Category Archives: Home

Move, please

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

One of the challenges that I am facing four days a week is BART between Civic Center in San Francisco and North Berkeley. It isn’t that I love riding on a crowded system, but rather it is a better alternative than driving back and forth. Part of the joy involves the basic mechanics of getting to and from the subway platforms. Most of the time the escalators are working, except when they are not. Most of the others taking the system are polite, except for those who are just plain rude.

Let me explain:

  1. there are elevators which most of the time are working, bear no relationship to the main portion of the station, and smell like pee at best;
  2. there are escalators which are usually, but not always, in the middle of the platforms and mostly work;
  3. finally there are stairs which connect the platforms with the main portion of the station; and
  4. there are normally all of the above which connect the main portion of the station with the surface of the local neighborhood.

So to get from one level to another you have to pick one of the options. Leaving out elevators which are to be avoided if at all possible, one has to navigate either stairs or escalators. There is the standard custom in Europe which translates to walk on the left, stand on the right. This convention is observed in almost all non-Commonwealth countries some of which may apply this standard in reverse.

It is not a hard concept. Stay on the right if you are not going to walk up if you are on escalator. There is really no great reason to stand on the left. Reading your phone is not an excuse. Making a play for someone in whom you have interest is not an excuse. Placing your luggage or grocery bags at your side rather than in front of you is not an excuse. Any of these are rude and obstruct the flow of those who want to walk up. Why anyone wants to walk is not a concern or needs a comment. It should be sufficient to recognize that someone wants to get by and to allow them to proceed on their way.

Then we come to the stairs. All of the stairs in the BART system have railings on both sides. The railings are there for reasons of safety. They help those of us who need them to haul themselves up, they provide stability for anyone with an unsteady gate, and they help direct the flow of traffic along the sides. NOT DOWN OR UP THE FREAKING MIDDLE. (Emphasis is obviously mine). I don’t mind someone who needs time to get up or down; in fact I can applaud their strength and courage in tackling stairs. I can appreciate anyone who looks at the stairs as a mountain to climb or a chance to burn off a few calories.

What I don’t understand is anyone who needs to walk up (especially) or down a flight of stairs in the middle. Not holding a railing, not keeping to the side, and effectively obstructing completely the flow of foot traffic in both directions. I am exempting anyone with medical/psychiatric reasons for not complying with normal traffic flow. But your average commuter, fixed on their phone, dragging themselves up the stairs while effectively preventing anyone from getting around them.

This morning it was a well-dressed woman with three bags. Since the bags were held in her left hand, there really was no reason for her to hike up the middle of the stairs. She could have used the railing on the right side. She could have even been obnoxious and walked on the left. Instead, she chose to take more than her ½ out of the middle, effectively blocking anyone from below in getting past her on the stairs and forcing the rare person attempting to get to the platform to play skinny statue to the side.

As you can imagine, I had already navigated down at North Berkeley, numerous stops and crowding on the Milbrae BART followed by a scrum on the first set of stairs up from the platform. So my temper was not the best when confronted with someone who obviously wasn’t paying attention to anyone else. I am older, I have grey hair and simply, I didn’t care what she thought of me.

“Excuse me, I need to get past, please.You are completely blocking the stairs.”

(picture the interruption, the angry look followed by glancing behind to see a mass of people including, but not limited to- big, burly people with bicycles.) She actually pulled over at the intermediate platform and started berating me for being rude and not giving due consideration to her age.

I just thanked her for getting out of the way and dashed up the open stairs, laughing because I obviously had 20+ years on her.

Lasted a bit longer

Holly Doyne Posted on by 1

at the ball game. It might have been because I wasn’t as cold. It might have been because the As were obviously doing a lot better than the previous evening.

In any case, had fun. We made a lot of noise. The As won (8:2).

This wasn’t a day on which I had to go to San Francisco. It wasn’t a day, as it turns out where I needed to give Daughter #2 a ride to/from work in the early hours of the morning. It was a day for reading, picking up the crop share (garlic, lots of tomatoes, melon, squash, cucumbers, grapes, apples etc) and sitting in on a class at Cal.

Without the travels, my life has become rather a blur from one day to the next with distinguishing characteristics based more on which classes I have rather than cities seen or interesting people met.

