Category Archives: Bay area, Calif.

iPad mania in Silicon Valley

Carol took this picture of the line outside the Apple store last night. Yes, it was raining. Yes, someone brought a tent.

Right after she took this photo, Carol saw Steve Jobs getting into a silver Mercedes without a license plate. She turned to some people near here, and said, “Was that really Steve Jobs?” “Yes,” they said. “His car didn’t have a license plate,” she said. “Steve Jobs doesn’t need a license plate,” one of them said, “he has the iPad.” “We need a life,” one of the others muttered.

Spring

One of the little bushes just outside the window of my office rustled, so much so that they caught my eye. A black furry tail poked out of the bush; one of the fat black squirrels 1 that lives on the church grounds was in the bush. I was surprised that it bore its weight.

Five minutes went by. The bushes started rustling again. This time, it was a gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis). I realized that a couple of Oregon Juncos (Junco hyenalis oreganus) were chirping at the squirrel; maybe the juncos were nesting in the bush and the squirrel was going after their eggs! I ran outside and scared the squirrel away. I looked quickly in the bush for a nest, didn’t see one, then retreated into my office because if there is a nest I don’t want to drive the birds away from it.

The juncos are still noisily chirping away. The squirrels have returned to stealing food from the trash cans. I still don’t know if there’s a nest out there or not.

Later

A gray squirrel came back (perhaps the same one again), and nosed around beneath the bushes outside my window. A junco harassed it constantly, chirping, flying at the squirrel’s head, causing the squirrel to duck and twitch. At last the squirrel gave up, and scampered off with the junco chasing it.

1 Melanistic form of the Eastern Gray Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis), an invasive species which has been introduced into the San Francisco Bay region.

The eternal Spring of the Bay area

San Francisco Bay, the land of eternal springtime: there are flowers in bloom all the year:

“San Francisco is built on sand hills, but they are prolific sand hills. They yield a generous vegetation. All the rare flowers which people in ‘the States’ rear with such patient care in parlor flower-pots and green-houses, flourish luxuriantly in the open air there all the year round. Calla lilies, all sorts of geraniums, passion flowers, moss roses — I do not know the names of a tenth part of them. I only know that while New Yorkers are burdened with banks and drifts of snow, Californians are burdened with banks and drifts of flowers, if they only keep their hands off and let them grow.” (Mark Twain, Roughing It)

At the moment here in San Mateo, the rains have just ended, and for most of twelve hours a day the sun shines out of a cloudless sky, and everything is green and beautiful. The acacia trees are covered in thousands of little yellow blossoms cover acacia trees; bright orange California poppies appear along the roadsides; white flowers, purple flowers, red flowers, there are flowers everywhere.

Nor is the beauty only visual; the rich heavy scent of flowers fills the air. I wheeze and find it hard to breathe; our downstairs neighbor sneezes explosively about ten times an hour; our car is covered with a faint yellow film of pollen and I have to wash the windshield twice a day. It is beautiful in this land of eternal springtime, except that I can’t breathe and the pollen in my eyes makes me want to claw them out. I wish we could have a good hard frost and maybe some snow to end this eternal springtime and kill all these damned flowers.

Spring

It was warm enough yesterday that we opened most off the windows in the apartment. I spent the afternoon building a planter box for our little balcony, and a raised bed for our small garden. Overhead, the California sky was as blue as it ever gets in midsummer. The breezes were gentle, the air was perfumed with springtime flowers. Intellectually, I believe that the weather is as nice as it is, but since I’m a New Englander to my core there’s a part of me that’s quite sure it will snow again before spring really comes, or a hard frost will come and kill off whatever we plant in the garden.

Hummingbird babies

The Anna’s Hummingbird who is nesting next to our main worship space has hatched two babies:

The photo above is far from perfect — the light level is low necessitating a relatively long exposure, and the babies won’t keep still even when I ask them politely. Nevertheless, you should be able to see the bill of one pointing to the left, and the bill of the other one at the right of the nest pointing toward and above the camera; the bills are quite a bit shorter relative to the body than the bill of a mature hummingbird. The baby on the left has its wing spread out over the top of the nest, and you can see the fine white and black pattern of the developing primary feathers.

Spring watch

The front page of the sports section of the San Mateo County Times features a big picture from the Giants’ exhibition opener in the cactus league, and there’s almost a full page of baseball coverage inside. Spring — real honest-to-goodness spring, not this year-round flower-laden pseudo-springtime we have to put up with in the Bay area — can’t be far behind.

Personal to Ms. M: Don’t worry, I won’t be wearing black and orange just because I’m living on the Peninsula; I’m still an AL guy.

Getting distracted

“It’s four o’clock,” I said, “the train will be here soon.” Carol started to get out of the car, and then said, “Oh look!” and pointed at the rainbow. It was low in the sky, and quite vivid.

She ran off to catch her train. I started driving back to the office, and managed to miss my turn because I was looking at the rainbow, which had faded and had lost the top of its arch.

I drove around in one of those suburban tracts where you can never go in the direction you think you want to go. I was a little bit embarrassed that I had gotten lost because I was looking at a rainbow; rainbows are so wonderful that they’re trite; little kids like rainbows; I’m sure the other adults who driving around didn’t bother looking at the rainbow, although they might have had a little kid in a car seat who pointed at it.

Eventually I got back on the right road again. I came back to the office, and didn’t think about the rainbow until just now.

Nothing better

I’ve got nothing better to do
than stare out the window:
the gray clouds not moving,
the planes landing at SFO,
the cherry blossoms waving in the wind,
the rooftops doing nothing.

I’ve got nothing better to do
than to listen to nothing:
a stereo booming in a car stopped out front,
a clock keeping Eastern Standard Time,
a computer fan whirring,
a crow idly cawing about nothing in particular.

Nothing better to do
than nothing.

Nest

Alan said, “Did you see the hummingbird nest?” I hadn’t seen it, couldn’t go see it right away, but finally after the second worship service went to see. The nest was in a shrub right next to one of the doors to the Main Hall; there was a female Anna’s Hummingbird (Calypte anna) in the nest, sitting on two eggs….

Click on image above for full 2660×1393 pixel image.

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