Sanctuary!

My last two posts have focused on slings, arrows, wolves, and various nuisances, calamities, and tragedies. This post is to remind myself of all the wonderful, non-calamitous things I've done lately.

1. Mendy and I went hiking at Pinnacles National Monument. Although we failed, once again, in our quest to see a California Condor, we had a delightful mosey along the Condor Gulch Trail.

2. Mendy and I saw Phil and Friends at the Warfield. It was the first show of an amazing series where the band performed the songs on virtually all of the Grateful Dead's albums -- in order.

3. Mendy and I went on a whale-watching trip with Sanctuary Cruises. We saw umpteen humpbacks.



We've always had excellent luck when we've gone out with these folks. One time we were in the midst of about 3,000 dolphins -- the largest group of dolphins the captain had ever seen.

4. Left Mendy at home this time and hopped on a train to New Mexico. A woman at a horse shelter there had emailed me, asking for my opinion on a blind mare they'd just taken in. Some of the board members were inclined to euthanize the horse, as they didn't think she would be able to have a good quality of life. I've owned two blind horses in my day, and have ridden both of them, and I think a blind horse can have a good life.

There was no way to assess their mare's disposition without seeing her, so I decided to go to New Mexico and take a look. The woman was supposed to meet me at the shelter, but when I got there she was nowhere to be found, and wasn't reachable by phone. (Turned out she'd eaten something that day that caused a terrible allergic reaction, and had been too sick to even call me.) After an hour or two the ranch manager arrived, and I hit it off with him by asking if I could do some chores (I wasn't trying to butter him up -- I hate being idle.) So I spent a pleasant hour shoveling horseshit with him and getting the lowdown on the shelter.

The land it's on was won in a poker game by one Mrs. Cash, who ran the local brothel in the early 1900s. Colorful, no?

I also got to know the ranch manager a bit. I had been feeling sorry for myself regarding all my friends who died recently -- but my troubles weren't worth a hill of beans compared to his. His mother and brother died in a tornado when he was seven. Two years after that his little sister drowned in a water trough. After that happened, his father thought himself jinxed, and had nothing to so with the boy for four years. On top of all that, the manager's wife -- the woman who founded the horse shelter -- had died of cancer two years ago. Sheesh! Despite all he'd been through, this guy reminded me of a verse in that old cowboy song "I Ride an Old Paint":

Old Bill Jones had a daughter and a son
One went to Denver and the other went wrong
He lost his wife in a pool room fight
But you can still hear him singin' from morning til night

At any rate, the manager gave me the run of the place and told me I could work with any of the horses, "just as long as I didn't get myself kicked."

So I spent two glorious days working with a motley crew of horses, many of which had been horrifically abused or neglected and were pretty shy of people (and who can blame them?). I worked mostly with Faith, the blind mare, but also spent some quality time with April, Bud, and Una. My most gratifying experience was with Una (that's her in the photo). The first day she let me touch her shoulder -- once, after I stood and talked to her for half an hour. (I didn't halter any of the horses in the pasture, but let them come up to me (or not) on their terms.) On the second day she let me touch her within five minutes of walking up to her, and within a few minutes I was petting her all over. She liked that so much that she followed me around the pasture, chasing off any other horse that tried to come near. I took that as a compliment.

It sure does my soul good to work with horses, and I hope to spend a few more days at The Horse Shelter in June or July.

Fire and Wolves

[Self-indulgent, whiney blog alert: Don't read this post if you don't enjoy self-indulgent, whiney blogs.]

"Why are you always so stressed out?" my friends keep asking me. I'll tell you why.

I reckon a large part of it is the incessant background noise of disgust and horror that comes from living in a Dick Cheney world. Eight years of atrocities is enough to give any thinking person the screaming meemies. Try as I might, I just can't stop reading the news.

Sure, I try to do my bit to stop the madness. I march in marches, I write letters (I scooped the New York Times by two months on the fact that the U.S. is holding about a thousand minors prisoner in Iraq), I send money to worthy organizations, I vote. But none of it has any tangible results. I'm worn out. I can only hope that a hard rain's gonna fall come November.

And then there's the seemingly endless parade of dead pals. I hate to keep harping on that, but it has affected my mood. Nobody's keeled over in the last two months, mind you (knock on wood), but last week two friends informed me they have advanced-stage cancer.

Another thing that's stressing me out is the usual litany of day-to-day problems: overdue bills, a dead car, a sewage leak, daily sleep deprivation because they're building a monster house next door, a soul-sucking day job at Microsoft, making preparations for a delivery of wolves.