But I did get to avoid Dallas with George. There are a lot of places left in the world that I would like to visit. Dallas isn’t one of them….

Or perhaps I am just cheap

Holly Doyne Posted on by 1

(written while snarling since my original post vanished into the bitbucket or wherever drafts go when WordPress decides it is not going to cooperate. You would think I would learn to copy drafts before hitting the “save the draft” button. Unfortunately that lesson has not yet been learned).

Anyway. I think that I am representative of my generation – at least the European version or the person who lives in a major city. My first thought when going anywhere outside walking distance is to take public transportation. If this is not possible, I will drive. What is not first, second or fifteenth on my list is Lyft/Taxi/Uber. I don’t even think about them. It is not that I haven’t had occasion (a 0600 flight out of SFO for example which is earlier than is possible to safely make on BART. And not being willing to inflict cruel and unusual punishment on a family member by forcing him to drive back through San Francisco during rush hour – which for purposes of anything can assumed to run almost continuously from 0430-2330 Monday through Friday with occasional gasps of total insanity on the weekends when even more fools come out to play) to use them. But I view them as a fall back.

Not so much by the younger generation which views taxis and the private alternates as a routine method of transportation. I can easily understand part of their thinking. When a bus doesn’t go directly, why spend 90 minutes on the bus when the drive takes 13? If you are not eligible for a Senior Discount, the price isn’t going to be that much different if you have to change bus lines (hint, UC Transit doesn’t include transfers on your fare). If you live in the city, you really don’t need to drive. The monthly cost of using public transport and Lyft is going to be less than that of owning a car, even given the limits on convenience.

All of this is explanation of why, after seeing one daughter off to the house of another that I took BART and the #65 home rather than call a Lyft. BART runs, and allegedly the bus does as well. My total cost was under $3 (remember what I said about senior discount?) I am sure that it took longer to get home than if I had taken a Lyft. In fact, I know that since the bus was running late and I didn’t exactly have the jacket and three sweaters than are often needed for a Northern California evening jaunt.

But I arrived safely home, didn’t spend that much. And avoid having a bill to pay at the end of the month.

Organizational Skills

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A good friend who went on to get a PhD after she finished her military career made a remark that I found quite interesting. In her opinion, being organized for school was not all that difficult since being in the military and accomplishing anything requires a fair amount of self generated structure and discipline. It was her opinion that one continued in professional, organized mode and everything was not as much of a crisis as it would be for a younger person who only had experience being in academics.

At least for some people. Others I think depended on the military itself to provide structure complete with schedules, goals, objectives and organizational structure. The same might be said for being a student at various levels with professors and instructors who can manage to present a syllabus at the beginning of the course, have planned lessons, assigned readings and presentations. If it is all laid out for you, then the onus falls upon the student to plan appropriately.

I really don’t mean to whine, but lawyers simply don’t think the way the rest of us do. Since that is the case, and most certainly no one is going to change the entire US legal system of teaching just to make my life more sunny, I am going to have to get over it. Get over being irritated at every sentence needing a citation. What is wrong with footnotes, I ask you? What is wrong with clear English (or German, Norwegian or whatever particular language you are drafting said document in…)?

Perhaps the key to my frustration is not that I can not be organized nor is it that life happens while I have deadlines. Nothing about that has changed in the last 50 years. I think my frustration comes from the disconnect between what this course of study is requiring and my basic skill set. I didn’t spend most of my military career with a set organized schedule and clinics full of patients. Rather, my best jobs were those where I was the trouble shooter – sent in to fix a problem, an organization, find a solution or investigate an incident. Those are not regularly scheduled programing. Maintenance was not me. Something that is clearly working and organized is totally and completely boring.

So here I am, fighting I think against rules and regulations for exactly no point except that they exist. Deadlines exist. I have to write these papers, briefs and summaries. Lawyers are anal. I am not. When you are a fixer – no one ever expects the 100% perfect solution. What is needed is a major correction from the current course and someone else will spend weeks, months or years fine tuning whatever it is until they break it and the cycle starts over.

Meanwhile, I get to summarize cases, write a couple of memos and deal with the basics of life which include food, laundry, transportation and taking out the garbage since George is still in Switzerland and Euclid Pick-up is early on Mondays.

