There generous fruits that never fail on trees immortal grow
I'm on my way to LA, on the Surfliner. I splurged and got business class. Inside the car it's much like my prior train trips, only with a trifle more leg room, cleaned more thoroughly than I'm used to, and it comes with a goodie bag including a fig bar and mini-Oreos. The pleasant thing is that it's on top of a tall car, and commands an excellent view. Right now, we're paused between high banks of raw yellow dirt full of round stones. We've been passing through rolling hills and scrubland after leaving San Diego. Not far back, there was a concrete riverbed running like mad with yellow water from the current rain showers. Maybe we're sitting here because there's a landslide across the tracks? --Nah, the voice on the PA just announced we're waiting for a train ahead of us to clear out of the way.
San Diego was an excellent start. To be honest, I've been walking around the city goggling up at things and going, "Palm trees! Palm trees EVERYWHERE! Holy smokes, that's rosemary! Blossoming! An entire hedge of rosemary bushes as dense and bushy as yews back home! Full of blue flowers! There everlasting spring abides, and never-withering flowers!" and then I stick my nose in the bushes around the utility boxes on a business's lawn and inhale in rapture. I have been getting some funny looks, but I'm not sure if that's because I'm walking around beaming at everyone like a religious zealot, or because I've been wearing a lot of black in a city full of tourists and joggers.
Yesterday, I rented a bike and tried to get to La Jolla. Sadly, the kayak whale watch that I'd wanted to take was cancelled due to heavy surf and their not wanting to lose incompentent tourist paddlers to the waves, so I just biked over there instead. It was fun and incredibly frustrating in equal parts. I wound up biking down the shoulder of Route 5 multiple times, including on fucking off-ramps, and it's a six-lane freeway at that point. The bike lane unpredictably stopped existing and I found myself in the right-hand lane next to the guard rail a few times, and flat-out leapt over the rail and hauled my bike after me up a slope to the nearest sidewalk. I'm also annoyed that I never made it all the way to the part of La Jolla that I wanted to see. I spent most of my journey getting pleasantly lost near the naval base in Point Loma, and on something called Shelter Island, and when I was in La Jolla I could have gone another mile or so and seen the harbor where the seals hang out, but then I realized that if I turned around right then I could just barely get my bike back to the rental by the end of the day. AAAARGH! So close. When I'm sightseeing in San Francisco I'm going to flipping rent the bike for two days straight and not have to worry about things like that.
It was about a thirty-mile round trip and I didn't really take breaks, more than to eat candy and use the restroom. I'm achy and stiff in the calves this morning, but pleased to find myself reasonably fit, even though my life is sedentary these days. Biking was fun, despite all the complaining above. I love the sense of self-reliance it gives me. You know that song about Zebulon Tilton, "Old Zeb"--"You can go and pay your taxes on the rationed gas you get, but at least for me the wind is free, and they haven't run out yet." I feel that way about biking. I'm the engine and steering system and we go as fast as my legs want to go.
There's the sea. It's rainy and gray, there's a high surf, big combers rolling in, green and foam. And beyond that, just distance. It feels huger than the Atlantic, which is pretty intimidating itself, and I don't know whether I would think that if I didn't know the Pacific is bigger. Comparisons don't really matter, anyway. It looks as I had forgotten it would look: ancient, unchangeable, frightening, featureless. Down the cliff between us and the sea there have been some cottages and restaurants; we've looked down at the red Italian-style ties on their roofs.
We're just passing Solana Beach Station. Back in a ravine (should I call it a canyon?) for the moment. Cute little stucco and Italian-tile cottages on the upper cliff.
The best thing about yesterday was the cats, each about twenty-five pounds, sunning themselves on the beach. One multicolor longhaired ancient cat general, unfazed by anything. One sandy tabby and one big dark floof tuxedo cat, asleep in puddles of themselves. Actually, no: the best thing about yesterday was wandering the little streets of people's private homes in Point Loma and admiring the cute ways the houses and gardens were decorated and planted. There were touches you wouldn't find anywhere that had a winter. Silk flower wreaths on people's gates, plants mulched with crystal and glass beads, things like that. Lots of bamboo wind chimes, lawns planted with succulents and cute chubby cactids instead of deciduous plants. Jade trees rather than jade bushes. They even flower, out here, and smell like baby powder.
