Deeds & Words

It’s shocking how much I don’t want to go to work tomorrow. Of course,I had a great vacation, but aren’t they supposed to energize you and make you eager to get back into work surroundings and be productive and whatever?

Spouse suggested I look at the calendar and do a countdown. Here are some stats:

• 91 Calendar days left
• 62 Work days left *
• 12 Mondays* left (excluding a Monday holiday)

*I won’t work all of those days because some of them are my day off.

Yes, I do feel better already.

David Corbett opened each of the first two sessions with an Irish joke. He can tell them, because he’s of Irish descent. He ran his class in what I would call a loose Clarion manner. The participants got to speak, the writer was not to speak until everyone was done (except the writer could answer direct questions). Two other faculty members, Elizabeth Pomoda and Stacey Jay sat in for about the first hour. Later, David said that Elizabeth lectured him a bit about that – he should be doing most of the talking, she said. We told him she was wrong.
I think he probably did do most of the talking, but largely he directed the rest of us by asking pointed and leading questions. He talks by comparing works to other work, to classics, Greek tragedies and movies. Lots of movies. Crime writers and movies… what it that?

On Saturday, Michaela was talking about her YA fantasy novel. Michaela is from Italy and she has a smoky voice with a rich Italian accent. Her story has some Harry-Potterish elements; we were warning her about that, especially the school to which the magical protagonist will go. Ditch the school, we said. “Ahh, but ze school, it is zoh cohool,” she said. So cool.

“I could listen to you say, ‘zoh cohool’ all day,” Corbett said. Everyone laughed, including Michaela. Then, having teased us, she casually let slip how her magic school was different from Hogwarts, and it was.

Corbett titled his workshop “Character is the Engine of the Novel,” so plainly his focus is on character. He has an acute eye for a work’s strength’s as well as its weaknesses, and, in determining in what order we discussed the work he broke the pieces up into “themes.” The first day we looked at pieces with alternating points of view, except for Sue’s which was first person, present tense. Because of Sue’s excellent pacing, the dark mood of the piece and the subject matter (a missing child) the present tense and first person lent both an immediacy and dramatic tension to her chapter. We looked at hers last that day and David led us up to that realization without even making it look obvious.

That’s Lawrence, who is writing a murder mystery set in a San Francisco Hospital where a complementary medicine trial using Feng Shui is in progress.

On Saturday, the last day, it was plain that Terry’s was going to be last. On the break, Corbett went over to her, touched her arm and said something. He was quiet, but I knew it was about her piece and going last, and Terry said, “Oh, well, if you put that way, sure.” He knew she had to be feeling tense and also a little bit left out, and he clearly chose to say something that put his choice in a positive light – deservedly so, since Terry’s piece is pretty polished.

The group was pretty free-wheeling. Don and I debated the use of sentence fragments. A retired English teacher, he hates sentence fragments and is unwilling to let a writer use the language the way he/she wants to tell the story. I am a big proponent of sentence fragments if they are in the POV of a character who thinks that way. Similarly, even though we both write science fiction, we approach world building very differently. The opening of his philosophical novel “zooms” camera-style between close third person objective and the “thirty-thousand foot view” where he describes his world and his society. I throw the reader right into a different world, in close third person.

Discussions did drift off-course a few times and Corbett would say, “We’re in the deep end of the pool.” He would hold up his hand and say, “Ba-ba-ba-ah-ah,” when the writer of a piece would try to speak out of turn. He talked about Chinatown a lot (his afternoon session was spent deconstruction a scene from Streetcar Named Desire, and one from Chinatown).

He has a book coming out in January, from Penguin, called The Art of Character, which I will have to look up and buy.

Here’s the dog that welcomed me into the Marina. From where I took this shot, Liquid Fusion Kayak is directly behind me.

Here’s smiling Jeff. Another picture later; and now, the birds and scenery.

A colony of acorn woodpeckers lives along the river. They gather and tend acorns, but eat worms for protein and it seems like the acorns are bait as much as food.

