I was feverish when I wrote that last one. It is always worth pointing out, especially to myself, how extraordinarily lucky I am. When I was a child my dreams for the future could be summed up, very simply, as a library next door to a stable. These days the San Francisco Public Library does an exemplary job of meeting my book-related needs, while McIntosh Stables keeps me regularly supplied with new, interesting and gobsmackingly beautiful horses.

What I didn’t specify as a child, because I didn’t notice it, is that I also needed to be loved. I was doted on as a child, not only by my lovely and adorable mum and dad but also, although they’ll deny it strenuously, by my sister and brothers. Now there’s Optimal Husband, my favourite standup comedian and co-conspirator, plus way more serious friends than I’ve ever had before, a goodly proportion of whom live about a mile from my comfortable Victorian apartment in a cool San Francisco neighbourhood. All of which makes it possible to do what I do best for the kids, which is to fire continuous high-energy quasars of love at them.

I’m pointing all this out because while the worst side-effect of swine flu was to greatly amplify my chronic anxiety, my life is a very good one. I have a plot in a community garden and my kids have a good public school. Geopolitics and climate change are scary, but this little life we have carved out, my little family and I, this is a good strong place from which to stare down the scary world.

Funny brilliant daughters. Optimal husband, restored from Shanghai. Cat with IQ of a pickle. Family in Oz, that I will see soon. Friends, art, music, books, horses, Bernal, progressivism, public libraries, state parks, community gardens, single-payer health care (where applicable). Physics, astronomy, maths!

Jules: “The world is beautiful!
The sky is so pretty
and the trees are sweet
like my mom!

“Mama do you like my song?”

Me: “I think it’s the best song I ever heard.”

*

Fall! And the hills are green and the leaves have turned and the air is clear and cold and the sunlight pours out of the sky. Since we started going back to Australia for Christmas again this has become my favourite time of year; pie and butternut squash soup and the chill in the air all carrying the promise of summer.

*

The new swim school is insanely great. Claire can now jump in from the edge and swim loops around her instructor. Julia and Milo can each swim a couple of feet unaided.

It’s like watching them learn to fly.

*

My favourite moment of Julia’s ridiculously awesome fourth birthday party was watching Jamey, Liz and Shannon’s niece Shelby compare their spongiform tonsils.

*

Best little mare Bella is for sale. CHRISTMAS HINT, PEEPS. I’ll be sad to see her go but if ever a little copperbright horse deserved to be some lucky girl’s own beloved pony, it is Bella.

*

Reviews to come of Aaron’s residency in the Headlands, Colin’s exhibition of photos of the Berlin Wall coming down, Jennifer’s trio playing at Socha and McKenze and Hallie’s recital at Noe Valley Ministry. We live in such a fantastic neighbourhood and have such incredible friends.

Hopelessly epic day. I dropped the family at Mission Playground and because I wished for chai, we made a twenty-minute detour to Four Barrel. Which doesn’t sell chai. So I was very late, but Jeremy got me a yummy latte instead, and I figured I could hop in the fast lane and zoom down, and maybe it was the latte or the classical channel that I had cranked up to listen to Beethoven at volume, but I was doing about ninety when I saw the highway police. Ulp! It’s a fair cop, guv!

I blame my mother.

I pulled over on the left shoulder and saw the lights flash and turned Ludwig down to hear the nice officer explaining patiently over the loudspeaker: “NOT ON THIS SHOULDER. PULL BACK INTO THE TRAFFIC AND PULL OVER ON THE RIGHT SHOULDER,” at which I realized D’oh! I’m in America aren’t I. They drive on the other side here don’t they. Once we’d sorted ourselves into NOT THE SHOULDER RIGHT BESIDE THE FAST LANE, he dinged me for speeding and gave me a fixit ticket for my out-of-date tags, but spared me what he assured me would have been a massive fine for stopping on the wrong side.

I am afraid the nice officer formed the impression that I was not the smartest woman in San Mateo, especially after I forgot his clear instructions for pulling back into traffic at high speed and absolutely not stopping, confused, on the 92 upramp. The last I saw of him in my rearview mirror, he was dancing with frustration and shrieking something I couldn’t make out. I hope his morning improved after that.

Mine certainly did; the peerless Bella was waiting for me in the crossties, cleared after her lameness and ready to jump. We marched all the way to the big arena, where I rode with the ectomorphic teenagers and their preternaturally good lower leg positions. As a buxom matron with a torso-to-thigh ratio exactly the inverse of what’s required in the Olympic equestrian disciplines – I am basically a human corgi – I’m at something of a disadvantage in this class. But Bella and I just click. She forgives my innumerable faults and I don’t even register any possible shortcomings she may have.

My God but we had a great ride. California was doing its best impression of the south of France with the crystal clear sky and the air like chilled champagne. The aspen leaves were made of light and air. Bella’s ears were pricked and she strode out with glad goodwill, as she is wont to do. I can’t remember ever meeting another mare so cheerful and merry.

