Fwtten

Santa brought lots of warm fuzzy presents this year, as he knows a thing or two about cold weather. Because I refuse to wear long pants while delivering the mail, I ended up with several pairs of wool knee socks in a wide range of non-postal blue colors. So now when it gets really cold I can wear my snow mittens on my hands and my girly knee-length fwttens with my parka to keep warm.

Fwttens?

Fwttens!

You say it like "footens."

G-man and I were in Wales, the trip where we ate shot-filled rabbit, spoke to a guy for whom English was a second language swinging a scythe by an old Roman amphitheater, and visited Gellert's grave. The Welsh, like the Jews, aren't fond of vowels, so they use 'w' when they want to say 'oo'. So the English comb/combe/coomb—a box canyon or even a hanging valley to Americans—is in Welsh a cwm. So if you follow me with this, a mitten-like covering for your foot, or fwt, is a fwtten.

Alright, how do you entertain yourselves in the car?

Thriven

G-man just asked me, "...shouldn't it be thriven?"

What?

"You know, drive, driven. Thrive, thriven."

Proving (and reassuring) that I am not the only one to come up with odd past participles.

Professor Tolkien would agree.

Say What?

While frantically shoveling out the living room I found my cache of entry tickets from this year's trip to Egypt. Tucked into the pile of slips was a piece of note paper on which I'd jotted down quotes...mostly I can't remember why (or who) said them. They're now just another Egyptian enigma:

"All the money he made on unicorns he blew on mermaids."

Ramises II He's our guy. We're big on big.

"It's tamarind pulp. It's not camel shit."


—I've developed an affection for baboons ever since Don's ceremony.
—What? [long pause] So, will you explain that remark?
—No.

If you let a baboon on the bus I'll be watching from across the street.

"Welcome to Alaska!"
[Okay, that one I remember. When people weren't calling Greg Ali Baba, they were shouting Welcome to Alaska at us. A bit of African humor there.]

...for the rest of us (updated)

Yeah, I know that most people in the U.S. celebrate the end of December holiday as Christmas rather than Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Mithrasmas, the solstice, Yalda, or...I'm sure I'm missing some. Hmong New Year?

But while Chanukah comes close with its celebration of fried foods and lighting things on fire, nothing really beats this finest of holiday traditions:

Ain't Christmas wonderful?

[Thank you to Peter Hartlaub at the San Francisco Chronicle for running a contest! You can see the entries and winners here, and it is well worth the click.]

Local News

Well, those hoped-for local weather shots finally showed up in the Times-Standard today...somebody's frost-covered lawn down in Cutten (Eureka). Somebody must've snapped them on their way to work. If it weren't for the Associated Press, we wouldn't have a daily newspaper at all in Arcata.

Thursdays the paper adds its entertainment guide. I generally like the AP movie reviews they run, even if they can't always get them to fit quite right.

In a recent interview, Cruise and director "I'm an actor first and foremost," he said.down-played the bad pre-release buzz for "Valkyrie."

What? Well, anyway, we also have some local choices for entertainment this weekend, including the kids over at the Laurel Tree Learning Center, who are staging a production at the North Coast Rep. The Times-Standard says

Blake Homen, James slack (as death) and Michelle water staring in don't fear the reaper which plays along with long bridge over troubled waters this Thursday Friday and Saturday at NCRT.

What? Even though it's only costing me $20 for the next six months of delivery, I'm regretting that twenty bucks!

In other local news, the duck pond froze yesterday!

The second-best seat in the house

Like any house with pets where care-and-feeding extends somewhat farther than tossing a handful of kibble on the front porch, it holds several specially-crafted sitting areas. The thinking cup sits by the front window for any cat wishing to watch the people and dogs go by. The lounging fleece is the perfect vantage from which to spy on Big Red and his orange-tabby minions. The ugly yet comfortable chair catches the sun as well as glimpses of Big Red, and then there is the corner of the bed, soft, cozy, private.

That's four spots for two cats, a very excellent ratio. So adding a fifth sitting area, which we did last week with the purchase of a loveseat, should just make the rotation between areas move quicker, right?

Riiiight. The loveseat sits along the wall near the floor heater, and the end of the loveseat nearest the heat has a folded-up blanket. The first day it sat in the living room, the cats watched us use it, trying to figure out what this strange item was best for. (Yeah, it's Gina and Vivani's first experience with couchage. What can I say? We live like hobos.) On the loveseat's second day in the house that blanket became the best seat in the house.

Last night it was pretty cold so competition for the best seat in the house was fierce. Lots of grappling and cat-bat going on all evening. Gina usually wins those contests because of her size relative to Vivi, so at times both of them were crammed onto the fuzzy square of blanket. But what princess likes to share? So the fight would be on again, with the same predictable results. Finally Vivani had had enough and came over to sit on my lap while I read.

Well-dressed (updated)

I've finally accumulated what I consider a basic assortment of postal uniform pieces, though my everyday outfit is very basic: short-sleeved work shirt, shorts, Frankenstein shoes and ankle socks. This being Humboldt County, I tweak it before I head out the door.