Let me elaborate on the latter item. An acquaintance of mine named Harry operates a sanctuary for wolves and wolf-dog hybrids near the hamlet of Corralitos in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Last week a huge wildfire swept through the Santa Cruz Mountains, and Harry's home and kennels were in its path. On Friday I got a call saying that Harry and six wolves might need to spend the night at Bear Creek Stables, which I was managing that week while my boss was out of town. I was all for helping Harry out, as he has helped us out in the past, but the thought of half a dozen wolves bunking -- and possibly escaping -- at a stable that holds 70 horses nudged my stress meter into the red. I mean, can you imagine telling your boss "I'm sorry, but while you were away some wolves got loose and ate your horses." (I might be wrong, but I think most people's job stress is more along the lines of "I'm sorry, but my computer crashed and I'll be a day late with the Wilson Report.")

I'm very fond of these particular wolves, mind you (the photo above shows a couple of them snacking on my shoe), but I was't looking forward to having them stay at the stables. Fortunately, another friend offered Harry and his pack lodgings for the night, and the fire skirted his house, allowing them to return home the next day. So everything ended happily ever after.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that last week was a pretty typical week for me: wildfire, wolves, cancer-stricken friends, and all. And that's why I'm stressed out.

Enough with the cheery crap; my tadpoles are dead

Well, I just can't do the positivity schtick any more. Since my last post, five of my friends have died. And all 100 of my tadpoles.

An idiot named Frank killed the latter, and various diseases and calamities the former.

Tonight I was looking through hundreds of old photos to make an album in remembrance of Gil, one of the aforementioned dead people. As I looked through the photos, I realized what excellent tools they were for helping me remember trips, events, people, pets, and all sorts of things that would otherwise dribble out of my ever-dissolving memory. I found photos of The World's Largest Horse at the county fair; weird orchids in the Yucatan jungle; a visit with Elijah Cook, Jr.; LA street murals; me in some huge, Kim Jung Il style glasses in the '80s; a trip to Oregon to look for Bigfoot; and even an ex-husband or two.

Seeing as nobody but me reads this blog, I reckon I'll use it as a mnemonic possession: something to help me remember the remarkable and the mundane events that make up my life.

I hereby dedicate today's entry to the memories of Seymour, Charles, Heather, Marjorie, and Gilly. And the tadpoles, who I hadn't gotten around to naming.

The blog days of summer

I usually go on a trip or two during the summer, but this year I'm mostly hunkered down at home, thanks to a dearth of funds. I'm barely able to pay the rent these days, and I've been feeling pretty sorry for myself. But then I came upon the Global Rich List.

Just type in your annual income (make sure $ is selected if you live in the U.S.) and hit the "Show me the Money" button. I was pleasantly surprised to see that, when it comes to the richest people in the world, I'm in the top 1 percent. I sure don't feel like I'm rich these days, but the Global Rich List does put things into perspective. (For example, last week I took a friend out to dinner and spent what would be about two months' salary for some people, including many Iraqis. According to a recent study by Oxfam International, about 43 percent of the Iraqi population is living in "absolute poverty," which means they're earning less than $1 a day.) I went to the Oxfam America site and made a donation to Oxfam's Global Emergency Fund.

I vowed not to go into any rants in this blog, and I'll stick to that vow. But that doesn't mean I can't encourage my readers -- both of you -- to donate to a worthwhile organization.

"Whoa! I'm rich!"

In praise of crazy palaces

I've seen some palaces in my day, including Buckingham Palace. But the only ones that have stuck in my mind and captured my heart are the crazy constructions of eccentric visionaries, men who were driven to build fantastic edifices one pebble, scrap, or shard at a time.

Let's begin with Ferdinand Cheval's Palais Ideal. Cheval, a postman in rural France, tripped over a stone while walking his route one day in 1879. He was smitten by the stone's beauty, and began collecting similar ones and taking them home in a wheelbarrow. For 34 years he toiled at night, building the palace that had appeared in his dreams when he was a young man. The palace still stands, embellished with beasts, caryatids, spires, and inscribed poems, in the countryside near the little town of Hauterives. Here's a translation of one of his poems:

In searching I have found. Forty years I have carved to create this fairytale palace. For my idea, my body braved everything -- the weather, the criticism, the years. Life is a quick steed. My thoughts will live on with this rock.
-- Ferdinand Cheval

I journeyed to yet another bizarre palace near the tiny town of Xilitla, Mexico: the Surrealist Palace of Edward James. The drive alone would have made the trip worthwhile, even if there had been no palace at the end of the trip. (There almost wasn't -- my friend and I had a devil of a time finding the palace.) We drove from Monterrey, through valleys framed by the Sierra Madre Oriental, past mile afer mile of citrus orchards in bloom.