Erin, who is cruel and exacting, has a particularly brutal exercise where she has us canter between the two rails of an oxer, or spread fence, so that we are perfectly straight as we approach a crossrail. Today’s pattern started with this death-defying chute, took a flying change to the right and circled into a 2’6″ vertical (still pretty high for me), then took a flying change to the left and down through a SUNKEN LANE! And then back to the trot and over another crossrail and a canter circle.

“Fun!” I said, and the teenagers looked at me in disbelief, so maybe I do have something they don’t have after all. I thought, Whee! I can pretend I’m doing cross-country exercises at Badminton. Then I thought Wait. I don’t have to pretend I am riding a spectacular horse through a fun jumping exercise. For once in my life I do not have to pretend to be doing that because HERE I AM! D0000000D!!!1!1eleventy

This was a moment of purest distilled awesomeness, and it was the third coolest thing that happened during my lesson today. The second coolest thing was that on our second try, Bella and I rode the exercise quite well, well enough that tough and sparing-with-the-praise Erin nodded and said: “Not bad.”

The first coolest thing is that after only TWENTY FIVE YEARS I have finally learned what to do with my legs. You’d think this would be a pretty fundamental aspect of riding and you would be right. I am probably not, in fact, the smartest woman in San Mateo. My entire life, my whole riding career, I have had a weak and stupid lower leg. It is not perfectly still. It swings back over fences. Its heel comes up. It loses its stirrup. It has been known to kick. People, my lower leg has been a national embarrassment. If I could, I would divorce it and marry someone else’s lower leg altogether.

WELL. It turns out you don’t just dangle the things like limp spaghetti over the sides of the saddle. Nor do you point your heel down or try to hold on with your calf, my various attempts at a refinement of the spaghetti technique. No. Apparently when your Podhajskys and your Morrises talk about an active thigh and seat, what they mean is to use your damn thigh and seat. Somehow in my last couple of lessons I have found a pair of muscles in my lower thigh that I can use to hold my whole lower leg in place. (Salome says they’re the quadriceps, and also: “Duh.”)

Revelation. When I needed to press Bella into a jump, my leg was just… there. I didn’t have to rock it back or swing it forward. I could just squeeze. When she jumped I was ready to move with her, and my leg didn’t drift out behind me. When I needed to collect her up in a half halt or downward transition, my seat was where it needed to be, balanced on its seatbones. Bonus: I could feel the muscles in her back through the saddle. I really could. They were tense as we warmed up, then softened and relaxed as she rounded and collected herself.

Absolutely miraculous ride, among the all time top ten. I proceeded back to the city at a stately 65mph, lesson learned.

Fish tacos. Lemos Farm. Spork. Don Reed’s East 14th. A nice day.

Jeremy came home to find these instructions.

“Clue Book.

“1. You will find us.
“We will help find thus.

“2. Second you look in front of TV.
“You will find clue. Maybe.

“3. Look under the sofa, on the very right.
“It is long, you will find it’s light.

“Claire’s Clue Co. You clue us here!”

The hoard was a snuggle of plush toys in a child-illuminated scroll.

After the recital Jeremy and Claire finished their centipede robot – pics to come – and today I got Light Industrial published. What a talented family! Nerds.

I’ve been shopping at the Webb Ranch farmer’s market, around the corner from the barn. The blue lake beans are just quietly great; crunchy and juicy and sweet.

Jeremy stir-fries them with chicken breast strips, cherry tomatoes from the garden, garlic cloves, peanut oil and soy sauce. Nom.

I steam them with broccoli, zucchini, peas and corn, and then drown everything in too much butter. I call it a butterbath. Nom.

Mission Mission and Burrito Justice are competing to be the best blog on earth.

“Sutro is endlessly scanning for threats on the horizon to our fair city.”

“A gang of Mission hoodlums made a raid last Saturday night upon Hermann’s saloon, on the Mission road, carrying away three barrels of beer, which they secreted in a barn belonging to a man named Bell, on the very summit of Bernal Heights.”

Kind of broke myself hauling water to the new trees at Monroe. It’s too much work for one person, even one ably assisted by Miss Claire. Got home and Jeremy had emptied his office out and there was a ziggurat of recycling at the top of the stairs, so I just sort of burst into tears half way up. “You know we have guests coming in twenty minutes?”

To be fair, it wasn’t random guests, it was Bryan and the boys who are as low maintenance as can be, and Jeremy had already put the chicken on to roast. I made a spinach salad and cut up nectarines and pluots and grapes for dessert. They liked everything and demanded third helpings and played adorably with the girls.

Ruairi: “I love you Daddy.”

Bryan: “I love you, too. You’re awfully cute.”

Ruairi: “You’re awfully cute too.”

Frickin squee!

R: “I find myself unexpectedly very sad about Ted Kennedy.”

J: “Yeah, me too.”

*

Claire clocked heads with a kindergartener today and came away with a black eye and some shallow cuts. She spent the afternoon at my office and we wandered over to AG Ferrari for lunch.

