And then I went to Seattle and then I went to London and now I am back.

Took Rose and the girls to CuriOdyssey. River otters high-fived my dottirs.

DSC_9762, a photo by Goop on the lens on Flickr.

Also epically cool.

When the boat sailed out you can see we were on a silver bay under a pewter sky. As Jeremy noted, you could have rendered all the waves using Fourier transforms. It was exactly like sailing into a mathematical function. I thought that for the first time I understood why people love the sea.

Five minutes later, as I was hurling into it, I had forgotten again why anyone loves the sea.

ETA: Tonstant weader fwowed up.

Someone who clearly wishes us harm gave Julia a kazoo, and so we woke at 7 this morning even though it is Saturday. We feigned death until it was time to go to wushu, then we visited Briar Rose the hamster who lives with Salome, Jack, Milo and Najah. To Metate for fish tacos and then down to San Bruno Mountain to hike the Saddle Loop Trail with Jamey and Rowan.

I was expecting the mountain to be as it looks from a distance – bare and raw – but in fact it is paths winding among masses of wildflowers, and beautiful forests, and an unfortunately named Bog Trail that winds through a little canyon so beautiful it reminded both me and Jamey separately of Glendalough.

From there to the opposite corner of the city for swimming lessons (the short people) and coffee (me and Jeremy.) Claire won a ribbon for her backstroke – she has very nearly topped out of the swim school – and we made it into Lucca’s delicatessen five minutes before it closed, so we’re having fresh ravioli and Doctor Who for dinner.

“I’m so tired. I had a long day,” I said to Jeremy.

“I know,” he said. “I was there! And it all started with a kazoo.”

It’s our twelfth wedding anniversary. I was campaigning to have this recognized as the horse anniversary, but the universe wants to make it all about kazoos.

Things to do with the kids:

• Paddle.Yay!
• Ride.
• Hike.Yay!
• Adventure.Yay!
• Run.
• Skate.Yay!
• Swim, swim and swim.

ETA (#1): The Physics Show! Saturday March 10 at 1pm.
Whale watching! Saturday March 17 at 12 noon.
Elephant seals! Sunday March 18 at 2.30pm.
Sundial Bridge in Redding! Annular eclipse, also in Redding! Sunday May 20 at 6.30pm. Yay!

ETA (#2):

• Maharaja at Asian Art till Apr 8 Yay!

ETA (#3):

• Hearst Castle!
• Yosemite! Yay!

We didn’t watch the fireworks last night because Claire accidently gave Julia a nosebleed. Instead we washed everyone off and put them to bed. I chatted to Skud while Melbourne set fire to its spire and Jeremy worked on his LED Nyancat project.

Alain and Sarah and Ross joined us at breakfast. We had a long chat about many things, then we left Sarah playing Fluxx with Claire while Jeremy, Alain, Ross, Julia and I walked down to the Manilla River.

Today it looked like this. We took off our shoes and paddled in the cool water. Ross and Alain skipped stones across the water. Two months ago, after huge rains, the river was almost up to the roadway.

The flood exposed a new wall of rock – mixed serpentine and sandstone, I think. I climbed up to inspect it more closely and got a lot of scratches for my pains. Fifteen feet high, laid down over how many millions of years? Why do we have geologists but not geologians, theologians but not theologists? I think something ought to be done.

When I watch Alain with his nephew and nieces it hurts my heart. He’s brilliant with children and they flock to him like settlers. Saying goodbye is always a wrench. It’s that old should-I-have-moved-so-far-away thing. San Francisco is my delight. And this is my home and my family. I’ll never be all in one piece again. Are other people all in one piece? I don’t even know.

We had a long delicious lunch at the Playhouse, and then we swam at Barraba Station, and then we went to Sarah’s to cuddle the kittens and play mah jongg. Alain’s trip is nearly over. He will go back to Brisbane tomorrow, which is impossible. The years knock me over like a wall of water. Time is a river.

1. Caviar sturgeon roe sea urchin chicken belly in a glass bowl with a mother of pearl spoon
Me: umami jewels
J: briny proteins!

Nicholas Feuillat champagne

2. Trout roe and a watercress leaf with dill, potato, shrimp
Me: one bite of creamy salad!
J: …not quite

CD: Music From When You Were In High School
Seriously not fucking kidding! The Eagles, Phil Collins, Thompson Twins, Men At Work!

