forestofglory

Often when I walk I zone out and don’t really pay attention to the world around me, but more recently I’ve been trying to pay attention to the details of the plants I walk by, especially the trees. Looking at trees seems to be good for my brain, but it's easy to forget to think about what I’m walking by and just follow the route I’ve followed so many times.

The two most common street trees in my neighborhood are live oak and camphor. The live oaks are evergreen and have small dark green leaves with spines at the end of the lobes. Their bark is generally gray-ish and ridged. Live oaks are native here and their acorns were an important source of food for the Ohlone prior to European settlement . The camphor trees are deciduous, but most of them still have green leaves right now – the leaves generally stay on until spring. Their bark is flaky and it’s possible to break off small pieces. These are not native, but they do well here and are the kind of tree Totoro lives in so I’m fond of them.

I like the way both of these tree species have spreading branches. Standing under a tree looking up makes me feel sheltered. It reminds me of how much life there is in the world.

I’m very much a creature of habit, I like to have a routine and stick with it. At the moment part of my routine is going on a walk everyday. I’m also very repetitive about the walks that I go on. I have two regular routes and I rarely vary them. Walking the same routes all the time is a bit meditative and I like not having to think about where I’m going. I can put my brain on autopilot and think about all kinds of things. I like walking by the same gardens frequently and seeing how they change.Walks are good for thinking, but sometimes instead of letting my mind wander I listen to a podcast.

One route is a bit longer than the other, and I decide which route to take based on factors like how much energy I have, how cold it is, and how much time I have. Living in the hills means no flat places to walk, and both routes have a fair amount of ups and downs. Living in the hills also means some great views, and there are several spots where I can stop on a clear day and look out over the bay and the city and the golden gate bridge.

In the last month I’ve both gone to the dentist and taken my kid to the dentist. Dentists offices are such particular spaces to begin with, with their special chairs and lights and tools. Going to the dentist has always been a unique spacial experience for me. With the extra pandemic safeguards in place dentist offices feel even more like their own slightly alien worlds.

My dentist’s office hasn’t actually changed that much. More of the staff wear masks now, and there are some extra plastic panels in the front office, but that’s it. Of course I can’t wear a mask while my teeth are being examined or cleaned. But it still feels different to go to the dentist now, perhaps just because I go into so few buildings these days.

On the other hand, the kid’s dentists has changed a lot. Just before the pandemic started their was a fire in the old office. So during the pandemic we’ve been going to a different, further away, temporary office. Before I used to go in and sit in the waiting room. Now we park outside and text the dentist, then when they are ready for us the text back. I walk the kid to the office and then wait in the car until they are done. So I’ve barely seen the inside of this new office. It gives the whole thing a feeling of isolation.

Dentists offices have always been something of a space apart and the pandemic has only made them more so.

We started the rainy season early with huge storm a few weeks back. Nine inches of rain in three days! I got rather wet during my walks that weekend. But I also got to sit on the sofa with a blanket and a book and look out on the rain feeling cosy.

Each year I wait for the rainy season to start with anxious hope. The first storm is a relief, yes there will be rain this year. California is drought prone, and it only rains between October and May. We depend on the rain, but its only here for a short while.

Rain in the Bay Area doesn't vary much. If it starts raining then its generally going to rain for a while. One a friend was visiting me at uni in the UK and it started raining. I we ducked into a building for about ten minutes and when we came out it had stopped raining. She was so surprised. It also only rains on cold gray days. I still think warm rain is weird.

The first storm didn't end the drought we are experiencing, but it helped end fire season early, and got the soil wet which will help water form the next storm be absorbed better. I'm hoping for lots more rain this year!

I started writing twice monthly posts about natural and built environments in the spring of 2020. I always enjoy the opportunity to think about these topics, and it's a project I’m glad I took on.

However since our first pandemic lock down in March 2020, the way I’ve interacted with the world around me has shifted dramatically. So these blog posts all reflect that altered relationship. While things have opened up a bit since then I still spend most of my time at home, or very close by. I go for walks everyday, sometimes we take the kid to parks, or the swimming pool. I have been in three houses other than my own in that time. Eating out has become much more complicated than it was, with having to check what's open, what has outdoor seating ect. For a long time we didn’t eat out at all, though we did get take out.

It can be difficult to write about the world around me when the world feels so small and limited. I miss traveling. I have many far away friends who I would like to visit. Yet I’ve stayed so close to home for the last almost two years. I’ve been feeling lonely and stuck.