Even thought there were small craft advisories outside the harbor, the river was placid and welcoming.

Juvenile night heron. Commenting on its age, not its behavior.

Osprey. This was at the mouth of the harbor. We turned around here and headed back upriver.

There guys were kicking up a fuss and splashing like crazy. I got one picture of them doing that; I couldn’t even recognize them as pelicans. Ten seconds later they look like this.

Blue heron.

Adult night heron. The eyes are incandescent red and the legs are yellow.

Reflections.

And here’s Jeff with our “ride.”

My vacation started a few days before the conference, and I decided not to pack quite as much this time, and do laundry while I was there. I assumed the hotel would have a laundry, and they usually do, but the manager had closed it this week because guests had complained about a propane smell. I asked around and found out there was a laundromat south of the bridge, in the same shopping complex with Harvest Market.

Then I procrastinated and did fun things until doing laundry became less of a good idea and more of a necessity — or, as Lawrence, one of the people in my workshop put it, “You certainly know how to entertain yourself when you go on vacation.”

Friday afternoon I drove over to Harvest. I made sure I had plenty of quarters, and I bought laundry soap at Harvest Market. The ‘mat was mostly empty of people but a lot of the machines were in use. I found one that was empty and one that needed about six more minutes. Since I had one pair of long pants I wanted to wash, and some dark socks, I decided to do two loads even though they were small. The first load was mostly socks and underwear and I got that started. It was going to take 22 minutes, so I sat down to re-read some of the manuscripts for the next day’s course. A young red-haired woman with two lively children came in and cleaned out the six-minute washer. I started my second load. The red-haired woman, it turned out, was doing a lot of laundry. At the end of the room, she was tending about four dryers and one high-load  dryer where it looked like she was drying sleeping bags or blankets.

The place actually began to fill up.  I unloaded by first washer and threw everything into one of the dryers, the sixth from the end, on top. It was a scrawny little load so I only put in two quarters, thinking ten minutes would do it. Two guys came in wearing faded  Star Trek Enterprise T-shirts. Back by my stuff, a dark-skinned guy with an extravagant afro hairstyle, dark glasses, and a rainbow poncho was talking to an older dark haired man with a hat with a crow feather in it. “You seem preoccupied,” he said to the crow feather guy.

A little bit later the second washer finished up and I pulled out my pants. I walked back to the dryers, found one at the end, tossed them in and dropped three quarters into the slot. I walked back to the sixth dryer from the end. A bunch of towels, a bra, and a pair of sneakers tumbled past the door.

Hmm.  I counted the dryers again; no, still sixth from the end. I looked in the dryer to the right of it; mostly men’s pants in grays and blacks. I figured the dryer had stopped running, and someone had emptied out my stuff, right?  I looked on the table behind me. No clothes. I looked in the open mesh carts; no clothes. I looked under the table. Two kids were playing with toy trucks but no clothes.

I stood in front of the dryer making a circle with my nose as I tried to determine if those were my socks free-falling past. People eddied around me, looking back at me, no doubt thinking, “Who let the crazy woman into the laundromat?”

Eventually the dryer stopped. I opened it up and looked inside,and to my relief my Four-Eyed Frog T-shirt was right on top, so I knew my things were in there. Now, however, I didn’t know the etiquette. I walked back to where several people were sitting and said, “Excuse me, someone put their things in a dryer with mine. I’m going to take out the clothes and sort through them.” A heavyset woman in a pink dress, reading a book, waved a hand at me and said, “Oh, sure, hon, go ahead. That’s what I’d do.”

It still felt uncomfortable, but just then another young woman with long blond hair, who looked like she might have been sleeping rough for a while came in. “I think that’s my stuff,” she said.

We walked back together and sure enough, they were her things. “I don’t know how I did that,” she said.

“I didn’t have a very big load and they were probably on the bottom.”

