2015

Greetings!

My apologies for being late! Just picture me still hard at work writing you over the New Year’s weekend in a 57º house (heaters skyrocketing that to about 65º). I’m wearing four red sweaters, a charcoal-plaid thick British woolen skirt, regular stockings, and spiffy bright red socks with white polka dots! (Ralph Lauren stops at nothing to get my attention.) (Yes, his logo is on these socks.) And, I’m also wearing fleece-lined house booties.

Looking over the 2015 calendar, I find not much news material. Several “Met Live in HD” operas. Lots of movies. The Palm Theatre in San Luis Obispo, our “art theatre,” with three screens, is the venue for most foreign and independent films. It also has once-a-month Sunday matinees of some special “oldies” with discussion by the theatre owner, his pal (a former video store owner) and the audience.

Went to a regional Stanford Alumni Club Christmas party in early December. I was chatting with one of the men about drought-resistant garden plants for our dried-up State of California, when he suddenly changed the subject to ask me if I liked cooking.

“Uh…….sometimes,” I murmured.

“Well, you somehow remind me of Julia Child….”

I had to chuckle, and told him that happens quite a bit. The conversation then went on about his admiration for Julia and her TV cookery programs, and those with her subsequent collaborator French chef Jacques Pépin, who still has a show on PBS TV. I told him and another lady who had joined us that I’d heard Pépin interviewed about the time he was introduced to Julia preparatory to their first show together. Pépin said, “And here was this great big woman with a terrible voice!” We had a laugh about that, but agreed that the two had gotten on well together in their cooking shows.

I took only one trip to San Francisco--in March: the usual tax prep appointment, lunch with old pals from my former Stanford Medical Center job, and “doing” museums and art galleries in San Francisco.

At the end of August I was in Santa Barbara seeing friends and attending the Pacific Coast Open Final polo match. There were a few familiar players, and it was exciting, scoring closely till the end, with the Lucchese (boot-makers company) team winning.

A nice piece of news in November: The Carmel (Calif.) Library (Local History Room) wrote asking my permission (re my copyright) to put my 1997 speech on DVDs and on the Internet, along with all the other Local History Series lectures over the years.

This April 1997 program was entitled “Enduring Vision: The Camel Art Association Celebrates 70 Years,” and honored the anniversary of its founding in 1927. Bill Stone, then President of the CAA and long a mover and shaker in that organization, spoke on the history of the Association, and I spoke on the career of my father, landscape and marine artist A. Harold Knott (1883-1977), as one of its founding members. I displayed several of his paintings “live,” and the Librarian had also mounted an exhibit of some of his photos, memorabilia and equipment plus an oil painting in the lobby.

The “Enduring Vision” theme was perfect, and we ran with it: the vision of the founders in creating the Carmel Art Association, still thriving today, and my father’s vision as an artist, which the audience could share through looking at his paintings.

Bill and I had so much fun putting on this program that he quipped, “We should take our show on the road!”

So now, 18 years later, the Library is “putting us on the road,” as it were! Cool, huh? My 20 minutes of fame will now stretch through eternity!

World news today is horrific. I often think how thankful I am to have visited some of the now-troubled places when everything was peaceful and safe.

In the 1950s, for instance, some British archaeologyand classics-oriented cruises I took included the idyllic little Greek islands of Lesbos and Kos (where Hippocrates taught his medical school students under a tree). Now swamped by desperate refugees and migrants, and dead bodies washed ashore in the attempt to get there.

I visited the vast, magnificent Roman-style site of Palmyra in Syria in 1964--another British archaeologist-led tour, (twelve people in three rickety cars). Much of Palmyra’s history and beauty have now been deliberately vandalized and destroyed by ISIS et al.

On that same tour, we stayed in one of the most charming hotels I’ve ever seen, in Homs (Syria)--a city now in ruins from civil war. It was a small house, my bedroom filled with an antique bed, huge pillows, and masses of fresh linens, laces, ruffles and crochet-work. In this Victorian-feeling room, it had seemed such an anomaly to awaken at dawn to the chant outside of a Muezzin calling the faithful to prayer.

