Sunday bird blogging

Another towhee (or maybe the same towhee) in Berkeley a while back.

Yesterday I was waiting for the bus down Fifth Avenue after class—the knee was very achy and there was no possibility of walking all the way home—and when a bus finally came, it was so crowded it didn't even stop. The MTA app said the next bus wasn't due for another ten minutes, so I sat down on a bench by the park wall and closed my eyes. And one of my fellow passengers came over to get me a couple of minutes later. “A bus is coming! And it's empty!” I would probably have missed it if she hadn't alerted me and that little kindness made my day, almost as much as the student who'd told me my class was “awesome” earlier that afternoon.

It's difficult to feel optimistic about anything right now, so I try to revel in the positive moments when I can.

Sunday bird blogging

A California towhee enjoying the sun earlier this summer.

Sunday bird blogging

I actually saw a double-crested cormorant sitting on a piling in the Hudson River yesterday. I have never seen one in New York before.

It was gray and drizzly and the bird was too far away to photograph, so here's a picture of a different cormorant in Lake Anza in Berkeley.

Saturday reflections

Palm trees reflected in a car window in Berkeley.

Golden hour

Some of the grasses on the verge in the golden light of late afternoon, and a house taking the theme of native plants to a beautiful conclusion

So succulent

This photo of a plant in the garden in Berkeley looks like it has a filter on it, but it doesn't.

There is a noticeable shift in Berkeley towards using succulents and (presumably) native grasses in the parkway strips on the sidewalk verges and islands instead of flowers.

California has worn me quite thin

I've had Jimmy Buffett as an earworm ever since I got home Monday night—well, technically, Tuesday morning—though it wasn't California's fault. There was a problem with air traffic controller staffing at Newark, though I didn't know that until after I got home. I stayed at an airport hotel Sunday night because I was scheduled for an early flight Monday. That flight was cancelled, and I was booked on an afternoon flight instead. Then that flight was cancelled, and I was put on the redeye.

I had a doctor's appointment Tuesday morning, but I wouldn't have wanted a redeye anyway. I logged in to reschedule, and there was only one option, a flight leaving in less than an hour, with a stopover in Austin. I dashed to the airport, made the flight, and got to Austin on time. Where we waited. And waited. Our two-hour layover turned into seven hours, and it was almost two in the morning when we finally landed at Newark.

Not that we were able to disembark; there was no one available to drive the jetway. So we waited some more, and I finally got to bed at four am.

I am starting to understand why people hate to travel. But here's a flower from the garden where I stayed in Berkeley, a really magical place that was maybe, maybe worth all the stress of getting home.

Sunday bird blogging

A fairly terrible picture of a scrub jay enjoying breakfast in the garden here.

Eden

My AirBnB in North Berkeley has a wonderful garden, lush and half-wild, full of bees and butterflies. And I have been spending a lot of time in it after a bad fall on the sidewalk on Sunday night which left me bruised and a little shaky. I have a lot of reading still to do for my Oxford program next month, and I have found that sitting in the shade in the garden and watching the swallowtails and hummingbirds makes it possible (barely) to wade through the impenetrable thickets of Henry James's prose.

At any rate, I have managed to finish The Turn of the Screw, and am pleased to realize that I still hate it every bit as much as I did when I was younger and much more inclined to decide I liked certain books because I felt that I should rather than because I actually did.

I'm very glad that I never have to try to teach my English students to parse something like this:

It was a pity that I should have had to quaver out again the reasons for my not having, in my delusion, so much as questioned that the little girl saw our visitant even as I actually saw Mrs. Grose herself, and that she wanted, by just so much as she did thus see, to make me suppose she didn’t, and at the same time, without showing anything, arrive at a guess as to whether I myself did!

Back to the Bay Area

I'm leaving tomorrow, for a brief stop in Reno and then on to Berkeley. So I want to post these pictures from last year's trip before I start collecting new ones: the view from Mount Tam and some nearby wildflowers, and the always amazing view from Cesar Chavez Park in Berkeley.

The cat is apparently alive

I went looking for water pictures and found this from Berkeley in April. A long way from the Mediterrean but peaceful water views have always been the thing I enjoyed most about ship travels.

I'm flying to Heathrow tonight, and on to Athens tomorrow afternoon. I have a pre-cruise tour of Classical Greek sites, and the cruise proper leaves on Friday.

I guess we're really doing this.

Sunday bird blogging

My summer vacation is almost over and I have done almost none of the things I meant to do, including finishing going over older photos. But here's one from Berkeley, earlier this year: some lovely architectural detail on a house, a framing tree, and the warm light of the golden hour.

And, if you look closely, a downy woodpecker in the tree.

Sunday bird blogging

I would have loved to get a closeup of this turkey hanging out by the freeway in Berkeley, but I was in a moving car and had to admire those wonderful tail feathers from a distance.

More visions by the Bay

More examples of the beautiful light at Cesar Chavez Park in Berkeley.

We had set off for a lunch in Sonoma, only to find ourselves sitting in an immobile sea of cars -- the Richmond bridge was closed in both directions due to falling concrete. But an afternoon stroll along the Berkeley Marina was more than consolation. It's a beautiful view and the light was exquisite.

Sublime light

Amazing light today at Cesar Chavez Park in Berkeley, looking across the bay to the Golden Gate Bridge.

Sunday bird blogging

A redwing blackbird pair by the Berkeley Marina.

One more

This time with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background.

Wild grasses

Grasses growing by the water at the marina.

(Another way I know I'm in California.)

Kite runners

We spent the afternoon down by the bay, taking a leisurely walk through Cesar Chavez Park, followed by a late lunch. There was apparently an Under the Sea theme at the kite concession at the Berkeley Marina, as the sky was full of colorful fish, octopi and jellyfish, swimming through the clear blue air.