End of Summer Thoughts

Labor Day weekend in San Diego: Gorgeous days, cool weather, shopping for fresh summer fruits and veggies at the Farmer's market, reading a friend's fine YA manuscript (busman's holiday, I know) and an excellent dinner with friends. Then today a bike ride along the waterfront to the Festival of Sail on the embarcadero.
If you haven't read "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron yet, you might not have heard of "artist dates," but the gist of the theory is that we need to live life to be able to write about it well. Julia recommends taking ourselves on "dates" a couple hours per week. Get out and smell the air, see the views, feel the plums--take a hike, visit a museum, a gallery, a park, an art show, a bookstore or a farmer's market...whatever will stimulate your senses and get the creative juices flowing.
A few thoughts from readings this weekend:
Finished up Sherlock Holmes story collection I was reading last week, and was struck throughout by the admiring, intimate, and--would steamy be too strong a word?--voice employed by the character of Watson whenever he refers to Holmes. We may all have missed something in our youth, but the homoerotic overtones are impossible to miss now. I love Conan Doyle's use of Watson as his "excuse" for recording the "tales"; good device.
On a different subject entirely, Tortoises through the Lens, the latest book from Sunbelt has earned some nice comments from the natural history buffs in Southern California. Glad to see it hit the "big time" in the LA Times environmental blog Greenspace on Sunday.
A good article about the way different people (in this case, couples, are reading their books nowadays. This NY Times piece reminded me of Captain Russel and I, but we don't argue about it, we just read side-by-side, he with his book, me with my iPod. I say, as long as people are reading, who cares what they are reading on, or how they are getting their words delivered...Why can't we all get along?
Hasta pronto!

Solar powered again!

It was a big moment--hooking up the solar panels (see the "Boat talk" page for more on those) and seeing the regulator blink on and start charging our boat's batteries. We are off the grid almost completely now, and only need to hook up the watermaker to complete our project of making the boat fully "self-sustaining". Boat projects like this take so long (much like house renovations) that one begins to lose faith in their ever being completed...Then, suddenly, task after task will get crossed off the "to do" list one after the other.
Cap'n Russel has been doing "home improvements" while teaching (two online screenwriting classes) this semester, and now that school is over, he'll be at it full-time for a few months. New additions greet me almost daily on my return from work. Friday was Bike-to-Work day and I bicycled home to find he'd installed the solar panel wiring, and was just awaiting another body to help with the final connection. Yesterday was a cabinet fashioned out of wood to hold our new clock, barometer, and depth sounder. Now installed in the main salon, it provides a wealth of information, seen out of the corner of my eye. Needless to say, I'll be more interested in the depth of the water under our keel once we are again at anchor. And hopefully I'll have more time to read, purely for pleasure.
Just finished a re-read of Austen's "Sense and Sensibility" (free download) and was amazed to find myself anxious to find out how it resolved itself, though I knew perfectly well (I've also seen the wonderful Ang Lee film of the book more than once) Why is it that I so enjoy re-reading the classics? Of course, that term ("classics") is subject to each reader's definition--I include any book that will improve with time and re-reading...and a few select books are added to my "to reread" list each year.
Sunday brings the Hillcrest Farmer's Market and I'm off to select fruits and vegetables for the week, and some fish for tonight's table. Yes, fresh fish at a Farmer's Market--this is San Diego after all. And luckily the sun is shining again--re-charging my batteries in more ways than one.
hasta pronto!