“Less for me to fold,” she said. She had an eagle eye and sorted out my socks, undies and camisoles in about two minutes flat. I was short one sock, but that’s practically a requirement when you do laundry, isn’t it? I shrugged and was walking away with my folded items. “Wait!” she said, and held out my sock.

A happy ending all around.

I don’t have an easy way to “shrink” pictures enough so that they’ll load easily, but I hope to add some later. In the meantime, I do want to write about my guided kayak tour.

Liquid Fusion Kayaks is located in the Dolphin Isle Marina, on the south side of the Noyo River. I didn’t even know Dolphin Isle Marina was there. According to Jeff, one of the two partners of Liquid Fusion, I wasn’t alone in that. He finds locals or forty-year residents who have only just discovered it. The marina is about two miles upriver from the mouth of the harbor. Take Highway 20 east (right at the stoplight if you’re heading north), then left on South Harbor Drive. Before South Harbor drive dead-ends, you’ll see a road heading off the right. Take it, and drive past the marina. And drive some more. And some more. It will seem longer because you will be going about ten miles an hour, and because it will be very quiet. Tall evergreens shade the road, and vegetation grows right down to the edge; feathery wild dill, ferns and blackberries. To your left, the river will undulate jade green and silky. You will think you’ve come too far, and then you’ll see the second little marina and RV park. Liquid Fusion is around the first corner to your right, tucked into a triangle of space overlooking the river.

How We Start:

“Upriver or down?” Jeff asked me. I shrugged. Wherever I’d see the most birds, I guess.

“Downriver,” he said. “We’ll go out to the mouth of the harbor and back.”

He brought out the release for me to sign; I promised I wouldn’t sue them, and if I sued them it would be in a California court. “I’m confused,” I said.

“Me, too,” Jeff said. “It’s what our lawyers told us to put on there.”

He swiped my credit card. He also asked quickly about any medical conditions; diabetes? High blood pressure? Back problems? All of which makes sense if you’re going to embark on a river journey with a stranger. I locked my purse in the trunk of my car and clambered into the “splash-pants” he gave me, light-weight plastic pants that fit over what I was wearing. A splash top was optional and I declined it; the life vest was not optional and I put that on. This was the individual guided tour, so it was going to be Jeff and me in a double kayak with him doing all the work. He set the foot braces for me and showed me how to climb in.
The Twilight River

After I had cavalierly left the choice of direction up to him, I remembered my hope of seeing river otters. I asked. Jeff said he hadn’t seen otters for several days, so that didn’t change much of anything.  He pushed off and paddled us almost straight across the river to a grove of trees where a colony of night herons often roosted. The kayak glided silently under the low hanging branches. He directed me to look almost straight up and I could see a juvenile night heron silhouetted in the branches. It was too dark for a good picture.

We glided down river. There were some spotted sandpipers on a dead log sticking up above the water. They would run up and down the log and then stop and make a butt-bouncing motion that looked like a risqué dance move. This, Jeff told me, is so they can see between their feet and find any grubs or worms they startled to the surface with their running.

The Things We Saw

No otters, but it was definitely osprey evening. He pointed out one nest with a female standing guard. I could see her clearly with my binoculars but could not get a good picture. There are three varieties of cormorants on the river and we saw all three; pelagic, double crested and Brant’s. And lots of gulls. A harbor seal surfaced and slipped along parallel to us for quite a while, and a few brown pelicans perched on the breakwater looked at us as if they were trying to figure out if we had food.

There were lots of brown pelicans. They have learned to follow the boats into the harbor and haunt the cleaning stations. I’m used to seeing them flying at a distance, and I was surprised at how big they are.

Jeff not only has studied the wildlife but like any good tour guide he has read up on local history, so he talked a bit about the life of Dolphin Isle during the heyday of the timber business. Dolphin Isle Marina was badly hit during the tsunami, and he took me into the sheltered marina where you can see a broad expanse of glass-smooth water where docks used to be.