Edward James was a wealthy patron of the Arts -- the Surrealist Arts to be precise. In 1944, while visiting Cuernavaca, Mexico, he met a young man named Plutarco Gastelum. The young man took James to his favourite spot, a jungle waterfall called Las Posas, outside of Xilitla. When they emerged from a swim in the pool at the foot of the falls, their bodies were enshrouded by butterflies, and James -- perhaps motivated by such a surreal occurrence -- decided he would build his home there. And what a home! An homage to Surrealism, the palace includes structures with names like "The House with a Roof Like a Whale," "Homage to Max Ernst," and "Temple of the Ducks."

The U.S. has its share of baroque and beautiful structures as well. Although not a palace, the spires of Simon Rodia's Watts Towers in L.A. are a sight to behold. Italian immigrant Simon Rodia constructed the towers in his spare time over a period of 33 years, out of rebar, wire mesh, mortar, adorned with a variety of scraps and objects, from seashells to bits of broken porcelain. The towers were finished in 1954 and still stand, thanks to several passionate preservationists, including my late friend Seymour Rosen. Bless you, Seymour!

I had in mind to do something big, and I did it.
-- Simon Rodia

Another immigrant, Sicilian Baldassare Forestiere, built downward, rather than upward, to create his palace. Tunneling beneath the ground in Fresno, California for about 40 years, Forestiere carved out an underground home with nearly 100 rooms. Because a thick layer of clay made it impossible to plant anything, Forestiere placed his citrus trees and grapevines in pots below the ground, and allowed them to poke up out of shafts to receive sunlight and air. The orchard is an odd sight, as only the tops of the trees are visible from aboveground. The Forestiere Underground Gardens are, as far as I know, still alive and well and open to the public.

The visions of my mind overwhelm me.
-- Baldassare Forestiere

Photography credits: Although I have visited all the sites mentioned here, I photographed them in the old days, before digital photography. Therefore I have relied on other people's photos to illustrate this post. The photos (top to bottom) are by S.D. Clark, Kristin Fiore, and Gordon Converse.

A cure for melancholia

I suffer from melancholia. (The word "melancholia" carries so much more weight than "depression," don't you think? I prefer most of the old-fashioned malady names to their newfangled counterparts. "I'm afraid I can't go to work today; I have the vapors." When I felt a bit poorly as a kid, my mom called it the Collywobbles. When it was more serious, it was the High Fantods.)

Most melancholiacs have an arsenal of weapons to fight the disease tooth and nail -- and I am no exception. A surefire way to feel better is to find someone who is even more miserable than one's self. I call it relativity therapy. And who could be more miserable than the Finns? If you doubt me, just listen to this lament by the Helsinki Complaints Choir.

If you want to take the high road out of the Valley of Depression, you can always watch one of the great silent comedians: Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin, Harpo Marx, or Bill Irwin. Here's a clip of Chaplin and Keaton performing together (as it's a Chaplin movie, Charlie steals the show). To give Buster his due, here's a Keaton montage. Here's Harpo and Groucho in a scene from Duck Soup. And here's the ending of Safety Last, starring Harold Lloyd. Be sure to watch the very last scene, where he walks off into the sunset -- across a puddle of tar. It's one of my favorite movie moments.

Strandbeests!

For ten years Theo Jansen has been creating huge, wind-powered strandbeests (beach animals) that lumber across the countryside near The Hague. "Eventually he wants to put these animals out in herds on the beaches, so they will live their own lives." That would be a sight to see!

A movie about the strandbeests is coming soon; meanwhile, you can look at some video clips of strandbeests (click on "film" beneath the top photo on the site). Amazing!

For the darker side of self-propelled mechanical beasts, see Survival Research Labs. I hope nobody ever lets these creatures roam in herds on their own! I attended a Survival Research Labs performance once, and had to sign a waiver that said I would not hold SRL responsible if I were injured or killed during the performance. Now, that's the kind of art that holds an audience's attention!

Come to think of it, such waivers are not uncommon. I recently had to sign a waiver acknowledging that I ran the risk of being injured or killed while taking a flower-arranging class. If you're wondering how many U.S. residents are killed each year in grisly floral mishaps, I'll tell you: None (as of 2003, anyway), according to the National Safety Council's Odds of Death Due to Injury chart. According to NSC's data, your lifetime odds of dying from your pajamas catching on fire are 1,249,356 to 1. (Pretty long odds, but I plan to sleep in the buff from now on, just in case. Happily, you are very, very unlikely to die from being bitten or crushed by a reptile, so you can pretty much stop worrying about that. Flower arranging is not even listed as a potential cause of death.)