R: “That’s the earthquake memorial.”

C, remembering earlier conversations: “Your grandmother was born three days after the Great Earthquake! I bet her mother was glad she wasn’t in San Francisco. Your grandmother’s mother is my great, great… wait, let me gather my greats.”

*

R (as I finish recounting this to Jeremy): “And then I exploded. All over Third Street. A fine red mist.”

(A clarification: I exploded with pride in my daughter, who gathers her greats; and not, as my father assumed, in a temper tantrum.)

She knows wushu. Her bit starts at 2:27. (You can glimpse me at 0:20, dying of pride.)

Brunch at my lovely Mission Beach Cafe with Peter the Rocket Scientist, discussing Lee Smolin’s book The Trouble With Physics. Off to Dolores Park to see an all-women, feminist production of The Taming of the Shrew. I love San Francisco. Home, where Salome and Milo and later Kathy and Martha dropped by. Children playing sweetly. Roast chicken with caramelized carrots and ultralocavore salad – lettuce from the Prospect Street garden. Nerdcore dinner party with three of my favourite nerdcore guests, Danny and Liz and Ada.

Me: “Of course I went to Trinity, which is older than some Oxford colleges.”

Danny: “It’s not as old as mine.”

Me: “I can’t win here, can I?”

Danny: “It’s like some dark side of me takes over.”

Later:

Julia, from the bathroom: “Fire! Fire!”

Me, skeptically: “The bath is on fire?”

Danny: “Fire in the hold!”

Me: “Fire in the hold? Fire in the hole?”

Liz: “Yeah, fire in the hole.”

Me: “What did they teach you at Oxford?”

Danny, loftily: “Nothing practical.”

When Ada and Claire got out of the bath, Ada had anointed Claire queen, and kept accidently-on-purpose pretend-peeing on her and saying “Oops! Sorry, your majesty!”

“Well,” I said, “trouble is her middle name. What did you expect?”

“Trouble,” said Danny darkly: “not treason.”

I had an unexpected week off work. The last time this happened, in the year 2000, I made a godawful mess of it. Couldn’t fill my days, felt useless, cried. It is a measure of how completely different my life is now that this has been one of my best weeks ever. One of the best parts was the fact that I got off my butt and organized riding lessons every other day.

I thought I might blog after each one, but it’s Friday and I haven’t done so. There were bloggable things after each. On Sunday Erin got me riding Seth, the huge dapple-grey Warmblood gelding, in a firm but kind contact with lots of leg. He came through and round and soft and the rest of the lesson gave me everything I asked with the barest hint of an aid. On Monday I was on Bella and tried to ride the same way, but Bella is an adorable little chestnut mare made of cotton candy and moonbeams, and when I used a Seth-strength leg on her she bounded away from me as if she had been stung by a bee. I had to ride whisper-soft through the serpentines and changes, so I did.

Wednesday I rode with Colin and Toni, the barn owners, both Grand Prix riders and very very tough, though nice and fair. They stake out each end of the arena and they both correct you as you ride past, so there is nowhere to flop around and catch your breath. Brutal. The other riders were very good so lesson was very advanced: like an ordinary tough lesson for me, but with no stirrups, meaning everything depended on the correctness and strength of my seat, which is neither very correct nor very strong right now. But Bella, who is the world’s most generous and forgiving horse, kept letting me have lead changes and lovely jump spots entirely free gratis and for nothing. We ended by jumping the wall with two poles stacked on it. Easily the biggest thing I’ve jumped at Mcintosh.

Today I was on Bella again, and again, the best moment was the last line. I lifted up my eyes to the hills, whence cometh my help, and suddenly the little mare was in a steady even rhythm and with the bottom of my eyes I could see the three strides into the fence, and the exact spot where Bella would take off. So I moved with her, balanced over the fence, then sat down and collected her and changed canter leads.

Okay, so maybe I did have a lot to write about. It’s been hard to write about it, though, partly because I have so many other projects on – writing grants for Claire’s school, working on Geek Feminism with Skud and Liz and Sumana and the others. But mostly because I’ve been riding reasonably well all week, and what I feel is this brilliant happy afterglow, and happiness is less conducive to blogging than to staring into space with a vacant grin. At home in my body. All that hard work and discipline and concentration for those few seconds when you are riding a thousand-pound Thoroughbred through the air.

The little side-pleasures, too: being out of doors in gorgeous Northern California August weather. Cool breezes in the plane trees. Bella’s irresistible copper coat, like close-grained satin under your hand.

Bagel with cream cheese and lox at Nervous Dog. Spectacular amazing ride on Seth at the barn. Driving home at the exact moment Jeremy and Jan and the girls walked home. Out again for lunch at Mission Pie and a quiet hour in the library. Home to pick up the family again. Cocktails and fried chicken at Front Porch. Ice cream for the girls at Mitchell’s. Finishing the ice cream on the stoop, at sunset, while admiring the lobelia and poppies and roses and jacaranda and bougainvillea.

And so to bed.