up as many as i could fit in my moleskine. i'm going to add them to the electroform pile along with the quaking grass i picked on the walk home. the breeze was just coming up from the sea as i walked through a field of quaking grass and wild oats all dried and rattle-y. there was a great shushing sound. very pretty indeed.
i completed my mission to find shoes today. hooray! i walked into the shoe shop and asked if they carried plain black low-top cons. the shop girl said they did and asked my size. she excused herself and went to the stockroom to grab some. she brought them out and started to unwrap them. i told her not to bother. it's the same shoe i get every time. those and a pair of men's beat up denim overalls were my uniform from the age of fifteen to about the age of twenty-four. i miss my overalls sometimes. but i digress. as soon as i'd paid for my cons i plunked myself down on a bench and put them on. it is so nice to be comfortably shod once again. i was however a little peeved that these simple shoes which i used to buy for about $15.00 now cost a ridiculous $40.00. they are made of canvas and rubber! i should create a shoe last and just start making my own. <--- sometimes when i have an idea like this it makes me feel as though i'm standing on the threshold of crazy miserly old lady shut-in. all i need is a tiny tap and then it's good-bye days of youth and hello curmudgeonesshood.
today i took a lovely walk down along the river. it made me so happy to find wild rose blooming there! some of the roses had set fruit. so bright and red. oenothera and jupiter's beard and sweet scabious are all blooming there too. ducks turned themselves wrong side up in quiet little coves. at the end of the footpath i stopped a little old lady to ask if i was heading toward water st. she acted very surprised and said "oh dear! you are sure taking the long way! i hope you like to walk!" and i said " i very much do!" she laughed and said she was delighted and that she likes to walk too. it was pretty adorable. though her hair and general appearance did make her look as though she might live in a gingerbread shack and push me into an oven if i wasn't careful. i walked on. in front of the tailor's shop a drunken blind man who was dressed like an elegant chimney sweep (complete with beaver top hat and shabby swallow-tail coat) talked to a man with a ukulele strapped to his back. jasmine and nasturtium hung like huge bunting from old houses with spidery corbels. at the end of the line i sat in a parlor and talked to three very delightful people and one delightful cat by the name of linus. i hope i will hear from those folks again.
it was ungodly hot today. this is what the local weather report says: Mountain temperatures are expected to be in the 90s to 110 again on Sunday. it was 91 indoors today and 107 outside. and cloudy. really rather unbearable. there's no air conditioning at chez mary.
i've just arrived home from a lovely visit with my friend b---. she works as a police dispatcher so she keeps odd hours. i am often awake until the wee hours too. she regaled me with interesting tales. her line of work seems to supply an endless stream of those. some of them horrific. others very touching. i was excited to learn she and her husband have been spending time with a friend who is a native nahuatl speaker. it's a language i'd like to learn more about. yay!
father came and nabbed me this afternoon. he had a hankering to steal plums and he'd provide the ladder. fair enough. the plums are not as sweet/tart as the mirabelles. sadly there are few mirabelles now because pg&e came and cut back the thicket the other day. of course they couldn't wait another two weeks so that i could gobble them up. i will make due with the stolen plums from today. they are yellow with a red blush. sweet and a bit tart but not very plum-y. they'll make decent jam and maybe a plum sorbet if i'm feeling very ambitious in the next few days. which is doubtful.
the moon was huge and orange tonight. sister and i walked. the air smelled of damp straw. for some reason boy scouts were milling around in the dark. sister took a picture of a fallen leaf. i picked three flowers of frog's fruit from the ditch. when we came round again to sister's door she gifted me with three packs of 600 film for the sx-70. i'm well pleased.
went to the landfill yesterday morning. at 10 o'clock it was already very hot outside. the landfill makes me sad. one isn't allowed to take things away but only deposit them. people throw away perfectly useable items rather than donating them to thrift stores etc. as we were unloading household waste i noticed someone had dumped bolts of fabric. perfectly useable fabric! i waited until the attendant wasn't looking and stole the bolt on the top of the pile. it hadn't touched any trash and was clean. i think the attendant became suspicious after he turned and saw me shutting the truck door. he watched me like a hawk afterward. it's such a shame that for reasons of liability people can't remove things from the dump. it's rather depressing. we're a litigious nation. a pretty wasteful one too. but i guess i should be thankful that i'm free to complain of these things (patriotism!).
went for a drive into the mountains with sister's holgaroid in tow. haven't been on that road in ages. when i emerged on the other side of the mountain range i tried to take a hereford bull's photo. he stood patiently for the first exposure and then lost interest. the exposure didn't come out. naturally.