It's lemon season, apparently. There were handsome Meyer lemons the size of softballs on a low, shrubby tree in one yard. I was more tempted than I can tell you to just pull one off and eat it on the spot. I would probably have done it, too, if it had been on waste ground, but I don't want to be that jerk who steals from people's yards. By the way, palm fruit were on the ground everywhere, yellow and juicy, but I didn't taste them or take any with me. Maybe I will, if my research shows they'll sprout indoors. I'd love to have my own palm tree.
Last night I wandered the streets of the Gaslamp District in San Diego, around the hostel. I think HI locations tend to be in party central: the streets were full of clubs which were full of young people in revealing clothes. Well, the young women were scantily and gorgeously clad. The young men were shabbily dressed and mostly drunk. I wish there were more male dandies who were willing to make an effort.
I stood in line for tickets in hopes of seeing Greg Proops, because everyone who talks about Whose Line Is It Anyway? makes this guy sound like a God of Comedy and I wanted to be able to brag to you all. However, they sold out of tickets before I could get there, so I went off and knocked over Ghirardelli's, and went to a cupcake place where a Turkish family stared at me while I ate my vegan cupcake. Well, the old folks did. The three young folks (pregnant young woman, her husband and her brother) were having a good time choosing cupcakes like they hadn't eaten sweet baked goods in years. It was a pleasure to see them enjoying it. The siblings' parents, however, sat at a high table, aiming sad and disapproving glances at me with their handsome old faces. They looked exactly like my parents looked the time we all went into a fetish store in Provincetown thinking it was a shoe shop. (It kind of was.) I wonder if the older couple thought that cupcakes were sinful, or disapproved of squid. (I was wearing the excellent black-and-red squid shirt that ajodasso gave me.) Or maybe they were just hungry and tired and longing for a snack and bed. I hope the rest of their trip goes well.
Friday, my first full day, I went to the San Diego Zoo. It was WONDERFUL. If you're ever anywhere near this place and you like animals at all, go. Don't miss it. It is pricey, but you can often get discounts if you ask at the place you're staying or check bargain websites. The only warning I would give is that its accessibility is middling. You could get around about three-quarters of the exhibits in a motorized wheelchair, and I saw several people doing just that, but some of the slopes were too steep to manage. You can take a bus ride and get on and off if you don't want to spend the whole day walking, but I enjoyed my wandering too much to do that or take the sky-tram.
The place is seductive. You want to ramble and wander and explore. Don't, for the love of Pete, come here and expect to stay only an hour and a half. I had the whole afternoon, and that was barely enough. The entrance is like an amusement-park gate with snack sellers and barkers and tickets for rides, but once you set out on a path, time goes away and you drift from one wonder to the next. The center of the zoo area is full of high trees, some exotic or endangered, and the paths are board walkways on three levels with stairs or elevators between them and ground level. The monkeys and other primates have huge vertical enclosures full of ropewalks and branches, and the humans outside on the boardwalks can check them out from above or below or mid-height. At ground level, the light was quiet and green through the branches, and it had a sense of privacy that I can only describe by saying I still felt like I was alone, even though there were people talking around me.
My favorite sights. Let's see. I'll post some photos when I can get my phone synced up, but briefly:
--An enclosure with a yellow Labrador dog and a cheetah. They were just hanging out being buddies. The zoo apparently raises cheetahs with dog friends for much the same reasons that hospitals admit therapy animals: so the cheetahs will be able to relax and know they have a friend around. They were just trotting around running little races, in which the cheetah won. The dog didn't seem to mind.
