A Queer Mobile

Doing the North Carolina run

John was so sweet to head on down to North Carolina last week with me to see my father and my sister's family. They live on a thirty acre parcel of land about forty miles from Asheville. Our good neighbors watched after the dogs and the plants, so we packed our bags, turned on the navigation system, and did about eighteen hours of straight talking each direction. Invariably I pack tons of music that we never listen to in the car. Road trips are our best opportunity to spend concentrated time with each other, and I love doing them with John.

I'm still posting little stories here, but here's the summary. We made it to Morganton, NC in plenty of time for my niece's thirteenth birthday party last Wednesday. My father's eighty-eight and I hadn't seen him in a year. I thought he actually looked a bit better than he did on our previous trip. He's mostly comfortable staying at home, so John and I hung out with him and did a few short excursions during the day. One plus this year was the weather: it wasn't terribly hot and humid. We did several hours of walking or hiking every day we were down there. I'll post a few pictures after I'm caught up with stuff around the house.

We headed back on Friday and made it home yesterday. I'm with Dorothy: 'There's no place like home...'

Why I shouldn’t get an iPhone

Picture the scene. We’ve stopped for gas on I-75 in Jellico, Tennessee. I pump gas while John heads inside. As he comes back to the car he says, “The urinals are broken; the stalls work; and Elvis is behind the counter.” He had it exactly right. Where this guy got made up I have no idea.

My digital SLR screams ‘this guy is taking a picture.’ so I usually leave it behind unless I'm doing planned shooting. If I’d had an iPhone, though, I’d have snapped the scene and posted the story while we hurtled down I-75 toward Knoxville. Maybe that’s a good enough reason not to get one...

Getting a nuvi

Picture the scene: I’m riding with my friend Diane in her old blue Toyota around Santa Cruz. She’s just gotten a new Garmin nuvi - a portable navigation system, and we just set it to give us directions in German. (She’s a German scholar, by the way.) She got the nuvi because she’s new to Santa Cruz and felt more comfortable with some help on directions. As we head from the biggest metaphysical bookstore in Santa Cruz, she’s critiquing the device’s German accent. Then we ran for  lunch at a (basically) vegan place called Dharma’s. I had a blast - and the directions were just great.

John had some Best Buy coupons when I got back home, and we headed over to see what we couldn’t live without last night. I headed on back to the car electronics place and I played with a nuvi for about fifteen minutes. John headed on over to see what I was finding. We were both amazed at how beautifully the device works. So I plunked down my plastic.

I got a slightly more expensive unit than Diane’s. This one has litium batteries built in so you can take it with you when you’re touring a city of foot. John was especially taken with the idea: he often does extended walking tours of San Francisco, and he could tote this thing along (it’s smaller than a box of playing cards) when he’s off on his travels.

I was incredibly happy with my nuvi 350 on our trip to North Carolina last week. We found food that we never would have tried - because we didn't know about the restaurant and we didn't know directions. The nuvi's search functions gave us comprehensive listings of restaurants and attractions, and we never had problems getting there because the directions the unit gave were just about perfect.

Monteverdi old and new

In the mid 1970’s I picked up a recording of Monteverdi’s Fourth Book of Madrigals. I was an unhappy graduate student at Stanford at the time. I’d come home from the lab and listen to those singers in early evening. I mostly remember the skies at dusk as I’d walk home: cobalt blue overhead with a band of orange toward the hills in the west. And then I’d do my listening.

One of the madrigals - Io mi son giovinetta - was (and still is) my favorite. The singers - all accomplished folks like Helen Watts and Robert Tear - were conducted by Raymond Leppard. I had the records for years, but for some reason never recorded them on tape. Then in one move or another I misplaced the records.

Fast forward to the early 90’s. I picked up a new CD of the same Monteverdi by The Consort of Musicke, an English group specializing in Renaissance and Baroque performance. They’re just marvelous, and I forgot about the old recording.

On a lark the other day I trolled Amazon looking for the old Leppard recording - just for old time’s sake. It’s not available, but selected madrigals are, including my favorite. The CD’s out of print, but I found a new copy from a reseller. It was waiting for me on my return from the west.

I plopped it in, figuring that I’d be transported back to my life of years ago by friendly voices. The voices were still friendly, but the performance style shocked me. I’d forgotten how much has changed in performing early music since the late 1970’s and 80’s. Before the early music revival, performances were pretty stolid. After the early music scholars and performers rethought everything about Renaissance and Baroque performance style, technique became vastly more fluid, with graceful flowing lines supported by brisk tempi - like a dance. My old favorite sounded like one of those stuffy old recordings of Messiah from fifty years ago. Sigh. Sometimes ‘old time’s sake’ isn’t worth the bother.

Thinking about endings

I just couldn’t get it together to do any blogging before I left for California this month. I’ve been worried about Ki, my almost sixteen year old Tibetan Spaniel. He’s fading pretty fast. He still gets up and out for his walks, but he’s not able to go very far. His stability standing is going, and we can’t keep weight on him. I kept wondering if he might go before I got back from that trip. I’ve had him since he was a pup, so this is a big deal for me.

He’s been more resilient than I thought. He was there waiting for me when I got back from California, and he did OK while John and I headed to North Carolina last week. I see the difference in the week, though. He’s getting a bit more confused and less perky. So we’ll see. I’m thinking of not heading back west this month, just in case.

The Monarchs have landed

The Monarchs landed yesterday afternoon. I wandered outside to find one of our butterfly bushes hosting this beauty. I grabbed my camera just in time to fire off three shots before it flew away.

The Garden at Midsummer

I took Friday off so I could pull weeds and spruce up the garden. The combination of ample rain and warmth causes everything outside to explode - weeds included. I'm not done, but I'm so happy with how the place looks right now that I did a small photographic album of the Garden at Midsummer.

Lilies of every possible color tower over us: we have some that are taller than I am and pale lemon yellow. The Elecampane is in full bloom: I love the utter extravagance of six foot tall flower spikes covered in sunbursts. And my favorites are in profusion: coneflowers of various shades, though the purple ones are hardiest and do the best.

We picked up a few perennials to fill in the gaps that I've made by weeding: hyssop, more Coreopsis, some Crocosmia, and some winter savory for the kitchen.