As we got closer to Noyo Harbor we saw more shore-birds. I had never known the name of the white-bellied birds with the black backs; black turnstones, it turns out, and among the kelp covered shore rocks they are nearly invisible. We went under the bridge, where ravens, pigeons, and occasionally a peregrine falcon hangs out, and to our left, perched in a tree was the second osprey of the night, a male, patiently waiting for the tide to change and bring dinner.  Outside the breakwater, on a conical rock, a colony of Brant’s cormorants were settling in.

The Trip Back

Jeff gave me a rundown on some of the boats in Noyo Harbor and in Dolphin Isle. On the way back he detoured us into the little marina by the RV park, and he found me an adult night heron. They have bluish-green backs, yellow legs and eyes as red as those glowing red fish eggs that bait shops used to sell. They are harassed by other herons, my field guide says. Before you start to feel too bad for them, it goes on to say that they steal food from other herons. Night herons, bad neighbors of heron world.

Jeff said he had seen a clapper rail in there once, about a week ago. I asked him what it was and he said, “It’s a brown bird. It’s just a brown bird. But, if you clap, it will answer you.” I looked clapper rails up in my field guide later and they are much prettier than just “a brown bird.” I found out that they show up at the botanical garden now and then.

A flotilla of mallards escorted us back to shore. The whole tour was just under two hours. Even with the adjusted foot braces, my legs were pretty stiff. If it had been a three hour ride, they would have had to turn the kayak upside down and shake me out, but at two I was able to climb out under my own power.

Liquid Fusion Kayaks gives longer kayak trips, with groups, and for the daring and physically fit (I am only one of those two things) they do a sea-kayak trip that explores some of the coast’s many sea-caves. They also teach kayaking and swift-water rescue.

I had to do nothing strenuous for this trip – in fact it was almost embarrassing how little I had to do. Basically; 1) show up; 2) pay money; 3) look where Jeff told me to. The river was calm, the lap of the water against the banks blending with the soughing of the trees. A cool sweet breeze drifted off the water. As we got closer to the main harbor, we had a little bit of wake from some of the boats – that just made it more fun. This wasn’t a wild adventure but two hours of peace and beauty. They can give you a wild adventure if you want one, though. Check out their website, and think about a kayak trip the next time you’re in Fort Bragg.

Comic SF/fantasy novels are difficult things, I think. I enjoy some of Terry Pratchett’s work and some of Simon R Green’s. Neil Gaiman always has humor in his books, but they are not comic novels. Christopher Moore is probably the king of the comic fantasy novel genre.  I had a read some good reviews of Redshirts, though, so I picked it up yesterday at the Four-Eyed Frog.

(Shakes fist at the heavens. “Damn you, John Scalzi!”)

Then I sat on the deck of my lovely ocean view room and read it. Walk on the beach? Nope.Go up to the art center and look at the most recent exhibit of local artists? Nope. Drive up to Schooner Gulch and look at those awesome striations where the cliffs rise out of the water? Sorry, nope — because I can’t stop reading!

Redshirts assumes that you know (and probably loved) Star Trek. That title is the first clue.  The novel is short –which is a good thing considering I didn’t want to put it down — followed by three codas that  follow some of the secondary characters.

In the future, the starship Intrepid is the flagship of the line. However, the ship’s mortality rate, especially among new crew members on away teams, is high. Very high. Andrew Dahl, who is newly assigned to the ship, and several of his friends, begin to explore this fact,and some other strange facts about the ship. The result is a delightful romp, a send-up of science fiction tropes (time travel, voodoo science and bad uniforms), and a few touching moments as Scalzi encourages us to question what it means to be “real;” and what it means when humans sacrifice other humans in order to save themselves. That last sentence makes the book sound much heavier than it is.

Scalzi speeds his short novel along with side-splitting dialogue, and recursive metafictional discussions that make the book even funnier. (“I hate that we have these discussions now,” one character says.)  The final coda explores a slightly more serious tone and wraps everything up with a sweet, if a tad too coincidental –oh, wait, that’s the point, isn’t it?– ending.