Day Off

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No trip into San Francisco today. Not getting on BART, not wandering through the Farmer’s Market at UN Plaza and not going to a baseball game. I am not sure what was going on at today’s orientation at UCHastings, but it didn’t involve me. Quite good since it was late when George picked me up at BART after the ball game.

Unlike the night before, the As managed to squeak out a win over the Dodgers. In fact, there was still waaayyy too much blue in the stands. Tuesday night the attendance was around 33k, I didn’t hear the numbers last night. On the positive side tonight besides the five drums and plenty of cow bells, there was an opposing right fielder with a sense of humor. The win meant the series was split and the As gained more ground in the standings.

I crawled out of bed at the crack of dawn before figuring out that George was making the early drop off run which meant getting to back to sleep. Other than meeting a friend for coffee and a photography discussion, I spent the rest of the day running errands, reading and eating more cherries (note, cherry season seems to be lasting longer this year) rather than doing anything for school. Ah, well, I like getting up early to do homework, right?

Turn Signals

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

Back we are to a rental beast. Beast being the literal truth as the smallest thing on the lot when George went over was a Jeep SUV. Hello? That is not a small or easy to drive car. Nor, just to add insult to injury is it terribly fuel efficient. Add to that clumsy, difficult to park and stark white and you will start to understand how completely I loath this particular vehicle.

It isn’t a car in which I would feel safe with a new driver as it seems to take more than its fair share of the road. George was the poor person who had to deal with Enterprise this time and has agreed that if it is going to be more than a few days till our car is returned he will take the responsibility for swapping out for something smaller and a bit easier to handle.

What started this rant in my head was the challenge of driving with the standard US driver neither knowing or understanding the use of turn signals. Heaven forbid that you actually provide the driver behind you with a clue as to what you might be considering next. Much less someone coming in the opposite direction. I won’t even bother to describe the California driver and traffic circles (roundabouts for you English driving types). Signal? Who? Why? How?

Argh!

Meanwhile – in other challenges, I have been working my way through all the documents that UCHastings seems to require. Every other minute there is yet another document, paper or mandatory course to complete. Not that I mind TitleIX training, but I have already addressed the fact that training geared toward incoming college freshmen is insulting at best to mature students and incomprehensible to the average foreign student.

Gee, back to my usual mode of being a total PITA. Feels natural, even if it falls under the guise of making the whole experience more appropriate and relevant.

Cleaning

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Which is absolutely not my favorite thing in the whole world. But then, I have a daughter due back from Germany today, a couple of cats to get back to their own cozy home and no in town baseball game to provide me an excuse.

You see, I have this upstairs room that is variously called my craft room, my studio or that junk room. You get the idea. It had gotten to the point where I wasn’t willing to even step inside the room which leads to serious secondary and tertiary affects. Projects don’t get completed, I contemplate buying more supplies since I can’t locate what I know is in the room and my kids look at me with the “lead by example much?” quizzical look that I can’t refute. So I broke down starting yesterday and started to put the room in order.

To understand the magnitude of the task just think sewing, machine embroidery, knitting, spinning, quilting, cross stitch and you will get the idea. Each of those mentioned above has supplies: patterns, books, fabric, threads, yarn, needles, notions, machines, a spinning wheel or two, fiber, coffee mugs, tea cups and a sheep skin (doesn’t everyone need a sheep skin?) to just start the list. And then there are the various audiobooks in physical copy that I have accumulated from both Graphic Audio and Audiobookstand (going out of business….) that I haven’t yet heard.

plus the able helper

I did mention the cats? Onyx seemed to think it was his job to assist in all things. The third time I pulled him out of behind boxes or that he tumbled boxes and books off the shelves along the slanted wall he was evicted. Not pleased, as it is the given right of cats to walk wherever they want. Ten minutes later, I was forgiven as the custodian of the bag of treats.

Any way, we picked up the daughter safely, transferred her and the cats to her house and it still left me enough time to make a serious dent in the disaster.

I can actually find the floor…..