3. Egg and cress sandwich with gold leaf
Me: that was good
J: REALLY good

Elton John, Benny and the Jets

4. Oyster with lemon verbena
Me: yum. You never get good oysters here
J: we should go to Sydney then

More Phil Collins! Billie don’t you lose my

5. Deconstructed and reassembled bluefin tuna with a rice poppadum
J: because nature didn’t make tuna tasty enough

6. Brassica is any cruciferous vegetable
Kale and broccoli chips in rye and barley with a quail egg in a bonita stock
Me: smells like home
J: roast chicken and kale

Invisible touch! Don’t stand so close to me!

Me: it’s my high school formal!

7. Lobster and turnip and Dungeness crab in a Meyer lemon cream
Me: if California were a soup it would be this soup

The Beatles. You Can Call Me Al!

Me: which Beatles song was it?
J: the one that goes plinky plinky I am tugging at your heartstrings

Wild Horses Couldn’t Drag Me Away

8. Tragic little exploded squid on a bed of its own risotto. Forgive me. It was delicious

OH: i really want succulents for our wedding. I want em in my bouquet

9. A liver dessert and beer. Seriously amazing
J: novel! All the other things were nice but this is remarkable!
Server: yes, the chef calls it foie toffee, with coffee beans

Every breath you take! Summer breeze!

10. 30 day aged pigeon with persimmon, orange, pressed pear, pomegrate and kalamatta olive

Narcisse Pinot noir

GONNA TAKE ME A LOT TO TAKE ME AWAY FROM YOU
IT’S NOTHIN THAT A HUNDRED MEN OR MORE COULD EVER DO
I FELT THE RAINS DOWN IN AFRICA

11. Brioche goat cheese course! So yummy

HOW DEEP IS YOUR LOVE AHAHAHAHA

12. When a lemon sorbet and a lemon meringue pie love each other very VERY MUCH

I WISH THAT I HAD JESSIE’S GIRL
WHERE CAN I FIND A WOMAN LIKE THAT

YOU CAN RELY ON THE OLD MAN’S MONEY
YOU CAN RELY ON THE OLD MAN’S MONEY

What is this more wine i don’t even

13. New Orleansean fantasia with TINY BEIGNETS

WHO’S GONNA PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR DREAMS
WHO’S GONNA PLUG YOUR EARS WHEN YOU SCREAM

EVERY LITTLE THING I DO IS MAGIC
EVERYTHING I DO JUST TURNS YOU ON

14. Popcorn ice cream

Disastrous date to the right of us: a sullen silence is still silence

Disastrous date to the left of us: PLEASE DON’T EVER ASK ME WHAT I MEAN

WHO CAN IT BE NOW?

PRIVATE EYES ARE WATCHING YOU
THEY SEE YOUR EVERY MOVE

Dear God I have to be on a plane at 7am. And so to bed.

I didn’t think she would really get out of bed, but at dawn Claire and I were indeed up on Bernal Heights, watching the lunar eclipse. Then this evening she pored over Jeremy’s copy of Full Moon. I love her so much.

After Claire’s riding lesson on Saturday, she and Julia and Jan and I went to visit Filoli, a highly improbable English country house with acres of formal gardens in the foothills of the California Coast Range. It was a glorious October day, with air like sauvignon blanc and the promise of fresh apples. Jan is evidently a little unused to sightseeing at the kids’ natural pace, a rapid trot, but it did mean we inspected the house and gardens comprehensively, if not in great detail.

My affection for Filoli is part of my swords-into-ploughshares fetish, like my deep love for the former nuclear missile silo that is now the Marine Mammal Center. After sixty years of housing high privilege and absurd balls and drunken dinner parties and so forth, Filoli was donated to the National Trust in 1975 and now any commoner and her kids and her mother-in-law can bounce through it at will.

And not only us. As we came out of the visitor center after returning our pencils (filling out the kids’ scavenger hunt, for the purposes of) I stopped and caught my breath. A doe bounded across the path, not ten feet in front of me, and into the olive groves to my left. She was followed by another doe, a fawn and a third doe. Claire and Julia, crowding behind me, saw them as well: their ballet-dancer bodies arrested for a heartbeat in the golden-hour light, every tawny hair detailed, their graceful heads turned to look at us, the deep orbs of their eyes. Then a weightless leap into the olive trees and away.

“That!” said Julia, “is the coolest thing that has EVER HAPPENED TO ME IN MY LIFE.”

Me: “It’s amazing what you can get used to.”

Optimal Husband: “Yes?”

Me: “Today I went riding with my daughter. And tonight I had an all-time top-three meal. I should be euphoric! Instead I am merely very happy.”

(Special commendations to the beet meringue. And the heirloom tomatoes with a tomato water on the side. And the sucking pig. But it was all just beautiful and delicious.)

I was up late and woke early and XO was out of chocolate croissants, so that although it was a glorious day I felt a bit frail and mostly glad that I would be riding Bella.

