Thursday, February 7, 2019

The waning of winter

I drove down to Vacaville today...my second drive there in 3 days.  Two days ago, I went for a check up with my therapist, after two years.  It was interesting that the line of people checking in at mental health stretched halfway down the hallway.  Deb tells me that in these days there are so many people depressed about the situation in this country that such lines are not uncommon.  I guess if nothing else, #45 has made lots of work for therapists.

She recommended I go on a Trump diet, so I did not watch the State of the Union, figuring it would be very long (it was), cover most of the same things (it did), and that I would get the highlights on talk shows the next day (I did).  But by not watching it, apparently i missed the best part -- which was watching the look on Nancy Pelosi's face throughout the speech.

I have gotten the jist on the talk shows, but it doesn't make me any less depressed.  If there is any up side it's that hearing how many times he called for ending all investigations as a sign of "unity" it's apparent he's sweating the results.  Never have so many in any administration been so corrupt and the axe is going to fall sooner or later.  Fortunately, #45 has no control over the New York courts, whether he manages to succeed in stifling the Mueller report or not

Today was more fun, meeting Char and her cousin David (and his wife Carol) for lunch at Fenton's.  Who can be depressed eating one of those crab salad sandwiches and drinking a vanilla malt.  It's a good thing Fenton's is a half hour drive.  It would be entirely too tempting to pop in more often if it was any closer!

On the ride home, rather than take I-5, I took the less popular highway that went to Winters and then over to Davis.  It was a beautiful clear day and I loved seeing the look of all those walnut orchards with the ?mustard growing under them.


Walnut orchards are the only ones that I can always identify because they graft English walnut trees onto black walnut stock so there is always that dark base on the trees.  There are a lot of walnut orchards around here and at this time of year they stand leafless, which has its own type of stark beauty.  The road I drove home was filled with orchard after orchard.

But though it was -30⁰ in Minnesota today, I hear, and snow covers half the country, here in California the promise of spring is at hand.


I don't think we are quite finished with winter, but here and there are trees where blossoms are starting to pop out.  Every year at this time I think that it's too early for blossoms, but since I've been saying that for many years now, I guess early February is not too early for blossoms in this area!
This back road home takes me across the graffiti bridge


Stevenson Bridge is a local landmark due to its age and unique appearance: it's covered in graffiti. Love messages, insults, and downright creepy messages can be found scrawled across the entire span of bridge. Not a nook is uncovered leaving spectators wondering what the original color of the bridge is.  I'm not sure when it started being covered with graffiti, but we've lived here 45 years and I don't remember it ever NOT being covered with graffiti.

As of this writing, Walt's computer still isn't "up and running."  They have gone back to Costco to see if they can figure out the problem.  I hope it is running by the time Tom leaves, 'cause it's certain that if he hasn't been able to solve the problem there is no way Walt or I would be able to either!

We may not get cable after all before Tom leaves, but I'm sure Ned can help us walk through that task when he gets home.

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