Nature in the City

When I woke up this morning, I could see nothing outside. The sliding door was fogged up, and the whole hillside was shrouded in fog. But I could hear the birds chirping, and they sounded happy. And then the sun came out!

I may complain that we're on the wrong side of the apartment building so we don't have a view of the city, or that we have to walk too far to grab a bite to eat or a drink, but I really am glad I have this slice of nature in the bustle of the city.

Everyday when I see the city in the sunset glow, or the sun shining off the bay, or when I drive around a corner and see the Golden Gate Bridge or the waves breaking on Rodeo Beach, I smile. My goal is to not become complacent with these spectacular views. Even my own piece of grassy hillside. So don't let me complain.

Happy New Year's! I hope you can hear birds chirp wherever you are as well.

Good to a Fault - Marina Endicott

This is the second book in my Giller Prize Shortlist marathon - another excellent book that drew me in completely, but because of the ending, overall I didn't like it as much as Through Black Spruce.

I think that it is really the characters in this book that make it, rather than the plot.  All of the characters seem like people I could know, and I could especially relate to Clara, the main character.  However unlike Annie in Through Black Spruce, I don't think that Clara could have been written by a male author, and even the male characters seem less real-to-life than the female characters.

The main story has to do with Clara, a middle-aged woman who leads a very solitary and isolated life, who, after a car accident, invites the family in the other car into her house and life.  Predictably, chaos ensues, and predictably, she learns to love the family as her own, and predictably she is upset when she is left alone.  Not much in terms of plot.  There is also a love story as a subplot, as well as the story of Lorraine, the mother in the other car, who is fighting cancer.

But because the characters were so well written, I couldn't put this book down as I was reading it (and stayed awake far too late last night to finish it).

My one disappointment with this book was the ending.  In that there wasn't one.  The book just sort of ended with no resolution of the various threads.  Quite a let-down to have invested the time to read a book, only to not find out what happened at the end!  Maybe she was leaving room to plan for a sequel (to give the author the benefit of the doubt) - I would love to see these characters back in another book.

So that's 2 Giller shortlisted books down, 3 left to go.  So far, the committee made the right decision...

Through Black Spruce - Joseph Boyden

This is the book that won this year's Giller Prize.  Since I usually enjoy the Giller winner, I was looking forward to reading this book, and it did not disappoint me.  In fact, I splurged and bought all of the Giller shortlisted books, so once I have finished reading them all, I will know if the committee made the right decision!

Through Black Spruce is one of the best, if not the best, book I have read this year.  It is based in and around Moosonee and Moose Factory in northeastern Ontario (interesting to note that both last year's and this year's Giller went to a "Northern" book), and stretches out to the James Bay "bush" as well as Toronto, Montreal and New York.  The style of the book is different, and it took me a couple of chapters to catch on - the story is told in the first person, and the chapters alternate between Will Bird who is lying in hospital in a coma telling the story of how he ended up there to his niece; and his niece Annie who is telling her uncle what she has been up to since she last saw him.

The contrast between the two stories is very marked - as Annie ends up more and more involved in the modeling world down south, her uncle is heading out in the bush with only what he can carry in his float plane.  Annie is one of my favourite literary characters - a strong and independent woman, very well drawn, and very perceptive of the author, particularly considering that the author is male!

I can't come up with enough superlatives to describe this book - I couldn't put it down, and was totally immersed in the story and the setting and the characters' lives.  This is apparently the second book in a trilogy, so I really must hunt down a copy of Three Day Road, the first book, and I look forward to his next book.

And One More Passes...

Matt and I have had a busy year.

I quit one job in March to take another one that was going to be the one I kept, only to quit that job in September. I have basically been unemployed ever since - 3.5 months! - and bringing in only minuscule amounts of money from my "freelancing."

We moved twice; once across town in Albuquerque to a house that I thought had better landlords, and where I enjoyed the front porch but hated the gunshots. Next, across the West to San Francisco, where more than twice as much money did not even come close to renting us another stand-alone. But the scenery makes up for it.

Matt was uprooted from his school again, this time much farther away, when he followed me to the Bay. He traded sometime schoolwork for actual paying work, while his adviser still prods him to finish.

We took trips to exciting places like Pittsburgh and Michigan, but my sister was nice enough to bring me to Ecuador.

My sister and brother-in-law returned home to Phoenix from Europe and are now expecting their first baby. (While my sister says my birthday present is to find out the sex, I think the present will be if it's a girl...)