I don’t think my relationship with space will ever be the same again. Even if things get better and I feel safe doing most of the things I miss, I will still feel wary. The pandemic has changed how we experience space and place.

Observations is what I call my bi-montly posts about the natural and built environments, and Bits and Bobs is what I call my “many things make post” post. So here I'm combining the two.

*It’s October and definitely fire season. It’s been a bad fire year for the state but so far this year we’ve been lucky in terms of air quality and haven’t had any really bad smoke days. The kind where you have to wear a mask to filter the air you breathe. Of course there’s still a while until the rains start and we relax a bit about fires. One of the worse smoke events was right before Thanksgiving after all.

*R and I have been eating out a bit more, now that numbers are low locally and more things are open. Recently we started sampling lunch specials. This is a thing a lot of local Asian restaurants seem to do. You get soup, rice and one person sized serving of a main dish, some places will give you a salad and/or a small appetizer like an egg roll too. I find these very appealing, something about getting a small amount of several things just makes me happy. It’s been fun trying a bunch of them!

*The kid has been doing swimming lessons at a local outdoor pool. The last one was last week. She really enjoyed them though. Since the lessons are pretty short I would take her to the pool then sit and watch/play with my phone while she swam. I haven’t been swimming much lately, but I swam a lot as a kid so it's a bit nostalgic for me.

*My local fabric store had been online only since March 2020, but they recently opened up to limited in-person shopping a few days a week, and I got to browse fabric! They are only letting ten people in at once so there was a wait to get into the store, but it was worth it. I picked out thread for my next project, and bought several things to make quilts and more shirts for the kid.

What adventures have you been having outside your home lately?

So recently I have been exploring wuxia, including watching some older movies. I always enjoy thinking about how fiction engages with space. Wuxia seems to have a very well defined vocabulary of spaces, which I’m enjoying a lot. Here’s a couple of things that I’ve noticed so far:

Rooftops Rooftops scenes generally take place at night. They give the sense of the characters being isolated above the world. Rooftops are great for showing off the long flowing jumps that are common in wuxia, so they are a fun place for fights and chases. But also for moon gazing. I’ve noticed that wuxia roofs are frequently just one layer of tile making it easy for characters to make holes for spying or jumping through the roof.

Restaurants Restaurants in wuxia tend to be multi-leveled with one level that looks down on another. Restaurants are often the site of planned and unplanned meetings. Characters frequently enjoy sharing food. But also restaurant fights are a classic trope of the genre! They are visually engaging, and often involve non-weapons being used as weapons.

Urban Waterways I’ve noticed that urban spaces in wuxia frequently have rivers and canals, generally with pretty arched bridges over them. These can be fun for fight scenes or just pretty to look at.

Market stalls/crowded streets In a couple of movies I watched a character had their own little market stall or shop, and these are very visually appealing to me. I also enjoy the frequent scenes of busy streets lined with stalls. It creates a sense of lively urban environment.

These are just some very preliminary observations. I’m excited to watch more wuxia and think more about how the genre uses space. I’d also love to read more about this topic. Does anyone have recommendations for further reading? Or for wuxia media that does interesting things with space?

I was recently reading something that featured a science fiction trope that I've seen a background detail in a bunch of things and that I really dislike: humans have abandoned the earth to let nature heal.

This feels like fundamental misunderstanding of the relationship between humans and nature. Most ecosystems on Earth are fundamentally shaped by human actions. People set controlled fires, harvested wild plants, grazed animals, copiced woods, ect. Are modern humans doing a good job of maintaining these types of relationships? For the most part no. But that doesn't mean that I think the earth would be better off without us.

And we would certainly not be better off without the earth. Every time I read something where the earth has been destroyed or abandoned I feel deep sense of grief, even thought these works generally treat it like no big deal.

I'm frequently frustrated by by the careless way the concept of wilderness is propagated in popular culture. While the concept of wilderness is appealing it generally rests on false understanding of history. I want more fiction to engage with the idea that we can be good members of the community of nature, and that we don't have to either destroy or leave.

Since school started last week the main building I interact with other than my house is the school, so I thought I would tell you all a bit about my morning routine.

I get up before everyone else and putter around making the kids lunch and emptying the dishwasher. I enjoy the quite of being in the house when everyone else is asleep. Then I take my meds, take a shower, and eat breakfast. If the kid is not awake by the time I finish breakfast, I go wake her up. Generally we snuggle for a bit and then she get dressed.

She has breakfast and plays for a bit and then I drive her to school. The school is about 10 minutes from our house. Most of the time I park near this house with an amazing native plant garden, and then we have to stop and admire the flowers.