--Giraffes. I have never seen a baby giraffe before. There were about eight adults of varying sizes, including one which had visible udders and was presumably the little one's mom. Junior was "only" about as high as I am, with the umbilical cord still visible on its navel. Giraffes are very graceful; one of them deigned to briefly break into a run for its own amusement, and I was amazed how it took a corner with no effort at all, its legs swinging way out to the side while its whole upper body remained vertical and barely swayed. They look like imaginary animals from a small planet with lesser gravity than ours, thought up by C.S. Lewis in a playful moment. A very tall friend of mine was taunted by other kids calling them "the giraffe" in childhood; in fact they do resemble these giraffes, but in the best way. Not that I'd ever bring it up.
--A real, live dik-dik! I've only previously seen these endearing little ungulates in photos. The dik-dik was hiding in the back of its enclosure and looked like it wanted to be left alone, so I didn't stay long, but I did note that its hooves are the tiniest and that its wobbly nose was as dorky and lovable as I'd figured it would be.
--Capybaras, flopped in the sun like little whole-wheat bread loaves.
--Elephants, massive, like mountains walking, with knobbly skin and sad expressions, idly snacking on grubs, and tossing two-hundred-pound tree stumps aside to get to the grubs, like, no big deal.
--A secretary-bird lying on a nest, like a medium-sized gryphon, with a hummingbird drinking from aloe flowers next to her.
--Two lions, male and female, each sprawled asleep on top of a big wooden platform and exhibiting their pink toe-beans to the crowd.
--Jaguars, mother and son, scampering around their environment eating meat snacks that a keeper had placed for them like an Easter-egg hunt. They were the most beautiful sight I saw all day. The mother was slightly slimmer and had a fine-dotted coat and the most elegant facial markings, a Pointillist cat. The son was half-grown and had enormous paws and moved in a visibly more klutzy and kittenish way. The keeper mentioned that male jaguars can afford to be more kittenish, because they don't really have a concept of fatherhood and won't have to care for kids, whereas the female jaguars have to look out for their cubs all the time and develop no-bullshit viciousness as a result. I wonder how much of that is human gender essentialism, but I wasn't about to take it up with the keeper, who had her hands full as it was. The wonder of it all was that, even though the coats of the two jaguars were marvels of complex beauty, with rich gold backgrounds and clear black five-pointed rosettes, they disappeared in the shadows once they held still. When the older female went up a tree, you could hardly see her even though she was technically visible through the foliage. If one of them was up a tree in the outer world, I could have walked under it without noticing there was anything amiss. Apparently other spotted great cats, like leopards and cheetahs, kill their prey by biting the throat to tear the flesh or crush the windpipe, but jaguars will flat-out bite through your skull.
--There were tigers. I love giant, beautiful predators. I can't get enough of them. I feel kind of like a cliche because everyone and her brother likes big cats, but I can't help it. They're wonderful, they look like they shouldn't be able to exist in our reality, like they're gorgeous aberrations on the world. I had a nightmare about a tiger when I was little that I'll never forget. These tigers looked like they were sick to death of humans. They had a big, rich environment with a waterfall and a lake and a cliff, but they were both squished right up at the top of the slope against a wall, where one of them paced and the other lay basking in the sun. Its coat was even more vivid and bright than I expected, its whiskers were strong like white wires. I thought, There was a young man from the city/ Who met what he thought was a kitty./ He gave it a pat/ And said, "Nice little cat."/ We're sending a wreath out of pity. Its teeth were white and clean and the size of my fingers.
--Now I can say I've seen a red panda! It looked like a red plush toy raccoon that was sick of everything. It was slumped on its belly on a horizontal pole, with its legs hanging down on both sides.
--The gorillas were peaceful and gigantic. I wish I could have seen them without a crowd of fifty shrieking kids around me. One of them was sitting in half-lotus position facing the glass. It is so tempting, SO DAMN TEMPTING, to ascribe them human personalities and imagine that inside them is a person who would talk if they felt like talking. They look like old boxers who are tired of people but basically mellow and good-natured. There was a small, young one sprawling on its back on a burlap sack enjoying a nice nap, and whenever it yawned it showed healthy teeth like big white chisels, and a fine pink ribbed palate. The third was a gigantic form like a black furry Buddha, sitting cross-legged far back in the grove. It got up and lolloped around on all fours just to remind us it wasn't a human, and then sat back down with its legs folded but lying on its side like someone had pushed the Buddha off his pedestal.