In his afterword, Scalzi insists that this is not a thinly veiled roman a clef about a TV show he worked on, called Stargate:Universe. Um, excuse me… isn’t Universe the one where the hi-tech military trapped on the alien starship use magic rocks to body-swap with people back on Earth? Are you sure this isn’t a roman a clef?  To be fair, the little bit of Universe that I watched, no-name characters didn’t die in the first three minutes before the commercial break. When a character died, it was someone who had been developed, and that death was a loss, with ripples into future episodes. And that really, those ripples, is largely what Redshirts is about.

And it’s about 230 pages of giggles, snickers, snorts and the occasional guffaw.

The Riverpond:

There was a group that had scheduled to ride the swan at the water carnival, but it had room for one more person, so they slipped me on. One passenger was a blue-eyed moppet about three years old. She picked and chose among the life jackets until she found one that was not only blue, but blue with orange piping, somewhat matching her mother’s dress. When the grownups were saying that we wished we had binoculars, she curved her hands around her eyes and said, “I made binoculars!” As we drifted between the two bridges, she said, “Is this a pond?”

“No,” our pilot said, “It’s a river.”

She stared, wide-eyed. “I think it’s a pond.”

He shook his head. “It’s a river.”

More wide-eyed staring. “It’s a riverpond,” she said finally.

We agreed that’s probably what it was.

The Boat Parade:

This is the second – or first annual – Healdsburg Water Carnival. The inaugural event last year raised money for the retrofitting of the old railroad bridge. This year the funds went to the Regional Park Foundation. The carnival is held at Veterans Memorial Beach, on Old Redwood Highway. It opened with a boat parade.

The swan, created by Regional Parks, is a replica of an old swan float that opened water carnivals in the 1900s and 19-teens. The current boat has a wooden base, with a body of carved polystyrene covered with fiberglass. It is driven by a trolling motor.

The swan opened the parade, bearing Mr. Healdsburg downstream as he waved to his adoring fans. Most of the boat platforms are wood, mounted on two canoes, which were lent to the event by River’s Edge Canoe and Kayaking, right across the highway. There were a couple of exceptions, particularly the Russian River Peace Navy, which used a mermaid-powered Zodiac for its base.

The pirate queen is the current chairwoman of the Board of Supervisors, Shirlee Zane.

The Healdsburg Tribune, the town’s local weekly newspaper, entered this Nikon entry. The Trib has been around since 1865, according to its website.

The tiki hut was a charming entry and its riders were friendly and bubbling with enthusiasm. They were not so good at steering, which created a few traffic jams, particularly with the lifeguards’ pirate ship.

Cowzilla was helmed by the first district Supervisor, Mike McGuire. Or, as a lady standing behind me said to her friend, “That’s McGuire. He’s our, um, he’s that, um… we elected him.”

McGuire, who used to host a radio show, also kicked off the event. He is a lively public speaker.

There were two bike themed boats, and this is one of them. I could not get good pictures of the other.

The firefighters worked hard to squirt the people on the railroad bridge, but they couldn’t quite make it.

Russian Riverkeepers encouraged people to participate in the kayak races. Riverkeepers and River Cleanup are two groups that work to reduce pollution, and educate people about the river and its riparian areas.

I don’t what exactly what the Russian River Peace Navy does, but it had two of the hardest-working mermaids ever on its boat.

There was also this beautiful young woman. The carnival queen? The river princess?  I don’t know. After the boats passed the viewing areas, I joined the other trooping across the bridge, and visited the booths and tables.

All Hallows’ Read is only three and a half months away. That’s an eon if you’re talking about buying candy — but what if you plan to give away books?  Might be time to start stocking up.

As wonderful as Mockingbird Used Books is, they don’t have quite enough inventory yet for me to clean out their children’s section. Since I want to do more books this year, and maybe get several copies of the same book, it’s time to think volume.