Prettier than new

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After driving a rental car since 3 July, I picked up our shiny clean car yesterday from Hustead’s on 7th in Berkeley. I am so used the size of our Golf and the standard transmission that I have found myself not willing to parallel park due to car size. And then there is the uncomfortable feeling of searching for the clutch which just doesn’t happen to exist. What is also noticeable to me is that I much prefer the hatchback/station wagon back opening to a trunk. Just sliding things like suitcases and groceries is easier than lifting them out.

It is also interesting to have a clean car. Mind you, once in a blue moon or so I drive the car through a car wash. Being a good citizen of California I would rather take it somewhere that processes the runoff water properly than to run up my own water bill and have slime all over the driveway. You see, it is the redwoods around our property. They have a tendency to shed and drip on any vehicle left in the parking area. To get it off requires not just cleaner and water but a lot of scrubbing. Car washes have these lovely big rotating brushes that manage to get off the sticky stuff with one pass through. Much easier on me as well.

At least that is my story and excuse for not washing a car. As far as the rest of it? They actually vacuumed out the inside. And changed the radio station which tells me that the battery in the car is well functioning and provided entertainment to the crews while working. At least I am assuming that you don’t bother to change the station if the only thing you are doing is moving the car in and out of the shop.

Back to the car. I have a new right rear passenger door. A repaired rear quarter panel and a new right rear tire. There is lovely, clean shiny paint along that side.

While waiting for the last bit of polishing, the manager and I talked about the challengers of traveling with family. His most recent experience involved daughters, excess baggage and outrage that he expected them to stay within weight limits. Then I think of the size suitcases I used to travel with and have some sympathy. It takes time and energy to learn how to coordinate clothing so that you can minimize what you pack. It takes a willingness to ignore current fashion in favor of light weight and layer. And besides – if I brought too much in the way of shoes or clothes, I wouldn’t have enough room for the knitting and cross-stitch projects now would I?

Crunch

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

As I was driving home from dropping off daughter #2, I took a variation on my usual route. Not sure why, but that is what I did. Maybe my brain said I was driving back from North Berkeley BART rather from dropping off Dani. In any case, I drove up Cedar rather than Rose. At early in the morning, most of the traffic lights are flashing rather than regular red/green cycles. Depending on the intersection, the change from night to normal happens sometime between 0500 and 0600 on weekdays. And this is a Tuesday, not a holiday.

For whatever reason, as I approached the Cedar/MLK intersection I didn’t completely register the stoplight as having changed. The end result it that a Lyft driver who was turning right interested with my right rear passenger door. No one was injured and his car, from what we could see in the dark, seemed to have only minor scratches on the front grill. Not so my Golf. After exchanging information we both headed on our way. He said he had a passenger to pick up then would check in about a police report. Just to make sure, as soon as I got home I called the non-emergency Berkeley Police Line. This is not Germany. Since no one was injured, I was told just to notify my insurance company and an official report wasn’t required. What? No ticket? No. Amazing.

Next call was to USAA. By 1000 I had dropped off my car, been picked up by the rental car agency, provided a 2018 Japanese something or other and was back home. It made me glad that I had paid the extra few dollars a month for rental car coverage.

This was not exactly how I had planned on spending my day. But it did help that the As managed to win 6:2 against the Padres.

Driving around in circles

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This was a day spent on wheels in either our car or Shana’s Fiat. I promised Dani I would give her a ride to work, I had to go into San Francisco which was car to BART and back; I needed to pick her up from work. Then there was getting Alex to and from work, picking George up at BART on his return from NYC and getting Shana’s car back to her house along with Noah and his stuff. George did a couple of runs before picking me up to take me back to Berkeley. Something about needing to get home and packing for tomorrow’s departure.

I managed to read a bit and finished my current audiobook – Simon Winchester’s Precision. For anyone interesting in science, engineering and/or the industrial revolution it is a great read. He does his own narration being one of the few authors who can pull that off. I think it might be one of those books which may well be more interesting in audio than written page since it has aspects of technical but it is really about the story. Winchester is an excellent raconteur.

All of this lead to my mind going in circles when I should have been sleeping

New BART Cars

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In general, BART needs a face lift. Badly. The current set of cars are old, clunky, difficult to keep clean and lacking in what has come to be routine in major cities as to signage and accessibility.

