To Each Her Own

My friend the healer is not only a healer but a gardener. After lunch in her garden yesterday she presented me with two birds' nests which her husband found while pruning. She remembered that I love the nests and have quite a collection of them which I always put on the Christmas tree. Their ingenuity, variety and use of materials fascinate me. These two I might try to preserve as an object d'art they are so decorative. They were made by a bluejay couple and a pair of hummingbirds and were quite near each other in the same tree. That in itself is a picture for the imagination! (OilMan says he wouldn't mess with a hummingbird, describing it as a "flying hypodermic". The egg is a hen's egg which I put in for perspective.

I got enough comments about the bank being out of money that I went inside (a very rare occurrence) to enquire. I was told that the "delivery" hadn't arrived yet. There's another thought challenge. Never thought about little trucks running around to all the banks delivering stacks of cash--even though I do see the Brinks trucks outside the bank from the to time.

Today I had lunch with my Wednesday pal. We have been having lunch together for thirty five years and still haven't run out of things to talk about, although we have resorted to taking turns deciding where to go for lunch. Today we went to Viks, which began as a little Indian grocery store in the corner of a giant warehouse with a cafeteria-style restaurant with no ambiance and authentic food. A couple of years ago the whole thing moved a couple of blocks down the street into a bigger, better organized store (the only place I know of in the East Bay where one can buy fresh curry leaves, 10 kinds of dal or a rose lassi) and a colorful restaurant. It's still a bit chaotic with a new system which attempts to make it less so, but organization was never an Indian strong point and the chaos adds to the charm...

The two Bay Area baseball teams, the Oakland A's and The San Francisco Giants are still in the playoffs for the World Series, and if they both win we will have what is fondly called a Bay Bridge Series. The last time that happened we had an earthquake as the teams took the field, part of the Bay Bridge fell down and an East Bay elevated freeway collapsed. I never realized how many roads and freeways here are elevated until they were all closed for safety checks. They are still building a replacement section of the Bay Bridge 23 years later. It would be appropriately dramatic if they could get it open in time for another Bay Bridge Series, but I doubt if it will happen.