One choice is Goodwill.  Goodwill has gotten into used books in a big way, and I’m sure they have lots of kids’ books at good prices.  Another option is any Friends of the Library sale that might happen between now and October 31.

Another real possibility for some early readers and picture books is Treehorn, that Valhala of used books, in Santa Rosa.

Where are you buying your All Hallows’ Read books?

Brandy and Mark opened their door to customers yesterday at 10:00. I got there are about 10:15 and they already had one browser besides me. A minute later a woman came in who said she’s been waiting for them to open. I think she is going to go tell all her friends.

They are waiting for four gondolas; lower stand-alone two-sided shelves that ride on castors so they can be moved around if needed. “We plan to have some display tables and some chairs,” Brandy said. “You know how you always think you’re going to have more time? We planned to visit some of the cute little antique shops and pick up chairs … and at 3:30 in the morning, after listing books, we decided we probably weren’t going to do that before we opened.”

I had pictures of the counter in an earlier post. As you can see, it looks gorgeous.

I see Mark’s handiwork in the quality of children’s books — Newbury winners and other fine reads, and not a lot of Gossip Girl or Vampire Adademy retreads. (By the way, that is not Mark above, that’s his partner.)

I picked up the diary of a woman gold-prospector in the Klondike in the 1900s, and a real find on the science fiction shelves — the recent biography of James Tiptree Jr, aka Alice Mary Sheldon. Brandy shook her head as she rang me up. “Sad,” she said. “So brilliant and so screwed up.”

After I left I had to drive past the location of the old Copperfield’s Used Books. The banner in the window says “For Rent, Available February, 2012.” And July, 2012 too, apparently.

Mockingbird Used Books has great visibility from Highway 12 as you are coming through town. You can turn right on Petaluma Avenue and park at the plaza, and walk over to the store, or park on Main Street and walk one short block east. They are across the street from Jasper O’Farrell’s, next door to the Toyworks. I already know that they are going to become a destination, part of the my Sunday morning ritual. Visit the farmers’ market, stop and buy a book.

Mockingbird Used Books in Sebastopol is about to open! Brandy and Mark are planning for a soft opening on Saturday, July 14.

The bookshelves came in. The partners also concluded negotiations with the landlord and got the suite next to them, and they hope to expand into that space soon.( It has some problems, including a pesky water leak the landlord has to fix.) With this much space, and gondola shelves that are on castors, Brandy is looking forward to hosting reading and writing events now.

She invited me down to see the shelves, and the counter was being delivered just as a I got there. The counter is gorgeous. So are the shelves. The boxes filled with books aren’t particularly gorgeous — they’re merely magical.

They repainted the walls from “bright white” to a “soft white” (just how many shades of white can there be?) and had the shelves finished in cherry. They bring a warm glow to the room, and it looks dignified and welcoming… except for the hole with the plastic covering the entrance into the new space, but it’s a work in progress, right?

I was their first customer! I was walking around taking pictures, and right there on the shelf, on top of a stack of Michael Chabon books, was Werewolves in Their Youth, a book I’ve looked for, off and on, in used bookstores for about five years. I snatched it up. Brandy rang me up on their new automated system, which completes the sale and adjusts their inventory. The only thing it didn’t do was print a receipt because they didn’t have it connected to the printer just then.

You might be thinking that it doesn’t look like there are very many books. There will be a listing-and-shelving marathon happening early next week, as they and their friends load the thousands of books they have onto the shelves. Equally important is loading them all into the automated inventory system. And more shelves are on their way.

If you were pining for the old Copperfield’s Used Books in town, Mockingbird should fill that void. If you are coming into town from the east, turn right on Petaluma Avenue and park wherever you can. Walk back to Bodega Avenue, go past Screamin’ Mimi’s ice cream and the ceramics place. Mockingbird is right across the little parking lot. You can park in the plaza parking and walk straight over. From Main Street, it’s one block east, next to the Toyworks toy store.