That's enough for now. We're getting into the Los Angeles urban sprawl. aunt_zelda has taken some time off of work and is going to go adventuring with me tomorrow and Tuesday! I have one or two ideas for places to go, but we'll make up our minds when we get there.
San Diego was an excellent start. To be honest, I've been walking around the city goggling up at things and going, "Palm trees! Palm trees EVERYWHERE! Holy smokes, that's rosemary! Blossoming! An entire hedge of rosemary bushes as dense and bushy as yews back home! Full of blue flowers! There everlasting spring abides, and never-withering flowers!" and then I stick my nose in the bushes around the utility boxes on a business's lawn and inhale in rapture. I have been getting some funny looks, but I'm not sure if that's because I'm walking around beaming at everyone like a religious zealot, or because I've been wearing a lot of black in a city full of tourists and joggers.
Yesterday, I rented a bike and tried to get to La Jolla. Sadly, the kayak whale watch that I'd wanted to take was cancelled due to heavy surf and their not wanting to lose incompentent tourist paddlers to the waves, so I just biked over there instead. It was fun and incredibly frustrating in equal parts. I wound up biking down the shoulder of Route 5 multiple times, including on fucking off-ramps, and it's a six-lane freeway at that point. The bike lane unpredictably stopped existing and I found myself in the right-hand lane next to the guard rail a few times, and flat-out leapt over the rail and hauled my bike after me up a slope to the nearest sidewalk. I'm also annoyed that I never made it all the way to the part of La Jolla that I wanted to see. I spent most of my journey getting pleasantly lost near the naval base in Point Loma, and on something called Shelter Island, and when I was in La Jolla I could have gone another mile or so and seen the harbor where the seals hang out, but then I realized that if I turned around right then I could just barely get my bike back to the rental by the end of the day. AAAARGH! So close. When I'm sightseeing in San Francisco I'm going to flipping rent the bike for two days straight and not have to worry about things like that.
It was about a thirty-mile round trip and I didn't really take breaks, more than to eat candy and use the restroom. I'm achy and stiff in the calves this morning, but pleased to find myself reasonably fit, even though my life is sedentary these days. Biking was fun, despite all the complaining above. I love the sense of self-reliance it gives me. You know that song about Zebulon Tilton, "Old Zeb"--"You can go and pay your taxes on the rationed gas you get, but at least for me the wind is free, and they haven't run out yet." I feel that way about biking. I'm the engine and steering system and we go as fast as my legs want to go.
There's the sea. It's rainy and gray, there's a high surf, big combers rolling in, green and foam. And beyond that, just distance. It feels huger than the Atlantic, which is pretty intimidating itself, and I don't know whether I would think that if I didn't know the Pacific is bigger. Comparisons don't really matter, anyway. It looks as I had forgotten it would look: ancient, unchangeable, frightening, featureless. Down the cliff between us and the sea there have been some cottages and restaurants; we've looked down at the red Italian-style ties on their roofs.
We're just passing Solana Beach Station. Back in a ravine (should I call it a canyon?) for the moment. Cute little stucco and Italian-tile cottages on the upper cliff.
The best thing about yesterday was the cats, each about twenty-five pounds, sunning themselves on the beach. One multicolor longhaired ancient cat general, unfazed by anything. One sandy tabby and one big dark floof tuxedo cat, asleep in puddles of themselves. Actually, no: the best thing about yesterday was wandering the little streets of people's private homes in Point Loma and admiring the cute ways the houses and gardens were decorated and planted. There were touches you wouldn't find anywhere that had a winter. Silk flower wreaths on people's gates, plants mulched with crystal and glass beads, things like that. Lots of bamboo wind chimes, lawns planted with succulents and cute chubby cactids instead of deciduous plants. Jade trees rather than jade bushes. They even flower, out here, and smell like baby powder.
