Another Year Rolls Away!

I am sure 2008 will not be a year that merges with the others and becomes a blurry memory. Oh no. Too much has happened. Each month has been way too unique in my life's experiences. So let me take it month by month.

JANUARY

The year began for me in South Africa at Pam's beautiful home in Hillcrest, Durban where the entire family was together recovering from hard partying the night before. Then the next day I flew east and landed in hot, muggy, gleaming Singapore. After an interesting couple of days of exploring airconditioned state of the art shopping malls, I landed in frenetic India. Sure seems like a long time ago now. In India I felt like I had temporarily left our planet. Everything around me was so, so exotic. But in the evenings, in my hotel room, I'd watch what went on in the'real' world. The primaries had begun and it was looking good for Hillary to win the nomination.

FEBRUARY

Relaxing, enjoyable days in exciting Sydney, Australia. I enjoyed bonding with Fabian and hanging out in the Darling Harbor area. Sydney in its summer months is one heck of a terrific city. Meanwhile, the primaries in the US where taking an exciting turn. Barrack Obama won Iowa and on super Tuesday neither candidate came out the outright winner. Everyone was on pins and needles. Hillary was getting negative press and Obama became the darling of the mainstream media.

MARCH

I explored the north island of New Zealand. I came to the conclusion that NZ was like a promising movie with no plot. You keep waiting for something to happen but NOTHING does! Definitely worth a visit, though. Then I returned to Santa Barbara after eight months of living abroad. Election excitement was high. My main concerns were to promote my teen fiction book htat had come out a few months before and to make progress on my writing projects.

APRIL

Glorious springtime in California. We killed our lawn and made raised vegetable beds and planted tomatoes, basil, and arugula. I did author visits and signings and did some writing.

MAY

At this point it was pretty obvious that Barack Obama was going to win the nomination. We were all very excited about this.

JUNE

Italy. Tuscany. Indulged in wine, truffles, funghi porcini, and more time with Fabian and his mother Julia. The day I flew back I managed to be in four countries. I flew out of Pisa, Italy and landed in Paris, France. After two hours I flew into London. Then from there I flew into LA. Later in the month I signed my book at the big BEA fair and met my publishers. At the end of June Pam and family descended.

JULY

The main news was the GAP fire. Big fire near us- we had to evacuate. Most of the month was spent enjoying and entertaining Pam and family. We had a very hot summer with almost no fog. I went to the pool practically every morning. Another big event for me was going to the LA SCBWI writer's conference. I had fun getting to spend time with Caroline Hatten and also to be among other writers.

AUGUST

Vacation comes to an end. A frantic attempt to revise a manuscript to submit to an editor I met at the conference. Then I had to face the harsh world of work and teaching again.

SEPTEMBER

School. Teaching. And an addiction to the news, after all it's a historical election year.

OCTOBER

The world as we knew it came to an end. Financial institutions left, right, and center were collapsing, declaring bankruptcy. Job losses, soaring oil prices, the economy in free fall. Everyone's panicking. Obama takes a commanding lead in the polls.

NOVEMBER

A miracle has happened. America votes for a black man to lead the country. We're in ecstasy. The holidays are approaching and the weather has turned cold. I get grumpy.

DECEMBER

San Francisco. We do a house swap with a family who have this amazing, huge, modern house right in the city of San Francisco. We go to many different, expensive restaurants in the city. Our two favorites - Greens and Dosa (South Indian) - get multiple visits from us. We went to the new planetarium in the Golden Gate Park. The place was crowded and we had to wait in long lines for everything. The big attraction is a simulated journey through space to visit the planets. It was quite wonderful. The museum has a pretty nice aquarium and rain forest theme 'park' as well.
We walked on the Golden Gate Bridge on Christmas Day and ate Chinese food at an all veggie place called Shangri - La. I loved being unconventional and of course, not cooking.
Among the fun things we did in SF was meandering through the ferry building on the embarcedero. Here, there are gourmet food places that carry truffles, wild mushrooms, caviar, etc. There's also a farmer's market with a huge selection of fresh produce. SF is definitely food paradise.