We had a lovely visit from GLOBE while still in New Mexico, and since being in California, we have seen some friends from New Mexico, my parents, and my sister and brother-in-law (all of whom were in town for some other reason but were nice enough to humor us with a visit - my parents on a brief but out-of-the-way stop between AZ and Vegas).

We also spent Christmas at our own home for the first time ever where we ate vast quantities of Italian food.. Although I saw my family, Matt was deprived of his.

Meanwhile, the world got more depressing. The economy tanked, the safe haven for gay marriage was rendered not so safe, people still died in Afghanistan, sexism still thrived, and my preferred presidential candidate lost.

Here's hoping that 2009 will bring peace to more people around the world, as I have found some peace of my own in San Francisco.

[And despite the fact that I took the time to make all these links, I still haven't taken the time to write my AGU blogs or discuss the great museums I've been to. Maybe one day...]

A Day at the Museum

www.calacademy.org

Most people who know me understand that I am not a museum lover. I am too bored to read the signs, I would generally rather be outside, and I don't want to pay the exorbitant prices to get in. Hell, I sat outside in the park in front of the Louvre and waited there for my sister rather than go in. I am a strange bird. (I did enjoy my recent visit to the DBG, however.)

At any rate, I have been super excited about the new California Academy of Sciences. I have heard much about it, largely because it was designed by Renzo Piano and constructed sustainably, featuring a green roof, loads of recycled materials, gray water, and more. However, it is also awesome. It features a 4-story rain forest, a large climate change exhibit, an aquarium, a planetarium, and penguins!

[Like many other veggies I suspect, I struggle with the ideas of zoos and aquariums. However, all of the CalAcademy's penguins are captive hatched, so they probably couldn't survive in the wild anyway. And I have heard multiple stories from NPS staff who took aquatic specimens to the Academy for a variety of reasons - animals that had to be moved during restoration, ocean creatures brought up when they removed a nasty old net. So I think, that overall, the ability for a child (or me!) to touch a starfish and discover wonder and awe of the natural world, is probably worth it, at least in this case. I totally understand how one might disagree though.]

Anyway, I'm rambling (as usual). Matt's office party involved a trip to the CalAcademy, to which I was invited. After spending a 40 minute commute, partly standing on a crazy, out-of-control bus, I arrived to meet them at the museum only to discover that they were running very late. After threatening to go home (because I'm terrible like that), I decided to wander across the Music Concourse to check out the deYoung Museum as there was a Maya Lin exhibit I wanted to see anyway. So I spent $18 and 1.5 hours in a whirlwind visit to an art museum. (Actually a long time for me, as I got through the Uffizi in just 30 minutes.) I would even go back. There were fantastic photographs, Hudson River School paintings (influential in the establishment of National Parks), an amazing Asian Art exhibit, and crazy outfits by Yves Saint Lauren (thanks so much for letting women wear pants!). Also some Chihuly pieces that definitely did not look as pretty without the cacti next to them, as I suspected.

Then off to CalAcademy with about an hour before closing time. No time for the rainforest and planetarium, as the lines were too long. We checked out the green roof, the aquarium (yay fuzzy starfish!), the climate change exhibit, and the penguins (really stinky!). We plan to buy a membership so we can go back repeatedly and drag all our guests there.

I highly recommend both museums, even for museumphobes like me. I think even non-science geeks would enjoy CalAcademy. Some day I hope to work there.

Gospel For Lost Not Church

Many well meaning Christians are inviting non-Christians to come to their church activites over Christmas. I am sure their heart motive is right but what we should be doing is inviting people to come to Christ not church. Church is for the saved, the gospel is for the lost. We just need to be faithful with the gospel message. Jesus said "I will build my church" so lets stop trying to do his job and just get on with ours.

Just Watched: WALL-E

www.amazon.com

I loved this movie! Matt claims it's for kids, but I disagree. It has all sorts of adult-world implications and is heart-warming, just as movies should be in the holiday season. Also check out the short "BERN-E" in the special features. 7 minutes of hilarity!

Remember When Matt Set the Apartment Complex on Fire?

Yesterday morning when Matt was getting ready for the day, he was complaining that the bathroom was cold. Thinking quickly on my feet, I suggested that he turn on the heater. (The heating for our apartment is not central, but consists of three built-in space heaters - one in the living area, one in the bedroom, and one in the bathroom.) We had never turned on the heaters since they are notorious for causing fires. Since Matt is therefore afraid of the heaters, naturally I assumed that he would ignore my advice, and he did not say anything to make me think differently.

