Category: Places

Treasure

Two nearly identical houses across the street from us went on the market today. An artist couple had been living there, but finally they decided to sell.

I was out in our driveway putting racks on our car. I saw a couple pushing a stroller come up to the first house, and I heard a well-dressed woman, presumably the real estate agent, tell them, “We’re not quite ready to open yet. Come back in half an hour.”

When I came back from picking up some plywood, the houses were obviously open. Two or more cars a minute drove slowly down our dead end street, slowing down when they reached the two houses. The sign out in front of the first house said, “Treasure behind door #1.” I didn’t bother to see what the sign in front of the second house said.

Carol went over to look. She said that paintings done by the artists who used to live there are hanging on the walls. She overheard someone say, “…but they won’t appreciate that much because they’re on the wrong side of….” We are on the wrong side of the tracks: gardeners and artists and cab drivers and ministers live down this street; many of us are renters, and the majority of us aren’t white.

But these houses are going for less than half a million, an incredible bargain in the Bay area housing market. So the people keep coming, amazed to find houses for so little money.

Jan 19 2013

The golden hour

We’ve been having a lot of rain and clouds in the Bay area recently, and Carol and I have really been noticing the effect of the shorter days and longer darkness. By three thirty in the afternoon, we begin to feel a little gloomy, and we get gloomier as sundown approaches.

Some years ago, I was visiting my Aunt Martha and Uncle Bob in the autumn, at the time of year when you really begin to notice that the days are growing shorter. As sunset approached, I mentioned something about not liking the loss of daylight.

Aunt Martha looked out the window, and said, “Your uncle and I call this the Golden Hour.” And indeed, outside the window the sky was becoming golden.

Uncle Bob got up and said, “We usually have tea right about now. Would you like some?”

I helped him in the kitchen. Then we all sat down to tea and snacks while we talked about family and current events and anything else that came to mind. I felt my mood perceptibly lightening.

Earlier this autumn, I happened to remember that visit with Aunt Martha and Uncle Bob, and now I have taken to thinking of that late afternoon hour as the Golden Hour. And if I’m at home with Carol, I’ll turn to her and say, “Want me to make some tea?” She always says yes, so I make some tea. Soon we sit down to tea and snacks, and we both feel our moods perceptibly lightening.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Scroogemas…

Susan and I were standing outside the Main Hall yesterday morning, waiting for the first service to begin. A fifth-grade girl walked up, wearing a red sparkly t-shirt. I asked if she was dressed for the Christmas season. She said she was.

I introduced her to Susan, and added, “Susan and I are both Scrooges.”

The fifth-grader looked a little surprised, and maybe skeptical.

“Here, we’ll show you,” I said. “Ready, Susan?” Susan nodded.

And in perfect unison we said: “Bah! Humbug!”

The fifth-grader laughed to see two otherwise respectable middle-aged adults act like Scrooges. This is why you bring your children to a Unitarian Universalist congregation: so they learn what adults are really like.

Temperature inversion

The weather forecast said that today would be the hottest day of the heat wave, with temperatures expected to climb up to ninety-five degrees: just the kind of fall weather in which temperature inversions form. Sure enough, as I drove across the San Mateo Bridge this morning, I realized the air closest to the ground had a definite yellowish tinge; above a certain altitude, about a thousand feet there was an abrupt transition from that yellowish color to no color at all. The heat and sunlight was creating smog, and a temperature inversion was keeping the smog from dispersing upwards. My throat has felt a little raw since the hot weather, and the attendant temperature inversions, began two days ago, and now I could see the cause of the rawness: the nasty yellow-tinged smog I was breathing in.

Hazy and hot

We’re having one of those Bay area hot spells that come in late September or October. As I drove across the San Mateo Bridge, I looked ahead at the Peninsula. The hills of the Coastal Range were pale blue in the haze. I could see horizontal bands where the hills were more or less obscured: temperature inversions. When I got back to San Mateo and rolled down the car windows, there was a faint smell of smog in the air, and the temperature must have been over ninety degrees. And it’s supposed to be hotter tomorrow. And it’s supposed to continue for several days….

Rainbow

It rarely rains in the Bay area in summer time, but today we had a few scattered rain showers.

Just now, I was sitting at my desk, and happened to look up at the sky. I can’t see much of the sky from where I sit: trees and buildings limit my view. But there, in the small portion of the sky I could see, was part of a rainbow. I stepped outside to look at it. There was one small rain shower coming down from the clouds to the east — I could see the gray streaks of rain — and a little patch of sunlight just happened to light up that portion of the sky, causing a rainbow that encompassed about fifteen degrees of a complete circle.

I stood and watched it for about five minutes. At its brightest, there was the main spectrum, then immediately under it a smaller spectrum, the blue of the larger one fading directly into the red of the smaller one, and under that an even smaller spectrum. But soon the rain shower drifted out of the patch of sun, and the rainbow faded away.