And now, I'm going to spend some time thinking about whether to make New Year's resolutions.

Happy New Year everyone.

Winter Holidays

Finally, a day to relax. It's Monday, midday, a few days before Christmas. I'm in San Francisco, where despite a crispness, the weather is acceptable. Yesterday, when we arrived from Santa Barbara it was raining heavily. We are doing a house swap with a family. They have an amazing house in the Pacific Heights neighborhood. The house - one of those original Victorian houses - has an uber-modern interior. Three levels - open plan - practically no interior walls with wooden and bamboo floors and leather, chrome, glass furniture. Everything here is state of the art. When you enter through huge, old world style double doors you come into an enormous entry hall which is visible from all parts of the house. A huge skylight above keeps the interior bright and airy. We are thrilled to have this place for a week. We hope the family isn't too disappointed to put up with our simple abode back in Santa Barbara.

The last weeks of teaching were bloody draining. I had my students perform a play called SANTA CLAUS FOR PRESIDENT. It turned out to be a lot more work than I expected. But they enjoyed making posters and flags and various little props for their performance. So it was worth it. Another big project I was forced to do on account of it being a tradition at the school was gingerbread houses. Using graham crackers, frosting,a nd the most ghastly candy imaginable, the kids created little alpine like houses. They had fun, but my big thrill came when it was all over and every tiny morsel of candy was cleared out of the classroom.
Christmas in the northern hemisphere is definitely not my favorite. Perhaps it's because when we are in South Africa it's so much fun. Warm weather, beaches, pools, tropical fruit salads, sipping cold beer on a terrace watching giant waves crashing, and being with the family. How can a cold, gloomy, grey Christmas compete with that?
But while we are here in San Francisco we are going to live it up.
We started out by going to Greens Restaurant for dinner. This veggie place is famous and upscale with the best view of the Golden Gate Bridge in the city. They always have unusual, innovate dishes on the menu. I've never eaten anything there that wasn't superb in every way.
This morning I walked out to California Street and found a few gourmet markets. I bought chanterelle, portobello, and shitake mushrooms. I also got freshly ravioli stuffed with porcini. So tonight's meal is going to be top notch.
I hope to get a lot of reading and writing done in the next two weeks.

I wish everyone an enjoyable festive season.

Thanksgiving Day!

I find the winter holidays in the US strangely depressing. Thanksgiving and Christmas demand the kind of attention that disturbs my routine quite obnoxiously. I don't want to make huge meals and hang out with people. What a waste of a day.Let's not even talk about all those millions of unsuspecting turkeys callously murdered for the sake of some ridiculous tradition.

Admittedly, it was nice not to have to go to work yesterday (Wednesday) and today. It rained most of yesterday - a nice, steady drizzle quenching our parched grounds. I spent most of the day by the fire rereading Obama's DREAMS FROM MY FATHER. This morning the sun shone brightly and the sky was blue and cloudless. I started the day by reading the blogs on Huffpost I enjoyed Jamie Lee Curtis and Erica Jong expressing what they are thankful for. It helped lift me out of my depression. Paul Krugman's article defending Obama's choice of economic advisers was a good read too. I'm so glad he wrote this. It's so weird that folks on the left are being so critical. As Obama himself pointed out yesterday at a news conference, with the current economic crisis, experienced advisors are necessary. He cannot risk hiring all new people under these extraordinary circumstances.
Last Tuesday I went with some friends to a talk by Maureen Dowd who is a columnist for the NYT. I have mixed feelings about Dowd. I used to enjoy her clever, insightful criticisms of Bush, et al. but during the primaries she turned me off with her constant and consistent cattiness and pettiness toward Hillary Clinton. So I wasn't sure if I would enjoy listening to her. The talk turned out to be quite enjoyable. Maureen Dowd seems very gung ho about Obama. She was part of the press crew who accompanied him on his trip to Europe and Israel in the summer. When someone in the audience asked what she thought of Obama's appointees she expressed support. She thought it was wise to hire people with diverse ideas. She also mentioned that a lot of the people from the Clinton administration that Obama is hiring are the best and brightest who hadn't been able to do the work they hoped to do under Clinton. They now had another opportunity to use their talents. After the talk I decided I liked Maureen Dowd after all!