As it happens, there are new trains on the way. Not at all like the test cars which have been in the system for a couple of years; these new cars are sleek. The seats can’t be taken apart by any enterprising subway sleeper. They have significantly less seating but markedly better standing space. The handicap locations are clearly marked as are the bicycle areas. What is even more important is that there is electric signage. At the end of the car, the sign clearly states the current station. The electric boards in the cars have both station information and map with the current location clearly noted.

Gee! Just like a real subway that you would find in any International city!

new interior

The seats are suspended so that cleaning should be easy. There are no cushions to be pulled off or stolen. There is signage. Plus, none of the seats would be comfortable for sleepers.

I wonder how soon the homeless advocates are going to complain that these cars discriminate…..

Discussing the new cars was by far better that talking about today’s baseball game. Let me just leave it with – didn’t suck as badly as yesterday….

High Winds and grey skies

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We docked in Cobh promptly on time this morning after another night of rolling seas and various assorted complaints from passengers. I ignore them, but wonder what they would do if the seas became really rough. I figure as long as you can manage to walk down a corridor; in the evening not get tossed out of your bed – it just isn’t that bad.

Say that three times to the chandelier  that came down in Chops the other night. No one was sitting below it which was all to the good. There has been a toll on dishes and glassware in various locations.

Oh, yes. Docked. There wasn’t any rain for the morning and people headed off the ship in droves. On tours, on the train, on the bus, on foot. There were more than a few who got partway out, were blown sideways by the wind gusting up to an easy 50 knots and made their way back to the ship.   I have been here before, both walking around the local town and heading into Kinsdale, and into Cork. Those tours were lovely, but my idea today was a bit of exercise and no particular strain at all. 

The coffee machine is still working plus I have a kettle in the room. Could not ask for much more.

Meanwhile, they are working on a new driveway at home

Detour to the Driveway

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

For the moment, imagine you are not with me on the Brilliance – rather you are back in Berkeley looking at what was – for about a year – a gravely, muddy mess filled with pickup trucks and construction debris. The fact that everything was picked up (without me getting yet another flat tire), ground prepped and base laid down is even more astonishing.

Admittedly, photos taken on a cell phone and passed over to be aren’t always outstanding, but this one does the job. You can see my new fence along the back line. No more worrying about someone backing up a few cm too far and getting dropped backwards down a hill. No worries about potholes in cement that was poured sometime before 1960. What I have are mostly grey pavers (manmade stone) with an occasional hint of some other color). Phots not taken at twilight don’t show the color variation as much.

But it is a definite improvement and the end is in sight!

Meanwhile, this is a sea day. Cross-stitch and audiobooks are the order of the day.

They might be moving

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

downstairs yet this month.

a few things moved into the living room

 

The kids are working diligently on sorting out their stuff and figuring out what needs to be stored (seasonal), what needs to get relocated downstairs and what just might go the way of the recycling.

and a few more into the bedroom

 

Their furniture is mostly in, there is stuff on the wall.

Is it evil of me to say that I am looking forward to them, and most especially the dogs, having their own space?

Two for one

Holly Doyne Posted on by 1

Sunshine + an As win. Ssveral home runs and a pitching staff that msnaged to keep its act together.

The Cub’s fans were stalwart and, with one exception, really nice people. Several were on break from Illinois bad weather while others were able to combine being snowbirds with supporting their team. I can’t say the peobkem person was anything other tgan oblivious. Otherwise why would you think it was alright to stand at the lawn railing directly in front of fans sitting on blankets?

Also in the mix were a couple of Diamondback fans, a guy with an LA Dodgers cap and an avowed Padres fanatic.

Otherwise, it is relax and finish the latest small cross stitch time.

Meanwhile- back in Berkeley

Inspection tomorrow

New Window

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As it turns out, there was dry rot in the framing around our main living room window resulting in a serious additional expensive as this sucker had to be custom made…

But it looks nice

now and will be better once the wood is stained to match the beams….

and the stairs leading to the lower level….

DWS

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and then there is DWA.