But also just a tiny, secret bit bummed, because she’s little and has an upside down neck and doesn’t really come on the bit like the BIG horses.

MOAR FULE ME.

“Dez,” I said to Dez, our lovely trainer: “should I be using a driving seat with Bella?” This is the sort of rubbish I get out of books.

“You already use too much driving seat,” said Dez, who is lovely. “I want her to move off your legs.”

So off we go, and I am pushing her and pushing her and also messing with the bit, because for heaven’s sake Bella you are a grown horse, do not be ponying around with your nose in the air.

“Leave the bit alone,” said Dez, fountain of loveliness. “It’s more important to get her moving forward.”

Okay, so, this isn’t working, why don’t I do a crazy thing and try what the trainer says. Leave Bella’s ridiculous head in the clouds and ride her off my leg into a light, consistent contact.

Trot without stirrups, counterflexion, circles at counterflexion, true flexion, canter, drop stirrups, flying change. Lots of work at the canter, me trying to sink into the saddle, hold my legs soft and still at her side. Not use a driving seat.

I started to feel her finding her own cadence. I tried to sit still and soft and supple, and actually felt my hips creaking, too stiff to move with her. Dez has always told me I do this, but I never felt it before. I tried to soften, and tried to soften, and tried and tried and tried.

And Bella reached her neck down into the contact.

Well, I thought. I’ll be damned.

She wasn’t arch-necked and picture-perfect like Archie and Dillon and Omni. Her little neck is too short for that. But she was moving off my leg and accepting the contact, and I had done it without my hands, just with patience and my seat.

Next we did a distance exercise and I threw away the reins and she ran out on me in front of a six-inch log, the little brat. But later again we jumped a course most of which was 2’9″ and half of which was oxers and all of which felt enormous to me. And we rode it in that same forward gleeful canter, united in a single purpose, counting strides and hitting good distances and taking off and landing like Fred and Ginger. I eased her into a trot with the biggest grin my face is capable of.

But the biggest happiness didn’t wash over me until later, when we were walking back to the barn, and I looked at the sun shining on her iridescent orange withers and her strawberry blonde mane. She may be little on the outside but don’t be fooled. Bella is large, she contains multitudes; she has infinitely more to teach me.

Showjumping is in and of itself a pointless pastime, I know that. On the drive down, Katie and I were chuckling about our habit of driving thirty miles to ride horses round and round in a small arena, and how we might explain this to our great-grandparents. But equitation is also an art, and like any respectably pointless human activity it contains both nothing and the everything that that tiny point of nothing is connected to. It is teaching me history and psychology and anatomy and genetics. It’s teaching me how to learn.

I propose a third domain of study, beside the sciences and the humanities. I shall call it, the equanimities. The queue forms to the left.

Sundays have been perfect for a while now. They start on Saturday nights when I go to bed early BECAUSE I AM OLD AS DIRT, and curl up in my lovely bed with my lovely cat and a library book. They continue when I wake up and kiss everyone goodbye and walk over to Cafe XO and have a pain au chocolat warm out of the oven. Then Katie and I carpool down to the barn and talk about books and politics. Then we have a showjumping lesson, on horses dappled with good health and shining like Akhal Tekes, under the sparkling aspens and the benevolent smile of the Stanford Dish.

Then when I get home Jeremy is making French toast for the girls. Today was even better than usual because my lovely Yoz had come over with his lovely Dexter. We walked up the hill, kidnapping Martha and watering Fitzmurgistead Farm on the way. We sat in the sun in the playground and went to Tacos Los Altos for burritos and Jamaica and went back to the park and Kathy and Rose and Salome came and found us. And then we wandered home and drank wine and played Fluxx and I made tagine and it was unctuous.

Now we are watching the adorable Brian Cox, and I am wondering what I will say to him when I meet him in London next week.

Sundays! There should be more of ’em.

Julia, Ada, & Claire, a photo by jon_gilbert on Flickr.

And all I have to show for it are a couple of hours lying on the couch with my cat, drinking hot tea and reading my Lionel Shriver novel.

Win!

1. It turns out that the reason it’s taken me this long to try to download audio books to my phone is because libraries have been tragically afflicted with an evil crippleware proprietary standard! Luckily there is also MP3, but establishing the extreme wrongness of WMA took a couple of hours of my life I will never see again. REVENGE.

2. Finally got off my ass and gave blood this morning. There’s a center right near Montgomery Station, and this morning I was the only donor there. They’ll disqualify you if you’ve ever so much as given the stinkeye to a British cow, which is ridic, but if you are as un-tattooed and monogamous and straight-acting and only-travelling-in-the-First-World, that is to say, if you are as BORING as me, go bleed into a bag. They give you muffins.