We spent Thanksgiving with our friends, Premi and Sri. We prepared tofurkey (tofu turkey), roast potatoes, brussels sprouts, and other veggies. Premi prepared roast leg of lamb, shrimp and crab, and a rice dish. Earlier in the day we took advantage of the gorgeous weather and went for a walk on the beach. It was fabulous. The air after a good rain is so exhilarating.

And now it's evening and I'm glad for it all to be over. But starting tomorrow I'll have to endure godawful Christmas music and jingling bells and flickering lights and stupid snowmen and Santa decorations. Is there anyone out there who would like to join me in petitioning to abolish this ghastly holiday?

Another Big Fire!

Friends,

Just wanted to assure you that we are safe. The fire is about 10 miles from us so we aren't in any danger. This fire that started yesterday (Thursday evening) grew rapidly and destroyed about a 100 homes in the wealthier part of our area. My school, Roosevelt Elementary, is closed and is in an evacuation warning area. So all my students live fairly close to the fire and many of them could be evacuated before the day is over.
We are still recovering from the July fire so it's frustrating to deal with a huge fire again.

Post-election elation

It's Tuesday morning, Veteran's Day, and I'm home taking things easy. I'm listening to Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now". Her guest is Alice Walker, who just read out her letter to Barack Obama - an open letter which she has posted on the WEB. It's a sort of "mother giving son advice" letter. She's a passionate supporter of Obama. During a short break in the program Amy played Miriam Makeba's "Click" song. I'm very saddened by Makeba's death. I have all her albums and listen to them frequently. I'm so addicted to her voice and music that I go through withdrawal if I hadn't listened to her for a while.

Today I feel I can finally breathe again. I feel like I've been holding my breath for two years and now I can turn my attention to mundane matters. I'm about to go into my garden and check on the broccoli and chard I've recently planted. The sun is shining, the sky is deep blue. There's a chill in the air. Winter is definitely on its way.

Woohoo!

It's late. I'm tired. But, what joy! O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma! We are happy. So, so happy. We hung out with our friends Adrienne and Bisi and a few others and watched with increasing excitement as the results came in. and exactly when the polls closed in California at 8:00 an Obama victory was declared. Bisi opened up a bottle of fine champagne and we celebrated.

I'm still worried about how things turned out in California though - especially Proposition 8 - banning gay marriage. Tomorrow we'll know the final results. But tonight I will go to bed with a great big smile.

Just 2 more days!

Two more days. Long, long days. It's beginning to look like nothing's going to jinx things. But we always remember '04 and '00. So we stifle/suppress/compress our optimism. Should we buy champagne and expect to be celebrating? And if things go badly how on earth are we going to face the world on Wednesday?

For Halloween this year I was Joe the Plumber. When I asked my 3rd graders if they knew who he was someone said "Obama's vice-president?" I was going to make my sign "Joe the Dumber" but you know, got to be professional and all.
It's the first day of standard time when darkness descends at the ungodly hour of 5:00. I hate it. At 6:00 it feels like midnight. Jeez I find this depressing. The weather's been amazing, though. It's still warm and I'm still in my summer wardrobe. We haven't had to turn on the heating yet. But it is November and any day now the air will turn chilly.

Meanwhile, we prepare for Tuesday. Signs all over the place announce who and how to vote. Obama/Biden bumper stickers far outnumber the other out here in California. We are a solidly blue state. But we have some nasty measures on our ballots that could go the wrong way. Proposition 8 to my mind is the worst - banning gay marriage. Hopefully the number of sensible people will outnumber the dummies.