Several hours later we were sitting at the airport, waiting for our friends, when Matt asked me if I'd turned the heater off. I thought he was joking. Nope. Unbeknownst to me, Matt had in fact turned the heater on, not told me about it, and then failed to turn it off before we left for the day. Folks, these are not the kind of things you leave on unattended. I started to freak out, but I hadn't noticed the bathroom being hot, so I tried not to worry too much.

However, when we pulled up to our apartment complex, the entrance was blocked by - guess what! - a fire truck! And then, as we parked on the street, along came another fire truck, complete with siren.

Oh my gosh!

Matt really did start a fire!

We'll be evicted from our home and our friends will have nowhere to stay. And they might not be our friends any longer! And we'll have nowhere to live! And what if someone got hurt! Or worse! I think I'm having a heart attack!

The horror!

***

Okay, not to let you down slowly or anything, but there really was no fire in our apartment. Just a terrible, terrible coincidence.

Just Watched: Last King of Scotland

www.amazon.com

Despite the fact that I have enjoyed other movies set in Africa that depict quite horrible events (Blood Diamond, Hotel Rwanda, Tsotsi), this movie was too much for me. Scenes I hoped were dream sequences simply were not. The entire movie was very much real, with extremely bad things happening to characters that had been developed and known to the audience. The trauma did not happen to nameless, faceless characters.

I will never watch this movie again. Perhaps we should watch it at least once to get a grasp of the evil still happening in much of the world. But once was my limit. If you do watch it, do not go into it innocently like I did - Oh a silly, young Scottish doctor in Africa who likes to sleep with the ladies. How amusing. It is not.

Science Writing Part Deux

Next week I will be attending part of the annual American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting here in San Francisco. I will be learning about water resources, climate change, likely effects of climate change on water resources, how to communicate this information to the public, and how to better apply science to policy. In addition, I have a press pass, so just for fun I may go to some press conferences on new and exciting topics to me like new information on why the dinosaurs went extinct, what's going on in outer space, peak oil, and the arctic.

Is anyone interested in reading blogs about these topics?

Cut-Throat Journalism

Recently a friend asked me in a (honest-to-god) letter, how my lunch with Frank was, and I realized I had completely forgotten to blog about Frank from way back in September.

Who is Frank? Frank was the environment editor at the LA Times. Although Frank had a bad reputation for being crusty and well, kind of an ass, I totally stuck up for Frank. He was always extremely nice to me despite the fact I knew nothing about journalism. After he got laid off from the paper part-way through my fellowship, another editor who sat near us confessed to me that she'd never before seen the side of Frank that he showed me.

Frank, as it turns out, moved to New Mexico just before I left. He'd been in contact with me because he wanted to see me and discuss, as he put it, the sorry state of water and the even sorrier state of journalism. Naturally I was eager to meet with Frank, although I had hardly any free time left before I moved. After all, he had been my mentor as I entered the dark and scary world of journalism. I assumed he was planning to continue his role as mentor while I also contributed some information on the New Mexico water world so he could have some background for future articles.

Well, I met Frank at a quiet little Mexican restaurant. After about 5 minutes of me answering Frank's questions about my future, Frank pulled out his reporter's notebook and proceeded to grill me about any and all possible story ideas that could come from the NM OSE, my lovely employer at the time. Although I would in a heartbeat agree that the OSE is inept, most of what I knew about the agency certainly didn't merit investigative journalism. Frank continued to think that I was holding back, and assured me that I could get in contact with him again after I left the agency if I felt more comfortable. Those were basically his last words to me as he dropped me off back at the office.

So after I'd stuck up for this guy through his last days at the paper, he had the nerve to try to use me. No offer to help find me a job. No nothing.

And that is why I've always been suspicious of journalists. And why I've never wanted to be that kind of pushy journalist, or the kind who has to run out after the speaker at a conference to get the first interview, as I was reminded at NASW. No wonder people think the media can't be trusted. Some of them obviously give us a bad name. Too bad it had to be Frank.

Just Watched: The Diving Bell and The Butterfly

www.amazon.com

I confess that I saw this movie before reading the book. For some reason it didn't occur to me until just now that maybe I should read the book. Somehow, despite the fact that the entire movie (nearly) is about the book, my mind glossed over that fact. Anyway.

This movie is about Jean-Dominique Bauby, former editor of Elle, who suffered a stroke but after waking up from his coma with locked-in syndrome, proceeded to write a book through dictation by blinking one eye-lid. He died of pneumonia just 10 days after publication of this book. However, I was worried that the movie might be a touch, well, boring. I mean, watching a guy blink one eye-lid over and over? Come on.