There's a very cheerful crossing guard who always greets us as we cross the street. The sidewalk outside the school is generally crowed but everyone wears masks. There's a door directly form the sidewalk into my kid's classroom. I'm not allowed in the class room so I say goodbye at the door and then leave.

Here are some adventures I've been having over the last couple of weeks:

*Our local botanical garden is no longer requiring reservations to visit, so and I was able to take the kid there one afternoon. It was not crowed at all, and we had a lot fun wandering around all the twisty paths. The kid especially enjoyed following the creek.

*I went on a hike with a good friend to celebrate my birthday! I made my favorite cookies, and packed us a picnic with those and strawberries and carrot sticks. We had lovely walk, it was sunny but cool with a bit of breeze, and fog banks in the distance.

*The local pool will let you reserve half the sallow area for 45 minutes at a time for "family swim. " I've now taken the kid three times. She loves it. She had few summer swimming lessons and was excited to show what she's learned! I don't know what it is about swimming but even this low key hanging out in the pool made me very hungry!

*My parent took me and the kid out to visit some family friends who live in rural area. They have 13 chickens and 2 kittens. The kid got to feed the chickens and gather eggs. Plus we fed the neighbor's horse some carrots.

I just got back form Bodega Bay yesterday. My parents rented a big house for themselves, my family and my siblings. It was very nice of them but it was a rather stressful trip.

Things where arranged so I could not get much quite or privacy. The house had an open floor plan, so that all the public rooms and the kitchen where one giant room, and with so many people in the house someone was always in that room taking or watching something. I was sharing a small room with both R and the kid, but even when the room was free the sound form the great room traveled and it wasn't actually a quite place to sit. I ended up struggling with sensory overload by the last day.

The house was also in one of those annoying subdivisions full cul-de-sacs and lacking in sidewalks. Plus even though all the houses where in fact a bit different form each other they all felt very samey which made getting around confusing.

In contrast to the built enviroment the natural enviroment was lovely. We where able to walk to the beach. There was a rip tide so we couldn't get in the water but it was still lovely to walk along the beach. I spent one morning with my kid walking along and looking for tide pools. We saw sea anemones, sea stars, barnacles and muscles.

There where other things I liked about the trip too. The house had really well equited kitchen which is uncommon for that kind of thing. R and I made Chinese food for everyone for dinner one night which was fun. We played a lot of board games. My kid loved spending time with family especially her cousin. So it wasn't a bad trip, but it was a lot and I need some time to sit quietly by myself to recover.

( covid discussion )

Today is the summer solstice here in the Northern Hemisphere!

The days here have gotten fairly long. I've been waking up around 5am and its light out then, which means I can't go back to sleep. But I enjoy being awake before everyone else, even if I might like slightly more sleep.

The kid is now going to bed late enough that it is gets dark before she falls asleep -- so when haven't had a lot of complaining about going to sleep while its still light out, which is nice.

Last week we had a heat wave. It wasn't objectively that bad here just in the low 80s. However our house gets pretty hot and I was still recovering form the heat exhaustion, so I felt pretty flattened by it. Now we are back to on of my favorite bay area weather patterns, foggy mornings with sunny afternoons. The mornings are cool and gray, but gets pleasantly warm but not hot in the afternoons.

Last Friday morning we drove down to Santa Cruz. I packed us sandwiches for lunch which we ate in the car. But we also stopped for a bit in Campbell, a city a bit south of San Jose and took a short walk, there was a trail by a creek and some fun wooden bridges.

We got to Santa Cruz too early to check into the house we were staying at, so we went right to the Boardwalk. Well the kid and R went to get tickets and I went to look at the beach and put my feet in the sea. But when I got back they were still in line. We waited around for a bit longer but finally got everything taken care of. The kid got to go on a couple of rides, and then we had timed tickets to the local art museum at 4 pm so we did that. It was fun, though they didn't have quite as much stuff as pre-pandemic.

Then we checked and unpacked and relaxed for a bit. After that we went shopping and got food to make our own breakfasts and lunches and also picked up pizza for dinner. My half of the pizza had mushrooms and roasted garlic with white sauce and was really good. R and the kid just had pepperoni.

On Saturday morning the kid and I went to the beach for a while and played in the waves and did a little digging in the sand. It was fun but the kid's mask got all wet, so we came back to the house and took showers. In the afternoon the kid and R spend a long time at the boardwalk and the kid went on a lot more rides. We got Chinese takeout for dinner.