It's lemon season, apparently. There were handsome Meyer lemons the size of softballs on a low, shrubby tree in one yard. I was more tempted than I can tell you to just pull one off and eat it on the spot. I would probably have done it, too, if it had been on waste ground, but I don't want to be that jerk who steals from people's yards. By the way, palm fruit were on the ground everywhere, yellow and juicy, but I didn't taste them or take any with me. Maybe I will, if my research shows they'll sprout indoors. I'd love to have my own palm tree.
Last night I wandered the streets of the Gaslamp District in San Diego, around the hostel. I think HI locations tend to be in party central: the streets were full of clubs which were full of young people in revealing clothes. Well, the young women were scantily and gorgeously clad. The young men were shabbily dressed and mostly drunk. I wish there were more male dandies who were willing to make an effort.
I stood in line for tickets in hopes of seeing Greg Proops, because everyone who talks about Whose Line Is It Anyway? makes this guy sound like a God of Comedy and I wanted to be able to brag to you all. However, they sold out of tickets before I could get there, so I went off and knocked over Ghirardelli's, and went to a cupcake place where a Turkish family stared at me while I ate my vegan cupcake. Well, the old folks did. The three young folks (pregnant young woman, her husband and her brother) were having a good time choosing cupcakes like they hadn't eaten sweet baked goods in years. It was a pleasure to see them enjoying it. The siblings' parents, however, sat at a high table, aiming sad and disapproving glances at me with their handsome old faces. They looked exactly like my parents looked the time we all went into a fetish store in Provincetown thinking it was a shoe shop. (It kind of was.) I wonder if the older couple thought that cupcakes were sinful, or disapproved of squid. (I was wearing the excellent black-and-red squid shirt that ajodasso gave me.) Or maybe they were just hungry and tired and longing for a snack and bed. I hope the rest of their trip goes well.
Friday, my first full day, I went to the San Diego Zoo. It was WONDERFUL. If you're ever anywhere near this place and you like animals at all, go. Don't miss it. It is pricey, but you can often get discounts if you ask at the place you're staying or check bargain websites. The only warning I would give is that its accessibility is middling. You could get around about three-quarters of the exhibits in a motorized wheelchair, and I saw several people doing just that, but some of the slopes were too steep to manage. You can take a bus ride and get on and off if you don't want to spend the whole day walking, but I enjoyed my wandering too much to do that or take the sky-tram.
The place is seductive. You want to ramble and wander and explore. Don't, for the love of Pete, come here and expect to stay only an hour and a half. I had the whole afternoon, and that was barely enough. The entrance is like an amusement-park gate with snack sellers and barkers and tickets for rides, but once you set out on a path, time goes away and you drift from one wonder to the next. The center of the zoo area is full of high trees, some exotic or endangered, and the paths are board walkways on three levels with stairs or elevators between them and ground level. The monkeys and other primates have huge vertical enclosures full of ropewalks and branches, and the humans outside on the boardwalks can check them out from above or below or mid-height. At ground level, the light was quiet and green through the branches, and it had a sense of privacy that I can only describe by saying I still felt like I was alone, even though there were people talking around me.
My favorite sights. Let's see. I'll post some photos when I can get my phone synced up, but briefly:
--An enclosure with a yellow Labrador dog and a cheetah. They were just hanging out being buddies. The zoo apparently raises cheetahs with dog friends for much the same reasons that hospitals admit therapy animals: so the cheetahs will be able to relax and know they have a friend around. They were just trotting around running little races, in which the cheetah won. The dog didn't seem to mind.
--Giraffes. I have never seen a baby giraffe before. There were about eight adults of varying sizes, including one which had visible udders and was presumably the little one's mom. Junior was "only" about as high as I am, with the umbilical cord still visible on its navel. Giraffes are very graceful; one of them deigned to briefly break into a run for its own amusement, and I was amazed how it took a corner with no effort at all, its legs swinging way out to the side while its whole upper body remained vertical and barely swayed. They look like imaginary animals from a small planet with lesser gravity than ours, thought up by C.S. Lewis in a playful moment. A very tall friend of mine was taunted by other kids calling them "the giraffe" in childhood; in fact they do resemble these giraffes, but in the best way. Not that I'd ever bring it up.
