Carizzo

These mornings I awaken about an hour too early feeling…when I sit up and tune in…angry, really angry. And there is an inchoate sense behind this. Angry about what? Seemingly everything. My disability. The nation in its Trumpian stage. Or just plain age. And this point throws logic on his head. For someone who very narrowly escaped traumatic death at age 21, one would think that the next half-century would be, more or less, gravy. Apparently not.

Meanwhile, having a desultory go at today’s mail, the envelope from Verizon yields, not the usual quarterly dividend check for $4.83…evidence of one of the details that have escaped and flutter about loose in my life. Not that one should waltz away from the story. This is a remnant from my inheritance, stocks my former landlord had sequestered somewhere and, one by one I had converted into cash…. But, no, shares are still floating around loose, and I have given up. Thus the little dividend checks. One of which happens not to be in this envelope. Instead there is an invitation to attend Verizon’s annual shareholder meeting in, you guessed it, Texas. Deep in the heart thereof. I would not wish this meeting on my worst enemy. However, gentle Reader, if you have any even worse enemy, do send me the address.

Where was I? Well right in San Francisco. And honestly, particularly these days, there are not many better places to be in the USA. This very day I threw open the door to my greenhouse and did some harvesting. Two heads of lettuce. Shiitake mushrooms. While the broad beans, getting broader by the moment, took a rest.

About time I took a rest myself, and that is about to happen. Jane and I are driving down the April coastline on Monday. Jane in particular deserves a post-Easter rest. In Santa Barbara the temperature will hover around 24°C. And I plan to hover around the nearest swimming pool. And, no, it is not raining. In San Francisco, we have slightly OD’d on rain. Yes, like me and my spinal cord injury and age…we, the meteorologically ungrateful denizens of this burg are actually complaining about rainfall. Which this particular year is running neck and neck with London.

So by any reasonable measure it isn’t summertime but the livin’ is easy. Quite easy. Who knows what the Trumpian future may hold? But never mind. Or nevermore, from the perspective of at least one raven. Things are good. And I don’t even need to fear Verizon’s long day’s journey into PowerPoint next month at the Dallas Marriott. Unless I really want to dwell on things. And I don’t.

And no sense in dwelling on time’s winged chariot. It is leaving me in the dust. On the way south, I have the idea of driving to the Carizzo Plain for this year’s reportedly spectacular display of wildflowers. The latter being an almost predictable byproduct of the year’s rain. Think of it as pent-up botanical demand. All those little seeds sitting out there in this hot empty plain, desiccating year after drought-stricken year. And finally there is water, abundant water. And who wouldn’t burst into florid photosynthetic life? Go flowers.

Thing is, the Carizzo Plain isn’t exactly on the way south to Santa Barbara. In fact, it is enormously off the beaten track. In fact, on the map it looks much closer to Bakersfield then Santa Barbara. Something tells me we will won’t going there. Something tells me that at age 70, I won’t be going all kinds of places. Still, I have been to many more than expected. And if I am feeling angry about it all…at least I am feeling.

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