Friday, we (and most of the northern U.S.) had a cold front come through. It was pretty cold, even snowing a bit Saturday (it didn't stick).

But last night and today the cold air behind the front got here. More rain, more sleet and hail and snow. Again, it didn't stick on the ground in downtown or the bottoms, but it sure did on the ridges just outside of town:

...snow was reported on the coast but there was no accumulation from the snowfall. The lowest elevation at which snow accumulated on Saturday was half an inch in Orleans -- 400 feet above sea level. At 2,600 feet, near Dinsmore, 5 inches of snow was reported Saturday and 4 inches Sunday.

(I wish I had some photos for you, but G-man has the camera and nobody told our local newspapers that exciting weather shots generate lots of clicks.)

Ah! But the San Francisco Chronicle provides:

That's on Vollmer's Peak in the Berkeley Hills. Nice hat, kiddo!

Carmel Valley, south of San Francisco and near the most excellent Ventana Wilderness. All those big houses and those folks can't afford a few horse blankets?

When I left the house this morning, I had added to my basic ensemble wool knee socks, rain pants, a Capilene 4 undershirt, fleece vest, scarf, hat (2), and a parka! I looked like the Michelin Man's union-shop brother.

Dude, it was cold. I was glad when it inched up past 40 (5 C) today. I couldn't figure out why my fingers hurt so much...when I saw the flakes floating down I figured it out. Unfortunately,

The worst is yet to come as two more storms sweeping in from Alaska are expected to bring freezing temperatures to the area, with more snowfall at low elevations.

Ugh. I'm bringing my Thermos tomorrow.

Bizarro Morning

Eugh.

(But thank you, Seattle Post-Intelligencer.)

Crab!

Northern Californians love salmon, but when December rolls around, watch out! It's Dungeness Crab season. We heard this year's season was going to be on the short and skimpy side, so we drove up to see Capt. Zach at his crab shack in McKinleyville to pick up some dinner:

Yeah, that is the completely set table for dinner. No silverware, no vegetables, no starch, just a big ol' crab on a plate, a finger bowl, napkins, and a bag for shells. We tried the lemon, but like sourdough bread, butter, or cocktail sauce, this crab just does not need it. It needs nothing but an appetite! Pairing it with a bottle of Great White Ale is about as fancy as it gets.

Gina!

Orange Gina Felina is not comfortable in front of a camera, so she doesn't often become the subject of the Nation's posts. But recently I caught her in the thinking cup, well-disposed to some posing:

Hello, my name is Orange Gina, and I am addicted to laser pointers.
Hi, Gina!

That's right: talk to the paw.

Damn, I am a pretty cat.

My Perfect Day in SF

Nobody who loves San Francisco defines the city the same way. But all are likely to agree on this: Enjoying the moment is more important than seeing the well-known sights.

That's what comes through in readers' responses to last Sunday's article in which The Chronicle retraced the 1961 steps of guidebook writer Jack Shelton and his "One Perfect Day in San Francisco."

A number of readers were inspired to offer their own itinerary for a perfect day. Their routes reflect a city geared to neighborhood life more than it was in Shelton's day, when Golden Gate Park was seen as the only attraction outside the city's northeast corner.

9 a.m. J's Pots of Soul (Octavia and Page streets). The warm attention from the owner makes it wonderful.

10 a.m. Amoeba Music in the Haight (Haight Street near Stanyan Street); I recently got a used CD of Verve jazz masters, $1.95.

11:30 a.m. San Francisco Botanical Garden in Golden Gate Park to wander.

1:30 p.m. Dim Sum at Ton Kiang (Geary Boulevard between 22nd and 23rd avenues). Then, Crissy Field to inhale the view of the Bay, Alcatraz and the bridge. Walk to Fort Point; remember "Vertigo."

4 p.m. Coffee and opera at Café Puccini (Columbus Avenue).

5 p.m. Go to Ferry Building. Take the F-line streetcar up Market to Valencia Street.

7:30 p.m. After strolling and shopping, and maybe a tattoo, dinner at Valencia Pizza and Pasta (Valencia and 19th streets) or Pancho Villa Taqueria (16th Street between Caledonia Street and Julian Avenue).

9 p.m. Movie at the Castro Theatre.

11 p.m. F-line back to Ferry Building. Walk to end of Pier 7. Waves lap against the piers. Misty air and silence. The end to a perfect day.

- Lynn Valente, San Francisco

Sounds good to me. Read the whole article by John King in the San Francisco Chronicle, along with more reader itineraries.

What would your perfect day in San Francisco be?

Lou Zocchi!

The godfather of polyhedral dice speaks:



It's long (almost ten minutes!), but if you're a gamer you'll want to hear classic lines like

...a lot of game masters prematurely kill off characters that deserve to live...

Damn straight they do! I just know I want one of those green d20s.

Ground Rules

Benny's head got wedged under my shovel while I was digging up blackberries. Don't worry—she's fine. And it did nothing to deter her from crowding me. The chickens, Marilyn and Pearl Wyandotte, do it now, too. I'm going to have to start locking them in the bailey when I dig before someone really gets hurt.