--A real, live dik-dik! I've only previously seen these endearing little ungulates in photos. The dik-dik was hiding in the back of its enclosure and looked like it wanted to be left alone, so I didn't stay long, but I did note that its hooves are the tiniest and that its wobbly nose was as dorky and lovable as I'd figured it would be.
--Capybaras, flopped in the sun like little whole-wheat bread loaves.
--Elephants, massive, like mountains walking, with knobbly skin and sad expressions, idly snacking on grubs, and tossing two-hundred-pound tree stumps aside to get to the grubs, like, no big deal.
--A secretary-bird lying on a nest, like a medium-sized gryphon, with a hummingbird drinking from aloe flowers next to her.
--Two lions, male and female, each sprawled asleep on top of a big wooden platform and exhibiting their pink toe-beans to the crowd.
--Jaguars, mother and son, scampering around their environment eating meat snacks that a keeper had placed for them like an Easter-egg hunt. They were the most beautiful sight I saw all day. The mother was slightly slimmer and had a fine-dotted coat and the most elegant facial markings, a Pointillist cat. The son was half-grown and had enormous paws and moved in a visibly more klutzy and kittenish way. The keeper mentioned that male jaguars can afford to be more kittenish, because they don't really have a concept of fatherhood and won't have to care for kids, whereas the female jaguars have to look out for their cubs all the time and develop no-bullshit viciousness as a result. I wonder how much of that is human gender essentialism, but I wasn't about to take it up with the keeper, who had her hands full as it was. The wonder of it all was that, even though the coats of the two jaguars were marvels of complex beauty, with rich gold backgrounds and clear black five-pointed rosettes, they disappeared in the shadows once they held still. When the older female went up a tree, you could hardly see her even though she was technically visible through the foliage. If one of them was up a tree in the outer world, I could have walked under it without noticing there was anything amiss. Apparently other spotted great cats, like leopards and cheetahs, kill their prey by biting the throat to tear the flesh or crush the windpipe, but jaguars will flat-out bite through your skull.
--There were tigers. I love giant, beautiful predators. I can't get enough of them. I feel kind of like a cliche because everyone and her brother likes big cats, but I can't help it. They're wonderful, they look like they shouldn't be able to exist in our reality, like they're gorgeous aberrations on the world. I had a nightmare about a tiger when I was little that I'll never forget. These tigers looked like they were sick to death of humans. They had a big, rich environment with a waterfall and a lake and a cliff, but they were both squished right up at the top of the slope against a wall, where one of them paced and the other lay basking in the sun. Its coat was even more vivid and bright than I expected, its whiskers were strong like white wires. I thought, There was a young man from the city/ Who met what he thought was a kitty./ He gave it a pat/ And said, "Nice little cat."/ We're sending a wreath out of pity. Its teeth were white and clean and the size of my fingers.
--Now I can say I've seen a red panda! It looked like a red plush toy raccoon that was sick of everything. It was slumped on its belly on a horizontal pole, with its legs hanging down on both sides.
--The gorillas were peaceful and gigantic. I wish I could have seen them without a crowd of fifty shrieking kids around me. One of them was sitting in half-lotus position facing the glass. It is so tempting, SO DAMN TEMPTING, to ascribe them human personalities and imagine that inside them is a person who would talk if they felt like talking. They look like old boxers who are tired of people but basically mellow and good-natured. There was a small, young one sprawling on its back on a burlap sack enjoying a nice nap, and whenever it yawned it showed healthy teeth like big white chisels, and a fine pink ribbed palate. The third was a gigantic form like a black furry Buddha, sitting cross-legged far back in the grove. It got up and lolloped around on all fours just to remind us it wasn't a human, and then sat back down with its legs folded but lying on its side like someone had pushed the Buddha off his pedestal.
That's enough for now. We're getting into the Los Angeles urban sprawl. aunt_zelda has taken some time off of work and is going to go adventuring with me tomorrow and Tuesday! I have one or two ideas for places to go, but we'll make up our minds when we get there.