That 1964 trip also brought a particularly moving moment to a handful of our group who joined fellowpassenger Bert White in his plea for an impromptu extra excursion. He wanted desperately to go from Homs to Hama (another badly-hammered city today) even though it was late afternoon, to “see the water wheel.” This was a huge Romanera wooden water wheel which creaked slowly round and round, scooping water from the Orontes River into an aqueduct high above. Bert wanted to revisit this site where he’d once been as a Captain in the British Army with Lawrence of Arabia’s Arab regiment in the First World War. We arrived as it was growing dusk, and we sat down at the little cafe terrace next to the wheel. Bert fell speechless, eyes moist, thinking of his lost youth and long-lost friends. The rest of us sat in silence sipping our Arak, sharing his moment. The only sound--the creaking of the water wheel.

On a nearby street, a local man in black-and-white keffiyeh headdress strolled along nibbling a leaf from a head of Romaine lettuce (the way we might stroll eating an ice cream cone).

[A note about Bert’s experience in the Great War--a Turkish soldier had slashed him across the back with a sword, and the only thing that saved his life was the thick leather Sam Browne Belt of his uniform (like a bandolier, worn diagonally over one shoulder across the back and chest).]

In 1976, I was floating up the Nile on a 1920s cruise boat (all wood-panelling, colorfully-uniformed Egyptian waiters and stewards) with another British group, this one led by an English Egyptologist. We trudged around tombs and temples of the Pharaonic era every day, the only inconveniences to speak of being the extreme heat, dust, flies, and sandstorms, and perhaps upset innards (“Gyppy Tummy”).

Also in the ‘70s I went on a totally different type of British “tour” of Tunisia and Algeria, including part of the Sahara Desert, which was designed for people who like Extreme Camping. At that time it was the only tour I could find that included a lot of the wonderful ancient Roman remains--temples, military and domestic buildings, etc., with lovely floor mosaics.* (Camping to me is just a lot of hard work!) But again, no hazards other than extreme heat and dust, scorpions and vipers, and the continual quest for water

[*Many beautiful mosaics have been lifted up and placed on walls at the treasure--filled Bardo Museum in Tunis, which was not long ago the site of a terrorist attack.]

So--just sharing a few memories of fascinating, longago travels in places it would not be convenient or safe to visit today. How lucky I was.

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NATURE NOTES: As for many years now, no more frogs in the rain barrels. And it has not been a good year for my cats. They are “elderly” (14). Poor Butterball (“BB”), the orange-striped shorthair, was attacked by some creature when he got stuck outdoors and I was away for a few days. When I got back I found him with a gash in his side about 1 1/2 “ in diameter with claw marks too wide to be from a domestic cat. I bundled him off to the veterinarian’s, where he was hospitalized about a week, being stitched up, hydrated and medicated with antibiotics, etc. The vet could not figure out what had attacked him. A bobcat could have killed and eaten him, so either he escaped with his life from one, or from some other creature coming out of the State Parkseveral blocks away.

My other cat, the Tuxedo longhair Jazz, may have had a bad scare outdoors about the same time; he’s refused to go out ever since. Perhaps he escaped some predator unscathed, apart from apparent loss of his normal courage. He used to love to be outdoors all day. Now he just lies around on a table on the porch (after a few weeks on the washing machine).

Although BB was actually injured, once he’d recovered he resumed his daily outings. I’ve always kept them both indoors at night. However, BB developed another problem. He used to sleep on my bed (as a supplement to the electric blanket) but on several different occasions recently he started using the bed as a toilet! Quelle horreur! So I’ve had to banish him to the kitchen and porch, where Jazz has been sleeping anyway. (The litter boxes are on the porch.) So both cats are shut in there at night, where they can do the least harm. Or so I thought until Jazz knocked out a shaky old windowpane, letting BB out into the cold night and making the porch even colder! Next challenge, get a glazier to make a new window!

Our long California drought has been severe, but lately we’ve been getting a few light rains--my dead “lawn” came back to life! Weather people keep predicting a winter of heavy rains from the “El Níno” (warm ocean currents) effect, so we are hopeful.

I hope I can get these cards and letters posted at least within the Twelve Days of Christmas! At any rate, here’s wishing a belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!