Sunday we went for a hike in the redwoods. Which was very pretty but I ended up getting heat exhaustion. The hike wasn't that strenuous -- it was 2 miles mostly flat, but it was quite warm and I didn't pack enough water. I didn't realize how bad it was so I took a rest while the kid and R went to the boardwalk. But when they got back I felt worse, and started vomiting! R suggested I take a cool shower which really helped, but I was still really out of it and threw up several more times. Poor R had to take care of me and the kid.

Monday I felt well enough to walk around and hold a conversation though not totally fine. We weren't sure if we were going to make it to our Monterey Bay Aquarium tickets at 3pm. But we decided to try. First the kid and I wandered around downtown Santa Cruz while R got some time to play at the arcade by himself. The kid didn't like the snacks I had on me so we went on a snack shopping spree in the local grocery store. Then we mostly sat around and ate. After a bit we met up with R at a local bookstore. Then after an adventure finding a bathroom we drove to Monterey. In Monterey we had lunch then took a walk then it was time to go to the Aquarium. It was so nice! We got to see otters and the deep ocean tank and the kelp forest and the kid had fun with the touch pools.

Then we drove back home, arriving just in time for bedtime.

After a few days of recovery form the heat exhaustion I'm feeling much better, bending is no longer painful!

In the last week I have done so many things that I had not done in ages and ages! It was overwhelming actually. As of Tuesday I am fully vaccinated! Along with all the adults in my household and my parents household. (My brother lives with my parents). We are extremely lucky to have access to the vaccines.

Wednesday my friend M came over after work. She was able to come into the house and take her mask off! I got to show her my various sewing project and she got to hang out with the kid for a bit. Then we went out to dinner and ate outside and place with table service. The restaurant had taken over a couple of parking spaces outside, which where surrounded by a bright blue fence, and the pavement was covered in astroturf We got to eat bibimbop of real stone bowls! It was so good. I've had take out bibimbop a few times over the last year and its just not the same.

Friday I saw my cousins in person! My cousins on my dad's side where in town for a memorial and we decided to have little family gathering. We met up at my parents house and walked up to the shopping distinct near by with my brother and the kid. I actually went inside a bookstore. We bought the kid some ice cream and my cousins bought some wine. By the end out it I was actually in auditory overload mode, and when we got back I had to sit quietly by myself for a bit. But after that we had lovely dinner of Burmese takeout.

The on Saturday I went to children's birthday party which was held outside in a friends backyard. We all wore masks except while eating. My kid had a great time. There was treasure hunt with pirate themed treasure and pizza and cake and ice cream.

After more than a year of isolation this was all so much. It turns out that interacting with the built enviroment outside my house is just a lot. Things that wouldn't have been a bid deal before the pandemic felt like too much stimulation. I spent all of Sunday more or less in a fugue state to tired to really do anything at all. I

Last November I posted a list of books about cities and nature I wanted to read. I thought it would be interesting to look back on. Since November I have read only two of the books on the list: Zoned in the USA: The Origins and Implications of American Land-Use Regulation by Sonia A. Hirt and The Rise of West Lake: A Cultural Landmark in the Song Dynasty by Xiaolin Duan.

I've also added a few books to the list:
Jade Mountains and Cinnabar Pools: The History of Travel Literature in Imperial China by James M Hargett
World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
What the Emperor Built: Architecture and Empire in the Early Mingby Aurelia Campbell
Tasting Paradise on Earth: Jiangnan Foodways by Jin Feng
Neighborhood by Emily Talen
Trees in Anglo-Saxon England: Literature, Lore and Landscape by Della Hooke

Since then I've also joined an Urban Planning book club, so I've read several books about cities that where not on the list. At the moment I'm mostly alternating between reading books about Chinese history and reading for the book club. At this rate it will take me a long time to get to the books on the list that are not book club books or about Chinese history but that ok. I still read no fiction pretty slowly but I do enjoy it.

I take a walk every day I'm able. It's fairly mild form of exercise but it one that I'm able to sustain. I mostly just walk near my house, though sometimes, I'll go to a local park or drive to my parents house to walk with them.

I live in hilly neighborhood, the streets are twisty and don't make a nice grid. It can be confusing to get around. However unlike some places I've live there is sidewalk everywhere, though on a few narrower streets the cars park on the side walk making it not very useful.

As a creature of habit I have two regular routes, and longer and shorter one. On days when the weather is bad, or I'm in a hurry I'll take the shorter route, but mostly I take the longer route. The short route generally takes me half and hour and the longer one 45 minutes.The longer walk goes by a small park with a playground and a water fountain. Assuming that I can maintain social distance I like to stop there and drink some water.

