What a good day it has been. The cats left us alone long enough to sleep in until almost ten. I tumbled out of bed and went over to the hot tub where I soaked away sore muscles while admiring the beauty of a golden-leaved birch silhouetted against a bright blue sky. When I came out I stood craning my neck to watch long, wavering wedges of geese fly overhead, wave after wave heading in exactly the same direction. I came home and made breakfast, sipped my coffee while reading the paper, and tidied up the backyard. I noticed the salvia has put out five or six deep blue flowers despite the near-freezing temperatures at night. I moved a lot of the containers into what I hope is a slightly sunnier position. The cats helped me by stalking leaves and leaping on each other.
In the afternoon I worked on rubber stamping my Christmas cards and catching up with e-mail. Rick McGinnis and I are writing our own survey which we will soon loose upon the world. I rearranged our questions to make a more cohesive set and decided we're just about ready. Around one John and I drove to the Cow Palace in San Francisco for an antiques and collectibles show. I noticed the old donut shop at Ocean and Mission is now a Popeye's. I remember going to the donut shop with Phil Paine. Simon Agree was probably with us. We three were inseparable in 1983. It seems like a hundred years ago.
At the show I found a wonderful artifact from the early sixties (I would describe it to you here but the intended recipient is a regular reader of these pages) and turned to the dealer to ask its price. To my delight, the dealer was an old friend, Pat Ellington. I hadn't seen her since I moved back to the Bay Area, and I didn't know she was in the collectibles business. We did a bit of catching up and I bought the artifact. I wandered around some more, looking at ceramics, and silver, and lithographs going foxy around the edges. The show was enormous, but I wasn't terribly tempted by anything. Table after table of junk, basically, some of it lovely but most of it merely old.
John scored an old Sear catalog, and we decided we'd had our fill of antiquing. We took off for the SF Zoo's special Christmas night for members only. Overhead, the sky was going peach and gold at sunset. Most of the animals were inside, since it was growing pretty chilly, but the tapir was bounding around in its pen and making its snout elongate and shrink like anything as it investigated branches, mud, the fencing, and a pair of capybaras that live with it. The smell of herring was eye-wateringly strong over by the penguins. Most of the people were down by the carousel or at the petting zoo. I enjoyed feeling like I had the whole main zoo to myself.
For dinner we had barbeque at Leon's across the street. I've been craving barbeque for ages, but I'm afraid the meal was merely adequate. We were treated to an episode of New York Undercover while eating. I'm not a big fan of violent tv assaulting my ears while I'm dining. But the food was filling and hot, so I didn't care too much. On the way home we talked about houses a little. We're meeting with our new realtor tomorrow to see some homes. I realized that my ideal house has a round window in it somewhere. Our old apartment in San Francisco had one, and I've always liked moon gates in gardens. They're so Hobbit-like.
At home I made gingerbread from scratch while John built a fire. The cats cuddled with me, the dog lay dreaming in front of the flames, and I finished my Nicola Griffith novel, Ammonite, which I liked very much. Now I'm sipping hot herbal tea and as soon as I stop writing this I'm going to walk my dog under the bright stars.
Winter is a wonderful season.
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