When I was young and first had my driver’s license there weren’t many older women driving. This was the 60s and male prerogative was alive and well. Men drove (and managed to get lost because they didn’t navigate) while women sat in the passenger seat, dealt with extraneous issues like offspring, pets and meal service while on the more long distance hauls that were common family vacations in the 1950s and 60s. In fact, when I think about my grandmothers, I am really not certain if either of them had a driver’s license. Certainly, born around the turn of the century both, neither would have been too old to drive. Not if you looked at what the men were doing.

I can remembering driving in certain areas while in Med School and shuddering each and every time I saw the top of a grey head with eyes peering out the windshield through the steering wheel. It didn’t matter the sex of the driver (mostly women) or the ethnic group. In fact, in the eyes of a young person everyone over a certain age seemed to be small, grey, wrinkled and, while worthy of respect, should not be behind the wheel of a car. Ever.

So – Driving While Aged. Also known in German as “Sontags Fahrer” which translates directly to “Sunday Driver.”

If only they would restrict themselves to Sundays. I could deal with that. I would simply avoid driving anywhere on the weekend. I certainly don’t see them on the road at 0500 in the morning when dropping Dani off at work. The deer, as I mentioned yesterday seem more than willing to fill that particular role.

Today I added DWS – which is either Driving While Stupid or Driving While Sleeping. The first includes putting on make-up, fighting, brushing hair, shaving and messing around with a cell phone in any manner (texting, taking fotos, talking on said cell phone). Kind of like “Slug Bug” which we played when young (be the first one to see a VW Beetle and you got a free hit on a sibling), I decided to start counting the idiots on the way back from Martinez this afternoon.

By the time I hit I-80 South from the Cal 4 entry I was out of both fingers and toes. It simply is not safe to be out on the road where there are idiots, large trucks, debris scattered in the road and rubberneckers looking for their own accident. Somehow I was sorry I turned down George’s offer to drive me. No, it would not be independence, but I could knit, read, cross-stitch or play computer games all of which are much more comforting that following a car with no visible driver.

Finally sliding past and seeing a wizened face peering through the gap in the steering wheel, grey hair in no particular style, gender indeterminate, ethnicity the same. But crawling down the road at under 50 km in the second lane from the left (Continental and North American Rules) it seemed to me that DWS = Driving While Senile. Call me evil, but I reported the license plate number to DMV. I don’t want this older person (older than me which is now referred to as longevity challenged….) to kill themselves or take anyone else with them. Hopefully, if I get to that point, someone will do me the same favor.

Dark of the Moon

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It is that time, a scant few hours before down that is absent most life. The vampires are headed quietly to bed. The werewolves are tucked snuggly in their human forms with the full moon a distant future. This only leaves the idiot deer out for a stroll down from the hills. They wander down through Codornices Park and out into our neighborhood at Eunice and Euclid. Not completely stupid, they are trading the hills, picked over vegetation and mountain lions for groomed lawns and gardens.

“Deer in the headlights” is not just an expression. When hit suddenly with light in the pre-dawn hours they freeze followed by a mad dash in a random direction. That direction can and does include straight into whatever car startled them in the first place. Not being a fan of deer as hood ornaments or grill decorations my instinct was to slam on the brakes while hitting the horn. Normally I am not a fan of disturbing my neighbors before 0515 in the morning. But cleaning deer guts off the car is not exactly something I had scheduled into my plans for the day.

Luck was with me. The lead deer veered off at the last minute with the rest of the thundering pests right on his tail. I was left with an excess of adrenalin. Making it the last few blocks up the hill to the house, I parked and climbed out on trembling legs.

I have finally found a positive thing about living on a hill. By the time I had climbed the hill followed by the stairs to the house my shakes had completely worn off. Going back to bed looked really good about then.

Bathroom Progress

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The tiling in the new bathroom is almost complete –

with the glass to go in last

The floor is done, the cabinet is in. We have the fixtures. All that will remain after the next day or so is the glass for the one section. As this is close to an accessible shower, the floor is slanted toward the back wall. There isn’t a door, making entrance and egress easier.

Neither Dani or I are thrilled with the colors, but they are neutral and inoffensive.

Entry way

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While I was in Sweden, George sent me this picture:

corner bench unit

So, as you imagine, I came home expecting to see it …

and it wasn’t there.

Now to figure out how much longer it is going to be….