A lot of people have low water gardens with flowers of succulents. Plus is you stand in the right place their are view of the bay, so its very pretty to walk around. Right now there are still a lot of native iris which are my favorite.

One of the things that I enjoy about online life is seeing pictures of flowers form all over the place. It's fun to watch spring come at different times for my northern hemisphere pals, while catching glimpses of fall arriving in the southern hemisphere. There are common garden flowers that seem to be nearly everywhere like daffodils and cherry blossoms. But they bloom at different times in different places and I enjoy getting to see them for a lot longer than they bloom.

Here in the Bay Area the earliest flowers are done. The magnolia in the back has only leaves now. Out and about I'm noticing that the jasmine is coming into bloom. It smells great! Also wisteria is in bloom all over the place. I love the masses of flowers it produces! Plus there are California poppies, and some iris -- some native varieties, and some showy garden varieties. The native ones are some of my very favorite flowers.

What's in bloom where you are?

I've been thinking recently about what makes a story have sense of place. I've noticed that quite a bit of fanfic feels placeless. Just the settings feel generic, like things are in a city, or maybe a university, and there are some streets but nothing has name or more than the vaguest description. To me as a reader it can feel a bit adrift. I like stories to feel grounded, and to have a lot of texture. My favorite books tend to be SFF that makes me feel like a whole other world is real. I know that not everyone is into that. So I thought I would chat about what does give a story a sense place for me.

A key thing is simply specificity, places with names feel more real. Also things like a quick nod to the existence of seasons and weather can really help. If people are eating something then what are they eating? All of these kinds of things helps the reader build a sense of the the place the story happens in.

A long the same lines sensory details really add texture to a story. I want to know what buildings look like, what the food tastes like, how it smells when the characters enter a new place. That kind of thing is very grounding.

Finally a sense of space and movement. This one is the trickiest. But if you've every read a story set in a place you know and thought "those streets don't connect!" you might know what I mean. This is about how spaces relate to each other, how close or far away in both space and time are things? How big are spaces relative to other spaces?

A sense of place is something that takes work to create in story. These things all require the author to do a bit of work. And it makes readers like me very happy. So what make a story have sense of place for you?

One of my favorite things about urban living is the great variety of food available for purchase. So for today's observations I thought I'd tell you about some recent exciting things that I ate.

A new cupcake shop opened up near us! They have exciting filled cupcakes. (Cupcakes with a bit taken out of the center and replaced with frosting or jam or somesuch) They have very cute cupcake tier towers, and many many flavors. I got a key lime pie cupcake. It was vanilla cupcake with a graham cracker crust, with lime curd filling and cream cheese frosting. It was so, so delicious!

Since the covid numbers have been good, I have resumed my monthly dinners with my parents. Before the pandemic we would go out to actual restaurants, but since the pandemic we have been getting take out and eating on their back porch. Last month we had Japanese food which was delightful. And this month it we'll have our dinner after the time change so it should still be light out!

We have had lunch at the Public Market twice in the last month or so. This is a fancy food hall near us. There's a bunch of small restaurants inside a high ceilinged building, and you go and order an pick up at the counter. They have outdoor seating set up now, so you can sit and eat outside at a safe distance. The kid always gets a milkshake and fries, R gets BBQ, and I generally get ramen. I don't eat pork but the place at the market has chicken broth based options, which are very tasty. I frequently get the butter corn add on --which is what it sounds like, butter and corn in the soup. The last time we went I tried the rice bowl form the ramen place. It was very good, but I think I'll get the ramen again next time. Its so comforting and filling!

Also at the public market I happened to pass by a stand selling macaroons, and impulse bought a dozen! The where very good but a dozen was too many. So the next time I less impulsively bought six. They have all kinds of flavors, churro, jasmine tea, chocolate, strawberry, to name just a few.

So what delicious exciting food have you eaten lately?

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forestofglory

May 2025

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Entries tagged with observations

Looking at Trees

Daily Walks

Dentists Offices

Rainy Times are Here Again

Pandemic Space

Observational Bits and Bobs

Prelimary Notes on Place in Wuxia

Let Us Not Abandon the Earth

(no subject)

Summer Adventures

Bodega Bay Trip

Uncertainly

Long days, hot days, foggy days

Santa Cruz Trip Report

Changes

Cities and Nature TBR Update

My Daily Walks

Flower Watch

What Makes a Sense of Place in A Story?

Delicious Exciting Food