However, I was pleasantly surprised. The movie, filled with many beautiful women, all of them loved in some way by Bauby, was quite inspiring and beautiful in and of itself. The sequences of lustful imagination, the precious moments with his children, the lovely relationship with the woman taking his dictation, and the gorgeous seaside. All fabulous. I was at times confused by which woman he was fantasizing about, but Matt was able to keep better track, for some reason... I didn't even find the somewhat blatant sexism offensive, as, if that is all you have to live for, well then, go ahead. More power to you.

Recommended.

St Stephens Church Exeter

On Saturday a small group of us stood beside St Stephens Church in the centre of Exeter to witness and proclaim Christ crucified. One of the team was handing out tracts and was approached from someone in authority from within the building and politely asked to stand aside as "We wouldn't want people to think you are associated with us!"

The Queen's Lady - Barbara Kyle

Back to fluff - this time set in Tudor England, an era that I have been fascinated with since I was young.  I still remember reading children's books about Queen Elizabeth, Lady Jane Gray, Mary, Queen of Scots...  The highlight of our family trip to England when I was 13 was a trip to the Tower of London, which I had read so much about!  (As an aside, it is interesting to note the recent interest in this period of history, with the books and movie of The Other Boleyn Girl - I liked the first couple of books, but then they seemed to fade away - as well as the television series The Tudors, which I can't stand).

The Queen's Lady of the title is Honor Larke, ward of Sir Thomas More, lady in waiting to Queen Catherine of Aragon (first wife of King Henry VIII) at a time when she has fallen out of favour with the King.  I thought that she was really well written, with lots of layers and complexities.

On the other hand, I did not like how Sir Thomas More was portrayed.  He is a person that I had always admired for staying true to his beliefs, but in this book, he is little more than a monster at times.  And an inconsistent, unpredictable character in this book.  He went from being gentle to brutal to loyal to insane.  He seemed like a different person each time he appeared.  I don't know if this is a true picture, but I didn't enjoy it.

One thing that I found fascinating were the religious arguments.  At various times, the case for Catholicism, Protestantism, and Atheism were given (Honor herself was raised a Catholic, then became involved in helping the "heretics" ie Protestants escape England across the Channel, then became an Atheist after some brutal experiences at the hands of the fanatical cult-like Anbaptists.  You could almost say that this is a story set in Tudor England, told through the story of the Reformation.

Overall, it was an easy read, perfect for this past week when I have been feeling unwell.  I think next up with have to be Utopia by Thomas More though, a book that figured greatly in this one.

Faith and Hope Separated

It was with sadness we learnt of the death of the separated twin Hope. Her sister Faith is recovering from the eleven hour operation which separated the conjoined twins. London's Great Ormond Street Hospital said week-old Hope Williams had died shortly after the procedure to divide her from her sister Faith.
As Christians we are admonished to "Continue in the Faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the Hope of the Gospel." Colossians 1:20. Faith and Hope must stand together because when they are separated death often occurs. Hope died at the expense of Faith. However Faith continues and where there is Faith can Hope ever truly die?

Just Visited: Chihuly The Nature of Glass

My more cultured family members suggested we go check out this exhibit at the Desert Botanical Garden over Thanksgiving weekend. The artist, Dale Chihuly, apparently has "revolutionized" the art of handblown glass. Some of you may be familiar with the ceiling sculpture at the Bellagio?

I will say, straight up, that if I saw these pieces in a standard museum setting, I would have thought they were quite gaudy. However, mixed in with the beautiful desert plants, the exhibit was really pretty fascinating. It's certainly not something you would see every day.

Tickets are 15 bucks and require advance reservations, and there are people everywhere. But if it's a nice day, I would check it out.

Just Read: The World Without Us

www.betterworld.com

It appeared from the boarding pass I found in this book, by Alan Weisman, that the last time I had picked it up was on my trip to Michigan this past July. It's a dense book, full of well-researched examples from all over the earth, about what would (or will?) happen after the human population is gone. I recall finding it interesting, but obviously I went nearly half a year without picking up the book again. (In my defense, I have been on one of the longest fiction kicks of my life.)

So while I was stuck in the airport for several hours, waiting for my flight home from Thanksgiving weekend, I finally finished the book! What's the message? We've done a lot of crap to the world (no surprise), some of it will outlast us for eons and some of it won't, and at least some of the other species will probably adapt to whatever crazy world we've left behind. Weisman's only hope seems to be that if each woman only had one child, we could actually improve our situation.

We all know that I agree with that concept. There are plenty of kids out there needing homes if you really must raise more than one chilid. But, to each his own. Maybe we're doomed anyway, so what's the point? Isn't that a bright note!

Bottom line: interesting read, but not I book I plan to keep on the shelf for posterity.