3. Last Friday morning I got to have a look at Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard’s offices, preserved exactly as they were when H and P retired, all Mad Men with wood panelling and windows onto a Japanese garden. Then I drove back to the city, where Liz gave me a guided tour of the Noisebridge hackerspace and I examined a Makerbot that was busy making new Makerbots. San Francisco is amazing.

4. The photos of Queen Elizabeth in Ireland are very strange to me for lots of reasons. The Queen looks more and more like my mother as she ages, to the point that the picture of her speaking in Dublin Castle actually raises recognition-hackles on the back of my neck; I have my own very vivid memories of the Book of Kells and Croke Park and the National Stud, and I don’t think I have ever seen the Queen in a place where I have been before; and I know enough history that my entire sympathies are with the protestors, with the security guards and the police, and with the Queen.

5. This week I like this Janelle Monae song, this Janelle Monae song (with a surprise cameo by Claude Debussy), this Olof Arnalds song (with a surprise cameo by Bjork), The Comic Book Guide to the Mission, Inside Wikileaks and, always, the great Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Really ace weekend. Dinner at Brenda’s Friday night – crawfish beignets zomg – and then Source Code, which was epically popcorn. And then drinks at Yoz’s, where he pulled out his phone and said, “About this blog post: is Juniper Arwen Anemone Sagan Donner Hermes really a real name?” and we said “Oh my God, haven’t we introduced you to the Ximms yet? You’ll love them, they are lovely!”

Saturday I mostly slept. I slept late, went to the farmer’s market with Salome, which these days is mostly sitting outside Sandbox eating beef piroshki and drinking De La Paz coffee and talking about our lives. Then I went home and napped for hours. Then we took the girls swimming and Jules went to Azucena’s party and Claire and Jeremy and I had yummy vegetarian Indian. When I got home Bebe lay on top of me purring and saying “You remember how you slept late and then had a long nap and I got to snuggle with you all day? That was aces.”

This morning I rode Omni with Toni and Colin and jumped VAST FENCES, possibly as high as 2 foot 9. I have undeniably improved. I visited Salome on the way home and played with the boys while she tidied up, then we went back to my place and collected J and the girls and walked up the hill and had lunch in the garden behind Progressive Grounds, and bought books at Red Hill where I took a picture of a job ad for Rose, and visited Good Prospect Community Garden and picked lemons, and met Kathy and Martha out for a walk, and went to Holly Park, and picked up dinner at Avedano’s and now we are home and dinner smells awesome and I am fond of my life.

This morning, driving to work on 280. Olof Arnalds on the radio. Three Canada geese flew over me in formation.

When Kay and I were kids living in the far-flung suburbs of Sydney, we used to dream of living in New York City. The appeal, to me, was specifically being able to order Thai food at 3am. Now, of course, my digestive system rebels at such outlandish notions. I do eat home-delivered Thai about once a week, but at a civilized hour.

That said, my daily life in this very dense neighbourhood is far better than long-ago lonely teenager could ever have dreamed. Yesterday I bumped into Ann Hughes and Jakie, Julia’s future husband, as I exchanged library books in the Mission branch of the SFPL. I got home in time to take Claire to wushu, and then I put on gardening gloves and attacked the weeds in our flower bed. Gilbert and Ada came out and found me there, so Gilbert went off to run errands while Ada helped me in the garden and Julia sat on the stoop and made up stories to entertain us. And then we all went to collect Claire from wushu. Did I mention she has her green belt? No? Really?

I’ve been sleeping erratically, waking at 4am and drowsing fitfully until the alarm goes off at dawn, so it was a bit surprising that last night, squashed between Importunate Cat and Julia, I had the best night’s sleep I’d had in ages. Not to mention an elaborate and escapist dream. He was an exiled North African prince. I was a cypherpunk anarchist whose help he sought, but instead I subjected him to long lectures on the evils of kleptocracies. We lived in a sunny north-Mediterranean city whose skyscrapers could be raised on pneumatic lifts to avoid tsunamis. You know. That old story.

We all woke very late and had to scuttle to get to school in time for the bell.

I can’t leave the house without five bags of stuff to donate. I’m rearranging the furniture. I’m not myself, at all.

Something’s working, anyway. Tonight I wrote 500 words on the novel (now at 13K) and 500 words on a new short story.

The last couple of days have been very difficult and sad, for no reason I can exactly fathom. The kids are doing their schoolwork and I am reading my work mail; maybe it’s trying to live in two worlds at once that’s doing it to me. Wanting to be back in San Francisco, wanting not to leave Australia. My divided loyalties, my inability to do justice to either set of obligations.